It just drives me crazy that the christian conservative national government is always ready to tell me what the "christian" thing to do with my uterus is, that the God-fearing world will implode if I decide to marry someone of my own gender, that Jesus will cry if we don't go to Iraq and bomb all the Muslims, etc. etc. ad naseum. However, the one time the world actually wants Bush and FEMA and the coalition who drummed up billions of dollars for the war to put their money and actions and hearts where their blah blah blahing "One Nation Under God" mouths are, our country gets nothing. It seems so hypocritical that Bush is more concerned about the Christian ramifications of the death of one brain dead woman in Florida than the deaths of over 10,000 poor and destitute people only several hundred miles away. I don't want to sound all bible-thumpy, but that is so not my Jesus.

And because I'm a history major and therefore a Marxist in the sense that I think everything can be traced back to money, I don't think that it's a race issue, I think it's a class issue. If two thirds of New Orleans' population was made up of rich or middle class black people, then the government sure as hell would have paid attention. If it were rich people drowning and losing their houses and dying of diseases, Bush would have cut his vacation a little shorter. And I agree that in this country race and class are closely intertwined, but that is a problem that seems a little more heartwrenching than just giving lip service to tolerance. We can celebrate diversity all we want, but until we live in a society with economic and educational systems that allow a disenfranchised minority to not live on edge of society in poverty, I do not know how we can talk about what is just and right. And until then, I definitely do not want any politcians yammering at me about what Jesus would do, because they obviously have not considered that the Christian thing to do is not to let people die in a fetid, festering lake of a city.

I don't know, someone call me on it if I'm being a jerk, but this just seems like such a clear issue to me, and the hypocrisy is burning my eyes.

Also, a million high fives to Elvis Costello for bringing me the best hurricane quote I've heard so far... Richard Simmons to Larry King: "New Orleans is the Venice of the world." What? Huh? Classic.