1480 What media bias?

The USAToday Sept. 9 had a detailed article about who responds when in a disaster like Katrina. First response falls to local government familiar with local conditions. According to this report, Nagin gave city residents a non-mandatory evacuation order on August 27, and told those without transportation to go to the Superdome and the Convention Center. There was no transportation planning for 134,000 people, according to USAToday.

Second response was to be from the state. The state agencies help the locals with logistics and manpower. In the paper's timeline, Gov. Blanco "wrote" Bush to ask for help on August 28. I'm not sure what that means. It didn't say she declared an emergency which I heard on Air America this morning (which of course blames evil Republicans for all of this). USAToday said 65% of the Louisiana Guard were available to the Governor, but editorialized it was "depleted by deployment" in the war and anemic recruiting (a state responsibility?). They used the word "delay" for her 24 hour "I'll get back to you" response to the President that Nagin reported yesterday on CNN.

Finally, the third level of responsibility is the Federal government, specifically FEMA. And FEMA has state agencies which it funds. Twice in this section of the article it was noted that President Bush was on vacation. A state of emergency was declared August 27, it said, and FEMA was moving in response teams and stockpiling supplies by August 28. But, of course, Bush was on vacation. On August 30, the President was giving a speech about the end of WWII, it said, and made some "remarks" about the disaster, and ended his vacation on Sept. 1. So August 30 was a vacation day even though he was giving a speech in California, and August 27 and 28 were vacation days even though he was working with Louisiana's governor and the FEMA staff.

Then on the editorial pages, USAToday continues to batter FEMA because that's the only direct way to get to Bush. Says Bush replaced competent leaders with political pals. Hello? Don't all Presidents replace the former administration's people? And he didn't have disaster experience? There has never been a Librarian appointed the Librarian of Congress, so this doesn't surprise me that someone who managed a large private association would be appointed to a large government agency. It's the civil service people who do the grunt work, not the political appointees. And of course, the war has drained resources, and FEMA was swallowed up by Homeland Security (an agency that Bush and the Republicans resisted). What will solve all this? Why a speedy investigation, of course.

Anyone know why Congress wasn't criticized for being on vacation? Even Hollywood beat the Black Caucus to the scene. As near as I could tell, only Bobby Jindal was on hand to help from the Louisiana group, who showed up way late.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about how the rich sat out the storm. Some stayed and had their food and water helicoptered in. One guy who stayed was Mayor Nagin's head of the Rapid Transport Agency. When the water rose, he had a private Israeli security company airlift him out, and he's waiting in Colorado for the meeting he'll have with Nagin's staff somewhere in Texas, I guess. He's fortunate he didn't need to use New Orleans RTA (which got $22 million in 2003 from the Federal gov't for trolley service) to get out of town, isn't it?

1479 What if Hurricane Ivan had hit New Orleans?

That scenario was examined in 2004 here.

Here's what was predicted:

Pushed a 17-foot storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain;

Caused the levees between the lake and the city to overtop and fill the city “bowl” with water from lake levee to river levee, in some places as deep as 20 feet;

Flooded the north shore suburbs of Lake Pontchartrain with waters pushing as much as seven miles inland; and

Inundated inhabited areas south of the Mississippi River.

Up to 80 percent of the structures in these flooded areas would have been severely damaged from wind and water. The potential for such extensive flooding and the resulting damage is the result of a levee system that is unable to keep up with the increasing flood threats from a rapidly eroding coastline and thus unable to protect the ever-subsiding landscape."

Many people chose not to evacuate during Hurrican Ivan. Here's why:

"The fact that 600,000 residents evacuated means an equal number did not. Recent evacuation surveys show that two thirds of nonevacuees with the means to evacuate chose not to leave because they felt safe in their homes. Other nonevacuees with means relied on a cultural tradition of not leaving or were discouraged by negative experiences with past evacuations."

What was learned after Hurricane Ivan about the able bodied non-evacuees?

"Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars. A proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished."

1478 Can't someone shut Jesse up until this is over?

Do we need another disaster of hot, racist air in an already volatile atmosphere? Does this man know how to do or say anything helpful? He's terrified apparently that he will lose his base if blacks catch on to his game.

" "It is racist to call American citizens refugees," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, visiting the Houston Astrodome on Monday. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have expressed similar sentiments."

1477 Katrina Bush

That's the name of a 33 year old evacuee from New Orleans who has arrived in Columbus, Ohio with 25 members of her extended family, and a few other non-relatives. The family had evacuated their homes and gone as a group to a hotel to ride out the storm. After three days they were rescued from that building by volunteers in a boat and dropped on a highway where they spent the night. Eventually, after some horrific experiences, they made their way to the evacuation center in Baton Rouge. There she heard someone named Dave from Ohio announce that he would take people back there to start over.

Katrina Bush and her son settle in at a Best Western in Columbus, Ohio

Dave Whinham and Brent Crawford own apartments and a real estate firm and have set these families up for a year, rent free, in one of their facilities and will help them get jobs. A group of Columbus residents met them with cheers and applause when they arrived. They traveled here on a bus supplied by our church, Upper Arlington Lutheran which had sent it down loaded with supplies. I don't know if Whinham and Crawford are connected with UALC, but sometimes private concerns can act more quickly and effectively than government agencies overwhelmed with other needs.

The larger group relocation to three major Ohio cities has been postponed. Someone has decided moving people to northern cities or to cruise ships may not be the best way to recover from this trauma. However, there are stories of people in Zanesville and Hilliard who just got on the internet and found people willing to relocate. There's a new hurricane baby in Zanesville with lots and lots of god parents.

1476 Hurricane Mythology and the Media

This researcher must get discouraged. Henry W. Fischer III investigated how the media covered Hurricane Gilbert(1989) and Hurricane Georges (1998), 10 years apart, and found pretty much the same thing:

"Why does belief in the disaster mythology continue to plague us? Regardless of research findings (for example, see Fischer, 1998) many still believe panic flight, martial law, psychological dependence, looting and other forms of deviant behavior, price gouging, disaster shock, contagion, and the mass sheltering of a majority of the would-be victims are all symptomatic of a community's disaster response. Mass media has been found to be a prime reason for the continued perpetuation of the disaster mythology among laypersons and emergency personnel. A quick response grant supported work by this researcher ten years ago resulting in a case study of how the media presented the world with a picture of the community response to Hurricane Gilbert. While most national and local, print and broadcast reporters were found to subscribe to the disaster mythology, their reporting was observed to vary nevertheless. Why? The Gilbert study findings suggested that the local print and broadcast media were more likely to share in the altruistic role of the victim, resulting in a desire to help their communities successfully respond to and recover from the hurricane. As a result, the local media tended to essentially turned news management over to local officials-reporting what local officials stated with respect to community needs and response. If the local officials were accurate, the reporting was accurate. On the other hand, national reporters were found to be guided by a different norm; they appeared to seek to provide their audience (who were not co-victims) with a picture or story of what typically occurs in a hurricane. As such, they created a scenario based upon their perception of reality. These reporters maintained control over news management and, as a result, created a story line reinforcing the disaster mythology."

So the looting stories in the media were the President's fault? In 1989?

"Looting is perhaps the behavior most expected by the public and officials. Police departments usually talk about the fear and incidence of looting, the media report stories of its occurrence, and governors call out the National Guard to "protect against" it. Potential victims or survivors often report that they will not leave their homes because they fear looting. They paint signs which read: "DON'T LOOT OR WE'LL SHOOT!" While looting does sometimes occur, concern over it far exceeds the rate at which it actually takes place. Unfortunately, excessive time and resources are often expended on looting which could be better employed in mitigating against and responding to higher priorities."

Anyone want to guess how Prof. Fischer's next study will turn out?

1475 Dear Nancy Pelosi

Before you move on to the big investigation in which you will find President Bush guilty of failing black and poor people, maybe you could start on a smaller story. Today the USAToday reported the sad story of Linda Bowie, her grandchildren and her mother (no mention of who or where the children's parents are). By the time Ms. Bowie made it to the Superdome last Wednesday pushing her mother (Ms. Herbert) in her hospital bed, she was stopped by a group of men (I'm guessing they were African American, but only because Rev. Jackson says everyone who evacuated there was) guarding I-10 with shotguns, pistols and AK-47s. The story is on 4A in print, or here.

"A neighbor found a boat. He and others dismantled the bed, floated it to Interstate 10 and reassembled it atop the elevated roadway. He then went back for the mother and the others. That was Tuesday. No rescuers came. So the small band disassembled the bed and took it back to Herbert's apartment and repeated the exercise Wednesday — repositioning Herbert in her bed atop the pavement.

Desperate, Bowie and her 13-year-old grandson, Kailen, took off for the Superdome on foot. "When we walked up," she recalls, "all the ... guys, they're lined up across I-10 with AK-47s and shotguns and hand pistols. And they said, 'You can't be up here.' I explained the situation to one of the guys, and he said, 'You go talk to that guy.' When I walked up to him, he just looked at me for a while.

