**News of other Bearcats in the NOLA area**

Melissa Woolsey wrote 8/30:
I am sure you have all heard about the city I love is gone. Luckily for John, I and the two dogs escaped to Pollock LA outside of Alexandria. We are safe and lucky enough to be in a place the reminds me of the beach cabins I loved as a kid.

We do not have specific news about our homes but we know we can not return until after the 5th.

I do not know when I can get back to you all but
please keep us in your thoughts and help others when you can since some stranger is helping me right now.

Man, I love that poem.

Two things:
"My advice to you and to all other Christians in this city is that you do the same (leave Portland)." Why was he only concerned with the Christians?

These declarations make it much easier for me to sort out the crazy people. I am just amazed that so people believed the declarations.

My aunt received news from a neighbor that her house was still standing. She's not sure of the extent of any damage, but at least it's not levelled.

There are three things that I hate for people to discuss with me at work: 1) how I should lose weight; 2) politics; and 3) religion. I can't argue my views with these people because I am in service and I need to keep them happy. But, I'll tell you, I've been preached more "end of the world as we know it" stories in the past week than you can imagine. How I long for a few diet tips!

It sounds like some sort of post-apocalyptic nightmare in New Orleans right now: rape, murder, looting. It's every man for himself. There is no law and no order. The things I'm reading are straight out of a horror novel. This is going to be fodder for films and novels for decades.

What sites have you found to follow the situation?

I found The Interdictor, a livejournal run by a fellow in a high-rise downtown. He's holed up with a generator and some weapons.

Also, the New Orleans newspaper has some good info, and an absolutely heartbreaking reader weblog on which people are posting requests for help. The following is typical:

My coworker's brother is one of seven doctors who have been left behind at Charity Hospital. His name is Vinroot, I'm sorry, I don't know the first name. He is in a panic--the doctors have barricaded themselves on the seventh floor because armed gunmen are outside threatening them and demanding access to the roof so they can be rescued first. He is desperate.

It is stories like armed gunmen threatening doctors that make me realize 1) our society is COMPLETELY FUCKED UP 2)we have a military to shoot these FUCKERS, no questions asked, get the helicopter in the air with the big 50 caliber rotary gun a blast the fuckers to hell! And God help their soles (oh, and mine too for having such hateful thoughts.

I agree, Jeremy, that our society is completely fucked up, and I also agree that the snipers who are hampering the rescue effort ought to be shot on sight.

However:

There are so many complex issues at play here, that it's overwhelming even to begin considering the situation. I've read countless indictments of the people who stayed in the town. To be sure, a majority of these people are probably just fucking idiots, the very same idiots now out murdering and raping. However, a large portion of the population that did not flee New Orleans was unable to flee.

Thus, when I read shit like this, in which the author explicitly says the blacks in New Orleans "needed a master" (who says racism is dead in this country?), or when I read other, more sober people who believe that no looting at all should be occurring, my heart aches. There's a fundamental disconnect here, a fundamental lack of historical education, a fundamental lack of the knowledge of economics. How can this be fought?

And while I, too, fundamentally find it interesting that while this country pours billions and billions of dollars into a misguided war with no possible positive outcome, our cities' infrastructures decayed. I'm not saying that I believe the situation might have been averted if the requested levee funding had been provided. Nor am I trying to lay blame for the damage on our President and his administration. (No matter how much I dislike him, this is not his doing.) However, I do hope this disaster makes it clear to a chunk of the American populace just how fucked up our Federal budget is, just how screwy our policies are.

While I cannot fault the Administration's foresight regarding this disaster, I am beginning to be disappointed by their response. Bush's much-quoted, "There's no way anyone could have predicted the levees would fail" quote has been refuted countless times on other web sites, and will go down as one of the most idiotic things he's ever said. (And that's saying something.) The promise of "quick Federal aid" that won't be to New Orleans for a week is something of a joke. I could forsee the looting and anarchy; why couldn't the government? Why are they only just now mobilizing to respond? Why weren't they prepared to respond yesterday? Or Tuesday? Or Monday?

Still, at the heart, this situation is apolitical. I dislike it when people make political hay out of crises of any sort. I don't want to be guilty of the same crime. This situation is personal: it's about the people still trapped in a post-apocalyptic New Orleans, surrounded by armed thugs; it's about Missy, escaped to Alexandria; it's about Scott and his family and their house, which has been destroyed.

I didn't know what to do after 9/11. After the tsunami, I donated money to a generic relief organization. Now, I have a personal contact with the disaster. When I reconnect with Scott, I'll be making a contribution directly to him and to his family.

This BBC editorial does an outstanding job of summarizing the issues here.

And people ask me why I own a gun. It's because the conservative heart of me recognizes that at the core of enough of us to make life miserable for the rest of us, there are people who are willing to exploit the hell out of everyone else if given half a chance. It's completely humiliating to me as an American to think that we abandon our ethics, our morality, and our principles at the drop of a hat. But time and time again we prove that is exactly the case.

And we wonder why the rest of the world has a certain amount of skepticism when we get up on our high horse and start preaching to the rest of them.

