Benjamin Wallace-Wells, a liberal progressive Democrat writer for the liberal leftist New Yorker magazine, was puzzled by the media attention and glorification of the volunteerism of the Cajun Navy during Hurricane Harvey when there were more important things to talk about, like climate change. Wallace-Wells went on to observe, with some severity, the replacement of government with volunteers, believing that government bureaucrats should run every aspect of our lives, including hurricane and flood relief. I found my local bureaucrat disaster relief manager in his bunker, staring fixedly at his computer screen, tracking the latest path of this week’s super hurricane. When I asked if he was going to call on the Cajun Navy he reminded me we were in Kansas, but said Morgan’s Creek might bear watching.

He glanced up from his screen and said
We bureaucrats are far ahead
Of amateurs and other body types
You see those shelves on yonder wall
There’s regulations for us all
And cardboard boxes full of handy wipes
This bunker here is built to last
And if the creek is rising fast
We’re safe and sound in here all shut up tight
I’ve got my big computer screen
With isobars in red and green
And when disaster strikes I spend the night
And when emergency is nigh
And Morgan’s Creek is getting high
I know who is at fault and who to blame
Home Depot has my telephone
And if I need a further loan
The government will back me so they claim
So we don’t need no amateurs
To help us with these little chores
Like hurricanes and blizzards and the like
The teletype sends warnings out
There are things there to think about
And then I sigh and put them on the spike