I realized it’s been too long between posts. I have an excuse — one of my jobs has involved about twice as many hours as usual as a result of Hurricane Katrina. For the past week I’ve thought of about a zillion things I want to say about Katrina, our national outpouring of support on a grass-roots level, the national disgrace that was the initial federal response to the suffering in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama (which is almost not mentioned at all in the news these days)…but by the time I wrap up the day’s work and home stuff, there’s nothing left in my brain.

So here are random thoughts that have been rolling around for a few days, with little to connect them beyond the beast that was Katrina:

The Eye of the Storm is a must-read blog. It’s one reporter’s first-hand account of the storm and continuing aftermath.

I loved Shelly’s characterization of Katrina as the “bitch”. No lie, and a bitch on wheels and water at that.

The Traveling Guys are heading south to give whatever help and support they can to the survivors there. Despite their plan to begin their round-the-world good-deed-doing in Central America, they’ve changed it all to do what they can in the Gulf States. Over and over again over these past days I’m so impressed with the response by people — people with very little, people with a lot, who are giving and doing everything they can to help people down there. I’ve seen so much good in people and such a deep-down human response to this that it’s really taken the edge off of my usual cynical self.

With that said, the FEMA response has been a disgrace, and even more disgraceful was the effort to throw it back on the governor of Louisiana. My own experience with FEMA was less than gratifying back in the Northridge quake days, and it’s only gotten worse since then. All of the excuses about National Guard being in the control of the governor, the nonsense excuse that the governor didn’t specifically mention evacuation assistance in her letter of August 28th is just that — nonsense. An attempt by petty bureaucrats to justify the needless death and suffering of so many. I honestly never thought I’d see anything like I saw last week in this country. My uncle served as a diplomat in third-world countries for 25 years. He took many pictures. None of them prepared me for the carnage in New Orleans, but the indifference of the FEMA officials just hits too damn deep in my gut to be quiet about it.

FEMA was created and exists to assist states when the magnitude of the disaster goes beyond the scope of what an individual state can handle. The Louisiana governor asked for help one full day before Katrina hit and as usual, was ignored. In fact ,the official FEMA statements sound as though no one ever saw the letter she sent off promising that a Category 5 hurricane would decimate New Orleans and much of Louisiana.

I admit to the thought that racism and indifference to poverty had something to do with the slow Washington wake-up. I wonder — would the response have been different if Beverly Hills had been wiped out, Century City turned into a putrid parking lot for every bacteria on the planet and the LA Coliseum opened to refugees?.

Barbara Bush’s comments highlight the fundamental problem. I don’t believe that her comments were in any way intended to be mean-spirited or thoughtless. But they were. She basically said that being dispossessed and relocated was better than the life “they” had, because “they” had nothing.

The unspoken thought hanging inside of her words was that “they” must have been responsible for their “have-nothing” fate, and so are lucky to have this opportunity to start fresh. Thoughtless remarks. Hurtful remarks, perhaps unintentional, but honest and expressive of this attitude that those who are poor somehow earned their way to poverty. Pragmatic but certainly not compassionate.

Politics aside, I am a die-hard jazz fan. The odd time signatures and dissonant harmonics raise a deep response somewhere in my soul, as if they are calling out to me, to dance, to sing, to pray, to lift my head and get on with things. To see the city that I so closely associate with that music under siege and in so much pain is heartbreaking. And Mississippi! My father’s family came from Mississippi (at least, the paternal half). They lived not far from the Louisiana/MS border but farther north than the worst-hit areas. They brought Mississippi to California in subtle but lovely ways — a little southern romanticism, love for the well-spoken and written word, and a passion for simple things. My visits to Mississippi and Louisiana as a kid are some of my strongest memories and were my first introduction to the pure joy of drinking Coke with abandon — a habit that continues today.

New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama and their citizens are in a quiet and mournful place today, but when it’s time to improvise and pick up the tempo, I know they will be right there in 19/7 time. And I will come and celebrate with them.