When the Levee Breaks...

I’ve been listening to the reports about what Katrina did to the Gulf Coast, and the soundtrack in my head has shifted to playing two songs, Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” and Everclear’s “Santa Monica.” The former doesn’t really need any explanation, but with the later, I just can’t shake the chorus:

We can live beside the ocean,
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die

Sir Lancelot wants me to make some grand gesture hearing about all the pain and devastation. The more practical part of me is pulling him up short. I realize that I really have nothing practical to offer; that the best I could do is get in the way. Still, the dreams of glory and heroism are calling to me. (Maybe I should call that part of my personality Don Quixote rather than Lancelot.)

Still, my heart goes out to the people down there. To have your home destroyed must indeed be a terrible thing.

Some of the more conservative commentators I listen to are grousing that the rest of the world isn’t offering the US help in dealing with the clean up. The more mature part of me recognizes this for exactly what this is, grousing. We don’t need help. As wide-spread as the devastation is, it is miniscule compared with what this country has. Still, I can see where the commentators are coming from. With almost every natural disaster in the world, there are reports of Americans rushing to help, not just financially, but actually going to the country in question.

On of my favorite memories from the nightmare that occurred on Sept 11th, 2001 concerned an offer from a tribe in southern Africa (Kenya, I think.) On hearing of what had happened to us, the tribal chief contacted our ambassador and offered to send twenty cows. Reading that report drove me to tears (and still makes my eyes mist up.) Here were people with almost nothing, yet they were willing to offer what, for them, must have been a sizable chunk of their available wealth in the hope of helping out. The sheer human decency of that action truly humbles me.

Am I surprised that offers of help aren’t pouring in from all corners of the globe? No. Do I wish that offers of help, even on the symbolic level, were coming in? Yes. It seems to be proof of what I once read in a piece from Victor Davis Hanson (I think): “The rest of the world seems to alternate between saying, ‘Why don’t the American’s do something?’ and ‘What do the American’s think they’re doing?’”

I’m going home tonight and writing a check to the Red Cross. I think I need to figure out what twenty cows worth is to me.