My grief continues

I still grieve every day as I read the news and look at the pictures of my dying city. I am relieved to hear that Poppy Z and Fats Domino got out okay, but am still worried that many people are dying every day and the government has done very little to help. I mean if we can send troops to the Middle East and aid to the tsunami victims then why the fuck are we not helping the city of New Orleans??? It's the home of jazz and has one of the richest histories of any other city in the nation but it's still filled with rancid, contaminated water after four fucking days. Wtf is wrong with our country that we haven't already pumped the damn water out of this city and that there aren't troops shooting the stupid junkies who are looting and trashing the place? I just can't rant enough about the whole thing to anyone who will listen. The news makes me weep and I'm actually grateful that we don't have our tv antenna hooked up right now so I'm stuck with internet news. I think that if I had tv right now I'd be glued to the screen and crying all the time. :-( This interview with the mayor of New Orleans made me cry today:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.nagin/index.html

We had a trip planned to visit The Captain in Houston this weekend but had to cancel it because of the skyrocketing gas prices. I'm very disappointed but almost feel guilty about all of my creature comforts as I see the pictures of tragedy in N'Awlins. My heart breaks with every picture. I'm planning to head to downtown Dallas in the morning to see if I can help out with the people housed in Reunion Arena. I tried to call the various relief organizations today but wasn't greeted with a lot of response. The Dallas Food Bank was the most responsive. Unfortunately for me, their hours are 9-12 which kind of rules me out not being a morning person. Also they require an appointment to help or at least that's what it sounded like to me. The Red Cross requires their volunteers to go thru a training which was already full for this weekend. The Salvation Army never called me back. A girl from work and I are planning to head down to Reunion Arena in the morning and just see if we can help in any way. Hopefully they'll put us to work! I want to help but don't have very much money to put into this so I can volunteer and use myself as a resource instead. Honestly, I wish I could head down to NOLA and get those people out of there but that's not possible so I can only do what I can locally.

I realize that I'm ranting and I really don't care. If you don't like it, don't read it. I'm so upset about this whole thing that I just can't hardly see straight and I wanted so badly to kick a girl's ass in my office today who burst out with "I don't know anyone down there and am tired of hearing about it on the news." Fuck you, bitch, I hate you.