"I said, 'Mister, I have a serious situation here.' He said, 'What's the matter?' And I explained it all to him. I thought my mother'd had a stroke. And he said, 'Well, let her die.' "

So she left, found a sympathetic soldier who got her mother evacuated by helicopter to a hospital. She returned to the Superdome with her grandchildren which she says was filled with people scalping food and drugs, fighting, murder and rape.

I think this is a very serious story that you, Rainbow Jesse and Prophet Elijah Cummings of the Black Caucus need to investigate. This is the reason thousands chose to stay in their flood ravaged homes and are disobeying the Mayor's eviction notice. They knew the Superdome's reputation as a hurricane shelter, and NO ONE wanted to be there. This story stinks, but the smell doesn't lead back to Washington DC, or Crawford TX, or even to RFKjr and the environmentalists screaming global warming. This is a failure at the local level, a failure of "Biblical proportions." Get to it Nancy; you've got a real story here.

1474 When did the Red Cross arrive?

It hasn't. Marty Evans was interviewed on Fox tonight about specifics of aid, and volunteers. The Red Cross was not allowed into New Orleans by the Louisiana Homeland Security. In case you're the type who doesn't trust Fox News to get it right, here's the statement from their web page. She also spoke on the Larry King show on CNN.

Louisiana couldn't guarantee their safety, nor did they want people remaining there, so although this sounds a bit crazy to us, I suppose it makes sense to them. From their web page:

"Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

The Red Cross has been meeting the needs of thousands of New Orleans residents in some 90 shelters throughout the state of Louisiana and elsewhere since before landfall. All told, the Red Cross is today operating 149 shelters for almost 93,000 residents.

The Red Cross shares the nation’s anguish over the worsening situation inside the city. We will continue to work under the direction of the military, state and local authorities and to focus all our efforts on our lifesaving mission of feeding and sheltering.

The Red Cross does not conduct search and rescue operations. We are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access.

The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives."

Keep in mind, it is the Governor of Louisiana who gives orders to the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Agency (gets its money and training from FEMA), and it was that decision that kept the Red Cross food and water from the evacuees.

1473 Will the Democrats regret calling

loudly for investigations so quickly before leading Dems can get their stories in sync? Nancy Pelosi D-CA is crying for Brownie's scalp (FEMA) and a Task Force. Who set this up, anyway? Why is FEMA in Homeland Security? Well, it was a prominant Democrat, whom I happen to like, and once was running for President.

"Senator Lieberman is Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and former Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the Senate's principal oversight Committee, with responsibility for reviewing "the efficiency and economy of operations of all branches of government." Under the chairmanship of Senator Lieberman in 2001 and 2002, the Committee focused on the nation's homeland security, on corporate accountability, and on the Bush Administration's weakening of environmental regulations. Committee legislation enacted into law under Senator Lieberman's leadership includes laws creating the Homeland Security Department, establishing an independent commission to examine the causes of the September 11th attack, and facilitating the transition to electronic government, by requiring the federal government to make more information and services available to the public online. The Committee also has jurisdiction over many aspects of federal government management, the federal civil service, federal government procurement, the U.S. Postal Service and the District of Columbia." From Senator Lieberman's home page.

Who should have bussed those without transportation? Whose responsibility was it to have food and water for people evacuated to the Convention Center and Super Dome? Chertoff wasn't suppose to hand out water bottles. The Democratic Mayor, Ray Nagin, should've at least been in town.

Whose responsibility was it to call for help from the Federal government, and said, I'll get back to you in 24 hours? Would you, Nancy, put the President on hold like a crank caller? The Democratic Governor, Ms. Blanco, did.

So Nancy, honey, cool it. We've already got enough women pols making our sex look like dithering bird brains. You're setting the movement back. Let your buddies circle their wagons and reload. And put Jesse Jackson and Sean Penn and the Hollywood Monday morning quarterbacks back on the bench.

1472 The CYA attitude in government

Technically, I've been on the "dole" most of my adult life, because I worked in tax supported university libraries. However, working for the state government only six months was the real eye opener for me. Dr. Sanity today clips pieces from a variety of sources, but also comments:

"This "pseudo-action" is the hallmark of government on all levels, from the local to the federal. From NASA to FEMA to the Post Office. Somehow, all these agencies are able to transform huge amounts of money from the taxpayers into the appearance of doing something, when in fact, they fiercely resist any change, any improvement, any suggestions. They remain fixated in granite from their points of origin, determined not to adapt or change with the times. This attitude is insured by the creation of new levels and levels of bureaucracy after every crisis or failure."

When I worked for the State of Ohio I rubbed shoulders with some of the best and brightest of my whole career. Brain cell for brain cell many surpassed the people I knew at the university. There was an energy and desire to serve there that I never saw in academe. However, there was another group of "hangers-on" in those offices who literally sat in their offices behind closed doors with absolutely nothing to do, hired by someone because their daddy had contributed to the party. There were others who were fabulous in appearance and oratory, but were ethically and intellectually challenged. They wouldn't have known a 40 hour work week unless you introduced them at a party. Yes, pseudo-action: "transforming huge amounts of money into the appearance of doing something" is probably what happened in New Orleans at the parish, city, and state level and in DC at the Congressional and agency level.

1471 Blanco told President "24 hours"

Mayor Nagin told CNN today that Governor Blanco needed 24 hours to think about the proposal the President made for taking over the disaster control on Air Force One. Sounds like he's getting tired of being blamed for the chaos in the response. I'm guessing that soon both Bush and Nagin will stop being gentelmen and let the lady have it. I don't know about you, but if the President of the United States told me, "This is what we'll do," I wouldn't put him off with a "24 hour thinkathon." It wasn't a marriage proposal.

CNN report recorded here, but I heard it on the radio.

1470 The No Pork Challenge

Today I suggested items that the different states could contribute to disaster relief, including Jesse Jackson's mouth for waste removal. But on September 1 Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has "challenged members of Congress to block funding for unrelated pork projects in its aid package for hurricane recovery, and to help offset the bill’s cost by returning the $24 billion worth of earmarks in the recently enacted highway bill."

This would most likely be that $233 million dollar bridge to no where in Alaska that will benefit no one and may even hurt the locals.

It continues: "Congressional leaders expect to negotiate an emergency supplemental spending bill when Congress reconvenes next week. Hurricane Katrina has been called the most expensive disaster in the country’s history. One expert said that federal aid could top $30 billion, which will add to the $331 billion deficit predicted for fiscal 2005.

“In the past, Congress has shortchanged our troops, disaster victims, and taxpayers by including self-serving pork projects in emergency spending bills,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said. “Maybe this time, the widespread devastation and loss of life will shame them into forgoing egregious spending that will hinder recovery efforts and add to the deficit.” "
Don't count on it, Tom. Pork buys votes and builds highways that are naming opportunities.

"Emergency supplemental bills have become a magnet for pork because they do not count against House and Senate budget caps and such bills are always signed by the President."

The announcement then lists the additional funding requests that made it into supplemental bills.

Than back track to this site's database and look at Louisiana for the various years. As a keyword, try "Army Corps of Engineers," or just the word "water."

1469 Jesse Jackson and the N Word

Many states are offering assistance to the hurricane area. My dream would be that Ohio could loan (dump) its Republican Governor Taft and Republican Senator Voinovich to fill in for some of Louisiana's inept Democrats. As poor as they are, they'd be an improvement. I'd like to see Alaska donate the money for its bridge to nowhere (serves 50 people and costs about $233 million) to restore some of the bridges in Mississippi and Louisiana. West Virginia will be feeding and housing in some families, but how much better if they could donate some good old boy pork for highway rebuilding--they could be called the Robert Byrd highways just as easily in Alabama or Mississippi as West Virginia. More pork here to throw in the pot.




Robert Byrd Dam in West Virginia





I'm not sure what state claims Jessie Jackson, but where ever it is, my sympathies. Would you please donate his mouth to funnel all the cesspool water out of the flooded areas? The N Word I'm thinking of is Narcissist. Mr. Jackson is the biggest Me, Me, It's all about Me, guy around. It's all about Me especially when Me is a one person speaks-for-my-race sort of guy. The drivel coming from his mouth during this tragedy is just beyond belief. Let's put that mouth to better use for waste disposal.

1468 On planning for a hurricane disaster

Over at Captain's Quarters I noticed this link to the Emergency Preparedness Plan for the City of New Orleans.

There are phrases in this Plan familiar to all of us who have ever been a member of a task force charged with coming up with a plan. About 20 years ago I worked for the State of Ohio as a planner and had to put together a plan that showed the various "agencies" under that department were all heading the same direction. Never having done anything larger than a small task force report for a small library problem I was baffled about where to begin. Then I discovered by reading through similar reports that all I needed to do was find out what each agency was already doing and then add the words: provide, maintain, participate, develop, ensure, conduct, test, disseminate, facilitate, etc., along with lots of "train" and "education" words, and then add a time line that fit within the period of time that political party would be in charge. It's almost a miracle how you can meet your plan deadline quickly. So I was not surprised to see phrases to nowhere in the plan.

