Ziing

Somewhere between here and school, I realized I had a headache today, and that I couldn't see out of one eye. That tends to happen when the weather changes suddenly, as it did today, so when I got home, I took some tylenol.

Well, that's about all that I have to report.

Except, for perhaps, a rant levelled against the Mayor of Biloxi, who said that Hurricane Katrina was "their tsunami." Now, I realize there's some controversy over who said the controversial statement, but I'm going to add to the controversy and say that this is perhaps the most arrogant thing I've ever heard a spokesperson say. The scale in damage and deaths of Katrina to the Boxing Day tsunami would be like somebody having their car shot up and calling it "their 9/11."

The last tally I saw for Katrina pegged the confirmed dead at just over 80, with hundreds still missing. Compare now to the Boxing Day Tsunami. There were hundreds of thousands of confirmed deaths, and millions missing, injured, or displaced. New Orleans is under water, and I understand that is a tragedy. But the water will recede, and New Orleans can be rebuilt. Had it actually been a tsunami, New Orleans would be but a memory, just like those hundreds of villages on the coast that were swallowed by the sea during the tsunami. They are gone.

This, is a hurricane. One of might and breadth, but it is still a hurricane, and they are prone at this time of year, in that location. There's a reason why it's called hurricane season. And it's not like Katrina appeared suddenly one morning and laid waste to a nation. There was almost a week of advance warning.

My condolences go out to the families that have lost property and loved ones to the storm, but they must know that this was no tsunami. Saying it is, is belittling those that died in the great disaster, as if 80 some American lives are now worth as much as hundreds of thousands of foreign lives.

Edit: Amended for more accurate counts.