So whose fault was it?

Zara pointed me at a Salon article on levee maintenance in NOLA. (You have to watch a short ad to read the article. Sorry.) Basically, despite knowing that New Orleans getting hit by a hurricane was one of the top 3 disasters likely to befall our nation, projects to make the city more safe from storm were ignored and abandoned. (Also in the top three on the summer 2001 disaster list: terrorists attack New York. Bush should pay more attention to these lists.) We needed the money for Iraq. Marshland adds protection from storm surge, but repairing marshland is second to war and second to development. Maybe 3rd or 4th to those things. or 5th . .

At least the feds are there for the cleanup, right? Not according to the Washington Post, which says that the Bush administration’s gargantuan creation, the Department of Homeland Security is Destroying FEMA. Eric Holdeman writes:

This year it was announced that FEMA is to “officially” lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.

So the Bush admin failed to protect New Orleans and now that an utterly predictable disaster has struck, there’s nobody federal on the ground to pick up the pieces.

FEMA will be survived by state and local emergency management offices, which are confused about how they fit into the national picture. That’s because the focus of the national effort remains terrorism . . . . Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the “homeland security” mission. Our “all-hazards” approaches have been decimated by the administration’s preoccupation with terrorism.

Some are calling this “our tsunami.” Yes, it’s exactly as if the tsunami of last winter . . . but with days of advance warning and in a first world country and where disaster plans existed but were ignored and all the rich people were carefully moved to safety but the poor were left to die and . . .
Some folks are blaming our sabotage of the Kyoto Accords for this disaster. This is a controversal thesis. Others have other ideas: Maybe God Struck us for having a right to privacy interpretted into our constitution!
It could be for the fetuses! (watch the stupid commerical just for the graphic on that page)

“The image of the hurricane … with its eye already ashore at 12:32 p.m. Monday, August 29, looks like a fetus (unborn human baby) facing to the left (west) in the womb, in the early weeks of gestation (approx. 6 weeks),” the e-mail message says. “Even the orange color of the image is reminiscent of a commonly used pro-life picture of early prenatal development.”

Or it could be for the queers!

“Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,” stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. “From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence’, New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same,” he continued.

Personally, I think it’s the queers. After all, Freepers remind us that the only good homo is a dead homo. “My prayer has been, and will remain, ‘Father, please save and change those involved in unrepentent homosexual behavior, but if they refuse to be saved and changed then kill them before they can drag others into hell with them'” (Ok, the Freeper has nothing to do with the hurricane, but it’s alarming (and apparently common) enough to warrant a link)
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Katrina

I have a feeling that if the Red Cross has not already asked for people to donate blood in response to Katrina, that it will soon. Blood donation website. They probably also need monetary donations.

A lot of people have lost their homes. Poor people probably don’t have insurance and have lost everything. And a lot of them died, because they didn’t get evacuated. What did they get? The Superdome, which quickly filled up and where they had to bring their own food and the damn roof came off.
From boing boing:

The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number — 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn’t leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn’t be able to get out. The resources — meaning, the political will — weren’t there to get them out.

And so people with no food or drinkable water are desperate and at risk of death and so are grabbing what’s available. Looting! Well, the black people are looting, the white people are “finding.” (Click the link for examples of picture labeling).
The wonkette quotes Rich Lowry, with a wry comment afterwards:

“Talking about any possible looters in Mississippi, the governor said (I’m quoting from memory) that they would be dealt with ‘ruthlessly,’ that they are ‘sub-human,’ and that they would get ‘a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget.'” The fact that most of the looters are black is just a coincidence, we’re sure.

A bad situation made worse by fucked up racism. (“Sub-human”??? Well, only if they looted, not if they just “found” the necessities of life.) Not exactly shocking coming from the south, but completely fucked up.
At least we didn’t bring this natural disaster on ourselves (cue Pat Robertson talking about feminists and homos), as Democracy Now reports that the Atlantic Hurricanes of the last few years don’t seem to be the result of global warming.

So, of course, it’s tempting. We have had this very active last ten years, along the U.S. and gulf coasts to blame that on global warming, but looking at it statistically, that’s a very difficult connection to make. I think what you are seeing mostly is a natural cycle in this case.

Right, so give blood, give money to the Red Cross and the NAACP. The south needs our help.
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anonymous comments disabled

After mad comment spam, I’ve disabled anonymous commenting. Sorry.

