The Idiot Relief Telethon

A big thank you goes out to all the people who expressed concern when they saw on the news that the state of New Hampshire is flooded. In fact, there were parts of the state that were really badly damaged, but here in Idiotville we remained largely unscathed.


This is a picture of people I don't know
paddling around a flooded town not in
New Hampshire, but it seemed like a
story that is at least remotely related
to flooding should have a picture like this.

Having seen Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky flood, and now having seen New Hampshire flood, I have to applaud whoever it was that handled Hurricane Katrina's public relations work, because there's sheer genius at work. I mean, the City of New Orleans is not only below sea level, it's in a part of the world known for hurricanes. (Isn't the drink of choice at Mardi Gras actually named a "hurricane"?). Despite all this, instead of seeing the flooding of New Orleans as a big case of "yeah, I saw that coming", America, including the Idiot fambly, opened their collective wallets and gave and gave and gave. There are still little jars at a number of local establishments where we can drop in change for the victims of Katrina, and I read in the paper today that a whole slew of slightly aged rock stars have a benefit album in the works which won't be released until November! I think that the key to all of this is threefold:

1) FEMA et al. The government dragged its heels in crisis and the average citizen, appalled, did a little more.
2) It's New Orleans. Yeah, uh, something about guilt...Mardi Gras, beads, uh, the details are foggy....
3) The Cool Name. Our recent flooding was caused by two solid weeks of heavy rain. (Yes, it started raining right after the Red Sox got knocked out of the playoffs). I mean, I'll give to people called "Katrina Victims," who the heck is gonna give to "Victims of Two Weeks of Heavy Rain" or "Those Poor Wet People in New Hampshire"?

So, with none of those three things going for us here in the Granite State, I'm not holding out much hope that there will be an All-Star Benefit Concert for us anytime soon. Don't get me wrong, this is not a case of flooding envy or sour grapes: I don't feel left out, and in fact, if Bob Geldof or Elton John is reading this, I think we should shift our attention to the victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake in Kashmir. In USA Today today, the same paper that told me about the planned Katrina benefit album, I read that horrendous weather is causing big problems with the rescue efforts in Pakistan, and thus they can't even begin to estimate the number of casualties over there.

While I am as always thinking globally, I try to act locally, just like the bumper stickers tell me to, and as such, I resolved to hold my own little flood relief telethon here at Chez Idiot. That's right, I watched a LOT of television this weekend. Saturday was an awesome day of college football which would have been even better if Notre Dame and Penn State had won their games. Sunday was of course pro football day, which was tragically interrupted for a couple of hours when the power went out because of the wind, rain, plague of locusts etc. It would have been better if the Patriots had won, but hey, into each life some rain must fall. At the end of the telethon weekend I really didn't feel the relief I was expecting, more I just felt a little drunk from all the beer I consumed, and depressed that the weekend was over.

So there you have it. The Idiots are all well and fine and the state is recovering. Should you want to donate to my Relief Telethon, I'll gladly accept as I'll probably have one every weekend until the Superbowl and I drank most of my beer last weekend. To this end, I've put a link on the right hand side of the page that says "Make a Donation," but you should know that that money goes straight to me and will probably not ever be used for anything charitable, unless you consider sedating me with Sam Adams to be a work of charity. (Friends of Mrs. Idiot tend to donate to that cause heavily).