Month: August 2005

This is the end, beautiful friend.  This is the end.

My last day with The New York Times as my only news source.  Tomorrow, I will return to blogging, and presumably, be able to bring myself back up to speed with the various things I have missed lo these past many days.

And, it appears that my last day with The Times will be occupied chiefly with – A Fucking Catastrophe of Biblical proportions, worthy of being taught as a part of the science curriculum at a public school in Kansas.
First, let me start with some housekeeping details.  Tomorrow, I intend to be blogging all day.  I hope those of you who have stopped by during my experiment will join me.  Maybe a diary.  Maybe two.  Maybe a lot of comments.  I don’t know.  Someone even suggested I might burn a copy of The Times.  I could do it live on line.  Though, I’m not really sure.  But, I plan on spending about every waking minute, clicking on the refresh button at Booman and Daily Kos, like a rat trying to get his fix of cocaine.  Ah, yes.

Second, I suppose I want to touch on a bunch of stories in The Times today.  And, then wrap up with some self-observations on this whole experiment.  And, on August 31, 2005 – even in the MSM, one must start with looking at New Orleans.  Our poor fallen friend.  Front page.  Huge headlines.  Two pretty horrifying photos.  The first show New Orleans, in its new pose, as a swamp dotted by rooftops and a skyline backdrop.  The second shows a poor woman crying in the foreground, with her dead husband, wrapped in a white sheet, behind her, on a wooden slab, just out of flood waters.  He, a cancer patient we are told, died when his oxygen tank ran out.  In my family, I know we would have said of him, he is in a better place now.  Even though most in my family have little faith there is a better place, and those that do believe in my family, have precious little chance of getting to the better place even if it exists.  But, that’s what we would say.  To comfort ourselves from the senseless finality of death.  I am sorry for the woman.  And, her cancer riddled husband.  And the untold number of people like them.  How can you not bleed?  The city of the Blues.  The story plays it pretty straight.  When the levee breaks, I’ll have no place to stay.  The Superdome sure does sound like the setting for a pretty awful horror movie right about now.  Funny, The Times seems to have understood the human loss today.  There are no front page stories decrying the peril to gas prices.  People are dead and dying.  And that seems to be the focus now.  Hairy Baboon, er, I mean Haley Barbor, says that the gulf coast of Mississippi looks like “Hiroshima.”  Leave it to a Republican to make a war simile.  Refugees are spread across the South like gypsies, no slander to that fine group of travelers, and are likely to fan out from there.  And the side stories.  Will football be played at the Superdome soon?  Brave rescuers told to go for live bodies, not dead.  Sounds rational, if terrifying.  Repairs are going to be a bitch.  No shit.  The good of living in New Orleans always seemed worth this risk, to some.  Local print reporters couldn’t put out the paper, but they carried on their mission on the web.  Kind of like bloggers, I suppose.  Wonders never cease.  The Navy is on the way to help.  And, disease is a big concern in the days to come.  The main editorial calls on the unity provided by these disasters, to trump the inevitable need to blame (Bush, they mention by name).  All in all, it is comprehensive coverage.  Of course it is a full-day old.  New Orleans could have been declared Atlantis by this point, and I wouldn’t know it.  Because print news is so last century.  And, I am coming home to this century tomorrow.  Good vibes to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.  I know the best of us will pull together and chip in and restore that proud, proud lady of a town.

Third, the War in… Syria.  “I heard that we’re in Cambodia right now…”  I think that line is from Platoon.  Ah, a war before Global Positioning Satellites.  I served with those good brothers in the army who were Vietnam vets.  What a fucking crazy war that was?  And, they were all confidant, as was I, that no one could possibly be stupid enough to do that again.  At least not within the living memory of anyone touched by that war.  But, we’re back.  And, is it getting bigger?  Two stories hinting at Syria.  God knows Bush has a secret toy room on the second floor, locked away by a retina scan security system where he moves toy soldiers on a Risk board, and he would sure as hell like to have enough little plastic men to push on into a whole fucking continent.  “I’m going for broke.  I’m going for all of Asia,” says the little yellow-fucker who wouldn’t fight in the real war he had a chance to fight in.  Anyway, enough of my ranting.  Syria.  Two stories.  Five senior Lebanese officials with connections to Syria have been detained.  Can you say casus belli.  Or in Bush speak, “I want a reason to invade that piece a desert over there.”  And then, there is this.  We are bombing the shit out of a town – or a shack – or a camel stable – near the border of Syria.  Trying to stop those damn foreign terrorists from crossing the border.  And, are they headed from Iraq to Syria to escape our Army, after we went to Iraq to end terrorism?  Fuck no.  They are coming in from Syria, to Iraq, to kill us, and anybody else they fucking well please, in the lawless fucking quagmire that should be renamed Bushraq.  I don’t even know if I believe terrorists are coming in.  I think it could just as well be a cover story to fucking invade Syria.  To extend the war on terra.  I just don’t fucking know what is real.  Because I am living in a world of unreality.  Who says what loudest and most?  I dunno.  I just know I’m coming home to talk with people that at least kind of think like I do, sometimes.

