Still falls the rain
By now you know about the first responders and relief workers pushed to the limit, going without sleep to rescue people from flooded houses, nursing homes and hospitals. You know the entire Texas National Guard is deployed, the Coast Guard is on the scene, and the Cajun Navy, a self-created aggregation of Louisianans with boats, has been in Houston since Friday. So it's time to play Who's Being An Asshole About Harvey?
1. Joel Osteen, owner and operator of a "Prosperity Gospel" religion business, who reluctantly opened his megachurch for use as a shelter. Apparently he didn't want the non-prosperous tracking mud on his carpet and changing diapers on his pews. Today he bowed to pressure from social media and unlocked the doors. (A woman named Karen tweeted, "The Muslims opened the mosques day one.") Furniture and mattress stores are already sheltering hundreds and letting them sleep on the floor models. The Houston Convention Center is filled to capacity. Other churches, synagogues and temples are pitching in. So bless your little heart, Joel. Maybe you could pose at a sink washing clean pots, like your soulmate Paul Ryan.
2. "Coach" Dave Daubenmire. I have no idea what he coaches, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that lithe young boys are involved. "Coach" Dave is telling the faithful not to contribute to the Red Cross or Salvation Army but only to him, and he'll see that their Christian dollars are spent solely on assisting other Christians, because at times like these, etc. "Coach" wears a red MAGA-type cap, only his has a cross on it, so you know you can believe him. He won't keep a penny for himself. Nope. Not him.
3. Fox News. Do I really have to tell you? Their wide-eyed morning zoo team shared stories about the "really weird biblical things" going on in Houston, including a photoshopped picture of a shark in the street that has been circulating since Hurricane Katrina. Then one of their incisive journalists proposed a theory that Mayor Sylvester Turner (a Democrat) refused to order a city-wide evacuation to make the (Republican) state government look bad. This was too much even for visiting Secretary of Oops Rick Perry, who pointed out that the mayor doesn't have the power to order evacuations; besides, the last time they tried to get three million people out of the city some of them died in freeway traffic jams. Then Sean Hannity...oh, what's the point?
4. The nameless woman who wanted $300 to let her downstairs neighbor into her second-floor apartment. I hope she is underwater now. Texas has strict laws about price-gouging during catastrophes, but they don't apply to individual scumbags or religious enterprises.
5. Yeah, Trump. Should probably have a post of his own. He had one useful thing to do, sign the disaster declaration last Friday; but he was busy pardoning that sack of shit Arpaio and firing (through a cutout) his advance man because the crowd at the Phoenix rally wasn't big enough. Today he showed up in Austin with Melania (in four-inch-heeled do-me shoes), pretended to follow as Governor Abbott explained the dimensions of the disaster, and met the press. Abbott and I "will congratulate each other" when this is all over, he assured an anxious nation. When this is over? The infrastructure of the country's fourth-largest city is wrecked, not to mention multiple refineries and petroleum storage facilities, not to mention a very busy port. Homes and livelihoods are gone, for months or years. Schools and hospitals are flooded. The drinking water and the sewage system are compromised, and many places have no electricity. Levees are beginning to buckle, and the rain continues to fall. There is no over.
Trump is expert at this, as at so many other situations. He's seen water damage before, in his properties. (He grifted millions for minor hurricane flooding at Mar-a-Legomyeggo.) He employed his best words and proclaimed it "tough tough tough" (triple-word score, if you're playing at home). As I type he's probably tweeting his pride that this disaster is much bigger than any of Obama's, whose fault it somehow is, or possibly Hillary, or the Republican senator du jour who is preventing him from "heeling" the nation. And he's saving us money by refusing to staff FEMA and rescinding the black guy's stupid flood-construction guidelines because he didn't know what he was doing, and Russia is FAKE NEWS! No climate change. You're the climate change.
I'm finished. I just watched the Houston police chief Art Acevedo fight tears as he described the drowning of an officer who was trying to get to his job. I see bewildered children, and the elderly wading through filthy water, and people clutching dogs (no cats, but it seems everyone in Texas has a dog), and I know what they will find when the water recedes, some time in September or October. Self-aggrandizing clowns will please wait in the wings until called. (For instance, Mexico offered assistance, which only set off the clown's obsession with making them pay for his big, beautiful wall. Really.) Help us, Obi-wan Mueller -- you're our only hope.
