Litany Against Fear

I must not fear.
Fear is the mindkiller.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

-- Bene Gesserit
(Frank Herbert, Dune)

Katrina

I just couldn't pull myself together enough before this to write... The devastation from Hurricane Katrina is overwhelming, and the ineptitude of FEMA and Bush's appointees has made a bad situation horrifically surreal. Thousands dead, not from the initial storm, but from the levee breaks, dehydration, starvation, and lack of medical attention. Volunteer rescue efforts have been turned away, and FEMA has promised help that has never come, or has come too late. What the hell business has FEMA got being under the auspices of "Homeland Security"?!?!?! The whole city evacuated, months and years before people can return to the place they once called home. Weeks and months before the bodies can be identified, if ever. Outpouring of offers of aid from foreign nations... will Bush accept the aid? I doubt it... And on top of everything else, now Bush gets to appoint TWO supreme court justices! How are we going to manage to survive the next three years? It is all so numbing....