Kanye and Katrina

Just watched the clip of Kanye saying Bush doesn't care about black people for the first time and I must say it is entertaining if nothing else. It was kind of surprising to see how noticeably shaken Mike Myers was by the whole thing, considering all his past experience in live TV. Chris Tucker's face was pretty priceless too.

I was thinking hypothetically, the funniest possible reaction to his little rant would have been something like the guy on track 3 on Kanye's first CD (College Dropout): "What in the f--- was that??! Kannnnn-hyeeeh??! I told you to do some sh-- for the kids!!!" If only I had the power to make such things happen, those would've been the first words out of Mike Myers's mouth.

Seriously though, that was pretty bad. I mean I don't care so much about the things he had to say. Just don't do it on a program that's dedicated to raising money for the victims. There are plenty of other places to spout off your opinions, but this was clearly not one of them.

Think about it for a second, if I want my opinion on a subject to be heard, the most I can do is post it on this blog and hope people read it and link to it. I don't have the luxury of going on TV and complaining about stuff that pisses me off. Kanye West, meanwhile, has no shortage of media outlets to express his views. Because of his celebrity, any magazine, newspaper, or TV station would trip over themselves to interview him.

Yet instead of using any of those outlets to speak, he found a way to choose the most inappropriate moment and place to do it. On top of that he came off sounding like an incoherent idiot - if you are going to hijack a national broadcast to speak your mind, at least have something more meaningful to say than some pointless garbage about Iraq and "George Bush doesn't care about black people".

Believe me, I am not one of those people who thinks everything and everyone should be "politically correct" at all times. It didn't really bug me when Kanye went on his little ramble at that awards thing last year about how he was insulted that he didn't win. If he really felt like he was that much better than the other nominees, then fine, say how you feel (although it would've been funny if the other nominees were like Dr. Dre or 2Pac or something, and they got pissed and decided to cap his ass in the parking lot).

It just bugs me when people are so self absorbed and arrogant that they act like rules don't apply to them. You know those people who do whatever they want, act on emotion or impulse, with no regard for anybody else or whatever potential consequences might ensue. It shows how little you respect other people and how much you adore yourself. Sure, everybody's opinion is important, but what makes you feel like yours is so important that you can just decide on a whim to interrupt a charity event and preach your agenda? I though Michael Moore during the Academy Awards was bad, but at least in that case all he was interrupting was some meaningless entertainment show.

As far as the rest of the Hurricane Katrina stuff goes, I've kind of been trying to avoid watching the news too much, for the same reasons I tried to avoid coverage of the tsunami last year. But unless you live under a rock, it's nearly impossible to dodge the news entirely.

And I must say, seeing how all the people involved in the situation reacted is pretty depressing. How can anyone not be disillusioned with the human race after seeing all the ugliness that followed the disaster? You got politicians pointing fingers at each other, blaming everyone but themselves. You got chaos in the streets, people looting for plasma TVs of all things. And the ever present race issue was brought up almost right away.

I don't know whether the federal government or local government was more at fault for the utter lack of preparation, but as an admittedly uninformed outsider I'm leaning towards local. I mean if my basement is prone to flooding, it's my responsibility to make sure I have sump pumps and backup plans. Maybe my parents would help me pay for some of it or the neighborhood would even pitch in some money. But ultimately it's up to me to take care of my own shiznit you know?

In other words if your city is built below sea level, in a hurricane zone, and the only thing preventing your home from being a giant lake are these levies, then you better make sure you spent your money on the best levies money can buy, and dedicate a large chunk of your budget to maintaining and upgrading those suckers every year. And you better also have a contingency plan in case everything fails, something better than "let's shove everyone in the football stadium and wait for someone else to come bail us out". I don't know how much money they spend on Mardi Gras or whatever else they spend money on down there, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be holding one of the largest parties in the world every year until I'm 110% positive that my place is safe.

And say my place does flood and I need help. Do I call up my mom and yell at her for not calling all the Greyhound buses in the country to pick me up immediately? If my neighbor comes by to rescue me, would I shoot my gun at his helicopter or curse him for not coming sooner?

Honestly if I were part of the rescue team, and the people I were rescuing were reacting that way to my arrival, I would probably kick them in the face and just leave them to die (yes I realize I should be more compassionate and it's a good thing I am not in the National Guard). If you want to be mad at the government that's one thing, but get a freaking clue and don't take your frustration out on people who are trying to help you and had absolutely no control over when they got sent on their mission.

It might sound like I'm defending President Bush, but I'm not. I'm sure he has his share of blame in the lack of preparation and slow response. What bothers me, though, is that it seems like more and more people in this country find it convenient to blame the President for every last thing that goes wrong. It's certainly your right to hate the guy and the things he does or stands for, but show some sense please and don't go overboard.

I'm listening to some of these people calling into radio stations, and it's as if our President stirred up these winds to make a hurricane, because he likes to destroy part of his own country like that. Or if you listen to someone like Cindy Sheehan, it almost sounds like George W. Bush is the one who is planting roadside bombs in Iraq, firing rocket propelled grenades, or running suicide missions to kill her son.

It's like nobody realizes anymore that whether you like it or not, bad stuff happens in this world and it's not always up to someone else to deal with it for you. Everyone's reaction to these things is to shove the blame or responsibility elsewhere, let someone else worry about it. "Hey look there's a mess, shouldn't someone be cleaning it up? Shouldn't someone be doing something about that? Oh, not me of course!"

Anyways, I think I've written enough for now. I knew I shouldn't have started writing about Katrina.