Mid-Week News: I’ve Been Better

Poodles and kittens, let’s just say the past two days have not been easy.

My city – my beloved city, is flooded, on fire, underwater, hanging cranes, subway-less, and out of power. And please do not think I am only thinking of NYC – no, it is just close to my heart. Atlantic City got hit, and hard. Rhode Island was pummeled. Most of all of the mid-Atlantic and northeastern coast took a hit and certainly the U.S. was not the only one affected. In the Caribbean, at least 69 people have been confirmed dead, scattered throughout Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. At least 30 deaths are confirmed in the States. The storm hit hard.

Chris Christie surprised me with his praise of Obama (is this what reaching across the aisle looks like?). Former FEMA director Michael Brown, aka, “heckuva job Brownie,” didn’t surprise me at all by criticizing Obama’s early responses to Hurricane Sandy, but you know what? Fuck that guy, he let an entire city full of suffering people die so he could go hang out with his Bush cronies. Hospitals were evacuated and roller coasters drifted out to sea. Fucking Mitt Romney, who I have decided doesn’t deserve the respect of the semi-journalistic thing I try and do here (I repeat, semi) has officially proved himself to big an asshole who thinks FEMA is ridiculous but then whoopsies! Won’t confirm that, now that there is a natural disaster right before the election. I hate him so much and not because he is a Republican or one of the stock answers like “rich, entitled, straight, white, guy,” but because he just doesn’t give a shit. He does not give a shit about anything but being president, president of a country that he doesn’t even give a shit about unless you are a McMillionaire like him.

I guess if we are going to keep on the topic of asshats, I will say that it only took 24 hours before some wingnut decided to blame the hurricane on THE GAYSâ„¢ and Donald Trump decided to offer 5 million dollars to prove that this was somehow all Obama’s fault. Can we just go ahead and agree that people like this are righteous dicks and don’t deserve our attention? That the thought of Donald Trump trying to get his flappy old man spray tan dick hard by doing whatever he can to just get Obama out is just pathetic and needs not a speck of attention, even as I write and link to such asshattery? Can we agree to just say “fuck those guys?” Because blaming THE GAYSâ„¢ or feminazis or welfare queens or lazy, job stealing immigrants or Obama’s secret Muslim brotherhood whatever is just getting trés old.

So how about we talk about those said “evil” unions and government workers who busted their asses helping people? How about the fact that many I thought never would, are stepping and saying, “Hey, politics? It can wait. There is more going on.” (Just kidding, Mittens was handing out cans to plebians). That Cuomo actually said, “Anyone who says there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns I think is denying reality,” and what a statement like that means? That Cory Booker was being a goddamn G? That despite all that happened, people are doing their best – to get by, to get through, and to get for others.

Damage is severe and will take days, even longer to get back to “normal.” People are reeling, but people are also pulling through, because dammit, people are fucking resilient. We roll hard and we work hard and we do what we have to do. That’s what hurricanes do: they prove to us who is willing to rise up to the worst, who is the most vulnerable, and who we just need to leave to their pandering and squabbling.  Hurricanes don’t leave any room for inaction, for just talk. We know who is talking and who is doing. That’s what hurricanes do: they come in, swirling disaster, leaving wreckage, muck, horror. But they leave with a new normal, a new reality, making people rise to their very best, even in the absolute worst.

That’s the news I want to know about.