"Coordinates, facilitates and encourages"

"develop evaluation procedures"

"sponsor and coordinate"

"shall work in conjunction with"

training in "appropriate plans and standard operating procedures"

"required to develop and implement"

This report even has trifectas: "Develop adequate educational materials for dissemination" and "consult with other city departments and agencies in development of appropriate bulletins affecting their activities." Ah, the faith this country has in education, especially if it stays on a paper plan.

However, writing a plan that describes the disaster is not the same as being prepared for the disaster, and that appears to be where Nagin's administration failed:

"Certain hazards, such as a hurricane, provide some lead time for coordinating an evacuation. However, this can not be considered a certainty. Plus, the sheer size of an evacuation in response to an approaching hurricane creates the need for the use of community-wide warning resources, which cannot be limited to our City's geographical boundaries. Evacuation of major portions of our population, either in response to localized or citywide disasters, can only be accomplished if the citizens and visitors are kept informed of approaching threats on a timely schedule, and if they are notified of the need to evacuate in a timely and organized manner. If an evacuation order is issued without the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area impacted by toxic materials."

1467 New Orleans Police collapsing?

I've read that Mayor Nagin of New Orleans is going to send some of his police to Vegas for a break. I hope that is a cruel, right wing rumor. But things don't look good for him:

"Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city, at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their jobs, and two have committed suicide, police officials said yesterday.

Some officers told superiors that they were leaving, police officials said. Others worked for a while and then stopped showing up. Still others, for reasons not always clear, never made it in after the storm."

Story here from Seattle Times, but is from the New York Times. I think it is too much "he said, she said," to be solid news, but that's NYT for you. I came across this article looking for the one where the NYT praised Congress for resisting flood control excesses, and I passed by the photo of all the buses underwater that the mayor didn't use, and the story about how the President had to plead with the Mayor Saturday night [before the hurricane hit] to get him to give a mandatory evacuation order. Some of these stories are so beyond belief you just don't know how to go about researching them.

1466 You can choose your tribe

You can't choose your parents but you can choose your Tribe--the guys in the white hats, Bill says.

"Only a few minutes ago, I had the delightful opportunity to read the comment of a fellow who said he wished that white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself could have been herded into the Superdome Concentration Camp to see how much we like it. Absent, of course, was the fundamental truth of what he plainly does not have the eyes or the imagination to see, namely, that if the Superdome had been filled with white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself, it would not have been a refinery of horror, but rather a citadel of hope and order and restraint and compassion.

That has nothing to do with me being white. If the blacks and Hispanics and Jews and gays that I work with and associate with were there with me, it would have been that much better. That’s because the people I associate with – my Tribe – consists not of blacks and whites and gays and Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal. My Tribe consists of people who know that sometimes bad things happen, and that these are an opportunity to show ourselves what we are made of. My people go into burning buildings. My Tribe consists of organizers and self-starters, proud and self-reliant people who do not need to be told what to do in a crisis. My Tribe is not fearless; they are something better. They are courageous. My Tribe is honorable, and decent, and kind, and inventive. My Tribe knows how to give orders, and how to follow them. My Tribe knows enough about how the world works to figure out ways to boil water, ration food, repair structures, build and maintain makeshift latrines, and care for the wounded and the dead with respect and compassion.

There are some things my Tribe is not good at at all. My Tribe doesn’t make excuses. My Tribe will analyze failure and assign blame, but that is to make sure that we do better next time, and we never, ever waste valuable energy and time doing so while people are still in danger. My Tribe says, and in their heart completely believes that it’s the other guy that’s the hero. My Tribe does not believe that a single Man can cause, prevent or steer Hurricanes, and my Tribe does not and has never made someone else responsible for their own safety, and that of their loved ones.

My Tribe doesn’t fire on people risking their lives, coming to help us. My Tribe doesn’t curse such people because they arrived on Day Four, when we felt they should have been here before breakfast on Day One. We are grateful, not to say indebted, that they have come at all. My Tribe can’t eat Nike’s and we don’t know how to feed seven by boiling a wide-screen TV. My Tribe doesn’t give a sweet God Damn about what color the looters are, or what color the rescuers are, because we can plainly see before our very eyes that both those Tribes have colors enough to cover everyone in glory or in shame. My Tribe doesn’t see black and white skins. My Tribe only sees black and white hats, and the hat we choose to wear is the most personal decision we can make." [Permission to use given for personal use, and I'm obviously making no money at this]

There's much more by Bill at Eject, Eject, Eject. Read what he says about pink and grey. Very interesting.

1465 New Orleans and Houston

When New Orleans had such a head start and is better located, why did Houston pull ahead years ago. One word says Thomas Lifson. Corruption.

"Many years ago, an oilman in Houston pointed out to me that there was no inherent reason Houston should have emerged as the world capital of the petroleum business. New Orleans was already a major city with centuries of history, proximity to oil deposits, and huge transportation advantages when the Houston Ship Channel was dredged, making the then-small city of Houston into a major port. The discovery of the Humble oil field certainly helped Houston rise as an oil center, but the industry could just as easily have centered itself in New Orleans.

When I pressed my oilman informant for the reason Houston prevailed, he gave me a look of pity for my naiveté, and said, “Corruption.” Anyone making a fortune in New Orleans based on access to any kind of public resources would find himself coping with all sorts of hands extended for palm-greasing. Permits, taxes, fees, and outright bribes would be a never-ending nightmare. Houston, in contrast, was interested in growth, jobs, prosperity, and extending a welcoming hand to newcomers. New Orleans might be a great place to spend a pleasant weekend, but Houston is the place to build a business.

Today, metropolitan Houston houses roughly 4 times the population of pre-Katrina metropolitan New Orleans, despite the considerable advantage New Orleans has of capturing the shipping traffic of the Mississippi basin.

It is far from a coincidence that Houston is now absorbing refugees from New Orleans, and preparing to enroll the children of New Orleans in its own school system. Houston is a city built on the can-do spirit (space exploration, oil, medicine are shining examples of the human will to knowledge and improvement, and all have been immeasurably advanced by Houstonians). Houston officials have capably planned for their own possible severe hurricanes, and that disaster planning is now selflessly put at the disposal of their neighbors to the east."

1464 All dressed up with no place to go

Florida nurse/librarian still waiting for a response from Louisiana. Is Baton Rouge under water too?

1463 Where to point the finger next?

Watching the blame game heat up has caused me to look a little closer to home. I'll toss out some thoughts, but although I'm a "problem solver" by nature, I confess I see the problem in my own backyard, but have no solution to offer, and I'm not using that term idiomatically. I mean the backyard I see when I look out my living room window.

First, I'll digress, as is my pattern. I grew up near the Rock River in northern Illinois. Every spring I would see the flooding, and even as a child I wondered, "Why do people live there?" Same thoughts went through my mind this past week while watching the New Orleans tragedy. Of course, in drier weather as we drove by those same homes perched on stilts next to the Rock River, I would draw my own child-like conclusions seeing the automobiles sitting on concrete blocks in the yards, the mounds of trash, the junk yard dogs barking at us, and the pasty skin color of the children in their shabby clothes. Yes, as a child my conclusion was these people were so poor that there was no place else for them to live but near the water. "They" made those poor people live there. That they wanted to be there, didn't want the confinements of town life, zoning and rules, never even crossed my mind. Here is a recent report on that river with good maps and great photographs. It is available on the web in a pdf form, but I can't seem to get it to load.

I haven't lived there for many years, but when I am in that area I see that people still want the calming beauty of the river area even though there is still some flooding (more controlled now). Only now, most of the shacks are gone. The homes are definitely upscale, just like here in central Ohio where people build gorgeous homes between Route 33 and the Scioto River; homes that sit on stilts or high foundations, property surrounded by walls to push the flooding problem further down stream; houses that require evacuation when the ice flows break and back up at the dam, built some years ago to relieve flooding in our area, but which probably creates problems down stream.

Every city on a river must have dozens of conflicting jurisdictional reports from finger pointing officials--and we have two major rivers flowing through Columbus, bordered by dozens of suburbs. And we have creeks. When we lived on Abington Road there was a creek one house away. The only name I ever heard for it came from a 90 years old I knew in the 1970s--Evans Ditch. It had been created by contractors for run off. But the area was lovely until the terrible storm in the early 1970s when every house (except ours) had 2 or 3 feet of water in the basement. We had no basement. The Ditch was repaired, people built stronger rip-rap to keep water from their yards and basement, and water began to back up further north where there was new building. It was called Turkey Run in that area as I recall, beautiful but often flooded.

