Beat up by a girl.

I was subconsciously raised, more by society than my parents, to believe I had won life's biggest lottery by just being born American. As a kid, I thought the entire Soviet Union was a grey, bleak, cold place where people spent their days waiting in long lines for toilet paper and returned home to a one bedroom apartment overflowing with extended family. Citizens THERE weren't FREE like they are HERE. They couldn't gather as they wish, or have meetings, make money, or travel on a whim. Ah, what a blessing to be born American, where if you work hard anything is possible. Greatest nation on earth. Superpower. Strong, Technically superior. Wealthy. Nations cower at our shadow. They come to us for money. They come to us for aid. The richest nation on earth, we have a plethora of whatever anybody might need, want or desire. Screw with us and you will pay. Merely wound us and we will hunt you down and make you regret the day you ever chose to tangle with mighty America. Iran calls us "The Great Satan." There's a lot of respect in that insult. From the comfort of my living room, I have witnessed chaos and pain that followed natural disasters in other corners of the world. Droughts and famine. Earthquakes and floods. The tsunami. I was led to believe that because of our well funded government, with its superior planning and organization skills, along with a kick ass military, the same type of aftermath wasn't possible here. If not invincible, we were close.

Katrina put us in our place. Like everyone else, I couldn't understand why help didn't get there faster. Why weren't there convoys and warehouses of food and supplies ready to go at a moments notice? As always, the media found a way to arrive in a timely fashion. Why not the National Guard? We have an Office of Homeland Security for Godsake! "Disaster Preparedness" has been the national sirens song since 9/11. I was led to believe that I lived in a sturdy brick house. Nope. It's stucco, Baby. The cheap kind that cracks. Our wealth, just veneer. The Leher Newshour interviewed a representative from the Army Corps of Engineers Friday. He stated New Orleans' levees were never intended to stand up to a Level Five hurricane. Using probability formula, it was decided that making stronger levees was too expensive and unnecessary, as category five hurricanes happen "only" every one to two hundred years or so. Huh. It appears they knew we were about due. No doubt, there will be plenty of contestants in the Blame Game in the next few months. Also, powerful ammunition has been loaded in the racism gun. The fact that the ones who suffered most were poor, African American, and in many cases infirm and elderly will be a stain on America for the foreseeable future.

I don't know if more could have been done earlier for New Orleans. I'm not an expert in disaster relief. It was painful as hell to see other Americans suffering and held captive in inhuman conditions, surrounded by a city drowning in fetid water. It was a scene thought possible in a place like Haiti or Bangladesh but certainly not in the capitalist land of milk and honey, these United States of America.

Time may prove that no amount of preparedness could have matched Katrina's force.

That said, I am humbled and no longer confident someone will appear to pull me or my loved ones out of the rubble after a tornado. I won't be feeling safe at airports, even with extra security. We are a nation that has nickled and dimed away our infrastructure. What else are we unknowingly doing without? The same government entities responsible for this weeks agonizing slow rescue are the same entities stating another terrorist attack is inevitable. If we can't shelter a city from a hurricane, one clearly visible on radar screens days before striking, what chance is there for survival after -say- a dirty bomb?

Was it not possible to get aid to New Orleans sooner, or is our military stretched too thin? Is it realistic to expect that we can fight a war on the other side of the world and still have resources for emergencies at home without implementing a draft? Was the Bush Administration gambling a disaster of this magnitude wouldn't hit while they were busy fighting for Iraq's soul? If we can't save one of our own cities, is it arrogant to think we can save a deeply divided foreign country so far away?

America is the land of the free. America is home of the brave.

It may also serve as World Headquarters for the cheap and the naive.