We Break from our Usual Programming: My New Hero

No writing stuff today. Billy Nungesser made me cry last night, so I want to talk about him.

Billy is a big guy with a loud voice, and he's pissed. As president of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, ground zero of the BP oil spill, he's not bothering to play nice-nice about red tape and useless hand-wringing. He's bought 40 shop-vacs and has his people standing out in the middle of America's wetlands, soaking up oil while the "experts" argue about what might or might not work.

He's taken on everyone from NOAA to the  Coast Guard to the government, and says BP CEO Tony Hayward was "lucky to get out of Louisiana alive." Because we'd hate for the guy to have missed his yacht race, true?

There's something about this big beefy guy standing in the middle of a swamp and crying on last night's news that just brought all my post-Katrina angst to the surface again. The worst part: telling Brian Williams to stop and listen. They should have heard birds calling, insects buzzing. They heard nothing. "It's dead," he said. "It's just dead."

Just had to get that off my chest. Back to regular programming.