The latest Carnival of the Vanities is up over at Silflay Hraka's place, who actually originated it, I think, and it turns out that today is its third anniversary. Dang--I should've bought it something when I was at Wal-Mart yesterday. A nice wall hanging or something.
I don't have a whole lot to say about the entries in particular, although there is a lot of good stuff there, as always, but a couple of entries did catch my eye. The meme of "supporting the troops" while simultaneously working to undermine them is a recurring theme of mine, and Poca Dot contributes his own thoughts along that line:
Here is how they Support Our Troops:
1. By banning military recruiters from their campuses.
2. By voting against new weapons.
3. By using the military to debate social issues.
4. By voting against arming our soldiers.
5. By calling our soldiers Nazis.
6. By not apologizing for calling our soldiers Nazis.
If anyone has the idea to "support" me in this sort of way, I'd just as soon you didn't bother. Thanks anyway.
And Alan K. Henderson suggests one reason that Mississippi, which took a much more direct hit from Katrina than did NOLA, isn't getting much press:
FEMA isn't responsible for everyone in hurricane-prone areas to have an emergency stash of nonperishable food on hand - individuals are. FEMA isn't responsible for building flood control infrastructure - city and state governments are, and if they can't afford it they can turn to Congress and hope that the environmentalist lobby doesn't stand in the way. FEMA isn't responsible for evacuating people who can't evacuate themselves - state and city governments are. FEMA didn't block the Red Cross and Salvation Army from delivering food and supplies to hurricane survivors in the Superdome. And none of this crap is happening in Mississippi, which took the brunt of the storm.
In other words, the superior response of the local and state governments of Mississippi just might make LA look bad, and we couldn't have that, now, could we, I mean with LA being largely Democratic and all, which means that no matter how badly they screw up, they care and they mean well, and that's all that matters, right?
And I've brought this up before, but in case you are thinking of contributing to any of the myriad of blogging carnivals that have sprung up in response to the original, Silflay Hraka suggests we go over to Conservative Cat and "look at his tool." Now, I could make a juvenile, tacky joke about that, but that would be beneath me. So I won't. Just thought I'd, like, you know, point that out.
UPDATE: Shucks, I entirely forgot that I had an entry in this week's carnival. All the more reason to go there, of course!
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