From the latest Gallup Poll:
45 percent said Americans should make “major sacrifices” to pay for the [Katrina reconstruction] effort. But only 20 percent said they would be willing to make those sacrifices themselves.So now we know the American definition of shared sacrifice: I share and you sacrifice.
Category: Katrina & Rita
Best line of the day, so far
“Shorter President Bush: Government programs to eliminate poverty are bad except in New Orleans during a political crisis.”
This about sums it up
Get Your War On
Haven’t forgotten to view Get Your War On from time-to-time have you?
An example.
Honoring the Memory of the Victims of Hurricane Katrina
As a mark of respect for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, Tuesday, September 20, 2005. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.
— Proclamation by the President (September 4, 2005)
The President had also proclaimed that the flag would fly at half-staff to honor Chief Justice Rehnquist. By law that order ended at sunset Tuesday (September 13).
Best line of the day, so far
“He’ll gut it out,” says a Bush adviser of Chertoff. “He’ll definitely do better next time.”
Definitely do better next time??? What the fuck does that make the destruction of New Orleans? On-the-job training?
There’s no place like home
A tired, not-quite-two-year-old Aidan after arriving home from a week’s vacation:
“I’m ready for my crib now.”
Which only made me think of the thousands upon thousands along the Gulf Coast who must be ready for their crib or bed now, too.
Some Ways to Prepare for the Absolute Worst
The New York Times has an article that includes a shopping list.
New Orleans
It’s a little difficult to see much — and some areas are blacked out altogether — but Google Maps has satellite photos taken of New Orleans on Wednesday, August 31.
Best line of the day, period
“Mr. Altshuler and Mr. Rhode had worked in the White House’s Office of National Advance Operations. Those are the people who decide where the president will stand on stage and which loyal supporters will be permitted into the audience – and how many firefighters will be diverted from rescue duty to surround the president as he patrols the New Orleans airport trying to look busy.”
— Excerpted from editorial in The New York Times
Best line of the day, so far
“Would that FEMA could move as fast as the nation’s self-pimping celebrities!”
Yup!
You can blame politicians for New Orleans all you like. I know I certainly will, starting right up at the top. But we just had a nationwide election and it turned on issues that were as inconsequential as they were passionately argued. President Bush is in office today because a bunch of voters in Ohio don’t like homosexuals very much. Members of Congress are enjoying another few years of decent salaries and preferred parking because they brought home the bacon to fill potholes and build sports stadiums.
And we, the people, keep putting them back in office because its easier to do that than it is to pay attention. I know people who can’t name their own Senators but can expound at insane length and in appalling detail about UFOs. There are tens of millions of American’s who’ve never set foot in a polling place. Our media, which exist entirely to give us what we want, spend more energy on Paris Hilton than they do on the very real possibility that New Orleans might disappear one day.
And here we are.
Today, we’ll try to speak so slowly that even professors can follow
The Daily Howler takes on the liberals.
Update: Thursday’s Daily Howler is worth reading as well.
Enough!
Read a report from The Salt Lake Tribune on what’s happening to firefighters.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
Fifty (THAT’S 50!) firefighters were “ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew’s first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.”
“Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.” Arthur C. Clarke
America’s Finest News Source
There is nothing funny about the disaster that Katrina left in its wake.
Even so, The Onion has some perceptive headlines:
God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again
Officials Uncertain Whether To Save Or Shoot Victims
Nation’s Politicians Applaud Great Job They’re Doing
Area Man Drives Food There His Goddamned Self
Bush: ‘It Has Been Brought To My Attention That There Was Recently A Bad Storm’
Louisiana National Guard Offers Help By Phone From Iraq
Government Relief Workers Mosey In To Help
Refugees Moved From Sewage-Contaminated Superdome To Hellhole Of Houston
White Foragers Report Threat Of Black Looters
Another Saints Season Ruined Before It Begins
Shrimp Joint Now Shrimp Habitat
Bush Urges Victims To Gnaw On Bootstraps For Sustenance
This Song Goes Out to You, Big Easy
For hundreds of thousands of listeners of about 225 public radio stations and XM Satellite Radio, Mr. Spitzer and “American Routes” have served since 1997 as the voice of New Orleans, right down to the theme music by Professor Longhair. Now, working with a patchwork staff from a borrowed studio in Lafayette, La., Mr. Spitzer is assembling this weekend’s show, titled “After the Storm.” (… A list of other stations is at www.americanroutes.org.) “I wanted it to be music of reflection and solace and also hope.”
