Walking From New Orleans

YES, I understand that Hurricane Katrina was a pretty motherfucking powerful storm. (That's "MPS" in National Hurricane Center lingo.)

YES, I know that the Bush administration, with characteristic deftness and aplomb, was blissfully ignorant of the impending disaster and compounded this ineptness by totally dropping the ball on disaster relief/recovery. (There are probably still, to this day, truckloads of ice still aimlessly cruising the Interstate Highway System, stopping only occasionally for gas, on Halliburton's account, no doubt.)

YES, I feel compassion for those who lost lives, loved ones, homes, possessions, and/or their bearings, and are to this day struggling to get things together.

(In the midst of this self-revelation, I do need to ask which genius thought it was a Good Idea to build a city under sea level, on the Gulf Coast, at the mouth of perhaps the largest river in the Northern Hemisphere. But I digress.)

But let's get over it, shall we, people?

If I read, hear, or see another Katrina Anniversary piece, I will lose whatever shred of compassion I have left. Other people have been through hurricanes and had their lives rent asunder as well. My 13-year-old daughter traveled to Florida this past summer to help people whose houses were still in disrepair from a powerful hurricane that, unfortunately for them, came a little further down the alphabet than the letter "K," and as a result received little notice, press, or help, and most likely will NOT be included in The Anderson Cooper Retrospective On Last Year's Anderson Cooper Hurricane Katrina Coverage. Timing is everything, folks. Sorry.

Let's only hope and pray that a new Paris Hilton oral sex video shows up on the internet (preferably involving a farm animal) to get everyone's attention redirected.

AND THIS NEWS ITEM JUST IN: (Thank you, MSNBC!)

Paris Hilton is furious with Cher’s son for claiming that the two had sex — and that then he worried that he caught something from her.

Elijah Blue Allman, Cher’s son by rocker Gregg Allman, went on the Howard Stern show last week and boasted that he had a fling with Hilton before she was famous. Allman, who is the lead singer and guitarist for the band Deadsy, said that after the encounter, he became so worried that he might have contracted a disease that he went downstairs and scrubbed his private parts with a household cleaner, probably Tilex.

Hilton is “not happy” about Allman’s comments, says a source, even though he described Hilton as a “sweet girl.”