DISASTROUS ACCOUNTING
By Steve Fey
Before I begin, I’d like to point out that I’m writing this just a few days after Hurricane Katrina (those damned Dutch again) destroyed much of the City of New Orleans and Mississippi gulf coast. I just read an item about House Speaker Hastert saying that it was no use rebuilding below sea level, and that he had concerns because there was Federal money involved. I wish I’d visited New Orleans some time. I have recently learned, however, that the French Quarter is above sea level, and while there has been some flooding, it is relatively undamaged.
Since we don’t want to use federal money for rebuilding, but have to rebuild anyway, here are some not too distant future developments.
HALIBURTON AWARDED $18 BILLION NO-BID CONTRACT TO REWIRE THE BIG EASY.
NATIONAL GUARD DRAFTEES ASSIGNED TO PERMANENT RIOT CONTROL IN LOUISIANA.
BUSH OBSERVES WATER POURING THROUGH THE STREETS OF NEW ORLEANS, DECLARES THE SITUATION ‘HOPEFUL.’
MISSISSIPPI TO SELL COASTAL CASINOS TO MACAU BUSINESSMAN TO FINANCE BILOXI REBUILD.
PAT ROBERTSON DECLARES ‘GOD HATES POOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T EVACUATE BEFORE A STORM.’
BAYOU ‘GATORS FORCED TO JOIN WEIGHT WATCHERS.
FOCUS ON THE FAMILY DECLARES LOUISIANA DISASTER TO BE ‘JUST RETRIBUTION FOR SINFUL WAYS.’
Okay, so some of that is in questionable taste. But, let’s face it, if there’s a god who gets personally involved in human affairs then a storm like Katrina is in pretty bad taste in the first place. I mean, come on, the almighty has nothing better to do? Maybe we should find him a job or something. Watching for gratuitous distortions of religious scripture and applying the appropriate lightening stroke to the offenders, for a start.
But of course things could be worse. I could have been visiting New Orleans last week, and that would certainly be a grave disaster, as I’m sure anyone would agree. And I do have to wonder about people who didn’t leave town in spite of three days of warning. We’ve heard for years that some huge storm was going to breach the levees, and suddenly these folks are surprised? I don’t know how god feels about people like that, but I have to wonder, myself. It could have been a lot worse if more people had been like the ones who ignored the evacuation order. "Orders? We doan take no steenkin’ orders!"
Then, too, in the past few years the deep South, along with other parts of the country, have been in a nasty lingering drought. Guess that’s over on the gulf coast, huh? And there are other good things emerging from this disaster.
I mean, of course, expensive gasoline. For decades people have been agitating for alternate fuels that don’t pollute as much, for electric cars, and for public transportation. When it costs you more to drive to the convenience store for cigarettes than it does for the cigarettes, you’ll probably wish you had some other way to get around. Thanks to Katrina, you soon might. And they say disaster is a bad thing.
Just ask the people of New Orleans. They’ll tell you how it really is.