...in which the author is doing significantly better than the Government...

So, as I’ve said before, I’m not really cynical, though I sometimes seem to be. Still, sometimes you run across something that kind of makes you think that the people who run the country are every bit as obtuse and self-serving as your worst nightmares make them out to be. Such an item was the recent news that the same companies with ties to the Administration (Dick Cheney’s Halliburton in particular; you know he’s still getting $200K a year from them, right?) that have been gorging themselves on no-bid contracts in Iraq will now get to do the same to New Orleans.

I was going to bitch about this, but The Onion had a piece that I don’t think I could top, so I’m including it, with thanks.

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Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses' Teeth
September 14, 2005 Issue 41•37

HOUSTON—On Tuesday, Halliburton received a $110 million no-bid government contract to pry the gold fillings from the mouths of deceased disaster victims in the New Orleans-Gulf Coast area. "We are proud to serve the government in this time of crisis by recovering valuable resources from the wreckage of this deadly storm," said David J. Lesar, Halliburton's president. "The gold we recover from the human rubble of Katrina can be used to make fighter-jet electronics, supercomputer chips, inflation-proof A-grade investments, and luxury yachting watches."

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It was a pretty good weekend. Katy, Emily, and Brooke all came in to visit this weekend, so I got to spend some time with each of them, though not as much as I would have liked with any of them. Brooke informed me that she has continued to read the blog from Lexington (she’s in school at UK now), but Katy hasn’t been (damn her—and I left that nice goodbye to her, as well). I didn’t get around to asking Emily whether she had or not…we were too busy making fun of the drunks she was sharking at the pool table.

Emily’s boyfriend is in New Orleans right now. He got sent down with the Guard (actually, I think he volunteered, and good for him) for only a two- or three-week hitch, which is up in a day or two. They’re asking Guardsmen to volunteer to stick around and continue to help out, but he isn’t sure he’s going to do that. The operation is so poorly run that, even though there’s so much work to be done and so many people who need help, he spends most of his time sitting around in a makeshift barracks. In the two weeks he’s been there, he’s been on exactly one search-and-rescue mission, with thousands of people in danger. He wants to help, but there just aren’t any missions for him. As Brian Williams wrote last Monday, “There was water, there was food, and there were choppers to drop both. Why no one was able to combine them in an airdrop is a cruel and criminal mystery of this dark chapter in our recent history." I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this level of incompetence before.

When I think of my beautiful city, and the courage and suffering of her people, and the outpouring of sympathy and support from around the country; and then think of the ineptitude of the people whose job is to help them (from the President down to the local officials), I get so angry I can’t think straight, so I’m not gonna talk about this anymore right now. Maybe in a bit.

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Anyway, as I say, Katy was in town, which was nice. But I got out too late Friday to see much of her and Justin, or of Brooke…everybody went home early, ‘cause there was a Marshall home football game at 10:30 Saturday morning (which is just insane) and it was really a bit too busy in the bar when I got there for anyone to have a good time. It turned out badly for me, because I ordered a pitcher as soon as I got there, and everyone started leaving before I finished the first glass. Timmy stuck around for a while, and eventually Nikki (who had left earlier) came back, but the out-of-towners were all gone.

Which I figured, well, okay, because we’ll all see each other tomorrow night, and we should have a bit more room and peace to carry on conversations. After all, practically the whole town turned out for the game against Kansas State Saturday morning, and the tailgates started at around 6:00. So I figured, okay, everyone starts drinking early, so they’ll wear out early, too. But no such luck. The bar was packed Saturday night. And these people really had been drinking since 6:00 AM, as well; you could tell by how absolutely butt wasted they all were. A bunch of shots taken quickly will get you drunk, but it ain’t the same kind of drunk that drinking all day will get you, and the difference is obvious to folks watching you.

The really sad thing was that no one seemed to be enjoying themselves. Maybe it was the all-day drunk (you really have to train yourself for things like that), or maybe the fact that Marshall lost on a really bad play as time expired, or maybe it was just something in the air, but nobody was having a good time. I don’t understand why you stay in a crowded bar, spending money and getting drunk, if you aren’t enjoying yourself doing it.

There was couple near us, over by the pool table, that argued at top volume for an hour. Even in that crowded place, with music and games and people shouting to be heard over the racket, the voices of this couple just boomed, and they were driving us nuts. It got so bad that Justin was threatening to beat the guy up. I mean, seriously; once you reach that point, it’s time to drag your tired ass home. Folks were acting like my ten-year-old brothers act when they haven’t had their naps.

Anyway, Katy and Justin left early because it was simply too aggravating to be there, but Emily stuck around, along with Tim, and Brooke and her entourage showed up late (she had driven to Morgantown to watch WVU beat up on some I-AA patsy or another), so not a total loss.

