P.S.

Allow me a brief caveat, my friends, lest my comment on the impending doom of New Orleans in my last entry be taken the wrong way.

Humor is my way of responding to stress.  I’m the fellow at the funeral with a large smile, hugging and shaking everyone’s hand.  Quick with a joke and eager to bring smiles to those around me.  It’s not due to a lack of compassion or mourning, quite the contrary.  I don’t really respond well to such things, so I tend to veer towards inappropriate gallows humor.  Nothing unseemly, but it’s safe to say I’d be the fellow on the deck of the Titanic asking the orchestra to play something less depressing than ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ and ordering another martini as the ship split down the middle.  

During my brief respite in the shower, Art Bell let me down and didn’t serve up his usual buffet of lunatics, damn him.  Rather, he’s covering Katrina non-stop, taking calls from those in the effected areas.  It’s what I love about Art.  Behind the mask of the showman who parades out the weird and bizarre on overnight talk radio sits one of the last remaining true newsmen.  Focused on the story and clearly invested in it and the people behind it, he provides the kind of raw, real information that can no longer be found on the ‘regular’ news media.

He mentioned a few minutes ago that an anchor and a reporter (who is onsite) on CNN just engaged in a shouting match over the situation.  Ah, if only I could have seen that, I love it when the phoney-baloney veneers of the mainstream media crack and we see that these are people who generally have no clue how to present the news.

But I digress.

Of course, my heart and prayers go out to those in New Orleans, and we certainly do face a catastrophe like none we’ve ever seen in America.  Art is currently posing the question, what happens when we lose a major city?  Just, lose one?  It’s never happened to us before.

My answer, of course, is that there’s no such thing.  If Americans decide that the city will come back, it will.  It may take time, it may take an amazing amount of effort, but when Americans set their mind to something, it happens.  We just do not give up.  We refuse to be put down by anyone or anything.  

So no, New Orleans isn’t going away. I don’t believe it, anyway.  We just don’t work that way.  I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I believe I’ll be eating those beignets in the French Quarter before I breathe my last.

So here’s to all of you who are in the path of Katrina or those with loved ones in that path.  

And here’s to the rest of us, and the harsh reality that within the next few days, our country might be plunged into a crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before: gas that no one can afford, if they can even get any.  Go fill your tanks, buy some wonderful Bulldog Root Beer, and get ready for one seriously interesting work week.