I can hardly believe it, but Jeff Dubner shared with us the following actual quote, George W. Bush's idea of how to respond to a great disaster:
"The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)"
Ezra Klein proposes a response: "If he can take this lightly, we can play a little game. Using Bush's above quote as inspiration and stylistic template, jump in the time machine and put Bush on the podium after other great disasters and calamities. What does he think about the plague? The sacking of the Temple? The burning of Rome? The defeat of the French? Remember -- all entries have to have Bush coming from the perspective of the afflicted, and all have to be as grossly inappropriate as this one."
Here's my entry:
"The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of the chaos and waste and corruption and needless bloodshed of this administration is going to come a whole new political paradigm in this country, where cronyism and ideological blindness will no longer dominate the Republican Party -- we've lost our entire credibility -- and no member of my accursed family will ever be nominated as a Republican candidate for dogcatcher. And I'm looking forward to sitting on my porch in Crawford with Jeb and George P. and the twins, talking about the days when we had a future in this party."
//The Magic 8-Ball says, "From your lips to Allah's ear."\\
6 comments:
Look-out tower? Why don't you quit being clever and just say you smoke a little grass?
And the winner for most irrelevant comment goes to: Mr. Petzold!
Sorry, can't play the game right now. San Antonio is a refugee destination, so today I called the "how you can help" numbers in the paper. I expected to call all the available numbers, get busy signals, call again, finally get through to someone who has all the volunteers they can process for right now, make notes, call again, encounter more busy signals, etc., until I finally got a place I could be useful. I was prepared for this.
What I got was offices that are CLOSED FOR LABOR DAY leaving, if I was lucky, a voice mail message directing me to another number. The voice box at KellyUSA (the primary temporary housing venue, a closed AF base) tells you to call the Red Cross national number (for quick reference, that's 1-800-HELPNOW - ironic, isn't it?), which is only accepting monetary donations and doesn't have a ready list of local Red Cross numbers. Check your phone book - is your local Red Cross listed there? Mine isn't! Fortunately it is in the list of numbers in the paper, but the harrassed-sounding infant at the other end has been told to tell volunteers to wait for a press release about what to do and how to get Red Cross certified, and apologetically admits that she has no other information whatsoever except that a lot of people are trying to volunteer.
Eventually, I got through to the Salvation Army. They said they needed people in the kitchen right now and I figured that somebody there would be "in" enough to point me in the right direction for more organized future volunteering.
What I found was chaos. We were making sandwiches and people were coming and going and bread was running out, okay now we have bread but no cheese, are there any more Ziplocs? Periodically someone would call for attention and thank us, like anybody cared whether we got thanked or not, and give us a high concept of the situation which was:
The major charities are supposed to rotate food duties, but nobody knows which organization is where on the rotation. The Salvation Army found out at noon that it needed to make sandwiches for 9,200 people coming in tonight.
The Salvation Army has my phone number now. Theoretically, that means the next time they find out they need to do something impossible I will be one of the people they call. Meantime, I have been advised by a friend in Houston (also a refugee destination) to call my local school district because they are about to absorb lots of new kids and will need help with that. If at first you don't succeed, phone phone again.
The rumor is that the Alamodome, our local stadium is going to be put to use by the New Orleans baseball team so they can practice. If true - ARGH! I voted against the damn thing and have never regretted it. It's ugly, the acoustics suck, it hasn't improved the economy in that part of town noticeably, and now that it has a chance to be truly useful it's going to cater to the sports branch of the entertainment industry instead. But maybe that's not true and it's only a rumor.
There's plenty of blame to spread around here, guys, and the important thing for those of you who aren't at the front lines to do now (after you decide who's going to get your relief contribution of course) is ask yourself: Is my community any better prepared than that?
Please, please, please, out of enlightened self-interest, find out what your local disaster plan is and if there isn't one, or it's patently inadequate, agitate. Bug your local leaders, your national leaders, your charity leaders, your emergency services, until something acceptable is thrashed out. If your levees are inadequate, petition for a tax district to fix them; if your evacuation plan doesn't include buses for the handicapped, make a stink. This sort of thing can happen anywhere.
Meanwhile, here's how to make PB&J sandwiches at top speed:
Fill up your workspace with slices of bread. Without picking up the bread,
smear a layer of peanutbutter on each. Pick up jelly jar; mix to break up chunks, place one spoonful in center of each slice. Bash each spoonful with back of spoon. Lay a new slice of bread on top. Bag (or, if your table is actually organized enough to have a bagging station and there's enough parchment sheets to go around, slide over to the bagger, grab new parchment). Repeat until the bread, peanutbutter, jelly, or bags runs out, at which point wander in the direction of the pantry asking: "Bread? Peanutbutter? Jelly?"
Mr. Petzold also wins in the category of most mistaken comment. (signed) John's wife.
Yeah, what's with this Mr. Petzold, anyway?
They've already got a Pearl Harbor quote, but if it was really Dubya, he'd also announce that the US was getting to the source of the problem by declaring war on Russia
--supergee
No, Mexico!
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