Pervasive Insanity
I've come across some crazy stuff recently - given recent events I'm sure we all have - a lot of it concerning the Gulf Coast tragedy. To that point, I picked out two things that particularly caught my attention.
According to this Washington Post article, "Just 17 percent of Democrats said they approved of the way Bush was handling the Katrina crisis while 74 percent of Republicans said they approved. About two in three Republicans rated the federal government's response as good or excellent, while two in three Democrats rated it not so good or poor." WHAT???
Come on folks, I understand one's natural instinct to paint "one's side" in the best way possible, but let's get real. When I brought this up to The Generalist, which was almost a week ago so you can guess those results particularly bother me mostly because of how it tells about human nature, I believe we summed it up well. Paraphrased: I don't see how anyone can honestly say that 5 days - 5 long damn days (see the K-Otix track below) - is a reasonable amount of time for people in the most prosperous country in the world to receive critical services. Truth is truth, man, regardless of your affiliation. The Generalist could have been running the recovery efforts and I would have said the same thing.
As crazy as that was to me, we now venture into the unfathomable. In Tim Keown's "The List" article, he gives short blurbs, some literal some tongue-in-cheek, about the recent happenings in the sports world. I have nothing against the Williams sisters but they just happened to be my attention grabbers for the week...from the article:
• Serena, apparently, is the newshound of the family: Asked to comment about Hurricane Katrina while at the U.S. Open, Venus Williams said, "I don't really watch the news. In some ways, I'm very unaware of the latest happenings in the world."
Ummm...what??!?!?!??!? This is the biggest news story since 9/11. Can you imagine someone saying they hadn't really heard much about 9/11? Was she really saying that she knew so little about it that she couldn't even give the typical, "it's a horrible situation down there...my heart goes out to them...etc"??? Even if her actual answer is correct, and there are plenty of folks who don't stay up on the news (say, kids engrossed in the college bubble), I just think she could have said something. That goes for most anybody not just Venus Williams.
But what's crazier to me is Venus' response given her SISTER, Serena, who she PLAYED in the U.S. Open, promised to donate $100 for each ace she served the rest of the year. In all seriousness, if Venus is able to isolate herself that well from the surrounding world, I need to shadow her and learn...and learn well.
On another note, given Serena's performances recently, I don't think there is too much variance (any?) between her contribution and mine.
According to this Washington Post article, "Just 17 percent of Democrats said they approved of the way Bush was handling the Katrina crisis while 74 percent of Republicans said they approved. About two in three Republicans rated the federal government's response as good or excellent, while two in three Democrats rated it not so good or poor." WHAT???
Come on folks, I understand one's natural instinct to paint "one's side" in the best way possible, but let's get real. When I brought this up to The Generalist, which was almost a week ago so you can guess those results particularly bother me mostly because of how it tells about human nature, I believe we summed it up well. Paraphrased: I don't see how anyone can honestly say that 5 days - 5 long damn days (see the K-Otix track below) - is a reasonable amount of time for people in the most prosperous country in the world to receive critical services. Truth is truth, man, regardless of your affiliation. The Generalist could have been running the recovery efforts and I would have said the same thing.
As crazy as that was to me, we now venture into the unfathomable. In Tim Keown's "The List" article, he gives short blurbs, some literal some tongue-in-cheek, about the recent happenings in the sports world. I have nothing against the Williams sisters but they just happened to be my attention grabbers for the week...from the article:
• Serena, apparently, is the newshound of the family: Asked to comment about Hurricane Katrina while at the U.S. Open, Venus Williams said, "I don't really watch the news. In some ways, I'm very unaware of the latest happenings in the world."
Ummm...what??!?!?!??!? This is the biggest news story since 9/11. Can you imagine someone saying they hadn't really heard much about 9/11? Was she really saying that she knew so little about it that she couldn't even give the typical, "it's a horrible situation down there...my heart goes out to them...etc"??? Even if her actual answer is correct, and there are plenty of folks who don't stay up on the news (say, kids engrossed in the college bubble), I just think she could have said something. That goes for most anybody not just Venus Williams.
But what's crazier to me is Venus' response given her SISTER, Serena, who she PLAYED in the U.S. Open, promised to donate $100 for each ace she served the rest of the year. In all seriousness, if Venus is able to isolate herself that well from the surrounding world, I need to shadow her and learn...and learn well.
On another note, given Serena's performances recently, I don't think there is too much variance (any?) between her contribution and mine.
posted by Aristocrates at 8:00 PM
3 Comments:
Hmm. I see Aristocrates beat me to posting tonight. It's all good.
Speaking of the federal response, I don't know if you saw that Bush accepted responsiblity for the federal governments response. Word? No sense of urgency down south folks, and that neglect bordered on criminal.
Sorry, but I had to get on the Horn like Around The.
I did see Bush accepting responsibility and I almost included that with the question, "With Bush accepting responsibility, I wonder how those poll results would register now?" I just figured the post was long enough.
Can I throw out a comment, in contrast to Serena's meager contribution (and you are right, sir, I can afford her donations), I wanted to mention Stephon Marbury's contribution of a million dollars, the most ever for any NBA athlete, in comparison to Kobe Bryant and his measly little $10,000 contribution. Considering the $4 million ring he bought as an apology for the wifey, can the rest of the country get that klnd of apology too? For shame.
P.s. Allan Houston's donation of an "undisclosed amount" better be his entire 2005-06 paycheck, because he's already robbed this county of enough money...
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