A MIRTHLESS ANNIVERSARY...

...and much much more in this edition of The R Spot!

Katrina

One year ago today, category three Hurricane Katrina barrelled into New Orleans, Mississippi and the Gulf Coast. It had been a Category 5 only hours before, and fortunately the wind speeds had weakened by some thirty miles per hour and the storm surge was only 10-12 feet instead of 20. I guess we can be grateful for that. But one year later in the path of Katrina, the fact that the region (relatively) dodged a bullet, sparing more lives and damage, might be the only thing to be grateful for. Today and tomorrow, President Bush will prance around the region in a series of photo ops designed to make the administration and the government look like New Orleans in particular is on the road to recovery, blah blah blah. If New Orleans were a patient under critical care in a hospital, the hospital would be on the verge of losing its accreditation by now, so shoddy has been the care, so slow has been the recovery.

Forget politics, forget the Iraq War, forget gas prices and the economy, if there is one reason and one reason alone why this administration should be driven out of office forever, it is the response to Katrina, the decisions that before Katrina that exacerbated the disaster and the continued half-hearted malaise in the aftermath. You can give all the money you want to relief efforts (and kind-hearted Americans have given hundreds of millions) but at the end of the day in a country like the United States of America it should take a Category 5 hurricane to cause the kind of damage, displacement and loss of life that we saw with Katrina. A nation that cannot protect its citizens adequately (9/11), nor properly prepare them for natural disaster or aid them during recovery (Katrina) is a country with a federal government that's not doing it a job and a leadership that's not on the job.

Remember the Katrina victims. Think about the 150,000-plus New Orleans residents who are still living outside of their hometown. Think of the wrecked homes that still haven't been razed, the bodies that still haven't been removed or the insurance claims that haven't been properly (and may never be properly) settled. Do all this but remember that this is not a day to celebrate or to slap ourselves on the back.

Today is just the completion of Earth's orbit around the sun since once of the greates tragedies in American history.

Appropriately, there's another hurricane threatening the Gulf.



Rest In Peace, Dear Pluto

It's been a good run, hasn't it Pluto? Although you've been reclassified by the Poindexters as a "dwarf planet", you'll always be the real thing to me. With your eccentric orbit tilted at an oh-so-jaunty angle, your overbearing, co-dependent moon and your distinction as the only "planet" to be discovered by an American astronomer, you gave us years of enjoyment and mystery.

So long Pluto, thanks for the memories. So...what have you heard about this other dwarf planet they're calling Xena? Is she available?

Reader Comments

An anonymous emailer made a clever comment to last Tuesday's review of the new NBC show KIDNAPPED. They said they loved Delroy Lindo in both KIDNAPPED and in his almost identical role in the Mel Gibson movie RANSOM and suggested that the former was a rip off of the latter. I agree. Just remember, there are no original ideas in television unless they're on a network you have to pay extra for.

Brief Emmy Comments

I'll have more to say about the 58th Annual Emmy Awards tomorrow--probably more to say than they were worth--but two things I have to get off my chest today:

1) Yes, the pre-filmed Emmy opening was a little insensitive and NBC could have pulled it, especially in Kentucky where the plane crash occurred. But why can't more viewers (and reviewers) recognize that the comedy bit a) was clearly filmed long before the accident happened b)did not refer to the accident in any way and c) was also a not-so-subtle wink at the usual Oscar opening montage that one time included a bit with David Letterman crashing the ENGLISH PATIENT plane into the desert while muttering, "Uma. Oprah..."? Watching the bit the Kentucky plane crash never entered my mind--until well after the awards show. It's funny what we pick and choose to be upset by in this country now.

2) I love Blythe Danner, Andre Braugher, Alan Alda and Tony Shalhoub as actors, but if any of them ever wins an Emmy again (unless they absolutely, really clearly deserve it), I may blow up my television with C4 and run screaming into the night. Shalhoub's win as Best Comedy Actor for MONK over both Steve Carrell and Larry David was particularly laughable.

That's all for now folks...until next time--

Peace and remembrance...