— From an article in The New York Times
Oops!
Add geography to the growing list of FEMA fumbles.
A South Carolina health official said his colleagues scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston.
But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West Virginia, 400 miles away.
— CNN.com
Link via FunctionalAmbivalent
The eyes have it
The Albuquerque Tribune has a great photo with the following caption:
Mr. McMillen, who declined to give his first name, peers at would-be rescuers from his third-floor apartment in a New Orleans housing project. Although reluctant, he was eventually persuaded to leave the flooded area by a rescue crew that included Bernalillo County deputies and Fire Department personnel. McMillen didn’t know what year it was and thought Gerald Ford was still president. He was evacuated, along with three other stranded residents of the building, by airboat on Monday. (Photo by Craig Fritz/Tribune)
Magic Marker Strategy
Instead of relying on a “Good Samaritan” policy – the fantasy in New Orleans that everyone would take care of the neighbors – the Virginia rescue workers go door to door. If people resist the plea to leave, Mr. Judkins told The Daily Press in Newport News, rescue workers give them Magic Markers and ask them to write their Social Security numbers on their body parts so they can be identified.
“It’s cold, but it’s effective,” Mr. Judkins explained.
— John Tierney in The New York Times.
Dumb ass
Wonkette reports on Chertoff’s reading habits:
On Sunday, DHS chief Michael Chertoff told “Meet the Press’s” Tim Russert that one reason for the delay in getting federal aid to Katrina victims was that “everyone” thought the crisis had passed when the storm left: “I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, ‘New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'” We’re wondering what papers the Chertoff household gets, because these are the headlines that greeted most people Tuesday morning:
See more headlines from the Newseum.
They saw it coming
Brian Williams reports this weather message he received last Sunday (upon arriving in Baton Rouge to begin coverage for NBC):
URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005…DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED…
HURRICANE KATRINA…A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH…RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER.
AT LEAST HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED…ALL WINDOWS WILL BE BLOWN OUT.
THE VAST MAJORITY…OF TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
It seems to NewMexiKen that mobilization should have begun THEN.
Ticket to ride
I am stunned by an interview I conducted with New Orleans Detective Lawrence Dupree. He told me they were trying to rescue people with a helicopter and the people were so poor they were afraid it would cost too much to get a ride and they had no money for a “ticket.” Dupree was shaken telling us the story. He just couldn’t believe these people were afraid they’d be charged for a rescue.
Perhaps they will be.
Best line of the day, so far
“Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the “I-Me” switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.”
Sensitive soul that she is
Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, “This is working very well for them.”
The former First Lady’s remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio’s “Marketplace” program. …
In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston.”
Then she added: “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.
“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”
This pretty much ranks right up there with Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake.” (Allegedly said when she was told the peasants had no bread.)
The Sunken City
Good articles on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina from The New Yorker. Includes a 1987 John McPhee article “The Sunken City.” An excerpt:
The river goes through New Orleans like an elevated highway. Jackson Square, in the French Quarter, is on high ground with respect to the rest of New Orleans, but even from the benches of Jackson Square one looks up across the levee at the hulls of passing ships. Their keels are higher than the AstroTurf in the Superdome, and if somehow the ships could turn and move at river level into the city and into the stadium they would hover above the playing field like blimps.