We have that creek (Turkey Run Watershed--I'm not sure it is a "real" mother nature creek, or a man made creek for run off) surrounding our condo complex. Our view from every unit is spectacular because of the creek. There are huge trees and wild life, right here in the middle of the city--the scene refreshes our spirits and the air.

Our association takes care of our side. Even so, I'm not sure what our erosion control that we pay for through our assessments is creating further down stream as it flows into Columbus, past the hospital complex and into another jurisdiction. When I walk along the creek, I can see that the other side, bordered by maybe a dozen different properties with near million dollar homes is eroding badly. Those people are on a steep ravine, and although they enjoy the same trees we do, they probably cannot see the creek and the erosion because they wouldn't be able to get to it without great effort. Our side, however, is helpless to control their behavior, like blowing all their leaves into the creek, or not trimming the dead wood.


Deer seen from our unit

1462 Is it yard sale time

Or packing for college? Or sending clothes to relief agencies? Title of a rap song? My broken zipper post is getting a lot of hits. But even on a slow day it gets at least one or two.

1461 He can spell, punctuate and protect himself

AP photographer Jessica Leigh caught this boarded up building sign:

"Don't try. I'm sleeping inside with a big dog, an ugly woman, two shotguns and a claw hammer."

Obviously, a well educated person who doesn't plan to evacuate or put up with looters.

It's not where I first saw it, but here's a version.

1460 A touching scene

This photo of five year old Tanisha Blevin and 105 year old Nita LaGarde 105 being evacuated is one of the best I've seen. It was on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch, but has appeared elsewhere. Eric Gay, AP is the photographer.

A new wine for old drinkers

American Daughter has a post about a new wine for seniors. I'm not sure how many people will enjoy it, but I laughed.

1458 Are you prepared for an emergency?

Yesterday I went through my woefully small emergency stash which I put together in the Spring of 2003. I think I had enough food for two people for two days, one gallon of drinking water, and one for flushing. Even my battery operated radio and flashlight were someplace other than the stash. Not good.

Babs who is a doctor has some suggestions on self-sufficiency until you can get help:

"We're an unimaginably wealthy society. Katrina notwithstanding, even most of our poor have electricity, food, shelter, even televisions, radios, and CD players. But our ease is making us soft and complacent. Believe me, I'm looking in the mirror, not only out at the rest of America.

Put down the fork. Run. Hike with a heavy pack. Stock the pantry. Lift weights. Take a firearms class. If the worst happens, the police aren't coming. The National Guard's not coming. The Red Cross, ain't coming.

If the worst never happens, you'll at least be a sharp shot.

And you'll look fabulous."

Well said, Babs.

1457 Misplaced kindness?

Massachusetts is taking them; West Virginia is taking them; Georgia. All the states now want to look generous. But thousands of people have lost loved ones. How will they cope in Massachusetts? How will they identify the dead? How will they bring them back or reconnect the living? The task just boggles the mind. I think the story of the 29 premies is so compelling. Most of their mothers had gone home from the hospital and the babies were in the neonatal unit. The babies have been evacuated to another state (one mother). Who knows where their mothers are?

And there are still people refusing to leave their homes and get in the boats--bodies floating by. Unbelievable. One guy on top of a multi-story building holding a water bottle shouts down, "Everyone who wants to go is gone." Wonder if he is one of the looters. Wonder if he has enough water and food for several months, or if in another week he'll be griping that there wasn't enough help?

1456 Mr. Blitzer, How does this help?

Here's why I seldom watch CNN. Everytime I've switched for another viewpoint from Fox or one of the nationals, I hear whining and complaining and blaming. I am right now watching Blitzer's "State of Emergency" special. His question right now is "How angry are you?" of the Republican (Jindal) and Democrat (Jefferson) Congressmen. His exact words. "How angry are you?" I've heard newspeople ask dumb questions in times of tragedy (how does this make you feel, etc.), but this one scrapes the bottom. Jindal tells him there is plenty of blame to go around and "we should have been better prepared." The Democrat downplayed the violence [a few shots, he said] that kept the rescuers away, but Jindal talked about the terrible toll lack of security took on the rescue efforts.

If it were you and your buddies from Arkansas in a bass boat going in to rescue people in New Orleans out of the goodness of your heart, how many shots from homegrown criminals would it take to stop you?

Blitzer's next question is "How has FEMA failed?". Jindal jumped right in, and said it shouldn't be under Homeland Security, but expressed his frustration at the lack of communication between the Governor's office and the Federal agencies, each thinking the other was supposed to act. If the Democrat commented, I missed it.

While Fox is showing heroic acts of kindness and rescue, Robert Reich is now on CNN's Blitzer-Bash saying, "this is how low we as a people have sunk; and poor people have been hurt most and people are worse off than ever according to last months reports (before the hurricane, blah, blah)." [What an opportunist] Apparently, he knows nothing about the people who refused to leave, or the local people who were in charge of their safety or the plans to put people in the convention center and super dome with one day of food and water. I'm switching back to some balance. I have extremely low blood pressure but I think it's rising.

Lt. Gen. Russel Honore (man in charge, now) is now speaking on both cable channels about how they planned ahead for this [Everything first has to be moved out of the way so it isn't destroyed]. He's making sense, but I doubt that Blitzer will hear it. He's probably gone to the restroom or bar for a drink. Thirty states sent National Guardsmen. Mr. Blitzer, those people work in our communities. It takes a bit of time to get their gear, on to planes and find a place they can land.

1455 I'm with Amy on this one

Conservatives don't walk lock-step (or synchronize swim right now) like some other persuasions. I'm with Amy, who's been fairly restrained in writing about Katrina. Hewitt must be sniffing too much levee sewage. Sometimes you just need a woman to step in and open a window for some fresh air.

"I wouldn't follow Hugh Hewitt's advice, as reported by The Paragraph Farmer, to "Establish a Center for the Study of Mass Casualty Events at Tulane University in New Orleans." If I have a long-term suggestion for Tulane University in New Orleans, it is this: Move. A "Center for the Study of Mass Casualty Events" based in a city that is a sitting duck for mass casualty events every 100-200 years (there could just as easily be another one next month as in 2017 or 2077 or 2111 or any year you pick out of a hat) is a perversity. One is either in favor of reducing mass casualty events or one is not. (If such a center were to be established, it could be entitled the "Center for the Encouragement of Mass Casualty Events.")"

And she's right on here: "(Consider this: People who seem to hate George W. Bush also want him to be their Mommy. Are they twisted or what?)" I think I'll add that to my quote line up top.

And then she lists 13 good suggestions. Here's 9-12:

9) Local and state governments should have very harsh penalties for looting.

10) Local and state governments should have enhanced penalties for violent crime during states of emergency. Very enhanced.

11) Local and state governments should eliminate the statute of limitations for all crimes conducted in an area under a state of emergency. A conviction 20 years from now is better than no conviction at all.

12) No plea bargains should be accepted for anyone who shot at rescue personnel or committed any crime whatsoever that had the affect of impeding rescue operations during a state of emergency. These crimes are very serious and the message must be sent that anyone who does anything like this can kiss his or her old lifestyle goodbye for quite a long time indeed.
Read them here.

1454 The debate/blame is just starting

Is this a natural disaster or a man-made [i.e. Bush] disaster is just one of the debates starting up (the blame-Bush wing got a head start). I've been looking through the environmental documents and recommendations, and it seems to be a given that what the Corps of Engineers did in the 1960s to divert and control the Mississippi River was a huge mistake. Since we can't dig those guys up and whack them, I'm not surprised at some scepticism at experts wanting more millions to fix the wetlands that have been destroyed by that action. It seems to be a given that corruption in Louisiana was so rampant that the millions or billions sunk into the levees for a category 3 hurricane [the recommendations] might as well have been dropped directly on the water. The corruption and crime in the area seems to transcend both parties and washes across both sides of the aisle.

But there was one tiny tidbit of information I noticed last night in an interview with Steve Harvey, a Christian actor who has a foundation to help the poor and had arrived on scene to survey the situation before sending aid. The reporter asked him who he'd been talking with (seems to be a common question to ask celebrities), and he mentioned a man who had chosen to stay with his home during the hurricane. After it had passed and the family left the house (on dry ground) to survey the damage, he saw two grain barges had broken loose and they smashed through the levee wall. Immediately (he lived next to the levee) the neighborhood was up to their rooftops in water. His wife was in a wheelchair and he was unable to save her and other members of his family.

So if a hurricane wave or wind pushes a barge through an inadequate levee, is it part of a natural or a man-made disaster?

