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Sept. 7, 2005 This past labor day weekend, I took my family on an excursion to Lafayette, Georgia where my mother-in-law lives. It's the last time I take my family on an over night trip until Christmas because my daughter has school during the week and the Georgia Bulldogs play football on Saturdays which means my small manly hams are parked in front of the television while my mind transmogrifies into a state of incoherent drunken delirium if they win, or suicidal madness, if they lose. I live in Augusta, Georgia, and it takes about five hours to drive to Lafayette which is way up in the northwest corner of the state nestled in some beautiful mountain country bordering the Chattahoochee National Forest. To pass the time on road trips, I usually keep a tally in my head of all the road-killed animals I see. On this trip the armadillo was the hands-down winner. There were fourteen on I-20 between Augusta and Atlanta: five on the way and nine on the way back. Nothing else even came close. I also saw two dogs, two raccoons, one deer, one squirrel, one rabbit, one gray fox, one unidentifiable creature, and zero possums. Possums and armadilloes don't compete ecologically, as far as I know, but maybe armadilloes are shouldering possums aside. Anyway, they are on the increase in Mark Gelbart's road kill tally. On the way I also unfortunately listened to some of these stupid radio talk show hosts who are popular because they inspire hatred against poor black people. Now, they are attacking the victims of hurricane Katrina. Neal Boortz--a defender of price gouging ("it's the free market")--was blaming the looting on the government's welfare system. Sweden and Japan have better welfare benefits than the U.S., and they never have any problem with looting. This crushes Mr. Boortz's logic. Not to mention that people were dying in ninety degree weather and had to break into stores for bottled water. These radio hate jocks simply have no concept of people less fortunate than they are. And the people influenced by their lies call in and agree with them. On another talk show one irate lady said, "that's what you get when you are dependent on the government." Like people deserve to suffer, if they are poor. I think she was the perfect example of the stupid, ignorant hicks who voted for George W. Bush. Most of the victims of Katrina were not dependent on the government. Most work, but the jobs they work in the non-unionized south are so low paying that they couldn't afford to go anywhere. They have broken down cars and no money for hotels. George W. Bush can't do anything to stop a hurricane, but his performance after the disaster was yet another failure. The vacationing oil puppet crook and international terrorist did virtually nothing. Of course, most of the Louisiana National Guard is off fighting a war for Halliburton Oil Company, so National Guard units had to be called in from out of state. Paper work held them up for days. Bush should have put the foot to their behinds and got them moving, but when it comes to the military, paper work and stupid rules rule. (See my column: I cussed a military policeman.) Bush was impotent. The whole mess could have been avoided if Bush would have been in favor of funding for levee repair, but instead, he quietly let congress spend our tax money on golf courses, roads to nowhere, and rain forests in Iowa. I met some Cajuns who were staying in the Day's Inn of Lafayette, Georgia. Actually, they were from New Orleans and technically, they probably weren't Cajuns who I think are are country people and not city people. They were a family of seven including five kids--four boys and one girl. They escaped the flood waters, but one of the brothers and the sister were settling an argument the old fashioned American way by trying to drown each other in the swimming pool. I too experienced the overcrowding of the landmass in this country caused by the hurricane-spawned flood. While I was trying to swim laps, I kept getting clobbered in the head with a ball the kids were throwing back and forth. The youngest of the clan was about eight, but he was big and husky for his age and had a broad, flat nose commonly found on people of French descent. He walked up to me and out of the blue started talking about the different kinds of lizards in the world. I had never seen him before in my life, but he spoke to me as if we were old pals and was certain I was as fascinated with the subject as he was. Kids are funny this way--they assume all minds are on the same wavelength as their's. He told me he likes to watch Animal Planet, and he said, "that's my brother. He's mean to me." He pointed to his fourteen year old brother who already has a beard, and he was, indeed, tormenting his younger brothers and sister. There are tens of thousands of displaced people just like this family. Give generously. ------------ About the author Mark Gelbart: My book, Talk Radio, is a black comedy about a radio talk show host who gets kidnapped and psychologically tortured by a loser. www.mark-gelbart.com Email: agelbart@aol.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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