EMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, proved itself unprepared for the post-hurricane situation in Louisiana, and now will have to prepare itself for an even more deadly assault on its reputation. The publicity disaster follows reports in The Washington Post and other media outlets that FEMA fem and director Michael Brown may be less than qualified for the position he holds. Federal agency historians are describing it as possibly the worst media-related catastrophe to ever strike the organization.

Damage to the agency's character hasn't been fully assessed, but early estimates predict anywhere from one to five careers may be permanently injured or even extinguished. Early signs of the disaster's effects came when the White House reversed its original "FEMA good" public statements for the more critical "FEMA can do better" statements of recent days.

The fallout comes from public outrage over the slowness and inefficiency of relief efforts in the wake of the hurricane Katrina disaster and the extent of destruction from floods in the Louisiana area. As the outcry increased, media outlets investigating FEMA Director Michael Brown uncovered sources who say the director may have misrepresented his qualifications or been misrepresented by people in the administration. Some are accusing the administration and Brown's supporters of making him the director because of his work on the Bush campaign, rather than his experience with disaster relief—not that the Bush campaign was unofficially a disaster, but such a designation doesn't put it on par with the flooding of New Orleans.

Last week, the president commended the FEMA director with a resounding and dignified, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Quite a contrast to the administration's more recent admission the relief efforts were going abysmally slow, and Thursday's remark by the president, "Brownie, get your shit together. Quit dragging ass and get 'r' done or we're gonna shitcan you."

But some are asking, given the degree to which Brown's resume may have been misrepresented, if the FEMA director shouldn't be shitcanned already. With the poor relief efforts attracting media attention and adding lead to the president's always-precarious approval rating, Brown was removed from his on-site duties in the relief efforts. Such an action may precipitate Brown's stepping down from his position to make way for some other Bush crony with slightly more experience.

Reports surfaced this week that 5 of 8 top FEMA officials, including Brown, had little or no previous disaster relief experience, and at least 3 played vital roles in the Bush 2000 election campaign. Director Brown himself cited only one disaster-related job, allegedly overseeing disaster relief efforts in Edmond, Oklahoma, but sources now say the job was closer to "administrative assistant" or "intern," or in the common parlance, "little bitch" to the real boss.

If Brown is asked to stepped down from his role at FEMA, some are already anticipating a quick appointment by the president for his old supporter. Insiders at the White House are talking about the possibility of a Federal Emergency Public Relations Agency (the less-interesting acronym FEPRA), who will need someone to run it with the kind of publicity disaster experience only this most recent crisis can provide.

he whole nation wants to do their part to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, but a Madison, Wisconsin man is doing so much he makes all the other volunteers and charity donors look like dried puke. For Albert Pohl Martinson hasn't merely taken in three or four family members or refugees from New Orleans: He's taken in a whole jazz band.

"I just wanted to do what I could," Martinson told a deluge of fawning media standing on his front lawn. "So I said I would take in the first group of refugees I could. I sent them bus tickets and had them carted up here immediately. And then, being a good citizen, I called the local news to make sure they were informed."

However, Martinson didn't stop and giving the 5-man combo all the food, shelter, and clean water they needed; he also bought them sparkling fresh instruments so they could take their mind off their troubles.

"I've always enjoyed the real music and culture of working-class people," said Martinson, a retired advertising sales manager. "Not particularly jazz, more the rich and textured Delta blues. Some jazz, I guess… this Dixieland stuff isn't really what I thought I was getting when I agreed to—you know what? It doesn't matter. I'm just trying to give back something to a community that has lost so much."

Martinson, upon opening his front door to go back inside, was greeted with the jovial and unrelenting blasts of trumpets playing, "When the Saints Come Marching In."

"Oh, goody—they're still playing!"

Martinson is not the only one opening his home to those in need from the disaster—only the best. But across the nation, many Americans are staking out their piece of great historic tragedy. Like Amy and Morrie Callum of Albany, New York, who took in New Orleans legendary jazz guitarist Halo Jones.

"It's horrific to see all the death and destruction left in Katrina's wake," sobbed Amy, while her husband nodded perfunctorily. "I had to do something. Like everyone else, I was thinking, 'What can I do? Little ol' me?' But I didn't let that hurt me. I got on the phone. I called disaster-relief people. I told them, 'Get me a jazz guitarist.' And they did."

Sure thing, less than a week later, Jones arrived via cab with his trademark Yamaha acoustic.

"He loves to play that thing," said Morrie with a smile. "Honestly, he won't stop playing it."

Still, there are others. Few who have given to disaster relief groups can match the sheer generosity of Ketcham, North Carolina strip club owner Paco Wiley, who opened his home and his club to 13 refugees from a New Orleans brothel, including 12 high-priced prostitutes and a madame, Ms. Louise.

"You've got to remember these are people like you and me," said Paco, wiping his forehead with a lacey pink bra, in one of his rare public appearances outside his club. "You have to give them back their independence. Give them back their dignity. So immediately, rather than just give them charity and let them live off my contributions, I put the ladies to work for me. It's all in the name of relief, folks."

And we spell relief with media coverage—oodles and oodles of media coverage.

