sunday morning

I'm watching the end of Million Dollar Baby.

Ever since I got Netflix, I've been (in general) steering clear of movie theaters, which explains why I am just watching it now. I got tired of being annoyed by people who talk, let their cell phones ring, kick my seat and generally reveal themselves to be unfit to exist in the same world that I do.

Anyway, it's pretty good, but it's not rocking my world. It's definitely better than the absolutely painful experience of watching The English Patient earlier in the weekend. But, nevertheless, Annette Bening was robbed. Rent Being Julia and worship at her altar.

Anyway, I'm a few days late on this one, but I have found it be pretty amusing to see the different ways the press has described the sudden departure of Mike Brown from his post in the Gulf, leading (or not) the disaster recovery from Katrina. Some seemed to take their message directly from a press release, as if the fact that Brown wasn't running the show anymore was based on anything more than he was incapable of doing the job. Others teetered toward suggesting he was dropped on his ass, when the sad fact is that he's still bringing in a paycheck from the federal government.

What's killing me are the stories of the soldiers from the Louisiana National Guard being sent back from Iraq only to discover that their homes are gone and, in some circumstances, their family members have perished. There was a photo on the front page of The Washington Post yesterday of a mother hugging her son, who has just returned from Iraq and has collapsed in response to the news that his brother was killed by Katrina. The cruel irony is too much to bear.