Safety Fork, the

I wanted to be sorry for the people of New Orleans. I mean, they’re not the morons in Florida who build a new house in the same spot every three years and complain because no private company will give them hurricane insurance. I don’t remember the last time the city was in the news for anything worse than Mardi Gras rowdiness.

But the breaking news story on the BBC website when I opened it this morning was that rescue helicopters are grounded because people were shooting at them. With guns. I dug deeper and the news coming out of that area is all about looting and violence. Then I remembered that I knew beforehand—from my geography 101 class—that New Orleans is below sea level. The professor did his usual doom, doom, doom act—”It’s going to happen, we just don’t know when.” And if I, who live in Minnesota, am taught that in an introductory geography class, surely the people actually living there were aware of this small detail. When you choose to ignore the risk—and then behave like a bunch of hooligans—I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive the veneer of my compassion for being thin.

The second question that struck me was, where is the National Guard? I usually hear about how they’re all over this sort of situation, helping move people and supplies, keeping the peace. I can’t imagine that any state would refuse to send their Guard units to help. Except, I recall now, we sent them away. Yes, we sent our national guard to another country. So that they are not here, in our nation, when we have an emergency. Which, it seems to me, is the purpose of having a National Guard in the first place. We are all very stupid, and I am angry at us.

Yes, I am being unfair. People who are quietly suffering without making trouble aren’t making the news, so I just don’t have anything to say about them.