Top 5 Stories of 2005 - #1 - Katrina

#1 - Katrina

Katrina and the Waves (Boy, their faces must be RED)

Kent Brockman: “…and if you think naming a destructive storm after a woman is sexist, you obviously have never seen the gals grabbing for items at a clearance sale.”
Marge: “That’s true…but he shouldn’t say it.”

- The Simpsons, “Hurricane Neddy”

2005 was a record year for meteorologists, weather buffs, major news organizations, and ministers preaching their fire and brimstone apocalypse. There were records made that took our breaths away:
- The busiest hurricane season in history, with 27 named storms, 14 hurricanes, and 7 major storms, (including 3 category fives), 4 of which hit the US. All five of these things are records.
- A hurricane that reached the pressure of 882mb (Wilma), marking the lowest ever (topping 1988’s Hurricane Gilbert). On top of that, Rita and Katrina are also in the top 6.
- Latest Tropical Storm ever (Zeta – December 31-January 6, 2006).
- Costliest single hurricane (Katrina - $80 billion+ beating Andrew’s $26.5 billion) and costliest hurricane season ($107 billion+ beating last year’s $45 billion).
- Deadliest Hurricane since 1928 (Katrina – 1200 so far..)

But, honestly, who cares about records.

For those people in its path, the record was one of devastation, misinformation, failures to act, and glaring inadequacies. There is very little funny about Katrina. I generally prefer to make jokes about all of this, but, still, the only funny thing about the situation is this guy:

Almost 1,500 dead is no joking matter. A flooded parking lot filled with school buses capable of getting people to safety isn’t funny. A woefully unqualified joke of a governor, mayor, and ex-Arabian-horse-watching FEMA head just leaves us with a sad heart, a disconcerted feeling, and a little rage.

But, as we all know, hindsight is 20/20. It is easy to know, after living through the results, decisions that should have been. It’s even simpler to point fingers and forget the tragedy in front of us. What we should be doing is looking at the school districts around the country that took students from Louisiana’s parishes, providing displaced kids and their families housing and a chance to keep their lives going. We should look at the millions of dollars raised by humanitarian aid organizations, donated by people like you and me who just wanted to do something to help.

For me, someone who is without cable TV and can’t watch the results live, I received my information from the internet, and got the minute by minute updates (as well as that previous picture) from the non-news website Fark.com. One thing that touched me in particular is the countless number of Samaritan Farkers that offered their homes to complete strangers who just happened to be in the way of the storm. They didn’t ask for anything in return, they just wanted to help a fellow human in trouble, and they gave what they could.

That, I think, is the story of Katrina. It would be hilariously easy for me to make FEMA jokes, or chastise both the local and national governments for their outstanding and inexplicably awful failure. But we can’t forget that, often times, the best of human behavior is brought out by the worst of situations. If we focus on the thousands of wrongs while ignoring the billions of little rights, we are missing out on our true nature, which, regardless of what anyone tells us, is noble, industrious, and compassionate.

And that, I think, is the main lesson to get from 2005. A lot of things went wrong. But we can’t let that make us forget about the million times more things that went right and the lessons we all learned. A wiser man than me once said, “Situations aren’t made good or bad by their outcome, but by whether or not we learn by them.” Who am I kidding? I made that up too.

Happy 2006. Let’s make it a good one.

Top 5 Stories of 2005 - #2 - Iraq

#2- Iraq

The Continuing Story of Bungling Bush – Iraq, year 3.

“It’s all about perception, to convince the American public that everything is going as planned and we’re right on schedule to be out of here. I mean, they can bullshit the American people, but they can’t bullshit us.”
- Staff Sergeant Craig Patrick (who is training the Iraqi military)

“We can’t kill them all. When I kill one, I create three [insurgents].”
- Colonel Frederick Wellman

Here are some things we learned about Iraq, as well as our involvement in the country, in the past year.

- Regardless of the fighting, disorganization, claims of fraud, guerilla terrorism, and low voter turnout, Iraq can still put together a better election than the US.
- Pissing off the Sunni insurgency with a marginalizing election and a narrowly passed Constitution that, due to a lack of a theocracy, the horrifying addition of rights for women, and a lack of strong centralization that costs the Muslim sect almost all the oil profits, is a bad idea.
- When Americans are dying, the US media doesn’t really report on the tens of thousands of Iraqis that have lost their lives both fighting for their own freedom, and innocently killed by suicide bombings.
- $9 billion in US investment over the last couple of years doesn’t mean anything if there is no security to protect the infrastructure’s reconstruction. It means even less when only five percent (5%) of money earmarked for Iraqi reconstruction by Congress has been spent (while people sleep in tents on what used to be their homes and more than fifty thousand troops still don’t have body armor)?
- That the 2,100 dead and 16,000 injured American soldiers needed more of a plan than “stay the course,” and future soldiers are due a better strategy, lest their deaths be in vein.
- America only likes war when we win. Too many steps are taken to just make it look like we are winning. I don’t know about you, but I want the news to report not entertain. I want information, not a show.
- Adorable Puppies were born! Hundreds of them! Hooray! Film at 11.
- An honest news report like the Downing Street Memo, about how the faulty information about terrorism and WMD was built around Bush’s already-made decision to go to war with Iraq, will be ignored in favor of cute, missing white women and gay marriages.
- Torture is only bad if we hear about it or the pictures leak out onto the internet.
- Buying the news and filling Iraqis with pro-America propaganda can cost us tax dollars, but can’t change the minds of Iraqis.
- In wartime, we can blow up relics and ruins from the world’s first civilization and not make waves anywhere. No one cares about the past when they’re scared about the future.
- That no matter how much of a lie something is, if you repeat it enough, people will believe it. Just ask the 47% of Americans that think Saddam helped plan 9/11, or the 44% that think the hijackers were Iraqi. While your at it, ask the people who think Iraqis want us there about the consistent 66%-80% of Iraqis polled that want the US out of Iraq sooner rather than later. And then ask Bush, who said, “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
- That US influence doesn’t equal a US Constitution. Not many have heard a lot about the Iraqi Constitution itself, and many would be surprised (though not shocked) about the strict Islamic rules embedded therein (Iraqi Parliament may not make any laws that contradict the established laws of Islam. Clerics will run the judicial system. Women are oppressed legally, etc.)
- That being at war is enough of a reason to stay at war.
- Hypocrisy sells. Either you liberate someone, or you occupy them. There is no in between. Establishing freedom for someone else is establishing your freedom for them. And most Iraqis know the difference.
- George W. Bush’s legacy will forever be determined by Iraq.


Before I end this article, I just want to say I am not a Democrat. I am a registered Republican, though I don’t consider myself anything. I am just a critic, unhappy and nauseated with the way things are. I have no agenda, and I have found the world is much more pleasant that way.