Another disaster, this one more man-made, is the sea of rules and regulations each agency worker, volunteer and victim must swim through. I heard one interview where Red Cross workers did not have the authority to give people dry clothes, diapers and medications, so they weren't. I heard that Wal-Mart was giving each flooded out employee (I think they have over 100 stores and distribution centers closed) three days wages and a $250 food benefit, and I'm willing to bet that it will be docked from their government unemployment benefits, when and if they work through that maze without ID or evidence. There were "police" from one parish keeping people from leaving the convention center area (that's what some of the flooded out people said who were trying to walk out to another parish after days of no buses). Bus drivers headed to a particular evacuee destination 8 or 9 hours away were not allowed by local police to drop people off in cities where they had relatives because their centers were full.

When fear of government regulations drowns out common sense, I think I'll name it "man-made."

1453 What they were saying in 2000 about New Orleans

Was anyone listening?

"New research by the U.S. Geological Survey, however, indicates that New Orleans is sinking faster than many realize and could be under water within 50 years. The city is facing a series of issues--disappearing wetlands that protect from hurricanes, levees that are too low to hold back flood waters, rising water tables, to name a few--that if not addressed soon could have New Orleans suffering the same fate as Atlantis.

Dramatic, yes. But not unlikely, according to Shea Penland, geologist and professor at the University of New Orleans. "When we get the big hurricane and there are 10,000 people dead, the city government's been relocated to the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, refugee camps have been set up and there $10 billion plus in losses, what then?" he asks." Risk and Insurance, Dec. 2000.

So do you go with the "old" plan, the one that prepares for a category 3 storm, or to you go back to the drawing board with the new information?

1452 Vacuum up the cat hair

That's what I did during the President's speech this morning. I'm so frustrated. The most powerful woman in the world is not a white woman from New York, Hillary Clinton, she is a black woman from Alabama, Condoleeza Rice, and all she is allowed to say when the criticism pours in, even from a mayor who had a full week to prepare, is something like, "Now, now, it's going to be OK." It was so bland, I can't even find it on Google. Meanwhile she lets the media shred the administration. It is so frustrating.

No Republican politician wants to say that letting states decide what to do during a multi-state catastrophe probably isn't a good idea. That would be very bad for their base. No state government wants to acknowledge that their bloated bureaucracies are just that--filled with incompetents. No Democrat in Washington wants to point fingers at a Democratic mayor and a Democratic governor so they point to a Republican president. No FEMA employee wants to say, you local folks ought to know how to do your job so we can do ours. But no one elected me, so I say, "a plague on all your houses."

1451 At last, someone acknowledges. . .

An African American reporter on Fox News is interviewing a New Orleans black woman who was in New York to care for an elderly relative. She is seeking information about her family who had not evacuated and is showing photographs. The reporter asked her why they didn't leave. I'm paraphrasing: "You have to understand these people in the south. Their home is everything to them. They are afraid looters will come in and steal if they leave."

1450 Nevertheless, we need to address in this country. . .

Blah, blah, blah. That's what is said when the talking heads discuss why all these people waiting on bridges and in sports palaces in a town built on the shaky economic base of tourism are African American. It couldn't be that the city is 70% black or that they elected people who were inexperienced or incapable of addressing the problem.

No, it is white racism. No one has said, at least not that I've read, "Where are the men?" I saw so many touching, heart warming scenes of women helping women--pushing an elderly relative in a grocery cart, or four women floating a mother or auntie through the sewage filled water on an air mattress. Yes, I did see some men, many of whom looked like they may have been homeless before the flooding (they were mostly white, btw), but overwhelmingly the cameras picked up on the faces of the women. There would be groups of 10 or 15 making their way to safety with only 2 or 3 men. Now is that TV bias to get our sympathy, or is it reality? I'm sure someone will raise this issue and blame CNN and Fox or whoever provided the feed.

Another thing I didn't see (doesn't mean it didn't happen) was the flooded out people attempting to organize themselves to help each other. Families were helping family members, that much was clear, but did anyone create safe areas, or latrine areas, or organize in any way to protect the larger group against thugs? Yes, they were expecting help momentarily, but it was also 90+ degrees, the town was flooded and on fire. Was there no one in those crowds who could have at least provided some organization until help arrived?

1449 They are not refugees, they are peeps

That's my suggestion. I can't tell you how many irate people I've seen on TV complaining about the word "refugee." Some were just purists--it's a French word meaning to go to a foreign country for refuge. Others thought it was a way to dehumanize and demonize blacks. Well, lots of trendy people, like Paula, use the friendly word "peeps" to refer to a general clutch or group of people--sort of like using the word "they." And if you know peeps personally, I think they become "freeps."

I'm not sure if "peeps" can replace "refugees." It's sure to make someone mad. Where I grew up, peeps were baby chickens. They are sort of helpless and scatterbrained, and various groups will take offense. Also there is a confectionary product called marshmallow peeps, sweet and sticky with an easy melt down which comes in pink, yellow and green.

Language is very tricky--who can say what. A rapper I've never heard of who probably uses the words Ho and Niggar regularly in his music and takes buckets of money to the bank doing it, announced at an NBC fund raiser yesterday that "George Bush hates black people" because there was footage of looters on TV. Where are the film editors when you need them?

1448 The next group of looters

will be the lawyers descending on New Orleans. They probably won't be representing the poor, but will rush in to "help" the upper range income folks who lost everything, but still have assets. Yes, they'll make a luke-warm effort to sue the President, but I think they'll go after private companies with deep pockets that didn't provide enough security and an employee was killed, or which released toxic fumes when things exploded and someone got sick. They'll even try to sue the clean up companies a year from now when mold grows. Yes, I see them on the horizon now, brief cases loaded, text messaging their offices, sending faxes, a little spittle in the corner of their mouths.

1447 Write two checks

If you can spare it, write two checks. One for disaster relief and one to an organization locally you also support. I suspect there are just so many relief dollars to go around, and some local agencies that do good work in your own community might be hurt. I'm sending a check to the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Fund, North American Mission Board, P.O. Box 116543, Atlanta, GA 30368-6543 to help the Katrina victims and one to our local Pregnancy Decision Health Center to save some unborn babies.

1446 A volunteer gets no response

Be sure to read Matthew's comments on my blog about his efforts to volunteer either in a medical clinic (he's a nurse as well as a librarian) or in the morge. No one's home in Louisiana. Read it here.

1445 Dear Rep. Elijah Cummings

Dear Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md),

I see the Black Caucus has finally emerged five days after the hurricane--to criticize the federal government’s response to the disaster in New Orleans. One of your members, Stephanie Tubbs from my state, said this is not about race--right now. Meaning it will be later. But I think it is.
Stephanie Tubbs, (D-Oh)
It’s about ethnic and party loyalties, and sometimes it’s a two-fer. Your Black Caucus has been afraid to criticize the Mayor of New Orleans who is an African American Democrat. I think he did the best he knew how, but wasn’t up to the job. I don’t know how he got this office, or what experience he brought to it, but he was certainly no Rudy Giuliani, and that’s what the city needed--several, considering the breadth of the disaster. It was the mayor’s responsibility to have a plan to get the poorest and most vulnerable to safety, not the President of the United States, not the military, not the governor. It was his responsibility to ensure that the security forces of New Orleans had radio frequencies that could work together. It was his responsibility to have search and rescue plans in place, and equipment on hand to repair levees. These are local issues, and the people of New Orleans have been taxed for that.

And Louisiana’s governor is a Democrat. Again, I’m sure she is a nice person and means well. She speaks beautifully, as many politicians do (our president does not), but does not appear to be up to the task of facing down hurricanes. She just cries and asks people to pray. Someone said today she hasn’t yet called in the Louisiana National Guard. Surely that isn't true. Gracious!

Too much emphasis on looters? Really? Does Rev. Jackson mean the guys stealing bread and milk for their families or the thugs who were killing, stealing, holding firemen hostage and keeping rescue boats and helicopters from bring people to safety? Why shouldn’t anarchy in the streets, streets that should be under local control, be pinpointed by the media as a huge problem in a city crippled by a storm and poor preparedness. Why should the people of New Orleans have had to endure such a high crime rate by these same thugs all these years?

I’m not surprised the Democrats are running and hiding from this with wild theories about global warming, troops over extended in Iraq, and President Bush being on vacation. But you can’t hide forever. You’ll need to roll up your sleeves and do some house cleaning, and I don’t mean flood waters and sewage.

Update: I was just listening to George Pataky (Gov, NY) and he says his National Guard was there in LA Monday night. Could that be or did I not hear him right? Just googled it. Yep. They were there.

I'm an ugly American and I wanted it yesterday

That's what some of these reporters talking to the President sound like to me.

I've been watching this since we got home Sunday afternoon. On Tuesday morning the TV news was telling us that New Orleans had missed the worst and they showed people who'd stayed in their homes walking around in the street waving at the cameras.

Then the water started to rise as the levees were breached. So then the people started the walk through the water and sewage to the sports stadium that was already full of the people who had followed the order to evacuate. Many people made it to their roofs, and apparently many have drowned in their attics. On Tuesday I was watching the Coast Guard rescue people from roof tops.

