Holy NOLA...

Oh. My. God.

What's happening in New Orleans right now is breaking my heart. I mean, I can't even believe it's real. I'm not going to get into the whole heartwrenching tale of my attachment to and association with the place - if you know me, you know what it's all about. But my heart, like much of the Gulf Coast, is sinking rapidly as I watch the coverage.

I am so angry right now, so mixed up and upset and overwhelmed and oh, man...I can't even prioritize the emotions, like what to be more upset about and such. I'm upset because a city that I love is gone. I'm upset because George W. Bush slashed flood research and control budgets by nearly half in order to send more money (and troops) to that useless life-sized G.I. Joe game in Iraq. Now there is no money for aid and are no National Guardsmen to help down there. What the fuck is the matter with that turdsucking excuse of a president anyway?

I'm upset because it seems to get worse every morning when I wake up and turn on the news. I'm upset because I don't like seeing animals and people suffer. I'm upset that the Christian Right is insisting that this is the wrath of God speaking. I'm upset because the New Orleanian man I loved and spent three years of my life being involved with is weathering the situation with the woman he left me for. Even still I want to help him - and I feel even more helpless and sad that he wouldn't want my help anyway. *sob*

And on and on and on...

In any case, this has dredged up quite a few musings on messageboards all over the place, as well as within my own mind, and I can't help but wonder - what exactly IS up with this? As previously stated, the Christian Zealots are screaming "Judgement Day!" but I don't agree with that. What I DO agree with, however, is that there is definitely karmic energy happening here. I don't think this is the wrath of God, but I do think that somewhere along the line, we pushed too hard, took too many chances, and threw the universe into some serious imbalance. I'm not blaming any one particular situation or entity for this part of it - just the human race and the natural tendency to want to progress without regard to the consequences.

I'm not one of these hippies who's going to scream about Global Warming and environmental degradation and how this is all the fault of SUV drivers - because it's not. We are all, in one way or another, responsible for the phenomenon. (While I have my own beef with SUV drivers, it has little to do with their environmental irresponsibility and everything to do with most of those retarded soccer moms not knowing how to pilot them properly. But that's another rant altogether). If you were born anywhere between, oh, 6000 B.C. and the present day, and live with any modern convenience, you have done your part to contribute, even if you've made a conscious effort to reduce your contribution. Unless you live completely self-sufficiently under a fallen tree in the forest and subsist on insects, raw fish, and leaves, you have offered up the ozone for some kind of sacrifice.

We take for granted that nothing really bad has happened on this level until last year. In the last year, we have seen entire cities, towns, and regions wiped out by hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes. People, listen - Mother Nature is not a force to be reckoned with, and we are fools to be so cocky as to think she is! We are idiots to ignore the fact that there haven't been any major, major upsets in a while -- so naturally (no pun intended), we're due for some shit. Good old Mom Nature has been giving us little hints all along, but they've largely gone ignored or approached with a "we're bigger than you" attitude. Uh-uh folks. She doesn't work that way. As you can clearly see now.

Anyway, what I'm getting at here is reflected in this excerpt from a post I wrote on craigslist recently:

NOLA residents have known for ages that this kind of thing could and would happen, but no one ever thought it was going to happen in their lifetime. But now we see that it can - and does! What's next - California finally gets the earthquake that sends them crumbling into the Pacific? These threats are really real, as has been demonstrated by the last two natural disasters - Katrina and the Tsunami in South Asia. I'm not trying to be all Nostrodaman about it, but shit - it really COULD happen!

It's scary shit, people. So I guess what I'm saying is that it's time to really start paying attention. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of your community - you know, think globally, act locally, yadda yadda. Get the hell out and live life to the fullest - do the stuff you really want to do, tell the people whom you love how you feel, hug your kids, cherish your friends, etc, etc...because the way things are going, I fear some of us just might see the end of the world as we know it in our lifetime. A million people in New Orleans just did.