What's That You Say, Mrs. Robinson?

Amazing Grace

I could not be more proud of my dear friend and fellow mommy blogger, Grace Davis. She has outdone herself yet again. Check out her wonderful work over at Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief. She has leveraged her techi skills to help out in the relief effort. The story is a great one. So great that she was featured on KRON TV this weekend. Check it out for yourself! And please, go to the Direct Relief site and find out how you can send relief directly to the shelters that need stuff.

Again?

I woke this morning in a relatively good mood, considering. Considering we are still in the midst of a national emergency/tragedy. Considering it is the 4th anniversary of 9/11, a day that effected me beyond my wildest imagination.  All things considered, I was feeling pretty good. I was getting ready to drive out to Vacaville with Payton for the 4th and possibly 5th baseball game of the weekend. Looking forward to the drive, just the two of us. Sitting in the sun, watching a ball game and maybe indulging in an ice cream.

Then I blew it. I started reading the news via the web. I happened on this CNN story that sent me through the roof.

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Read the whole story. Or not. I don't want to ruin your day, too. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not so naive as to think that Clinton's cronnies didn't get some favors from the White House. But the scale at which the Bushies are making money on the tragedies of America sickens me to my core. The outright lack of ethics that this administration shows on a day to day basis is unforgivable.

Is it really 3 whole years until the next election? If this guy were running a company, he would have been fired by now. But then again, he would have found himself a nice new cushy job at Halliburton or one of its subsidiaries.

I'm going to a baseball game now.

What if you don't have a boat?

During this time of national emergency, it is important, of course to solve the immediate problems. Then there comes a time to look at the underlying cause of those problems. Although it is easy to point fingers and blame the current administration (which is deserving IMO of the finger pointing), it is also important to dig deep and identify all of the wrong turns we made. And so I give you this...

"To be poor in America was to be invisible, but not after this week, not after those images of the bedraggled masses at the Superdome, convention center and airport. No one can claim that the post-Reagan orthodoxy of low taxes and small government, which does wonders for the extremely rich, also inevitably does wonders for the extremely poor. What was that about a rising tide lifting all boats? What if you don't have a boat?"

- Eugene Robinson, columnist.

Source: The Washington Post