Fourth, poverty up for fifth straight year.  Oddly, this tracks with the election of George fucking Bush.  Worked for Reagan.  Why are we such stupid fucking bastards here?  What is wrong with us?  Was it all just the Supreme Court and Diebold?  Or are we the dumbest people on the fucking planet?  I vote that the cause is equal parts of each.  But, I know nothing.  Until tomorrow.

Fifth, speaking of stupid fucking Americans.  This just in.  The teaching of creationism is widely supported by Americans in a new survey.  42% of your fellow countrymen believe that “living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.”  A whopping minority of 48% believe humans evolved over time.  But of those who have even the most minimal fucking understanding of modern science, 18% of the total respondents who believed in evolution, also believed that evolution was guided by a Supreme being.  Only 26% of the population understand that humans evolved through natural selection.  And, 14% are just too fucking ignorant to have a real opinion.  Fucking help this country.  I was going to say, “God, help this country,” but I think that is part of the problem.  If I would stop taking the Lord’s name in vain so fucking much, maybe America would not be so fucking stupid.  I don’t know.  I am ignorant.  But, I am coming home tomorrow.

That is a good place to leave The Times.  There is a lot more.  Everyday.  Too much for any person to fully digest I suppose.  It is a good paper.  It does its best.  I am not a hater.  Even for all my fucking forty-whatever days of reading nothing but the Gray Lady.  But, its time is over.  The king is dead, long live the king.  I can’t wait for tomorrow.  Sneak down about three in the morning, and see presents under the tree in a very dim lite.  That kind of can’t wait.

I want to leave my experiment with these thoughts.  Random thoughts.  Perhaps unread.  But, good thoughts.  Good to still be thinking.  In that really sick way that the world has of allowing fucking horrible things to happen to really good people, I am glad that Katrina hit just before the end of my experiment.  Water washing over New Orleans.  First the ocean, where fucking life began you ignorant 74% of my fucking fellow citizens, washing over the Big Easy.  Like it was trying to reclaim something.  Then man’s engineering and social and political failure.  Allowing a lake to pour over onto the habitat of – what the fuck is it – like 500,000 people in the city alone and I know the number is so much higher, but unreported to me.  We are just small lumps of clay, as my good old mentor, (I don’t know him, but I love him – and I was lucky enough to have a photographer who shot him do the photo for my book – the only class thing about the damn novel) Kurt Vonnegut, once wrote.  Some clay got the luck to sit up and look around.  And admire the other clay, and the things in the wide, wide world.  And when the levee breaks, we just get smashed back down.  To where we belong.  Insignificance.  But, for those moments we can think – and write – and talk – and blog.  Oh what a wonderful thing it is, just to discuss it all.  In all its absurdity.

I almost died on the water when I was a wee lad.  I am sure my that my memory has made the monster waves that broke over our little twelve footer larger than they were.  The black clouds and lightning that emerged out of a blue sky like a wolf over the horizon, more menacing than it really was.  But, I know that day, I could feel the water trying to reclaim me.  Rainwater trying to get down my lungs, to re-unite with its brother molecules inside me.  Water from Lake Huron, rolled down from the Saginaw River and into the bay, rolling over us, pulling us down.

We made shelter.  A sandy island.  And were glad for the decades we were afforded to keep looking around.  But, I know one day my ashes, or my mortal body will return to that great lake.  I am just glad to be coming home for another day.