If we give ourselves over to fear then there is no room for compassion.

Dave, I don't question your RIGHT to own a gun, but I don't comprehend the threat you percieve that makes you appear to NEED a gun. The events in N.O. are unique and rare in their magnitude and breadth. However, it appears that the humanity of that area is demonstating situational ethics, situational morality and situational principles. The actions of a minority (murder and property crimes) are more dramatic and newsworthy currently, but they don't appear in principle to be any different on a day-to-day basis of other Americans or another citizens of the world. We make the decisions, right or wrong, based on the moment. Nothing has changed in humanity.

JD, when does your want for information cross the line to fostering unhealthy fear and uneasiness? We have opinions that indicate that people in N.O. have now become animals that must be put to death for their immidiate behavior. Prior to the devastation of the hurricane calls for people's immediate death would be a crime against humanity.

You can point to many episodes of terrible individual and group behavior. These actions are being perpetuated in conditions that most people commenting at this blog have not experienced. Just as the Minutemen "protecting" our borders are not heros, the criminals in N.O. are not enemy combatents that should be killed on the "battlefield". The easy part is to throw compassion towards the Durbin family and Melissa along with victims that are not perpetuating terrible crimes. The HARDEST part is be compassionate for the people examplifying the behavior that "we" find abhorant.

Paul: We have opinions that indicate that people in N.O. have now become animals that must be put to death for their immidiate behavior. Prior to the devastation of the hurricane calls for people's immediate death would be a crime against humanity.

???

What would you do with armed thugs that were shooting (and killing) rescue workers? Just let them be?

You're saying that, pre-hurricane, if there were a sniper in downtown Portland shooting at firefighters, police offers, and medical workers, that I would not call for this snipers immediate death?

You're wrong.

In New Orleans, you have a group of people risking their lives to rescue the poor, the injured, and the infirm. You have another group of people shooting at the rescuers. These snipers are essentially attempting to kill the rescuers and those who need to be rescued. And you're arguing that they should not be killed in return?

I don't follow that logic, Paul. I just don't.

I support the death penalty (and for more than just murder). I know that most people in the United States disagree with me, and I respect their arguments. But I don't think this is a case where it's a fine line, a case where we have to worry about these thugs' rights. They need to be dealt with swiftly and efficiently so that law-abiding citizens can have a chance at a future.

I don't think you should be complaining about my lack of compassion; I think you should be complaining about the snipers' lack of compassion.

Paul- Yes, I do find it extremely hard to be compassionate toward rapists, robbers and murderers. Those people are a part of our society, whether we like it or not. I've dealt with those people in many different circumstances, good and bad. I can tell you that in almost every instance those people had a choice about whether they were going to commit their violent act. We're not talking about killing in self defense, we're talking about willful murder. We're not talking about some type of teenage back-seat petting, we're talking about predation. We're not talking about shoplifting a packet of crackers because you're hungry, we're talking about holding people under the threat of (or commission of) violent actions against them until they forfeit their property, their liberty, or their lives and welfare.

Nor, frankly, do I see a need to BE compassionate to those people. Yes, I will staunchly defend their right to have due process, both procedural and substantive, and have done so on may occasions. However, I subscribe to no Christian (or other) morality that requires me to "turn the other cheek" or be a helpless victim. As a result, if someone is shooting at me I feel quite solidly justified in shooting back. If someone attempts violence against me or my family, I feel quite justified in putting that violence to an end. If someone attempts to steal my property, I feel similarly justified in preventing that from happening.

The events in New Orleans are unique only in the sense that New Orleans hasn't been hit by a disaster of this magnitude in quite some time. The events in New Orleans are completely typical of people in dire circumstances, however. Perhaps we cannot forsee that any one particular area will be subjected to this type of disaster, but we can certainly see that disasters do happen. They happen to us and they can happen without warning. Does anyone think that it's not possible to have an earthquake in the Portland area that would be devastating, destroy roads, knock out electrical power, telephone service, water, cause flooding, food, water and fuel shortages, etc? Or how about a volcanic eruption from one of the several active volcanoes in the vicinity? Tsunami anyone?

Bad things may happen to bad people and good people alike. That doesn't mean that the good people have to be victims of the bad people when disasterous circumstances arise.

What gets me is, why was he only urging Christians to leave town on that specific date?

On the question of whether this is a punishment from God, I was raised with the Mormon version of apocalyptic prophecy regarding the "wickedness" of our nation. None of the silliness about the disaster being a consequence of New Orleans' depravity surprises me. The sickening thing is that there are too many people who will believe it. Why would God want to hurt the innocent people who are suffering in the south?

I think that if anything, the disaster was in part due to global warming, which is creating warmer waters and thus conditions conducive to more and stronger hurricanes. I saw this on the network news, though, and I've learned you have to take a lot of what they say with a grain of salt.

The hurricane (or rather, the increase in hurricanes in the past decade) has everything to do with the oceans getting warmer*; but has nothing to do with global warming, or humans (like the president), or God.

