Katrina @ New Orleans

[erik]

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, she means that the hospitality in Texas is so wonderful, it's a step up. Which is still a stupid thing to say, but not nearly as bad as it was made out to be.

What she said was a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to say. She did not say "What I'm hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many people in the arena here, this is working very well for them." If she had said that, then yeah, whatever, no big deal. She said something very different. She said it's scary that these people would want to relocate to Texas. She said that their current situation is working well for them because they are underpriveleged anyway. These people may not have had much, but they had shelter with doors that locked where they kept their stuff, and they could come and go as they pleased from their homes. "Underpriveleged" does not mean "not used to people treating them nicely", and even if that's what she thought it meant, that the people of New Orleans aren't used to hospitality, that still is a shit thing to say about people from another place.

[c hack]

She said something very different. She said it's scary that these people would want to relocate to Texas. She said that their current situation is working well for them because they are underpriveleged anyway. These people may not have had much, but they had shelter with doors that locked where they kept their stuff, and they could come and go as they pleased from their homes. "Underpriveleged" does not mean "not used to people treating them nicely", and even if that's what she thought it meant, that the people of New Orleans aren't used to hospitality, that still is a shit thing to say about people from another place.

Let me make some things clear:

1. I think it was a thoughtless thing to say, and that it disclosed (as if it was any surprise) the fact that she's all up in her ivory tower and has no sympathy for the poor.

2. I don't want to be anywhere near the label of "Bush apologist."

3. My beef is that the quote was taken out of context and it made the statement look much worse than it actually was. I stand by that, and I remain pissed at the media for duping me.

[erik]

Perhaps. I first saw the quote in its entirety, so I can't really say how I'd feel if I had heard just the last snippet. But to me, it just replaces one awful meaning with another slightly less awful meaning.

Barbara: God, that hurricane was probably a good thing for alot of these people.
People: Wait, what?
Barbara: I mean, living in a big-ass homeless shelter is probably better than their life before.

Yeah, the second one is slightly less dickish to say, but it still royally sucks.

[c hack]

I know what you mean. But when I read the whole thing, I thought "you know, she's probably just a well-meaning old lady who said something that came out really wrong." Granted, people in high places should be more careful of what they say, but I think of all the times I said something that came out looking really bad, and I'm more forgiving.

What's of course less forgivable is the things those Bush's do. There's plenty of it out there, too. But it's no excuse for anti-Bush's to be stretching the truth or taking things out of context. They just lose credibility.

But I need to get back to my audio chain and find some stuff that's not completely broken so I can actually record something. Check this shit out:

Hafler Power Amp: completely broken, 1 channel gone.
Audiomedia III card: broken, I think, but not sure b/c of the power amp.
Mackie 1202 vlz mixer: screwy, but can't tell for sure, b/c of the power amp.
M-Audio Ozone: Mic input is crackly, output buzzes.
Pro Tools: tells me hardware is in use by another app, even though nothing's running. I think it's the switch to tiger that did it.

grumble grumble

[stueym]

There will be time to 'crucify' M Brown & friends, FEMA and the politicians later.

Speaking of which...

I started a thread regarding donating to Red Cross and didn't want to post this there as I am trying to focus positively on the need there. However see the note below from a friend in eastern Mississippi. They escaped relatively lightly compared to my other colleague as they are further inland but they still had the impact of no power and infrastructure being messed up

But the last section of her note shows how things can get messed up with kneejerk reaction assistance to prove FEMA is doing something late in the day.

Hello. Thanks for the inquiry. We are doing fine. We received power back by Thursday evening.... WOW!! We were told an easy 14 days at first. Not everyone in our community has power yet. The power company said on the radio today that they expect everyone who can have power restored to have it by Thursday of this week. The wind blew so hard here that we had water coming in under the tin roof vents and it we the sheetrock on the ceiling. We are putting vinyl on the house, so where it was not completed it just poured in through the logs. We lost several big trees but were thankful that we had the biggest timber cut this summer.

Mom and Dad were not so lucky. They lost the roof on the house and 4 of the 5 barns. Both trucks, trailers and the motor home either received dings or water damage. All of the horses and other animals were shell shocked, but not harmed. Tuesday, we spent cutting our way out and clearing roads, but mainly scratching our heads about what to do next... oh and cooked. Wednesday, we spent doing more of the same, but we had to get the animals access to water and fences back up... more cooking. Wednesday, we completed patching the fences and worked on the yard and had to go to Foley AL to get gas for everyone and ice... more cooking. My gosh, I hate the grill. Thursday, it was time to start cleaning the freezers and fridge. Since we had power this night we all had a proper bath; no hot tub or pool bath, but a REAL, hot bath. We had AC so we slept like babies. By Friday we started getting some FEMA ice and water.

As of today we are getting so much FEMA supplies that we can't give the stuff away. Our community fire department had 8 helicopters of various things come into our community. In town at the FEMA site they received bags of 48 lbs of frozen chicken to give away along with other items. Now what will people who still have no power do with that much frozen chicken?

[roymond]

Glad to hear your friends are on solid ground again, sort of.

