Hi Gang, it’s cub reporter Ross Lincoln, back once again to liven the place up. First, I want to wish Greg a happy wedding. I’ll be taking many a photo during the proceedings, and posting my version of events here for you. You the readers will thusly be able to vicariously live the Peyton Place-esque den of intrigue that is our lives.

Of course, I’m referring to the much less popular and short lived series “Peyton Place: nerdy, loyal guys in love”, which admittedly does not have the sorts of back-stabbing, adulterous liaisons you may have been expecting. But I assure you that this is more than made up for by the Human drama that is my amazing dancing skillz.

To give you a taste, here’s a picture of myself, taken by from last night’s rehearsal dinner:

That photo arrived in my inbox courtesy of Brian, who sent it along with a question about the masculinity of yours truly, me. I think you’ll agree that no man in history, ever, has made holding castanets look more manful than I did last night. So take that, Brian.

However, Greg’s amazingly happy bliss (and my obvious homoeroticism) aside, the world for much of the South is still sadly falling to pieces, so let’s begin with a couple of links found first over at Americablog.

Unlike the clueless Bushies and their sycophants, who have been keeping fingers firmly in ear, yelling “LALALALALICAN’THEARYOULALALALA”, the rest of the world isn’t so kind about the complete and total fuck up, that has turned a serious situation into an absolute nightmare. The Independent has a marvelous article on the subject of Bush’s utter failure to lead competently, entitled ‘Casual to the point of careless’ – Bush under fire for slow reaction:

President Bush faced not only the fallout of Hurricane Katrina but also an intense political storm yesterday as relief experts, government officials and newspaper editorials criticised everything from his administration’s disaster preparedness policies to the manner in which he made his public entry into the growing crisis on the Gulf coast.

I don’t want to quote too much. It’s vastly important that so many people have suddenly and inexplicably started (one hopes) to realize his complete unfitness for the office he has lucked into. This is, as I said rather inarticulately over at my own website, Bush’s Hoover moment, and I can only hope that it lasts. The weird, eyes-wide-open enlightenment that our country seems to have finally entered, is long overdue and I hope, as the familiar Republican calls for “unity” and “moving forward” emerge to once again pretend that (Bush’s) actions do not actually have consequences, that this enlightenment, however limited in scope, does not fade away.

In worse news, the destruction of our international reputation caused by Bush’s illegal and (now obviously) evil little war is continuing, this time as an entire world looks to us and is shocked to discover how horribly this mess is being handled:

The world has watched amazed as the planet’s only superpower struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with some saying the chaos has exposed flaws and deep divisions in American society.

World leaders and ordinary citizens have expressed sympathy with the people of the southern United States whose lives were devastated by the hurricane and the flooding that followed.

But many have also been shocked by the images of disorder beamed around the world — looters roaming the debris-strewn streets and thousands of people gathered in New Orleans waiting for the authorities to provide food, water and other aid.

“Anarchy in the USA” declared Britain’s best-selling newspaper The Sun.

“Apocalypse Now” headlined Germany’s Handelsblatt daily.

There is, as they say, more, so click the link, read it and weep. We’ve known since 9-11 that Bush is utterly unequipped to handle even the slightest crisis, and indeed is utterly incapable of actually leading the nation that no longer deserves the sweet mercy his inevitably less incompetent successor will bring to it. It’s sad that we had to lose thousands of our own citizens, witness the destruction of one of history’s great cities, and watch in terror as the racial and class divisions that bush and his ilk encourage are magnified for all the world to see, in order to finally start asking ourselves why this fuck up is in charge in the first place. But then, this is people we might actually meet, unlike Iraqi civillians who are mere newsblurbs to most Americans, and instruments of propaganda for right wing chickenhawks.

But, at long last, it looks like people are starting to notice – Bush, idiotic and privileged, simply isn’t capable of his job. The stunning national decadence and narcissism (“He’d be fun to have a beer with!” “He talks like a regular guy!!” “Liberals make me uncomfortable because they use ‘facts’!”) that got us in this mess might not end here, but at least we might finally begin to do something differently for a while. John at Americablog has articulated this correctly.

Now before certain, ahem, commentors start claiming that we’re actually blaming bush for the weather, I’d like to direct you to a quote from Greg’s last post:

I don’t blame the captain of the Titanic for hitting an iceburg, I blame him for not having any lifeboats.

Now that I think of it, this isn’t Bush’s Hoover moment. This is Bush’s Milli Vanilli moment. (I’ll write more about this later.) It’s just too bad we can’t take back his Grammy.

Finally, quit reading my blathering, and donate whatever you can afford.

Edited for spelling, style, clarity, etc, multiple times.