Entries from September 2005 ↓
September 16th, 2005 — politics
is more in touch with reality than many world religious leaders. According to this article in the (granted, usually appalling) New York Sun, the Dalai Lama, who writes in the prologue of his latest book, “The Universe in a Single Atom” (Morgan Road Books, $24.95): “My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
Residents of Kansas, are you listening?
September 15th, 2005 — humor
It is hard to believe this is real, but it appears that Reuters really caught Bush in a silly moment.
You would not even know it was Bush, except Reuters captioned the photo as follows:
Reuters – Wed Sep 14, 4:39 PM ET
U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s vision of freedom from want, persecution and war. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
For some reason, yahoo photos provides only the photo above. But the following story gives a fuller picture, in an article confirming Reuters claims no malicious intent:
A lovely tidbit from the above article: The Irish Examiner headline? “To Pee or Not to Pee, That is the Question.”
September 15th, 2005 — academic
Matt Groening’s advice to grad students in Grad School is Hell:
September 10th, 2005 — politics
As you probably guessed, the semester started in earnest last week. New job, new people to meet, lots of working and distractions. No time for blogs, so I am behind on all of you.
The Red Cross guy was on just now saying they wanted 40,000 people to be trained as Red Cross volunteers, to work in 3 week shifts in shelters, unloading trucks, and so on, into the indefinite future, until this crisis is over. Which could be a long time, considering that training as a volunteer takes some time.
It made me wonder if their work would not be helped by the presence of more National Guard soldiers, perhaps some of those that are in Iraq. It also made me wonder if Bush should not subsidize the Red Cross volunteers, who have to leave their jobs in order to help out. Now, most RC volunteers are happy to do just that. But think of it this way, lots of folks can’t afford three weeks off of work, or more. This would mean good-minded folks who are not as well off could put their hands, hearts and minds to work. And if the National Guard were sending more people, we’d pay for that anyway.
It also reminds me of the Americorps and VISTA volunteers who do such great work year-round, outside of crisis-times. I know they’re volunteers, but they should be better subsidized. If they were, we’d see more people taking a year out to volunteer. Twenty-one-year-olds in this country tend to graduate college owing 20K-30K in student loans. It’s hard not to go straight to work right away. They get some pittance of forgiveness on their loans. And then those placed in cities, where they’re needed most, are barely given enough to live on.
Perhaps people would say my priorities are screwed up: this is volunteering, for goodness’ sake! But the government wants people to pick up the slack for social, environmental, educational and health services that in civilized countries would be paid for by the government. (Let’s face it, I am a commie pinko socialist.)
Rant over: it’s a birthday, Chez Sicilians, so we’re going out to dine soon in a classy southern Brooklyn establishment. (I have my bourgeois moments.)
September 5th, 2005 — politics
September 3rd, 2005 — politics
From Crooksandliars.com: Only part of the country got to see this last night on television, because NBC censored the West Coast feed. West’s delivery is full of distress, as he ad-libs, cramming a lot into a short amount of time. Watch Mike Meyers not-know-what-to-do-with-himself.
September 2nd, 2005 — politics
I don’t have anything very original to say right now. But “stay the course” writing on DailyKos, who survived the Bangladeshi floods and was in NYC during 9/11 does.
And Bitch, PhD does an insightful comparison / contrast of what Bush says vs. what NO Mayor Roy Nagin says.
For example:
“President” Bush, to Diane Sawyer: I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.
(compare this with the following:)
New Orleans Mayor Roy Nagin: We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, “Please, please take care of this. We don’t care what you do. Figure it out.”
Interviewer: Who’d you say that to?
Nagin: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.
Or FingerInEveryPie’s poignant post on writing in and loving the New Orleans she visited only a few weeks ago. A city I never got the chance to see.
We have to seek wise words and support from the blogosphere, ladies and gents, because it just so happens that the leaders of the federal government are all either literally, or mentally, on vacation. Here’s a rundown on where they are, and what they’re doing when we really need them.
September 1st, 2005 — politics
I had not realized how thoroughly and accurately the scene of events which are now taking place in New Orleans had been predicted. According to the LA Times (in a story which for some reason is dated Sept. 2),
Three years ago, New Orleans’ leading local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, National Public Radio’s signature nightly news program, “All Things Considered,” and the New York Times each methodically and compellingly reported that the very existence of south Louisiana’s leading city was at risk and hundreds of thousands of lives imperiled by exactly the sequence of events that occurred this week. All three news organizations also made clear that the danger was growing because of a series of public policy decisions and failure to allocate government funds to alleviate the danger.
It continues later,
One of the separate stories in that first installment — each part consisted of multiple pieces supported by compelling graphics — began: “The risk is growing greater and no one can say how much greater.”
The series’ second part began: “It’s a matter of when, not if. Eventually a major hurricane will hit New Orleans head on, instead of being just a close call. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again.” In that installment, McQuaid and Schleifstein reported that “a major hurricane could decimate the region, but flooding from even a moderate storm could kill thousands. It’s just a matter of time…. Evacuation is the most certain route to safety, but it may be a nightmare. And 100,000 without transportation will be left behind…. Hundreds of thousands would be left homeless, and it would take months to dry out the area and begin to make it livable. But there wouldn’t be much for residents to come home to. The local economy would be in ruins….
“People left behind in an evacuation will be struggling to survive. Some will be housed at the Superdome, the designated shelter in New Orleans for people too sick or infirm to leave the city. Others will end up in last-minute emergency refuges that will offer minimal safety. But many will simply be on their own…. Thousands will drown while trapped in homes or cars by rising waters. Others will be washed away or crushed by debris. Survivors will end up trapped on roofs, in buildings or on high ground surrounded by water, with no means of escape and little food or fresh water, perhaps for several days.”
September 1st, 2005 — traffic and weather reports
My heart goes out to everyone in New Orleans. Those who are surviving somehow. Those who are helping out their fellow people. And also to those who are surviving via means that they’d be ashamed of normally. Given the crisis, and given that people are trapped and can’t purchase supplies even if they have the money to do so, I fall into the mindset of “looting for food and water, and heck, maybe even beer: okay; looting for DVDs and various levels of bling: not okay.”
The fact that the poor and the auto-free were in many cases simply trapped in N.O. is awful (the Greyhound Station closed on Saturday!?!).
The reports of guns and violence, and suicides and rapes in the stadium bathrooms are horrifying.
Most of us like to think that people band together in a crisis. I still believe most do–especially when they have something to do (e.g help others around them). But when you simply lock 20,000 people in a stadium, with nothing to focus on but their troubles, with insufficient supplies, no resources for hygiene, and a lack of “staff” to organize things, disaster is going to happen on some level.
On a more positive note, the live updates from a bunch of folks who are keeping their ISP afloat in New Orleans via a generator remind me of those early days of the current war, when the US first invaded Iraq, when everyone was tuned into Salam Pax’s website,* to find out what it was like on the ground. Yes, yes: I realize the two situations are very, very different. But the Internets just give us this ground-level view that we never had before.**
*This is the new version of the site. I believe the old one was stamped out by censors. But I could have that wrong.
**Well… okay, technically we still don’t have the ground-level view. (Note to cultural theorists: it’s like Gayatri Spivak’s idea that “the subaltern cannot speak.” When the subaltern speaks, you know s/he isn’t really the subaltern.) I mean, digital divide and all, what we have is not the view of the have-nots, but the “creative geek’s ground-level view.” But it’s a nice addition to the major media outlets to be sure.