A couple of years ago, I decided to never, ever watch anything on television news ever again. When something bad happens, most people I know immediately turn on the television to find out what’s going on. I don’t. Ever.

This does not mean I am superior. This means I am a coward and a crybaby.

It was the Oklahoma City bombing that did it, believe it or not. I saw fifteen minutes of coverage when I got home from work that day and I swore off catastrophe coverage for life. While I was sitting there holding my son, I was watching firemen carry dead children. So I turned the television off.

As a result, I went weeks and weeks after 9/11 before I ever saw the actual footage of the planes, the people falling, the dust clouds, the frantic horror of it all. In many ways, I was lucky. Not only because I wasn’t in a plane or one of the buildings or on the street, but because I didn’t see anyone else who was either.

I get my news online and from NPR. So I still see some pictures every once in a while. And I hear the stories and voices, and sometimes even that’s too much and I turn it off.

I haven’t seen much on Katrina, but I’ve read and heard enough to understand that it’s unimaginable horror. I don’t want to know how bad it is. I don’t need to know how bad it is. All I want and need to know is that someone is helping. Preferably Batman or another superhero if he’s unavailable.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Over at Something Awful, Josh also mentioned how Batman could have solved some of these problems a lot faster than our own government.

I’ve heard a few people say that now is not the time to ask questions, not the time to lay any blame for the slow response (Jimmy Stewart could have gotten there faster, and he’s dead). Like Josh, I disagree with the idea that asking questions and laying blame is wrong. I spend every day of my professional life being held accountable and feeling responsible for what happens. I have to answer for my decisions and opinions and actions, to my employers and my clients. That kind of accountability keeps me fairly focused on not screwing something up, ever.

I’m not sure Our Government — a blanket term meant to cover everything bad with our current administration — feels any of that. I certainly haven’t heard or seen it. Doing a quick fly-by in Air Force Once and saying “Man, that looks really bad” (I’m paraphrasing) isn’t quite as stirring as standing on a pile of rubble and holding a bullhorn. Not for us, not for him, not for the media, and not for the victims.

And characterizing the response as “inadequate” (I’m not paraphrasing) isn’t just an understatement, it signals a level of disengagement bordering on being divorced from reality.

Yeah, it’s not all the President’s fault. But he’s a good one to focus on, a good person to hold accountable and have some high expectations from. He is, after all, the President. I assume the title is more than honorary.

Michael Moore (more hissing from the gallery) has a few things to say. He doesn’t always say the right thing, nor does he always say it well, but he’s more right than he’s wrong. Even with that glaring prejudice of his (you know, the one that makes him call on government officials and corporations to answer for their actions and policies) blinding him, he still manages to push some of the right buttons.

But the guys at Something Awful say it a bit better, without all of the Michael Moore baggage. Of course, they were personally hit by the storm, in more ways than one. And they took immediate action (even if, ultimately, one of those big bad corporations that Michael Moore unfairly hates so much ended up screwing it up).

Quick action from a bunch of sarcastic, snotty geeks trying to mobilize the rest of us to fill an immediate need, focusing on the human side of the tragedy and looking for a way to help.

Would that Our Government (a blanket term that George Bush and FEMA can pull up over their collective heads when the next storm hits) had found the time to do the same.