Rita's effect felt as far away as Baton Rouge

So last night Scott, Susan and I huddled in our spartan apartment in the Chateau Dijon complex in Baton Rouge (hoping soon to be able to relocate to the Chateau Poupon) and watched the 'Disaster Channel' (a/k/a CNN).   Aaron Brown was wearing his all-consternation-all-the-time face as public officials were paraded across the screen like kids in a line to see Santa Claus. But this was not joyousness, it was about fear-mongering --which is what the media does best (and, of course, makes the most money off of).   Horrific images of Katrina's aftermath were served up as appetizers in anticipation of a seven course meal of catastrophic devastation.

God, the media loves a good catastrophe, and this hurricane season has been a precious gift from the gods.  This morning the Fox channel was offering some hurricane special that had some sort of tagline about 'operation freedom' or something. 

What exactly is the connection between 'freedom' and hurricanes?  Can someone explain that to me?

I'm sure if I watched the Disaster Channel more I'd be better informed and better understand these things (I stopped watching TV a year ago, except for sports and, recently, Katrina and Rita).  The post-Rita CNN coverage, from what I can tell, consists of guys with ballcaps and orange blazers standing in front of rain spotted cameras pointing out things like fallen trees and downed stoplights.  After 45 minutes I felt like I was watching a tape loop.  I couldn't bear it anymore.  Me and my buddies wandered out to experience the real world. Baton Rouge had some power outages and a lot of shops were closed, but we managed to find some stuff that was open.  First we went to Chili's for lunch and then went to the Wal-Mart where we saw this grim reminder of wide reaching impact of Hurricane Rita.

I tell you, we are living in some serious times.  But people are just going to have to adjust