To appreciate this story properly, you should think back to the gone-but-not-forgotten SCTV comedy series Monster Chiller Horror Theater, with Joe Flaherty as host Count Floyd. "Rah-ooooooooo! Eeesendit scareee, boyees and gehls!"
Some of the National Guard soldiers stationed in the deserted neighborhoods of New Orleans have spooked themselves out with ghost stories about New Orleans voodoo, and a CBS affiliate station sent a credulous dolt to file this wide-eyed story, which is just a notch or two above "The Blair Witch Project" on the credibility scale. What's next — the Loch Ness Monster sighted in Lake Ponchairtrain?
I was perfectly willing to enjoy the story as a bit of pre-Halloween hocus pocus, until the National Guard chaplain earnestly informed the reporter that New Orleans has always been associated with voodoo and cannibalism. Cannibalism? All this cracker knows is that it's a city full of black people — ergo, he thinks cannibalism. "We are bringing the light into this city," he says, and it becomes clear that this glorified witch doctor doesn't see himself as helping to rescue a beleaguered center of American culture. He thinks he's in a swamp full of Satan-worshipping cannibals, and the hurricane was probably God's way of cleaning house.
I don't know which is more disturbing: the fact that a professional news operation aired this bunk, or that this chaplain's point of view is amply represented in a society where Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson can blame the 9-11 attacks on feminism and homosexuality, and continue to be taken seriously as religious and political leaders, instead of being pelted with rotten eggs every time they show their faces in public.
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Originally published in The Opinion Mill.
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