On Wednesday morning the President returned to Washington. His enemies were already grumbling that it wasn't soon enough. I think it was the same people who thought he'd waited 7 minutes before processing the horror of September 11 and was working out where to go.

By Wednesday Baton Rouge and Houston officials already were putting into place emergency plans and were opening their doors--probably because those same officials had planned ahead, something the N.O. officials hadn't done.

By Wednesday, what had been looting for food and beer on Tuesday turned ugly and the urban terrorists began to rob, kill and rape. By Wednesday night refugees were arriving by bus in other locations.

The urban terrorists stopped all rescue efforts by early Thursday. Then the fires started, and we still don't know if they were set or were started by natural gas or people cooking on grills. By Thursday National Guard troops were completely mobilized and growing in the three affected states. This was to serve an area larger than Idaho. By Friday more troops are arriving, and I think they will be shooting to kill, just like Mosul and Fallujah.

By Friday there were 250 refugee centers up and running taking care of people, feeding them, clothing them, giving medical care and comfort. The Black Caucus finally made an appearance today waving fingers and pounding tables, but none of them have shown up in the areas hit. I think they kept a low profile because the city government of New Orleans is black and Democratic. But once the Feds were really up and active, then they launched their criticism. Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton are no where to be seen. . . yet. One is courting a dictator; the other is mining an anti-war motherlode.

But Americans are an impatient people. We want it fixed yesterday.

1443 Reviewing New Orleans plans for protecting the city

As the "who's responsible?" list grows, Belmont Club points to an article in Civil Engineering Magazine in 2003, "The creeping storm." It's a fascinating article with a lot of history and good clarification of the problems the area deals with.

Also, follow up on in Google with the links about that Coast 2050 Plan to protect the coastal wetlands (it will be quite a struggle to work through the moonbats, but if you are persistent, you'll find good stuff). I think this is the $14 Billion plan the RFKites have been complaining has been underfunded by Bush--by some millions. It is a plan supported by environmentalists, city planners and evil oil interests, and is important, but wouldn't have kept the levees from being breached. Wouldn't have stopped an act of God. From what I read, it has a history of not being been fully funded, millions short also in Clinton's administration. Although with government funds, it is hard to tell since what is promised isn't what is spent. But in a program that size, millions mean little. It would hardly build a bridge to nowhere in Alaska ($223 million for an island with 50 inhibitants).

1442 Bad political moves

Who is managing these politicians? The Louisiana congress people (with the exception of Jindal who seems to actually be in a refugee center) are appearing on TV in suits and ties clucking over the devastation in their home state. On a split screen they look ridiculous!

I think I heard that President Bush was going to stop by for a look. Bad idea. He's not a touchy-feely Bill Clinton, and he can't put on that "I feel your pain" look. His visit will be a logistical nightmare; the Democrats are going to bad mouth him no matter what he does, so that cause is lost. But his visit might just endanger the lives of the people as security forces are diverted to protect the President. When he has come to Columbus, the back-ups are awful. Mr. President, go back to Crawford, talk to Cindy if you must, but stay out of hurricane zones until they get the people out.

1441 Goal setters and problem solvers

The U.S. is failing in Iraq says Andrew Krepinevich, Jr. in his Foreign Affairs article because it has goals (a democratic Iraq after exiting), but no strategy to defeat the insurgency. Democrats and the anti-Bushies also have a goal for Iraq--get out quick, no matter how many deaths of innocent Iraqis it causes. Republicans say, when we turn it over to the Iraqis, it will be their problem, then we'll leave. We have a huge home-grown example of how well that works.

Yes, look at New Orleans all you goal setters and problem solvers. It has a Democratic city administration and state governor's office who told the people to "get out immediately," but had no strategy. Now the city has been taken over by home-grown insurgents (terrorists would be a good term here, just as in Iraq). The mayor seems to be sincere, articulate and well spoken, but totally unprepared. The state government appears to be about evenly split with a Democratic governor, and again, Ms. Blanco looks like she is trying. I don't want to criticize them personally. But Louisiana politics, like Iraq, has a long history of corruption and ineptness, with a crime rate 10 times the national average. So I think it is probably a wash as far as which party would have been prepared. But there have been enough studies and reports federal and local (by problem solvers) to paper the city two or three inches deep. This is not a money problem, it is a no strategy problem created by goal setters.

New Orleans has been living with hurricanes from the time it was established. Ask yourself, how were thousands of poor people supposed to get out? They use public transportation. What was the long term strategy? The city had a mass transit system and that certainly couldn't have handled it. There are buses for every church and school. At best, using every bus in the city you'd evacuate a few thousand, but you'd need an armed guard on every bus because the huge criminal element living there. Where would you get them?

What is needed is a thousand groups like the Central Ohio Southern Baptist Chain Saw Team ready to roll at a moment's notice. Every city needs a strategy to handle evacuees with pets; a strategy for nursing homes; a strategy for short term holding areas; a strategy for mobilizing citizens with guns to protect their neighbors (yeah, that'll happen); a strategy to call up every retired nurse to help with medical crises; a strategy to have potable water and non-perishable food stored. I can't think of any use for retired librarians, but I'm a problem solver so I'll think on that one.

But all you "get out of Iraq now" people and you "when the Iraqis can take over" people just go turn on the TV and think about how well getting out of one city of under one million in one democratic country went with no strategy.

1440 Dear Mr. Kennedy

Here is the site of the National Weather Service's United States Hurricane information by decade. Please begin with the 1940s decade (34 hurricanes). You'll see hurricanes are decreasing in number and intensity. Your exploitation of the Katrina tragedy is too low for words. It is exceeded only by your desire to destroy our economy.

1439 Product Differentiation

When I went back to the supermarket to pick up my photos of the lake, developed with a special deal which included a disc, they were not quite ready. "Just 2 minutes," she said cheerily. So I wandered through the health and beauty aisles, and stopped at Crest toothpaste. Twenty seven varieties. I could hardly believe my eyes, so I counted them. Cinnamon. Baking soda. Mint. Peppermint. Cool mint. Regular (whatever that is). Striped. Tartar fighting. Whitening. Small. Medium. Large. Supersize. Child friendly. Oval shape. Long shape. Then mix and match those. It mystifies me that economists and marketers think this is a big deal, but they do. It seems it is very important to our economy. I just googled the term and got a college course in it.

Today I was at the drug store. I like to look at greeting cards. More product differentiation. Becoming a citizen. Mom and her new husband. Dad and his new wife. Driver's license. Leaving for college. Going to camp. Loss of a child. Loss of an infant. Divorce. Sympathy for a sudden loss. Entering the service. Father to be. Setting up an anti-war camp in Texas (just kidding on that one, but the others are real).

I buy sugar free cookies. What I like about them is that within a brand, there are only a few choices, and there aren't very many brands. Archway has chocolate chip, double chocolate chip, peanut butter and Rocky Road. Voorhis has a shortbread and a raspberry and some sandwich cookies. There's another brand I look for that has really good oreo type in chocolate, vanilla and lemon. They are more expensive, but much easier on the brain.

1438 The liberals see only race

In a city that is probably 70% African American, Jack Shafer wonders: "Nearly every rescued person, temporary resident of the Superdome, looter, or loiterer on the high ground of the freeway I saw on TV was African-American." They are humans; they are people. They are black. They are suffering. Shades of the 19th century, Mr. Shafer. Shame on you.

"Race remains largely untouchable for TV because broadcasters sense that they can't make an error without destroying careers." Gee, Mr. Shafer. Who helped that along? Who screamed for Esterbrook's scalp. Who wanted Rush Limbaugh fired when he honestly pointed out that the media wouldn't criticize a black quarterback? What if CNN and Fox had sent only their African American reporters? Now wouldn't that be racist? Send blacks to report on blacks? Then they could be accused of protecting their white newspeople--or at least Fox would be accused of that.

"To the question of looting, an informed reporter or anchor might have pointed out that anybody—even one of the 500 Nordic blondes working in broadcast news—would loot food from a shuttered shop if they found themselves trapped by a flood. . ." And the shoes, and jewelry, and stealing cop cars and breaking into hospitals and nursing homes? Is it possible in a city nearly 70% black that the bad gangs of looters might also be black? Hmmmm?

1437 Gratitude-impaired

"My thing is they took too long to come to get our people," a woman with a disabled daughter is quoted in today's USAToday. Let's see. First volunteers risked their lives to rescue her by boat, then she was picked up by a bus, and then by helicopter. Must be some of that cradle-to-the grave gratitude.

