No, It's Not Katrina

Mack Hall

All of Iowa’s major rivers are flooding, which means most of Iowa is flooding. Farms, suburbs, urban areas, the capital, the capitol, even the University of Iowa itself.

And, naturally, the flyover newsies seem unable to make any observation that does not include an allusion to Hurricane Katrina. The attitude seems to be “You think this is bad? Hah! This is nothing like Katrina.”

And indeed, the situation is nothing like Katrina. No one in Iowa is shooting at the rescue helicopters, for one thing. For another, the pictures indicate that people in Iowa, people of all ages, races, and socio-economic blah-blahs, are working on the levees and stacking sandbags. Working. Taking care of business.

This has really got to be frustrating for the networks. Imagine a blow-dried news reporter trying to get some drama on tape:

“I say, fellow, I’m Neville Ponsonby with National Consolidated World News Tonight, Tomorrow, and Now. Could you…”

“I’m kinda busy here, pal. Whaddaya need?”

“Well, I was wondering if you would put that sandbag down and step over here.”

“Why?”

“I want you to sit in the street and play this harmonica. Make some sad waaaah-waaaaaaaah sounds on it, like, you know?”

“Why in the (Newark) would I do that? I’m trying to protect our town library right now, so move out of the way. Besides, I don’t play the harmonica.”

“Oh, I see. Well, would you just sit in the street and cry or something? Say terrible things about the evil President?”

“No.”

“Would you pretend to break into that grocery store over there out of your deep sense of existential frustration?”

“No!”

“Hmmm. So you agree that this flooding is the result of evil capitalist middle-Americans driving SUVs and pickups to work.”

“No, I don’t. Now get gone.”

“You will when we feed this through the computer and have it come out the way we want.”

“Say, you had your face bashed in lately?”

“Get that angry face, cameraperson. This is another victim frustrated by the results of global warming.”

“You wanna help stack sandbags, or are you just gonna stand there like one of the leisure classes?”

“You Iowans are sooooooooooo boring. You don’t riot. You don’t loot. You don’t sit in the street and demand to know when help is coming. You’re just working. How can I make an artistic story out of that?”

“Art? You say that working isn’t art? That trying to save my town’s library is not art?”

“Well, I mean, do you play a musical instrument? Do you have an annual jollification when you have tourists come into town to buy booze and get drunk and expose themselves and get arrested?”

“I done all that when I was sixteen. Got over it. Grew up. Got a job.”

“But where is the art in that, O boring Iowan citizen? Where is the quaintness? The culture? The Europeanness?”

“Well, my great-grandpa Luigi was from Italy…”

“Sigh. Turn off the camera. It just won’t do. You Iowans – you don’t sing, you don’t dance, you don’t loot, you don’t beg, you don’t scream at the cameras, you don’t even shoot at the helicopters. You’re even working instead of sitting in the street whining. Just wait until I tell this at my next white wine and cheese salon when I get back to Martha’s Vineyard. They won’t believe it. No, alas, this isn’t Katrina. No Pulitzer prize for me here.”