*And by "getting warmer" I mean, back to a more natural temperature, as they've been colder than usual since the 50's or 60's.

This would normally go in the flotch, but it's germane to this entry. Via making light, I found this weblog entry, which says:

Say what you like about casting blame for the unfolding tragedy in NO, the bare facts of the matter are these: America suffered a serious attack on Sept. 11, 2001. That was four years ago. I think we had all assumed that in the meantime a lot of wargaming and disaster-mitigation planning and homeland security gearup had been going on. If this is what the Federal and State governments are going to come up with when the suitcase nuke goes off in D.C., then we are well and truly fucked.

A video interview with a politician, which is typical of the coverage I saw last night. (Kris and I watched Disaster Coverage.) I'm actually impressed that the reporters are asking hard questions. I hadn't expected it. The politicians are being politicians, though, and giving no answers. (See the afore-mentioned link to Diane Sawyer's interview with President Bush.) Check out this mp3 of a radio interview (which I'm hosting locally) with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin — this is amazing stuff coming from a politician. This isn't the bullshit coming out of every other politician's mouth:

I don't want to see anybody do any more goddamned press conferences... put a moratorium on press conferences, don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city, and then come down to this city and stand with us... Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here - they're not here; it's too doggoned late. Now get off your asses and let's do something...

Fantastic MeFi thread filled with outrage.

AskMe: Is there a blog collecting updates on Katrina?

A great weblog entry: living on a First World edge discusses the disaster as it relates to American hubris.

Yet another despair inside the Superdome article, but full of new stories.

Reading this blog entry and the responses certainly makes one's head spin. We all have an idea how things could have been handled better. As many Americans have spent more time watching the disaster in New Orleans unfold, Bob and I find ourselves in that group. However, there are several aspects which we have not seen addressed, nor have we seen them questioned here. No one has talked about logistics. We are not in the age of Star Trek. There is no transporter chamber. Even with a good disaster plan, I don;'t think that there is any country, county, city or other quasi governmental unit that can afford to hold people and materiel in readiness for a disaster. Most plans require that people be mobilized and supplies be gathered and that the equipment be taken out of "moth balls" or taken away from the tasks they are used for now and repurposed for disaster use. This all takes time. The mayor of NO and governor of LA are screaming for support, but it can't get there instantly. If we think about bringing supplies by land, all the eastern access roads are out. All supplies must come from the west. If we think about bringing supplies and help from the south, we must remember that all the ships were removed from the area because of the hurricane and even the ones in Galveston must be supplied with volunteers and supplies specific to the disaster. If we are thinking about military ships, they are even further away. How many nautical miles is it from Baltimore? How fast can a ship travel safely? 20 knots an hour? 30? Do the math. And first, the personnel and supplies must be gathered. We must discount Monday because the storm was still wreaking havoc. Now we are only 4 days after the storm. Is it reasonable to expect more help sooner? Could we drive there from California in a shorter time? What about from Oregon? Montana? New York? If the helpers came by plane, how close could they get before they had to resort to trucks for the remainder of the trip? Are the airports operational yet?
Let's keep a level head about our expectations and help the victims instead of trying to place blame.

The other thing Bob keeps wondering is: If the news stations can put reporters into the city of NO with electicity and even minimal services, why aren;t they offering to bring in help and bring out people? If they can demand compassion and action from the government and public for the victims in NO, wouldn;t it be more useful to save those victims or aid those victims than just call them and their agony to our attention? How many could they have brought out in their boats and on their helicopters? How much supplies could they have brought in instead of cameras and equipment? Do we really need more stories of suffering or would the victims rather have help from the media? When should the media's compassion come before their job of reporting? Just wondering.

Nah, the best thing for the media to do is the thing it does best (an air-tight argument, wouldn't you say?): inform the public of events and allow the public to take action.

I was just as disappointed when Ani Difranco (once a musician I really liked) said 9/11 was retribution for our nation's foreign policy and conservative politics. Really no different than the crap that Falwell and Robertson said.

Jim-- I think there is a very real difference. Falwell (et al.) are saying that a wrathful god is punishing us for our perceived evils. Ani Difranco (among many others) is summarizing Osama Bin Laden's own words. He had warned the US that we should withdraw our military presence in the Middle East. When we didn't, he acted. Bin Laden broadcast his threats on national television. I'm not sure where Falwell and his group are getting their "holy" messages.

Kris,
I think the similarity is both are taking advantage of a terrible tragedy and using it to validate their world view and say "see I'm right".
I also got to hear Ani explain how prisons are just full of poor people and we should let them all out. I stopped listening to her after that.
--Jim

I don't know where they get their messages either, Kris, but they would probably claim they are from "God". For a quote from Pat Robertson about Hurricane Katrina, go to http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/27/121328.php. (Sorry, I don't know how to link.) I couldn't find anything from Jerry Falwell and I'm getting tired so will probably not keep looking tonight. On Robertson's official site, all they have is information about contributing to the relief effort. At least there, he is covering his behind and not making ridiculous statements.

Note the Pat Robertson quotes are "satire" not real quotes.