1436 Disaster Blame

No one in the media seems to be taking the global warming drivel seriously, but it is awash in blame. 85% of a sprawling city living in and on its past is covered up, and "they" should have done something. USAToday comes this close <-----> to blaming President Bush with a long list:

lack of coordination is inexcusable
evacuation was haphazard
halting response from Bush on Tuesday (keep in mind that Tuesday morning the media was announcing that NOLA had been spared)
leadership void
puny efforts
what's the plan
woefully inadequate
was anyone in charge

The Wall Street Journal is also critical of the flaws and failures in the crisis planning, but with specifics that other cities can use:

1) "All the cunning of man cannot defeat the greatest fury of nature."
2) guidelines for coordination between state, federal and local agencies were incomplete.
3) The most vulnerable were not evacuated.
4) There was no search and rescue plan.
5) Conflicting radio frequencies for emergency units defeated workers.
6) Plans were in place for a category 3 hurricane.
7) Florida's plans in 2004 were far superior to Louisiana's, but other states had not learned from it.
8) Heavy equipment needed to repair breaches was not in place.
9) No fuel for emergency generators.
10) Federal gov't must wait for the governor to invite it in for diasaster relief.

However, Joel Kotkin's article in today's WSJ about the city itself is very informative. Not sexy and unprovable like global warming, but local decay seems to be in part the problem. He points out that New Orleans was once the premier city of the south with a vital economy, but Houston and Miami long ago surpassed it. He attributes active immigration from South America and the Caribbean as pluses for those cities bringing in trade, investments, services, and businesses with corresponding higher paying jobs for workers. New Orleans now sells its past--or did until Tuesday morning when the levees were breached. Kotkin said it was a city of underemployment, crime and poverty with a murder rate 10 times the national average, a city of least resistance.

1435 Disaster Relief

Monday night our local TV news carried a story about the Southern Baptist Chain Saw team from Central Ohio. They were loading up their vans and getting ready to go south to help out in one important niche--clearing roads and getting trees off homes. We're looking at agencies for disaster relief. I'd sent my tsunami check to the Mennonites but later learned it basically went through Church World Service which is part of the National Council of Churches. That may be adequate for relief but it won't answer any deeper spiritual needs. So I looked at the site for the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities. Finally, I settled in at the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Homepage, an agency of its North American Mission Board. Not only did they have the information for their most recent Dennis help posted, but right at the top they had "Sharing Christ." All these agencies cooperate--the Baptists are working with the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army at their kitchen sites, for instance. But I'd like to know the volunteers are not going to be shy about spreading the good news while they serve the hot food and clear away trees.

1434 Women for Roberts

This is about all I know. I hope they develop a website or a blog aggregator of bloggers for Roberts. I'd join. The left is really pulling out the heavy guns. Seems he believes in equality.

"Roberts’s other offenses? In 1983, reviewing a report on state-by-state initiatives to combat sex discrimination, he singled out several ideas as ’’highly objectionable’ -- among them, special tuition breaks for women at state colleges to compensate for their lower earnings (a scheme so harebrained and so blatantly discriminatory that it’s amazing it was seriously considered) and preferential treatment for women and minorities during layoffs. Looks like Roberts believed that equality actually means -- well, equality. Oh, the beast...." Cathy Young, Boston Globe

Noticed at Independent Women's Forum

1433 How does this help?

Apparently, a President cannot go to his own home, where he has phone, fax, computers, security and all his staff. Nope. It's a "summer idyll." And this guy Dubya is so incredible, and so astute, he should've known that the levees would break and just didn't respond. WaPo editorializing the news here. Amy's my source.

1432 Looney Left and Paleo-Right, together again

Why is Cindy Sheehan playing footsie with David Duke? Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent article on the extreme left and extreme right falling into bed together, breathing heavy in their hatred of George Bush and the United States.

"This odd symbiosis began right after 9/11. Then the lunatic Left mused about the "pure chaos" of the falling "two huge buck teeth" twin towers, lamented that they were more full of Democrats than Republicans, and saw the strike as righteous payback from third-world victims.

The mirror-imaging fundamentalists and censors in turn saw the attack as an angry God's retribution either for an array of our mortal sins or America's tilting toward Israel."

Besides David Duke, on the right he lists racists and fascists (admittedly, obscure and not as well known as the big time left). On the left he has Harold Meyerson, George Soros, and the grieving, self-serving Mrs. Sheehan.

1431 Hundreds of pounds of journals

Our public library sells used books and magazines donated by the public. Magazines are usually 25 cents, hard cover books $2, and paperback $1. It's clean out time at our house. A huge load of magazines will soon be leaving the garage:

Fine homebuilding
Home
This Old House
Metropolitan home
Architecture
Architectural Record
Environmental Design and Construction
Renovation Style
Elle Decor
Wired
Architectural Digest

But the house doesn't look any different. Magazines are like rabbits. Or spiders. Or spam.

1430 Moonbats and Wingnuts

I wonder if the President could appoint a team of Robert Kennedy Jr. and Pat Robertson to head up the relief effort. Before the dead are even found and buried, Kennedy is blaming Bush (who is personally responsible for global warming, assuming it exists). Robertson years ago in the 90s said hurricanes were God's wrath for sinning Americans. And he claims to have prayed them away from certain areas in the 80s. So the worst natural disaster in our history buries a city known the world over for its partying. Yes, the Bobby and Pat dog and pony show. What a team. And they are both Christians so there's something for everyone to hate.

1429 Casual, low pressure atmosphere

Desperate for a meaningless job complete with all the right words scripted for you? Christ-haunted saw this one first.

1428 Constitution Day is coming

Educational institutions receiving Federal funding are required to hold an educational program pertaining to the United States Constitution on September 17 of each year. The notice.

Alexander Hamilton and the U.S. Constitution

U.S. Constitution

Documents and debates on the Constitution

The framers

1427 The best and worst after the hurricane

The scenes on the cable networks are compelling. The Coast Guard rescues have been dramatic [shared video, but I thought Fox's commentary was the best and the least intrusive]. Most discouraging is the footage of the looters. There's no one to stop them so they are just grinning into the camera lens and waving. Most heartwarming was the shot of someone pouring water on a stranded sea lion who was dying in the heat. Shepard Smith on Fox was probably the best I've ever heard of him--he was not just another pretty face. Stranded in Louisiana when he really wanted to be in Mississippi, his home state, his voice wavered as he motioned toward the devastation. He sounded completely distraught and not at all the controlled professional he usually is.

1426 Do you buy organic and avoid Wal-Mart?

Tomeboy has an interesting collection of contrasts for you Wal-Mart avoiders.

"800,000 organic farm workers are hired each year in California by 35,000 employers. Wal-Mart has 44,000 employees in California.

The average California organic farm worker annually earns $7000-$8000 or $6.75/hour (California minimum wage). His counterpart at Wal-Mart makes $9.70/hour.

Only 19% of organic farm workers have some type of health insurance compared to 90% of employees at Wal-Mart." Read the whole story here.

I was chatting the other day with a woman who works in a small franchise operation where I was shopping--very up-scale, very posh-posh, full of bling-bling. She was breathless with excitement that she might get in at the local Wal-Mart.

1425 There's good news from Iraq

Chrenkoff posts his 34th entry of Good News. I thought of printing it out because of its length, but print preview shows it runs to 38 printed pages. Examples:

"USAID has been helping to bring the constitutional debate to the people (link in PDF): "The Constitutional Dialogue program has organized over 3,000 dialogues throughout Iraq, reaching almost 80,000 Iraqis who also shared their opinions through 64,000 questionnaires. To date, 210 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have participated, including 151 NGOs contracted by USAID and 59 NGOs working as volunteers. Feedback indicates that the dialogues are achieving their dual purpose; to educate and consult the public."

Say what you will about this process, but it is going better than ours did back in the 1700s, with a lot more input from the people.

"Iraq's economic links with other countries keep expanding. "International Finance Corporation (IFC) considered the possibility of investing $210.3 million in the construction project of cement works in Iraq with a productive capacity of 2.9 million tons per annum. Also according to Russian analysis agency AK&M, IFC intends to participate in the capital of new company by investing $8.3 million. The first investment project in Iraq with participation of IFC was realized in finance sector in November 2004 when IFC invested $35 million in the capital of Credit Bank of Iraq."

And to think they don't even have an Alexander Hamilton!

"The first international airline flight to land in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 15 years arrived here yesterday [22 August] receiving a warm welcome from local officials. A Sharjah-based Phoenix Air Boeing 747 arrived from Dubai with 22 passengers on board."

Tomato farmers are harvesting higher yields thanks to improved technologies learned under the Open Field Tomato Demonstration initiative of USAID's Agriculture Reconstruction and Development for Iraq (ARDI) program. For the demonstrations, ARDI established plots in Baghdad, Diyala and Babylon governorates on which they introduced drip irrigation, black plastic mulch, and fertilization. With the Ministry of Agriculture, USAID representatives monitored the plots and helped participating farmers control tomato pests...

Read the whole thing--and the previous entries too. Check the links bottom right. Also includes "Good News from Afghanistan."