The “word verification” thing that blogger offers is otherwise known as a CAPTCHA (an acronym for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart”). They’re problematic because they’re not actually Turing tests. They can be defeated by software which can figure out what the word is. Also, they can be defeated by motivated persons. For example, a script might grab my CAPTCHA image and post it to a pron site, telling a user there to de-scramble the CAPTCHA in exchange for access to naughty images.
In addition to not actually stopping spam, they also weed out real humans who have visual impairment and are thus a huge accessibility issue, to the point that it is surprising to me that they do not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in an ADA-related lawsuit.
I’d invite comment on whether CAPTCHAs are better or worse than making you sign up for a blogger account, but ironically, those most likely to be in favor of the CAPTCHA solution can’t actually comment. Blogger should take action to prevent the same IP address from hammering away too many times or too quickly.
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Why do people do what they do?

Because they’re stupid?

Because they’re frightened and want to think if they follow some set of rules, they’ll be spared the pain that seems to fall down randomly on anyone and everyone? Alas, they’re wrong. There is no sense to the madness. Nothing you do can make you secure. Society is in upheaval and capitlaist and no matter how “correctly” you do things, you could still wake up tomorrow and lose you job, lose your spouse, lose your home or lose your health. There’s no safety net for any of these things, really. But this cannot happen to you. You’ve protected yourself with some rules. The other people this happens to must have done something to earn themselves a horrible fate. Therefore, we should instal no safety net. It’s a feedback loop of fear, hopelessness and smug self-satisfaction. Where are the democrats when we need them?
Because they haven’t experienced something and ascribe all sorts of sins / motivations / whatever to people who have? Empathy is a good thing, no matter how unpopular it currently is. All sorts of misbehaviors can be avoided through use of it. Sure, it’s problematic because you can’t actually know or feel another person’s experience. The golden rule is imperfect. But it could stand to be applied more often. I will now offer advice in its application:
As it turns out, many (but of course not all, maybe not even most) men treat women poorly. Almost all of these men have no idea they’ve done anything wrong. I’m not talking about domestic violence, I’m talking about work and social situation where subtle and overt sexism can abound. Mr. A likes to tease or flirt with women, like Ms B, with whom he’s had some past acquaintance. He knows it’s ok, because Ms B smiles and laughs. What he doesn’t realize is that Ms B has a dagger in her purse which she sorely wants to stab Mr A with. Women smile, laugh and act approving when they don’t mean it. Yeah, it sucks. You cannot tell if you’re doing wrong by how they’re acting. Don’t get angry at this. It’s not their fault. They’re trained from earliest childhood to smile, to be polite and to not object. Some women will apologize when you step on their feet. A couple of weeks ago, a woman apologized to me because she tripped over a curb while I was watching. They’re trained not to frown, not to take up space, not to demand, and to speak as if every statement they make is a question. Assertiveness = bad. Smiling = good.
Oy vey! So what do you do if you can’t read or rely on cues? The golden rule! There are two ways to apply it. The first is best with business interactions. The second is better with social / flirting.

Before (or after) you say something, ask yourself, “Would I have said that to a guy?” If not, then you probably shouldn’t (have) said it.
Or, if you’re straight and you’re trying to flirt, ask yourself, “How would I feel if a man said that to me?” I know this gets tricky for many straight guys. If you would feel like the location was inappropriate and you had done nothing to indicate that you might be gay or interested, then well, you probably shouldn’t have said it. (Smiling politely is not indicating interest.) If she actually was interested, then you’re ok, but maybe the comment would have made you uncomfortable because it’s too personal or is somehow objectifying or whatever, then it was a no-no. If you always freak out about the idea of a man flirting with you, well, you’re homophobic and you don’t get to flirt at all until you get over it. Sorry. You have to apply the golden rule.
I know this is probably completely obvious to all of my readers. In She’s Not There Boylan writes about how she drones on and on and on about gender dynamics which are all new and interesting to her but are way old news and bring for other folks in their 40’s. It’s like that.
I don’t think people, even ones who misspell “moron” while name-calling, are stupid. I do think they haven’t thought things through sometimes, or haven’t tried to see things from the other side. I also think many, many judgmental and angry people are actually very frightened of the world and hope they can separate themselves from people who deserve misfortune.
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FAQ

It’s time again for questions and answers!