In town at the FEMA site they received bags of 48 lbs of frozen chicken to give away along with other items. Now what will people who still have no power do with that much frozen chicken?

A friend of mine worked for Gruman in the 60s through the Apollo program, and tells a story about another country using some of their testing methods for windscreens and requesting help as every test had failed even though they knew their products were built to spec. Gruman's reply: "thaw the chicken first".

[erik]

There will be time to 'crucify' M Brown & friends, FEMA and the politicians later.

The time to crucify these people is right now. Later may be too late. Crap is still going on. I think that this is a direct result of people saying how much of a crappy job has been done, and the media feeling free to echo public opinion, and the government actually responding.

[Egg]

<a href="http://www.flashnews.com/news/wfn105090 ... tml">Scott Stevens says after looking at NASA satellite photos of the hurricane, he’s is convinced it was caused by electromagnetic generators from ground-based microwave transmitters. </a>


edit:
Strangely, thesciencedetective where this theory will be discussed later today is a placeholder under construction site.

I get such weird news here in France. They run the craziest stories on the TV and I find odd stuff on the Internet too. I heard a TV show randomly ask the question "Will Bush have to resign?" today in the closing minute. One person on the panel was just like "...No." Why even run a question like that when his "resignment" is so clearly not going to be a consequence of this disaster just as the French President would not be required to resign after such a disaster in France. As a matter of fact, I'm startled about how much the French media is bashing US emergency response since thousands of people died from dehydration during a heat wave here a few years ago. How ill-prepared do you have to be to die from a heat wave in a country where you can drink the tap water? Maybe that's insensitive, but it seems like there might be some exculpating factors in the Gulf Coast situation. FEMA is clearly unprepared to deal with a catastrophe of this size, but I don't actually have much information about what's going on. It seems like the disaster has struck the entire Gulf Coast. So FEMA is prepared to deal with maybe a handful of sizeable cities getting hit...is it even possible for them to be constantly prepared to save this huge a region of the US? There's probably just one way in and out of New Orleans by road right now... maybe two... if the reports are right about which roads are around. I'd like to point fingers but I'm just not sure I have enough info.

Then again, some of the boneheaded quotes I've heard from Michael Brown do suggest that his prompt dismissal is called for. Bah, I really want to go back to the states and help out the region.

Long edit.

[roymond]

I can't go looking for numbers right now, but after 9/11 the entire lower end of Manhattan was closed. That's a lot of people, folks. It wasn't long before they let residents into their places, especially China Town and other neighborhoods not directly in the shadow of ground zero, but still, if FEMA isn't thinking about this scale of disaster...what are they thinking about? Of course the NYC FEMA headquarters were housed mere blocks from a known terrorist target which had had a attack just 8 years prior before being totally destroyed. But I digress...

[Egg]

I can't go looking for numbers right now, but after 9/11 the entire lower end of Manhattan was closed. That's a lot of people, folks. It wasn't long before they let residents into their places, especially China Town and other neighborhoods not directly in the shadow of ground zero, but still, if FEMA isn't thinking about this scale of disaster...what are they thinking about? Of course the NYC FEMA headquarters were housed mere blocks from a known terrorist target which had had a attack just 8 years prior before being totally destroyed. But I digress...

There are other differences too. There is just an immense amount of space with relatively few intact roads to get usable supplies in and desolate people out. I know that FEMA was able to respond to the hurricanes in Florida last year relatively quickly. We complained a lot anyway, but they got in and helped the affected areas pretty effectively. But Katrina has seemed to cause a lot more damage across a wider area. So what FEMA did last year in Florida, it is doing in several places in Mississippi, Alabama and northern Louisiana and New Orleans, a bowl surrounded by water is getting the media attention (in France) because it is the worst situation and the media likes to highlight scandals and promote fear-based consumption or something. Definitely something. I just don't know.

[Tex Beaumont]

Move over Katrina - here come's Larry.

It appears that a Category 5, Katrina-size tropical cyclone will be hitting the Queensland coast tomorrow morning - somewhere near Innisfail, between Cairns and Townsville.

Happily - I'm in Brisbane, not Cairns - where I spent a lot of the last 2 months because my wife has been working up there. She came home a few weeks ago.

There has been a lot of talk since Katrina that Cairns is our most 'cyclone-inappropriate' city. It is on a narrow coastal strip that is as flat as buggery and a decent storm surge could see the whole place become very soggy. Property developers in the last 20 years have made it a bit of a disaster waiting to happen.

Darwin was virtually destroyed by TC Tracy back in 1974 - but I think Townsville and Cairns will be a bit better built than Darwin was in those days. I wouldn't like to be in the smaller towns of Innisfail, Tully and Cardwell now though
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml
http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR212.shtml

[roymond]

'cyclone-inappropriate'

Now there's a bureaucratic label. CBS had some coverage but otherwise I haven't seen other news about this. Im sure it'll be all over the papers afterwards as a Katrina wanna-be (hopefully) or a Katrina immitator (hopefully not). Glad you're out of there!

[Eric Y.]

Darwin was virtually destroyed by TC Tracy back in 1974 - but I think Townsville and Cairns will be a bit better built than Darwin was in those days.

that's what they call 'survival of the fittest'.