1424 The caption of the photo was

"President Bush has recently been criticized for the amount of time he spends exercising." [WSJ photo and caption, August 30, 2005]

What hasn't he been criticized for? That would be a short list. It wouldn't include his ears; his non-working librarian wife; his non-military daughters; his English; his home state; his vice-president; his judicial nominees; his medicare drug plan; his busting-the-bank education plan; his illegal immigrant plan; his meeting with parents of deceased soldiers only once; his cowboy boots; his grades at Yale; his sense of humor; his smirk; his smile; his frown; his reading list; his church membership; his faith; his tax cuts; his resolve; his values; his believing the intelligence reports of the Clinton administration; his cabinet; his funding of museums and libraries; his pro-life stance; his Yalta remarks; oh yes, and his freeing Afghanistan; his freeing Iraq; and particularly his belief that the USA isn't the only country that deserves a democratic form of government.

But criticism for being just about the most fit 59 year old American male--well, that's pretty silly, even for the left wing Bush bashers.

Norma Blogs Hurricane Katrina

Sunday, September 11, 2005

1505 The Fear Factor

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

1512 Women can stop poverty

Thursday, September 15, 2005

1511 They may never

Monday, September 26, 2005

1537 Why weren't they prepared for this?

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

1542 Does USAToday Hate Black People?

1543 My Biggest Mistake

1546 Red Cross Money Pit

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

1549 What is Bush's Responsibility?

Saturday, October 1, 2005

1569 Good Samaritans and Katrina

1423 Behind Cindy Sheehan

According to Byron York, Lisa Fithian, an anti-war radical, is the organizer and planner behind Cindy Sheehan who was just a grieving mother before Lisa applied her expertise.

She said in an interview with NRO, "I guess my biggest thing is that as people who are trying to create a new world, I do believe we have to dismantle or transform the old order to do that," Fithian continued. "I just fundamentally don't believe it will ever serve our interests as it's currently constructed."

These days, Fithian's tactic for dismantling the old order — at least her tactic for the moment — is Cindy Sheehan. On Wednesday, Sheehan will begin her cross-country tour, winding her way toward Washington. And Lisa Fithian will be with her."

But even Comrade Fithian probably can't keep Cindy from making those gaffs on TV, so it may be her plan that gets dismantled. Today I saw a clip where Cindy said to a crowd, something to the effect, "You can tell your children you met the mother of Casey Sheehan," or something like that. How self-serving and self-aggrandizing is that?

1422 Rachel Carson's Silent Millions

Following a link to Scientist Cards which I saw on a librarian's site, I was disappointed to find that Rachel Carson was one of only two women represented.

Rachel Carson is sometimes described as the mother of the environmental movement. "The idea for her most famous book, Silent Spring, emerged, and she began writing it in 1957. It was published in 1962, and influenced President Kennedy, who had read it, to call for testing of the chemicals mentioned in the book. Carson has been called the mother of the modern environmental movement." Source

JunkScience reports on her faulty reporting of another scientist's work. "Rachel Carson sounded the initial alarm against DDT, but represented the science of DDT erroneously in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson wrote "Dr. [James] DeWitt's now classic experiments [on quail and pheasants] have now established the fact that exposure to DDT, even when doing no observable harm to the birds, may seriously affect reproduction. Quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched." DeWitt's 1956 article (in Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry) actually yielded a very different conclusion. Quail were fed 200 parts per million of DDT in all of their food throughout the breeding season. DeWitt reports that 80% of their eggs hatched, compared with the "control" birds which hatched 83.9% of their eggs. Carson also omitted mention of DeWitt's report that "control" pheasants hatched only 57 percent of their eggs, while those that were fed high levels of DDT in all of their food for an entire year hatched more than 80% of their eggs.

In 1972 the EPA banned the use of DDT. No one has ever died from the use of DDT, but millions of Africans die of malaria because of this woman and her legacy. She has brought about the death of more Africans than the infamous Arab and European slave trade and the middle passage. "A pandemic is slaughtering millions, mostly children and pregnant women -- one child every 15 seconds; 3 million people annually; and over 100 million people since 1972 --but there are no protestors clogging the streets or media stories about this tragedy. These deaths can be laid at the doorstep of author Rachel's Carson. Her 1962 bestselling book Silent Spring detailed the alleged "dangers" of the pesticide DDT, which had practically eliminated malaria. Within ten years, the environmentalist movement had convinced the powers that be to outlaw DDT. Denied the use of this cheap, safe and effective pesticide, millions of people -- mostly poor Africans -- have died due to the environmentalist dogma propounded by Carson's book. Her coterie of admirers at the U.N. and environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund have managed to bring malaria and typhus back to sub-Saharan Africa with a vengeance." Lisa Makson

Surely, there is at least one more female scientist out there worthy of the honor of being on this silly website.

1421 Frequent flyer miles for fat kids with bad teeth

Disclaimer: I have no use for loyalty plans. Coupons were always the size and shape of dollars; loyalty plans use credit card sized plastic.

I hate them on a can,
I hate them in a box,
I hate them at the airport,
no matter what the plan.

I hate them more than green stamps,
I hate them more than coupons
I hate them more than barcodes
with scissor clipping cramps.

They add to the cost and the time of purchasing anything. Corporations--Keep your games out of my wallet. Don't make me show a card at the drug store or supermarket or shoe outlet. This is a useless whine because you cannot convince the American consumer that no one makes money giving away their product. We so want a pot of freebies at the end of the rainbow.

But the absolute worst must be the "Upromise" plan. Let's take Nestle for example. Three percent of every participating Nestle fun size candy bag purchase goes into little Jonny's Upromise Savings Account! Great. Fatten him up, rot his teeth, and then send him to college. "You can save 1% on Coca-Cola Classic®, Vanilla Coke® (non diet), Cherry Coke® (non diet), Coca-Cola® with Lime (non-diet), or Coca-Cola C2® (non diet) products when you purchase three or more in a single shopping trip." Such a deal I can hardly believe. Are parents this dumb? Unfortunately, yes.

1420 The good news and the bad news

The good news is "the economic well being of the American family has never been better," [today's WSJ] and the bad news is I don't think the Bush administration has a clue on how to say this or what to do with it [my personal opinion based on years as a Democrat]. As I've commented many times here at Collecting My Thoughts the toughest thing to get used to about being a Republican is how they keep hiding their light under a bushel and dash out and start tipping windmills that don't matter.

Stephen Moore, on the Wall St. Journal board of editors, writes today that "when taking into account all forms of benefits that workers now receive, compensation to workers is about 27% higher in real terms than 25 years ago. The average hourly wage is $18.00+, counting benefits it's almost $26.00 an hour. The left will cry out stagnant wages even though the median family income is now $52,600. Total compensation is up 7.5% but wages only 4% since 2000. Frankly, I was the kind of worker who would have preferred a higher wage so I could purchase my own perks in the open market, but I think those days are over since the trend started right after WWII, and we won't reverse something that's 60 years old. Workers now get all sorts of tuition reimbursement, long term care insurance, telecommuting options, and even adoption assistance. Hardly fringe by anyone's definition. It's the whole window dressing plus the view.

Nowadays, Mr. Moore points out, the workers also own the store, with 52% of Americans owning stock thanks to 401(k)s and IRAs. And guess what? The Bush tax cuts increased the take home pay of the poorer workers. We can expect virulent attacks from the left because this good economic news--much of it since 2000--means their little base is shrinking. If poverty shrinks, so does their power. And now if NCLB would actually show long term results with more children making it through a school system deeply flawed, their public employee unions might go the route of labor unions.

Immediately after the November elections, news about the bad economy disappeared from the main stream media. You occasionally still hear people saying things like, "well, in this economy," even though Americans have never had it better.

How can the economy get better? "William Galston, once an assistant to President Clinton, put the matter simply. To avoid poverty, do three things: finish high school, marry before having a child, and produce the child after you are 20 years old. Only 8% of people who do all three will be poor; of those who fail to do them, 79% will be poor." OpinionJournal Thus I think you will see the left continue to encourage single parenthood, larger welfare stipends and disparage marriage. A good economy weakens their base.

1419 The power of one

Friday night we enjoyed a lovely dinner at Abigail's (restaurant in Lakeside) with two other couples. There is a rumor that building is held together by the grape vines, but I don't put much stock in that--I think it is the wall paper. We'd all been looking forward to the Abigail's great perch dinners. One of the men, an expert on China who teaches in the foreign service and recently returned from two weeks in Japan, provided us interesting details on China's economy (it's the size of Italy's) and its growth (growing at a phenomenal rate, and in a few years the average income may hit $800 a year). Someone asked him what would replace the current government if that could happen, and sadly he replied, another totalitarian government because that's what China has always had.

On our walk home, my husband mused, "That was certainly a reasonable meal," and then he stopped and thought about it. He knew we couldn't both eat for $14.00, perch dinners plus dessert. So he headed back to the restaurant, flagged down the swamped hostess and had her refigure the bill. The waitress had dropped a one someplace, and the bill was off by $10.00.