Oh, Halliburton’s hand is not out to give, but to take. I searched Google News, with many search term combos, for any report of Halliburton’s donations to Katrina’s victims. Nothing. But, when I changed my search to “Halliburton Katrina,” look what came up:

As my aunt used to say, some of us are takers, some of us are givers. Did any of you hear that auto mechanic on MSNBC yelling about Bush’s speech? “He ain’t gonna be president no mo’.” (Poor guy. He thinks that being angry at Bush will get rid of him?) I’ve asked Crooks & Liars to get us the video ASAP. MORE BELOW:
MSNBC reporter: Bodies are all over. The reporter says she has seen one body that’s been in the street for three days. People are hanging out of office building windows, waving frantically for rescue. But no one can get to them.

In the meantime, more from my Halliburton Katrina search results at Google News:

And do you think that Halliburton’s Web site has a SINGLE WORD about Katrina or the Red Cross? No.

Meanwhile, people wander the streets and freeways aimlessly. They don’t know where to go. One 50+-year-old woman was just on MSNBC begging the stores to open so she could get a loaf of bread.

Thousands of people have drowned. There are no homes to live in, no places to work in. Get ready for the “CAMPS.”
There is going to be rioting and migration to the North from the South. People have nowhere to live. The government will continue to ignore them for the most part and they will become angry. The government is not inclined to help people domestically. This is a survivalist, paranoid administration and you are expected to survive by your own wits.

Where will all the thousands of people go for the next few months? It isn’t a question of days but really years. It takes about a year to build a home or an apartment complex. It takes only a few days to build a refugee camp.

The homeless will be put in camps. They will be refugees in their own nation and will be treated poorly by “a government that has no pride.” Some will migrate North. They will not feel welcomed.

Doesn’t anyone on TV realize this is going to create a massive social uprising that can only be put down by a Police State? Parts of the South are going to return to an earlier time. Black people and some whites without money will be herded into massive camps. They will be kept there for “their own security” and for the “security of the nation”.

We will not hear too much about this. It won’t be quite like being in Guantanamo but it’s going to be going in that direction.

I say this because I cannot think of any other possible scenario. Where are you going to put all the people who are alive and who have no homes. 40.000 homes were completely underwater in one neighborhhod in New Orleans. Those homes cannot be lived in. But a large portion of the South has been destroyed. Perhaps millions of homes. Hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of people have no homes, no place to go to work, no infrastructure, dead relative, orphans, sick dependent and injured people all around them.

They cannot stay in the Super and Astro Domes for any length of time. They have to build camps. The people in the camps are not going to like living in a camp for more than one or two weeks. It’s going to become obvious to them that they are not going to leave. It will become obvious too, that there is no intention to help them. Not really. They are going to rise up and they are going to be put down and this attitude will create disturbances in every major city and we will have some major rioting and revolution in this country.

The United States is about to turn the poor black and white people of the areas affected into the new Palestinians.

Can anyone else tell me how it could turn out any other way? Given the true story (which I tried to get out before the Hurricane struck ) that this was going to destroy New Orleans. I didn’t realize it was going to destroy a large part of the south too.

I’m not that smart. I understand the government has had for a long time a plan to put people into camps should there be rioting or an uprising of some kind. I would imagine that they will employ this scenario to deal with the problem.

Why isn’t anyone else thinking this through in the media? Why aren’t preparations being made to avoid putting people in “Camps”? It will lead to social disaster and domestic warfare.

We’ve seen the right wing attack machine in action for at least a decade now. We’ve seen how vile and brutal they can be in attacking those on the left. But it has been surprising how tepid they have been with Sean Penn. I mean, they love attacking Barbera Striesand, Angelina Jolie, Michael Moore, ect. So when Sean Penn goes to Iran to cover the elections for liberal San Francisco’s home newspaper, as he had prexiously done in Iraq, you’d think the Roveites would be in a self rightious uproar. You’d think they would be spinning this into Jane Fonda territory, seeing how it’s the closest anyone in Hollywood has come to her visit to Hanoi many years ago. So why don’t we see the right doing anything beyond the bare minimum of criticism. I wondered about this and then it hit me.
Do you know why you don’t see the Limbaughs, Hannitys, and O’Rileys giving Sean Penn shit?
Well, put it this way, Could you picture Sean Penn taking any shit from these guys?
Me neither.
The right could and would spin his visit into aiding and abetting the enemy if, say Susan Sarandon had done the exact same thing. They should be downright sexuly arosed at sutch an inviting target. But it ain’t happening.
For those too young to remember Sean Penn did a few months in jail for punching out a paperazi photographer   about 20 years ago. He’s had no incidents since then, He was still pretty mutch a kid when it happened. But I think that may be the reason that they back off. Penn’s a grown man now who I’m sure would not make the same mistake again. (mutch as I’d like to see him take a pillowcase of RC Cola cans to most wingnuts) But it goes too show what we are dealing with.
These assholes are bullies. Howard Dean, Harry Reid, and Larry Johnson have shown that standing up to them works. Sean Penn proves the perception one might do so is also more that enough to send them running away like the pussies they are.
Well, anyways, here’s Sean Penn’s six part series on his visit to Iran, enjoy.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/08/22/DDGJUEAF041.DTL&hw=sean+penn&sn= 004&sc=600