1. Joel Osteen, owner and operator of a "Prosperity Gospel" religion business, who reluctantly opened his megachurch for use as a shelter. Apparently he didn't want the non-prosperous tracking mud on his carpet and changing diapers on his pews. Today he bowed to pressure from social media and unlocked the doors. (A woman named Karen tweeted, "The Muslims opened the mosques day one.") Furniture and mattress stores are already sheltering hundreds and letting them sleep on the floor models. The Houston Convention Center is filled to capacity. Other churches, synagogues and temples are pitching in. So bless your little heart, Joel. Maybe you could pose at a sink washing clean pots, like your soulmate Paul Ryan.
2. "Coach" Dave Daubenmire. I have no idea what he coaches, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that lithe young boys are involved. "Coach" Dave is telling the faithful not to contribute to the Red Cross or Salvation Army but only to him, and he'll see that their Christian dollars are spent solely on assisting other Christians, because at times like these, etc. "Coach" wears a red MAGA-type cap, only his has a cross on it, so you know you can believe him. He won't keep a penny for himself. Nope. Not him.
3. Fox News. Do I really have to tell you? Their wide-eyed morning zoo team shared stories about the "really weird biblical things" going on in Houston, including a photoshopped picture of a shark in the street that has been circulating since Hurricane Katrina. Then one of their incisive journalists proposed a theory that Mayor Sylvester Turner (a Democrat) refused to order a city-wide evacuation to make the (Republican) state government look bad. This was too much even for visiting Secretary of Oops Rick Perry, who pointed out that the mayor doesn't have the power to order evacuations; besides, the last time they tried to get three million people out of the city some of them died in freeway traffic jams. Then Sean Hannity...oh, what's the point?
4. The nameless woman who wanted $300 to let her downstairs neighbor into her second-floor apartment. I hope she is underwater now. Texas has strict laws about price-gouging during catastrophes, but they don't apply to individual scumbags or religious enterprises.
5. Yeah, Trump. Should probably have a post of his own. He had one useful thing to do, sign the disaster declaration last Friday; but he was busy pardoning that sack of shit Arpaio and firing (through a cutout) his advance man because the crowd at the Phoenix rally wasn't big enough. Today he showed up in Austin with Melania (in four-inch-heeled do-me shoes), pretended to follow as Governor Abbott explained the dimensions of the disaster, and met the press. Abbott and I "will congratulate each other" when this is all over, he assured an anxious nation. When this is over? The infrastructure of the country's fourth-largest city is wrecked, not to mention multiple refineries and petroleum storage facilities, not to mention a very busy port. Homes and livelihoods are gone, for months or years. Schools and hospitals are flooded. The drinking water and the sewage system are compromised, and many places have no electricity. Levees are beginning to buckle, and the rain continues to fall. There is no over.
Trump is expert at this, as at so many other situations. He's seen water damage before, in his properties. (He grifted millions for minor hurricane flooding at Mar-a-Legomyeggo.) He employed his best words and proclaimed it "tough tough tough" (triple-word score, if you're playing at home). As I type he's probably tweeting his pride that this disaster is much bigger than any of Obama's, whose fault it somehow is, or possibly Hillary, or the Republican senator du jour who is preventing him from "heeling" the nation. And he's saving us money by refusing to staff FEMA and rescinding the black guy's stupid flood-construction guidelines because he didn't know what he was doing, and Russia is FAKE NEWS! No climate change. You're the climate change.
I'm finished. I just watched the Houston police chief Art Acevedo fight tears as he described the drowning of an officer who was trying to get to his job. I see bewildered children, and the elderly wading through filthy water, and people clutching dogs (no cats, but it seems everyone in Texas has a dog), and I know what they will find when the water recedes, some time in September or October. Self-aggrandizing clowns will please wait in the wings until called. (For instance, Mexico offered assistance, which only set off the clown's obsession with making them pay for his big, beautiful wall. Really.) Help us, Obi-wan Mueller -- you're our only hope.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 1:37 PM
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