Don't Let Me Stop You: The Untold Story of Hurricane Rita

We're evidently pretty slow on the uptake here at DLMSY. We still can't figure out how race is an "issue" in Hurricane Katrina. It never occurred to us that money we contributed to disaster relief might go more to one racial group than another. In fact, we still don't know whether it did or not or why we should even care. We suspect that, like us, most Americans who contributed (and continue to do so) took little or no notice of the race of those in need. Our countrymen and women need our help. Who cares what race they were/are?

Apparently, some people see everything in racial terms (or see advantage in portraying everything in racial terms). Jonah Goldberg takes a satirical look at the next "perfect storm" of interest group politics:

"The press was blindsided again. As Hurricane Rita barreled toward Key West, television news executives were unprepared to deal with the lamentable divide this storm would undoubtedly reveal between gay America and straight America.

You'd think the media would have learned their lesson. After Katrina, the press corps waited a full two days after the storm hit before it was able to report that one of America's poorest and blackest cities was full of poor and black people. Surely, this time around the Fourth Estate would hit the ground running with up-to-the-minute exposes on the 'Other' Other America and trenchant-yet-lachrymose essays on What This Says About America, that one of America's zestiest gay resorts was left to twist in the wind.

The questions raised by unlovely Rita are as painful as they are obvious. Will gays stay behind in disproportionate numbers in this disproportionately gay city? If so, Why? If gay marriage were legalized, could some of this disaster be avoided? Would George W. Bush have responded more quickly if the victims were just a tad less stylish? And, of course: Will the federal government help keep Key West festive?"