The Hurricane has hit close to home. Gas prices have gone up here 30-40 cents in the last 24 hours. Currently, there is no telling how far they will go up, or if they will be permanent.

I suggest that the oil companies are exploiting a situation in which thousands of lives may have been lost to gouge customers and pad their already record profits. And both Bush and Cheney are oilmen and recieve much of their donations from big oil companies.

Bush has released our oil reserves, which may help a little. But the one thing he has failed to do is put oil companies on notice that the AG would prosecute any instances of price gouging and profiting off of human lives.
When the 9/11 tragedy struck, many gas stations across the state raised their gas prices to the unheard-of $2 a gallon. That quickly stopped after our state AG put gas companies on notice that would be prosecuted. Why hasn’t Bush done so here?

Furthermore, Bush is playing on the fears of rising gas prices to drum up continued support for the War in Iraq. In yesterday’s San Diego address, he said that if we left Iraq, Bin Laden would control the oil fields of Iraq, driving up prices even further.

First of all, that is simply not true. The Iraqi nationalists outnumber the foreigners under Zaraqwi’s control by 9 to 1. They would have no more use for the foreigners after we left. In fact, they could start fighting among themselves, given the xenophobia the nationalists frequently show. The foreigners would lose popular support and be made irrelevant.

It was a myth that oil prices would go down as a result of the war. In fact, the demand created by the warring factions, including the Americans has far outstripped any new supply that was created. And the insurgents have disrupted the oil supply line so badly that they have badly affected the oil output there

Bush will undoubtedly use this tragedy, as he has with so many others, to play on people’s fears and cling to power. But we must present a clear alternative.

A couple of days ago, I wrote that we needed to break out of our tunnel vision and look for issues not covered as much here. That led to a lot of brainstorming. I have some ideas in mind, some of which I will share over the next few days. But my main idea is that we must convince people to vote their hopes and not their fears.

Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, LBJ, and Clinton all won because they were able to defeat the right-wing smear machine by convincing people to vote their hopes and not their fears. That is what made the Democratic Party so successful over a 40 year period. That is what we must do again.

Hi guys and gals.. this doesnt appear to have made much news either on the blogs or on the media.. so I thought I’d post this:

August 30 – The Government of Canada today issued the following statement in support of those who have endured the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in the United States:

“On behalf of all Canadians, I wish to extend our heartfelt condolences to those who have lost loved ones as a result of Hurricane Katrina, as well as our sympathies to those who have suffered great losses and personal hardship,” said Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan. “During this difficult time, we are offering our support to our friends and neighbours.”

The Deputy Prime Minister added that she has contacted U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and advised him that Canada stands ready to provide assistance if needed. In addition, the Minister of Health, Ujjal Dosanjh, has directed the Public Health Agency of Canada to contact the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and offer any assistance that may be helpful, such as emergency medical supplies contained in the National Emergency Stockpile System.

In short, if you guys need any help in the Gulf Coast and/or New Orleans, just ask.

Update [2005-8-31 22:47:32 by tribe34]: I just saw this story on Yahoo.ca giving more
specifics on what Canada can offer.. and also that individual Canadian provinces and relief agencies are now waiting to help:

“Yesterday, the Department of Human Health Services in the U.S. contacted our public health agency and asked for an inventory of emergency supplies that, if they need them, we could send at a moment’s notice.”

That inventory was completed Wednesday.

American officials are still assessing their needs, but in coming days Canada will be prepared to send everything from water purification systems to the Canadian military’s Disaster Assistance Response Team.

According to the story, the Canadian provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and their respective Premiers are offering aid, and the Canadian Red Cross is ready to go as well.

We are ready to help.. I hope you folks will take us up on the offer… I’m a bit worried that pride might stop you from asking:

Officials in McLellan’s office said there had been no official request from the U.S. for help.

