Happy Birthday, Katherine...and the storm of blame

Happy Birthday, Katherine.

I've been told how much you loathe me, but if I only cared for people who liked me, I'd not be a Christian. That you are having to celebrate this birthday in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is sad, and I trust you rode the storm out from a safe vantage point. I hope your cats, your house, your friends and your daughter are well. I owe you a few things, and will repay them in time (no that is not dark, they are all earnest and honest debts of gratitude.)

Now, on to the show.

There is an old Japanese business saying - "Fix the problem, not the blame."

Unfortunately, this isn't Japan.

The media has started in on the politicizing of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, everyone wanting to say whose responsibility it was that there wasn't enough troops, cops, food, water, sandbags and cans of kitten food for the impact of the storm.

Who is to blame? The Mayor? The Governor? The President? Six months from now, that may matter to me. Right now, what matters is that people are suffering and people are dying.

This event will force some changes, some for the better, some for the worse. There will be careers made and careers undone. There will be parallels drawn to the 9/11 attacks, which is ludicruous, but if there's a backdoor for an opportunistic politician or a self-righteous media buffoon, it will be used.

There is an old Southern habit of being charming to your face and lashing out only when your back is turned. With the cameras rolling, there are no "off the record" comments, so the hypocrisy of that seeming point of civility is being exposed. The viciousness of exhausted and frightened people can be alarming. Fear drives the looters, the armed mobs, the now instantly homeless.

Everyone is losing something, if only their innocence. My ex-wife was vouchsafing several boxes of sentimental personal effects of mine. I don't believe for one second that there was time or opportunity to retrieve them and would not want to feel that she would be nuts enough, even if she thought of that, to endanger herself or her mother or anyone else to protect personal property. So things that have been mine since before she was born are now lost to the storm. But, if everyone whose fate I care about comes out of this okay, I will consider those minor sacrifice to the gods of the sea and storms.

Wow, caffeine-deprivation headache. Time to get going. Later, all.