And Katy said she might stick around an extra day or so and see us on Monday night, but no such luck. It would have been nice if she'd been able, as it turned out, because the bar was dead on Monday, in spite of the opening MNF game of the season. I guess everybody wore themselves out over the weekend. Anyway, we could all have hung out and talked without being disturbed, an opportunity I hate to have missed. But, she promised to catch up on the blog when she got home, so that’s not a total loss, either.

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Okay, just because I love to pick on Rick (Man-on-Dog) Santorum, I’m gonna include this bit from what I sincerely hope was an impromptu discussion a few days ago (not that he's much less of a moron when uses prepared statements). Talking about the people who were unwilling or unable to get out of New Orleans, he said, “You have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk. ... There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out.” As Will Durst finished the thought for him, “and when I say tough penalties, I mean worse than drowning in your attic.”

Durst doesn’t stop there. He quotes Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, saying that he doesn’t see the point of rebuilding New Orleans (did I mention that this is the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE?!?!?). He also nails the President’s mother, a tough old bat who I usually like even though I don’t think she’s a particularly good person (I’ve always had a thing for tough old bats; that’s probably my Gramma’s fault). Anyway, she’s an intelligent woman, and she’s usually at least clued-in, so I don’t know what on Earth she could have been thinking when she said, of the people stranded in the Superdome in 100-degree heat without food or water and surrounded by corpses and toxic waste: “So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”

The thing I like best about this Administration (and its assorted hangers-on, like Pat Robertson) is that, no matter how bad things get, you can always lighten the dark days by making fun of their cynical, ham-handed, alternate-universe cluelessness.

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A small victory over electronics: I was listening to Dvořák (specifically the “Serenade for Strings,” opus 22) while typing this. He’s one of my favorite composers, but I hated writing about him because that [ř] symbol doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut, so to spell his name you either have to use “insert” off the menu (I never use the menu if I don’t absolutely have to) or put his name on the clipboard and paste it in every time you use it. But I finally got around to programming my own shortcut for it, and now I can write “Dvořák” as much as I want. Fear me.

Anyway, things are looking up a little bit. It’s been a week since I last wrote to you guys (not counting the piece I cribbed from Sojourner for you), and the resetting is picking up a little bit of steam. Drink totals for the week:

Thursday—Nothing. Straight-up.
Friday—One pitcher of beer.
Saturday—Two bottles of beer with lunch, and a pitcher that night.
Sunday—Nothing. Not a drop
Monday—One beer at lunch, and half a bottle of wine.
Tuesday—A little bit more nothing.

And tonight I’m not drinking anything, at least not yet, though I do still have the other half of that wine at home. There was no day when I drank excessively, and (if I in fact don’t drink tonight) there will have been four completely alcohol-free days! My friends, that’s pretty good. I mean, it isn’t as good as it should be, or as good as I might have expected coming into this, but compared to the kind of creeping hopelessness of the last couple of weeks, it’s pretty damn good. Moreover, I’ve been a good citizen even when I’ve been drunk, which has to be a good sign.

I don’t like to admit the main reason I’ve been able to cut down this past week, but I suppose I will: I’ve been really dedicating myself to my research job. Every moment I’m not working in the library, eating, or sleeping, I’ve tried to spend doing research (well, except for seeing the out-of-towners this weekend and watching Empire Records again last night). I don’t want to be one of those horrible men who depends on his job for his self-worth (usually in a figurative sense, though for me right now it’s literally true, as well), but at the moment my job is a convenient crutch. And it’s a suitable one, anyway, because as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, drinking was beginning to affect my work, so this is a chance to make up for that lack of diligence and responsibility while helping myself. So, good news for Russ and Chip, if I haven’t already screwed this project up too much.

With the resetting going well, I’m not only doing better but also feeling better (though it’s hard to sleep on nights I don’t drink…I didn’t get any sleep last night at all) and am less prone to dark thoughts. And I’ve had my Labor Day shave, a little bit late (had to wait for the head injury I wrote about a couple of weeks ago to heal), which gives me a whole new face; and I’m still fairly new at the Music Library, so it feels a little bit like starting a whole new chapter in my life.

I look so much forward to summer every year, but this one hasn’t been the best, and I’m ready for it to be over now. The coming autumn seems somehow full of promise, as if I was climbing a steep slope in the deep shadow of the early morning, but there’s just a hint of light overhead, signaling that the rising sun is just over the crest of the hill; and I am very eager to see it. Although, as a night person, and someone who prefers the moon to the sun on general principle (aside from the fact that, as the year gets older, there will less and less sun), perhaps I’d better rethink that analogy. Damn. I liked it, too. If I think of anything to take its place, I’ll let you know. Love to all.