Whazzzup?

Intelligence: The Human Factor (Securing Our Nation) By Patrick Lang Editor: Larry C. Johnson

by Larry C. Johnson

Does George Bush hum Sam Cooke’s lyrics from “Wonderful World” (i.e., “don’t know much about history“) when he comes up with ill-conceived and incorrect analogies? Take for example his latest foray into the history of World War II. For starters he prematurely marked the anniversary of the end of the Second World War with Japan. Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945.

President Bush spoke this earlier this week at the Naval Air Station in San Diego and said: “As we mark this anniversary, we are again a nation at war. Once again war came to our shores with a surprise attack that killed thousands in cold blood.”

Having played the 9-11 card he said that like the Second World War, the US now faces “a ruthless enemy” and “once again we will not rest until victory is America’s and our freedom is secure.”

Drawing on World War II for solace to excuse the debacle in Iraq was also employed in June of this year by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who told members of the Senate and House that we faced setbacks in World War II and we should take that into account in our current war of terrorism. CONT. BELOW:

So, if World War II is the benchmark for our current effort than why have Bush and Rumsfeld botched things so badly? Consider these facts:

The United States and its allies in WWII defeated the Third Reich, Italy, and Japan in 1364 days (that covers the period from 7 December 1941 until 2 September 1945, when Japan signed the surrender documents). Of course that required a massive mobilization of our society to defeat these enemies, a dramatic expansion of the U.S. military forces, and a solid international coalition.

How goes it in the war on terror? For starters it is taking a lot longer. One thousand four hundred and forty nine days (1449) have elapsed since the attacks on 9-11 (today’s date, 31 August 2005). Why is it that our grandparents managed to defeat two major Armies in three combat theatres, but we still cannot find and finish Bin Laden?

Bush continues to insist things are going well. So how de we measure progress? If expanded insurgent activity in Iraq and regrouping Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan is progress then things are on track. If our continued failure to meet recruiting levels for the U.S. military counts as progress then we are moving ahead.

If the fact that international terrorism attacks have skyrocketed since 2003 (we have gone from 203 significant attacks in 2003 to almost 700 significant attacks in 2004) then we are winning.

Perhaps the time has come to call the Bush Administration on its persistent happy talk and delusional thinking (e.g., the insurgency is in its last throes). There is an enormous gulf between their public spin and the truth on the ground.

Bush’s comparison with World War II raises several uncomfortable questions:

Why was the United States able to defeat two of the most powerful military forces in the world simultaneously in 3 and 1/2 years but today cannot control, much less defeat, an Iraqi insurgency led in part by remnants of a third rate military power?

Why is Osama Bin Laden, the man who planned and authorized the 9-11 attacks still on the loose and planning more mayhem?

Why is our “coalition of the willing” coming apart at the seams?

One answer is that Bush talks tough but doesn’t take these threats seriously. In World War II we not only believed we were at war but we acted like it and organized ourselves to fight it. Not so today.

In the Second World War we had General George C. Marshall running the war effort.

Today, there is no one in charge.

Don Rumsfeld does his thing and the CIA does its things. In addition, very few Americans are being asked to make any sacrifice in this effort.

As we approach the fourth anniversary of the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001 it is time to ask ourselves why George Bush does not take the threat of terrorism as seriously as Franklin D. Roosevelt did the threats of Nazi and Japanese fascism. Instead of taking frequent vacations George Bush might want to spend some time actually dealing with this threat rather than offering empty speeches.

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I found this at a link for pictures of Katrina damage. I just happened to notice the caption.  There has been almost no coverage of how bad things have been in Miami.  

In this Aug. 26, 2005 file photo provided by the Miami Dade-Fire Rescue Dept., homes in South Dade County (Fla.) are seen submerged in rising water caused by Hurricane Katrina. The loss of life and property caused by Hurricane Katrina is expected to exceed the wrath of record-setting Hurricane Andrew, which struck in 1992. (AP Photo/Miami Dade-Fire Rescue, Lt. Eric Baum, File )

I don’t have too much to say about this, except I did not know about it.  Is the media really that good at being lousy?  Or did anyone just not notice.  I searched for more pictures, and I hardly found any at all.  Maybe more will show up at a later date.  
I found this from the Miami Hurricane website, the football team that is.  Looks like it hit the campus pretty bad.  

I just did not know about this.