Just now the question may be dawning in your Pre-Cambrian brain: Wait a minute, what happened in New Orleans? Last time I was down there, it was a drunk, titty-flashing good time. I don't remember all these poor people smashing windows at the Piggly Wiggly to get at some Doritos, or floating around on air mattresses through a soup of toxic dogshit. And since when have they had canals instead of streets? You think you'd remember something like that, even while lying drunk on the sidewalk with your fly open.

Don't worry, gentle idiot, your brain's not playing tricks on you. It didn't come with such fancy features. No, something did happen to New Orleans this month, and it wasn't just an incompetent government run by a man with a sixth-grade understanding of adult reality and all the savvy of a small child lost at an astrophysics convention. Hurricane happened, readers, and it happened but good.

I'm sure you've heard of hurricanes before. After all, it's what killed JFK. But do you really understand how they work and why they always strike in threes? I didn't think so.

Hurricanes are nature's douche, a natural remedy for when Mother Nature's got that "not so fresh" feeling downstairs and needs to clean house. Regardless of what you may have read in irresponsible academic journals growing up, hurricanes are not "Nature's Fart." In fact, they're not a fart at all. That would be silly. "Hurricanes are Nature's Fart" was a rumor started over 30 years ago by Airologist Walter Zoloft, who though that the wind smelled like beef during Hurricane Yolanda in 1972.

In scientific terms, hurricanes are caused by heat energy from evaporating water. Confused? Think of it this way: When you get out of the shower, you feel cold because the water evaporating off your naked ass is taking your body heat with it. This heat energy does not disappear, it has to go somewhere. And it goes into hurricanes.

The first hurricane in Earth's history happened in 1964. You've likely heard of "Hurricanes" previous to this date, but all such references were to the nicknames of boxers or hookers with grossly oversized egos. The first actual hurricane hit the town of Papa Old Money on the coast of Papa New Guinea in August of 1964, and it scared the living daylights out of the town's seventeen residents, who thought God was whistling at them. No one was sure how to interpret such behavior from the universal creator, and this frightened them.

The world's first hurricane was, as you may already have guessed, the direct result of the invention of the shower in 1963. Previously, nature had been held at bay thanks to the prominence of the bathtub on the world's body-cleansing scene, though the balance had already been somewhat upset by the invention of the "European shower" in 1960, which consisted of standing over the bathroom sink of a gas station and splashing water near your armpits while rubbing an automobile air freshener on your chest.

But the invention of the shower and its catastrophic convenience changed all this in less than a year's time, as the residents of Papa Old Money and their demolished straw huts could attest. It took the town's residents seventeen months to find all the straw again, which had been distributed evenly over the surface of the island, and rebuild their huts in time for the Great Catastrophic Hut Fire of 1966.

The devastation would only grow worse over the next forty years, as millions of people turned to showering to ease overcrowding in the world's gas station restrooms. Hurricanes would grown in strength and number every year, except for a brief respite in 1969 when the hippies took over and it briefly became uncool to rinse off your butt musk and most Americans received all their needed hygiene from police water cannons at protest rallies.

Many famous hurricanes would ruin kite-flying contests and destroy property in nations that had not learned from the legend of the three little pigs during the 1970's, including the famous Hurricane Harry in 1973, the legendary Hurricane Delmon in 1976, and the altogether disappointing Hurricane Pip in 1978. Government officials were able to placate the devastated masses by holding fun write-in contests to decide the name of the latest hurricane, which remained popular until some smartass ruined the fun by naming a hurricane Hurricane Hurricane in 1985, and the federal government had to step in and start naming hurricanes after ex-girlfriends in 1986.

So what can we do to cause the scourge of hurricanes to abate before the entire globe is as flat as a wet T-shirt contest in North Dakota? Besides granting every child's wish by outlawing all bathing, our only real hope is to figure some way to take a break from humanity's true passion: finding new and exciting ways to fuck up the planet with the most noxious chemicals possible. Instead of dumping thousands of gallons of DDT into rivers and streams, why not dump wildflowers, honey and mint? Or whatever they put in douches, I'm no expert on their contents. I only bought one that once because I thought it was a cocktail mix.

You look me in the eye and tell me summer's eve doesn't sound like a good name for a cocktail, that's misleading advertising plain and simple. If they didn't want guys to buy douches, they shouldn't put a woman on the box, that's Advertising 101. You put a vagina on the box and accidental guy purchases will hit zero in a hurry, I guarantee you. Unless the wording on the package is vague enough to leave open the possibility there could actually be a vagina in the box, then all bets are off. But now we're detouring far from my original point.

The fact of the matter is, if we don't like the effects that nature's douche has on our country's barbecues, straw homes, tents and brothel-heavy southern cities, we need to stop making them necessary by continually inundating the entire American South with battery acid, asbestos and Agent Orange like we have been for the last 100 years. We need to clean up the South, or better yet, cover it in several feet of fresh, clean saran wrap and never speak of it again. Only then will we be able to shower with a clean conscience, knowing that the big, tidy nothing the hurricanes are blowing over down there isn't going anywhere any time soon.

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