Different Disaster, Different Response
by Carolyn Baker
www.dissidentvoice.org
September 14, 2005



 

La Jolla, California: An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale rumbled through La Jolla last night, shattering windows, uprooting shrubbery, and catapulting startled residents from their beds. President Bush immediately declared La Jolla a disaster area and boarded Air Force One for the scene of the temblor, adamant that the quiet paradise by the sea would receive national disaster funds as soon as possible and that he would visit the distraught survivors and comfort them in person.

Thousands of troops from nearby Camp Pendleton and a host of FEMA personnel are assisting in the evacuation of several hundred La Jolla residents. Most were relocated to the Orange County Westin South Coast Plaza, the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort and Spa, and the Four Seasons at Newport Beach where Northern California vintners, Korbel and Clos Dubois, as well as Wolfgang Puck of Newport Beach, have provided wine and catered gourmet meals for the stranded evacuees.

Former First Lady, Barbara Bush, personally visited each evacuated family at the St. Regis, reassuring them that the federal government is not pleased with how this is working out for them and will guarantee a speedy clean-up and restoration of their La Jolla properties.

Meanwhile, FEMA issued American Express Cards to each evacuee with a $20,000 line of credit. Hewlett-Packard has also shipped 2,000 laptop computers to the stranded evacuees, and Sprint has distributed free cell phones and complimentary accounts to every La Jolla homeowner affected by the disaster.  

Vice-President, Dick Cheney in an emergency cabinet meeting this morning proposed that the clean-up and reconstruction of La Jolla would be supervised by Kellogg, Brown & Root, which would enlist thousands of displaced African-American refugees from Hurricane Katrina, some of whom have accrued debts they are unable to pay as a result of the new Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Law of 2005. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao boasted: “Enlisting these people to work off their debts and expedite the return of the La Jolla residents to their homes is a stroke of genius devised by the Vice President and his staff.”

Understandably, the La Jolla evacuees were in a state of shock and grief, and an emergency counseling team under the direction of Dr. Laura Schlesinger and infamous Orange County, anti-gay psychologist Pat Allen has arrived on the scene for therapy and personal crisis management sessions free of charge for the traumatized earthquake victims of La Jolla.   

President Bush also requested that Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Charles Dobson, and Franklin and Ann Graham, son and daughter of Billy Graham, coordinate religious services for the evacuees. La Jolla resident Tim La Haye, of “Left Behind” fame, whose home was undamaged by the earthquake, offered to present a workshop on “Earthquakes: More Signs Of The Rapture” for the evacuees, followed in tandem with another workshop by his wife, Beverly La Haye, on “Taking Care Of Your Husband During Crisis.” Pope Benedict will be flying in from Rome later today to offer a special mass for the evacuees.

It was also reported that Vice-President Cheney and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger coordinated a separate evacuation effort for all gay and lesbian residents of La Jolla who are being transported to an undisclosed location near Death Valley.

Carolyn Baker is a satirist and an adjunct professor of history living in Southern New Mexico. Copyright © 2005 by Carolyn Baker

Other Articles by Carolyn Baker

* The Religious Right: Pushing A Deadly Addiction
* The Religious Right: An Anti-American Terrorist Movement
* Ward Churchill And The Imminent Destruction of American Higher Education
* Dominionist Dementia: What's Jesus Got to Do With It?
* Hello: You Are Now Living in a Fascist Empire
* Stepford America

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