  • Is Xena going to France with you? No, she going to Apple Valley (part of the Inland Empire, between Barstow and Los Angeles) to live with Cola’s parents. They have two acres and three other dogs. I will miss her.
  • Do you have a place yet? Yes, see Cola’s post for address and pictures.
  • Can I come stay with you on XX dates? I have a pull out sofa bed in the living room which is at your disposal. Let me know when you want to come so I don’t double book.
  • $17000.00?? I had a whole post on this, but then, when I was consoling myself and Gi Jo (Formerly Gi Jen) with Absinthe, I decided it was too negative and nuked it. (Absinthe makes you feel kind, apparently.) Some of the money is for suing the builder, which contracts the CCNRs, and some of the money is for actually fixing the problem. There’s a meeting about this tonight, which is am SO going to.
  • GI Joe??? No, GI Josephine. She’s on Livejournal.
  • Is your pickup still for sale? Nope. Sarah D. is going to buy it. Yay!
  • So, are you ready to go? No, I dunno what I’m brining yet and I need to offer $ for help with that insurance document.
  • Are you excited? Yes. Oy, and I need to weigh all my gear and decide if I can bring my tuba (American Airlines does not allow overweight bags) and put all my stuff away in someplace where it won’t be underfoot for ellen and fix the broken things in this house and sell my car and I should buy one more shirt, a tweed jacket and some undershirts before I go (I just got new shoes) cuz I dunno how friendly stores are to cross dressers in France and I don’t want to find out when I’m in a pinch. And take the GRE, which I have to schedule and I owe many wonderful people cookies for helping me translate things and I need to have some sort of gathering where cookies can be distributed . . .
  • Am I going to get to see you before you go? I think there will be some sort of gathering. I will post more info when I figure stuff out.

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Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

I just drank a couple of small shots of the absinthe that I brought back from the Cheque Republic in 2001 and it denfitely has more going on than just the 70% alchohol. It’s got Thujone and I think more of it would actually make me hallucinate, but it would also make me fall down drunk, so forget it.

Czech Republic of course.
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RIP Bob Moog

Bob Moog, inventor of the Moog Synthesizer just died of brain cancer. It’s sad news. I spent many hours in the Moog Studio at Mills, working on a gigantic Moog Modular P3. It was such a beautiful synthesizer. I miss it.

This morning, I heard on Democracy Now that Moog invented the analog synthesizer. Moog may have built the best synthesizer, but he didn’t invent it.
There were oscillators and pieces of things for music synthesis dating far back before the Moog. The term Amy Goodman was looking for was “Voltage-controlled Synthesizer.” But she still would have been wrong. Mills College has the first VCS ever built. It was commissioned by the San Francisco Tape Music Center (which moved to Mills and became the Center for Contemporary Music) and was built by Don Buchla.
The smithsonian wants it, but Mills has got it. I can’t say how their early Moog compares in sound to that first Buchla, because the Buchla wasn’t really working when I was there. I have seen it and seen the wiring for it. Oh my god, what a mess. Unshielded wires in a rat’s nest of incomprehensibility. Yeah, it was a prototype, but if anything went wrong, forget fixing it. I’ve heard the shipping ones weren’t all that much better. Moog, by contrast, published schematics and had a neat layout. Which means if your Moog broke, you could fix it. That certainly contributed to his success. That and his beautiful, lovely filters. The filters were so very very wonderful, especially the lowpass. (Cuts out high frequencies, allows lows through.) It has a round sound, warm. Like a great, german, big tuba. They were the filters that everyone was trying to copy. those squeely, squeltchy sounds of the TB303 et al didn’t come into vogue until recently. Back in the day, everybody wanted to sound like Moog.
The Times has a nice obit, but they felt the need to call Wendy Carlos “Walter”, followed by a parenthetical, ” (who later had a sex-change operation and is now Wendy Carlos)” and insisted on referring to her again as “Walter” when discussing Switched on Bach. In the same paragraph. In the next sentence. In a totally gratuitous re-use of first names that contradicts normal writing style. Also: my copy of Switched on Bach says “Wendy” on it.
Anyway, I recommend listening to Switch on Bach, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” some Maggi Payne and Bagels and Bongos. (Ok, I haven’t actually heard the last one . . . but I want to)
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