Go West

I always admired Kanye West in my own small-town, mother of three, still punk-at-heart kind of way.

Why I watch bullshit TV still confounds me. When I was little, I wouldn't miss the Jerry Lewis Telethon every year. Maybe I really believed it when the announcer would say, "A special TV event."

So when American television put on a one-hour hurricane telethon yesterday, there I was. Okay, Harry Connick jr. looked veritably destraught. He truly was speaking from the heart and was, I believe, devastated. But some of the other actors seemed to me like, well, actors.

Still, I watched, dare I say keenly listening when Mike Myers, in his Scarborough haircut, came on with Kanye West. So Myers reads off his teleprompter. Blah, blah, blah. Breach in the levees. Blah, blah, blah. Then West obviously isn't reading from the script written by some network yahoo. Instead, he's ad-libbing. And wait - ripping a new asshole into the US federal government.

West: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!

Meanwhile, Mike Myers is looking kind of lost. He goes back to the script, but by that time, what he's saying seems as hollow as the rhetoric we've been hearing from the US president. Then, back to my man, Kanye, looking very preppy in a rugby shirt, for goodness sake.

West: George Bush hates black people!

Myers just squeaks out, "Please call -" and then the network cuts off and throws to a live remote with Chris Tucker who looks a little like someone just woke him up.

Finally, someone has the cajones to publicly speak what is increasingly looking like the sad truth. Historically, black Americans have, more or less, been left behind economically, politically and socially. Here now are thousands, literally being left behind to endure much horror, just because of their lot in life.

You just can't compare this to the tsunami in south-east Asia half a year ago. That came out of nowhere, and hit a part of the world that doesn't have sophisticated advantages. This hurricane could be seen days before. And when Bush slashed the budget of the New Orleans army engineers who work on the levees by 44 per cent, where do you think the $71.2 million US went? Gotta be Iraq, baby! I watched NBC yesterday (oh, how I miss the CBC) and they obtained a report on how federal budgets spent on hurricane emergency readiness was slashed over a year. The money that was left was going to TERRORIST emergency readiness.

I'm thinking the death toll and financial devestation of this hurricane will surpass that of the World Trade Center bombing, not to make light of that or anything. I'm just musing.

And did I donate to the telethon? No.

I may change my mind but I think that the US is a very wealthy nation. They have money to blow on being the world's foremost military superpower and building (and fixing) space shuttles. Can't they afford their own recovery costs? I'm shamed as a Canadian and an Ontarian when I learn that schools in the far north are so misfunded and running on fumes, let alone what kind of impoverished conditions they live with at home.

No, I'm in the mindset that if the US intends to keep our $5 billion in confiscated softwood lumber duties, they can consider that our financial contribution. And please, don't call us during dinner again, thank you.

Meanwhile, my kids are blissfully and completely oblivious to all this, despite Husband and me reading two newspapers a day. And they're still not adjusted to the time change.