Thank God Comedians can speak their minds.

Bill Maher's closing bit the other night:

"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom.
The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you.
Mission accomplished.

"Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't.
I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to
rising water and snakes.

"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

"So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.' "

Is It Necessary?

When does the public's right to know interfere with a victim's right to privacy?
There was a decision made to keep pictures of dead bodies in the Gulf States off the airwaves and CNN found it necessary to file a suit.
Nobody has ever asked me if I want to see dead bodies, I have a very vivid imagination and can picture it without visual aids. I am also concerned with the media's need to shove cameras and microphones into the faces of traumatized victims and ask a thousand questions looking for that "real" reaction.
I am not in one of the states affected by Katrina and like many Americans and people all over the world am only able to know what's happening through what I see and hear on the news.
Pained by the Pulitzer seeking reporters and their desire to rip out our hearts with tragic coverage and my desire and need to know more... I don't need to see everything. I don't need to see the already devastated families see their loved ones.
How would you feel if you saw a relative's body floating in the water and did not know they were dead?
We Americans are not as thick as the media would like to think we are.
I don't need to know everything.

Shanna Mawavise

We Loot?They Find?

I wonder how many people have noticed this. The Racial bias was pointed out by the media.

Stop Pointing Fingers

As I watch this tragedy of Katrina unfolding from the comfort of my own house I am seeing this finger pointing. Whose fault is it? Everybody screwed this one up and blaming each other is not getting help to those people who need it.
If everyone wasn't so quick to blame someone else and would concede to the knowledge that EVERYONE is to blame help would come much quicker.
People are dying and they are more worried about where their family members are than who was on vacation, and who gave what orders too late or who isn't doing whatever. Help them.

And on the looters:To some people this time of chaos is justification for trying to take control of the city. They are not capapble of realizing that there's nothing to take over. Why are they shooting at the aid workers and civil engineers? This is about ignorance. What good are seven big screen TVs when there is no power and no one with a house to watch it in? This is a crisis. If you are able enough to shoot at patients being rescued you are able enough to suffer the consequences of that crime.
This is a disaster and it is time to help not hinder.
I have stronger words but I don't think they're necessary; they aren't helping anybody either.

Shanna Mawavise
Author of
The Tale of Chadizahand
Walking the Path

The Darwin Awards

Subject: Darwin Awards>
> It's hard to believe how some minds work, but it makes this ol' world interesting!
Yes, it's that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. Here then, are the glorious winners.


Darwin Award Winners:


1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended
victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.....

And now, the honorable mentions:
2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a
meat-cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.
3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.
4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer...$15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.


A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.


In the interest of bettering human kind please share these with your friends and family ... unless of course one of these 10 individuals by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend. In that case be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.

Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. BushFriday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her! I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike? And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ! On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that. There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this! You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit. Yours, Michael MooreMMFlint@aol.comhttp://www.michaelmoore.com/ P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

About Katrina

People are dying on the gulf coast because of a grotesque miscalculation of the scope of this disaster by everyone involved. The term disaster of Biblical proportions is used to describe many things that do not compare.
Katrina has caused a domino effect of subsequent disasters and blunders reminiscent of the Keystone Kops.
I don't believe that everyone involved is an inept incompetent, but a many of the top ranking officials are showing their ignorance.
It is one thing to be able to pay $3500 to get a limousine driver to take you away from danger but it is ludicrous to expect a family whose entire yearly income is $18000 to be able to do that or anything else.
They opened the Super Dome for those who could not leave but didn't realize the problems with that building. A mayor doing his job for a change, my hat's off to you, perhaps I can fill it with donations. Levys, dams and canals failed to hold back Mother Nature's power.
New Orleans is under water. They are not the only ones in trouble. So now it has taken too long to get supplies to people (yet victims of a tsunami on the other side of the world gets an immediate response) and the viewing public begin to speculate as to why this has happened. Not just what has happened in the Big Easy but with the United States of America.
Our government is not run by 'We the People' it is run by those who forgot why they were elected to office.
Instead of rushing help to people, many of whom have always been in need, they are playing the blame game. There's just too much jackassery going on. It is time to help these people, time for us all to help. There will be plenty of time for blame, later and hopefully later will never come.
I am made painfully aware of our country's attention to race and class. It is an area heavily populated by Black Americans. We see a Black family with food and they are called looters. A white family with food is called heroic survivors.
I was raised to believe that inspite of the lies and mistakes that have been rampant in our country 'We the people...' have done good. I have been shown the naivete of my beliefs.
--Shanna Mawavise
(Author of The Tale of Chadizah and Walking the Path: part two of the Mothersource Cycle)