It's not "their Tsunami"...

...It's God's punishment for all them heathens. (I figure it's only a matter of time before Pat Robertson says something like that, right?)

Seriously, Hurricane Katrina was pretty devestating. People have lost lives. Property has been destroyed. The costs run into the billions. CNN is making millions on the coverage. It's a disaster of unmeasured proportion.

But it isn't the US Tsunami. The tsunami killed 250,000 people. Get back to me when 249,950 more bodies wash up. Of course, it's only the mayor of Biloxi who is calling it "our tsunami" and who is he but a relatively small town guy in a virtually irrelevant parish in a relatively insignificant southern state. So I don't blame him for saying that in the heat of the moment. Not only does he not know better, he also just sees Biloxi and it's pretty difficult to imagine that the death toll in Biloxi is about 0.02% of the death toll in the "Boxing Day Tsunami".

No, I blame CNN for posting that headline in bold across their webpage. Let's report the damn news, not sensationalize already important and big stories by attempting to equate them to things that they are clearly not. The tsunami was sudden, with no warning, and it killed a quarter of a million people in about a half-hour. The hurricane received days worth of warnings, was an extended storm that last like 12 hours, and has killed relatively few people, especially given the number of outright foolish jackasses that insisted on remaining in their homes after the total evacuation order was given. Of course, that doesn't surprise me. There's always some jackass who refuses to follow the authorities in these types of situations, so a callous side of me, at times, thinks they get their just desserts.

Anyway, it's not the Tsunami no matter how big the property damage and reconstruction costs because when it comes down to it, lives matter more than buildings. And American lives don't matter more than Indian, Sri Lankan, and Indonesian lives. A life is a life (no matter what the DOD thinks).

Of course, media won't portray it as such. Instead, they're going to hyper-sensationalize this story. There will be a Hollywood movie made out of some of the stories, either for TV or for the theater. They already have a 9/11 movie in production and I'm sure that they're making a Tsunami movie as well (probably with a "here's how it effected Johnny Appleseed" angle that ignores the 249,999 locals that were killed). So I'm sure this will be no different. Which is probably why I have no problem with this guy telling a Fox New "reporter" to f*ck off. Frankly, the media could do with a few more upright middle fingers and salty verbosity.

Plus, what's up with the casino footage? In the tsunami coverage, they kept going to casinos and resorts, primarily because there were a lot of them in the effected areas of India. But why show them in Biloxi? Seriously, I've watched maybe six clips from CNN and in about half, they showed a casino in Biloxi. Is that to remind people that there are casinos there? Or is it because public opinion surveys show that American audiences love seeing pictures of gutted casinos?

Anyway, it looks like New Orleans is still there. I'm almost sad about, but that's probably because I have a morbid fascination with nature's wrath. A little more foresight and they may have been able to prevent two city blocks worth of levee's from breaking, saving some part of the city from up to 25 feet of water, but sadly, the mayor and the city council were at a live S&M sex show sipping Hurricanes on disaster planning day.

Of course, what do you expect from one of the most corrupt cities in the US? Perhaps now, in the reconstruction era that is sure to last years, they'll be a bit more thoughtful about how to prepare the city for future environmental difficulties. It seems sometimes, that Americans only learn the hard way.