All the lights went out, just like that. My house and the neighborhood without power. With a little scrambling, I found a flashlight, a lighter, candles, and our oil lamp. Outside, I found a neighbor who confirmed that the light rail crew working at S Alaska ST and MLK cut the wire by mistake. Even the street lights were dark.
After Hurricane Katrina, I knew that our disaster plan and supplies were inadequate. This blackout underscored that. In the dark, I could barely find my shoes. So this weekend I’m preparing emergency kits for the house, following lists from Equipped to Survive and San Francisco’s 72hours.org.
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Labor Day weekend. Our first stop was US Bank to give to American Red Cross. I cried for the poor people in New Orleans, as much for the living as for the dead. Reacting to the humanitarian crisis following Katrina, Bush and his coterie of ass hats demonstrated to the world their pure, monstrous taste for incompetence. Reports from the broadcast networks, The Guardian, The Times-Picayune, Andrew Sullivan, all had me absolutely seething. No food, no water, no power, no security: hell, if it’s good enough for Iraqis, it’s good enough for New Orleaneans, ’specially if they’re poor and black. Our Ass-Hat-in-Chief, the Texan Midas, has fucked up the Gulf like everything else he touches, from 9/11, to the run-up to the Iraq War, to its purported reconstruction. For their performance this week, let’s give Michael Brown, FEMA’s head buffoon, and Michael Chertoff, ’sposedly Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, a public flaying. Better: put ‘em with Bush on toilet detail in the Louisiana Superdome. The Bush regime’s drip drip dripping of various governmental nonfeasance, misfeasance, and malfeasances is unbearable, like water torture. Last year’s Asian tsunami disaster imbued me with a feeling of horror. This week’s disaster on American soil has me shaking with anger and shame.
