Tvindy

More New Orleans Links

As I read up on the devastation in New Orleans, I keep coming across related pages that I want to share. Here's what I found this week:

This is probably the single greatest (and appalling) firsthand survival account online. Assuming all the details are true, everyone should read it.

Bush is kind of dumb.

Clearly he takes after his momma (from bakerina).

Has Katrina saved US media? asks the BBC.

Here's a great photo. (It's just too bad it reinforces about half a dozen horrendous stereotypes.) More good photos here.

Also, check out this zoomable satellite view of the flooding from August 31.

Katrina Aftermath

Like most people, I've been following the news on the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. I thought I'd share some of the more interesting material I've come across online. (Most of it deals with New Orleans, but I'm well aware that that was not the only affected area.)

Making Light has an interesting entry pointing out how the media tends to portray black people foraging for supplies as looters while whites are not. Yahoo! has since removed the offending photos, but you can view them here.

I really don't understand all the fuss about looting. If people who are poor to begin with lose their homes and possessions to flooding have to forage for food and bottled water in nearby stores, I think they are entitled, especially the people who have not yet received any aid. Bush's zero tolerance remark was reprehensible. While starving families try to feed themselves, New Orleans' finest forage for DVDs.

In October 2001 Drowning New Orleans appeared in Scientific American, warning that "New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen" and "Scientists at LSU . . . predict that more than 100,000 people could die."

Bush had other priorities. Here is the chronology.

A lot of people have pointed out that all the buses and rental cars, now partly submerged, could have been used to evacuate scores of people from the city, in the process also saving the vehicles themselves.

The Washington Post has a very interesting account of what conditions are like in the Superdome. It really boggles the mind that people staying behind in New Orleans were sent there, yet they can't even bring in adequate water for them. Isn't the purpose of getting everyone together into a central location to make it possible to care for them en masse? Couldn't they use helicopters to fly in tanks of water (as well as food and medicine)?

MoveOn.org has set up Hurricane Housing, allowing people within 300 miles of the area affected by Hurricane Katrina to offer temporary housing to those who have been displaced from their homes. Sounds like a great idea.

The Interdictor is a blog and video feed being maintained and updated in New Orleans. I haven't actually been following it. (I skimmed it a bit and then stopped reading when I came to the entry that referred to looters as "monkeys".)

Another New Orleans blog has as its most recent entry an account of how the blogger was trying to leave the city before the hurricane hit but could not, because "All car rentals, airlines, bus lines and the train station are now closed until further notice. . . . It's only after they are all closed that the Mayor orders evacuation -- then he orders incoming roads closed so no one can come get me out." I hope she's okay.

And of course there's schmed, who is one of the the oldest additions to my blogroll. Thankfully, he and his family are all okay, as is their home.

Valuable Comments

Here's another great way to contribute to the tsunami relief efforts. Head on over to this entry on Michele Agnew's site and leave a comment. One of her readers has offered to contribute one dollar per comment posted to be donated to Oxfam International. So far there are about 321 comments ($321). The catch is that this opportunity is only good for 24 hours, so be sure to get over there right away. (Thanks to Amber for the heads up on that.)

Tsunami

I really should say something about the tsunami. It's not that I've been avoiding the subject; I just haven't have much to say about it. But it was a horrible disaster that killed thousands of people, and not even to acknowledge it here on a blog that purports to be "about nearly everything" would be a bit insensitive. So here are my thoughts.

I find it oddly comforting that the tsunami, and its resulting devastation, was a true act of God and clearly no one's fault (conspiracy theories notwithstanding). It was not the result of military intervention, a dictatorial regime, or even environmental degradation wrought by man. It was just one of those horrible things that sometimes happen. Especially after all the killing in Iraq, it seems strange to me to mourn the loss of thousands of innocent people without feelings of anger and guilt. I only hope the disaster relief efforts are truly working to their full potential.

If you would like suggestions on how best to contribute, check out Mulubinba Moments and Following Edge.

Bush Won

I think Bill said it better than I ever could.

Hmm, maybe I should give Canada a go.

Further Details

Here are some further details to accompany yesterday's pictures.

• I found out today that Kerry was not actually here. It was Edwards. (I guess if I had actually been paying attention rather than blogging, I would have picked up on that.)
• I had no idea the rally was going to occur. I knew something was being set up, but when I checked out the Events Calendar, it wasn't listed. (I guess they only announce the really important stuff.)
• My first annoying run-in with the secret service occurred as I was walking back to my dorm. The Student Union has an exit right in front of my building. As I was coming out, I was stopped and told I couldn't go through there. The fellow then started telling me where I should go to watch the speech. I finally got to explain that the building directly behind him was where I lived and that I should be allowed to enter it. He explained that there was no way I could go through there, because the area was full of secret service agents (none of which I could see). I asked where I should go to get into my building, and he explained that he didn't know, since he wasn't from around here. In other words, the agent stationed in front of my building couldn't tell me how to get in.
• Backtracking into the student union, I saw an older man in casual clothes carrying a notebook scrutinize me very carefully and prolongedly as we passed each other. Truly an ingenious disguise! Yep, just carry around a notebook, and everyone will think you're a mere student and not a secret service agent.
• I have to admit, some of my problems with the secret service may have had something to do with the fact that I was wearing this shirt.
• When I finally made it into my dorm through a back entrance, I discovered the lobby had been split in two with a blue partition, and the elevator and stairs were on the other side. I approached the chubby man and explained that I lived there and needed to go up to my room. After a pause he said, "Yes, Kinsey. You can go right up." My first reaction was to think (not out loud), "You're damn tootin' I can go up. I fuckin' live here!" But then I had a sudden realization. My eyes widened, and I said (this time out loud) "How do you know my name?" He spoke no more, and I passed through the partition.
• The incident with him knowing my name was scary. I later realized that the partition guard was actually not secret service. Rather, he is the coordinator for my building. But he doesn't know me and didn't show any sign of recognition until I explained that I wanted to go up to my room. I'm pretty sure that he must have been equipped with one of those tiny wireless earbuds, and someone spotted and IDed me from a hidden location and relayed my name to him. But how was it done? Did they scan the ID photos of all the students in the dorm and then use a facial recognition program and camera to scan each person as they entered the building? But "Kinsey" isn't my legal name; it's just the name I go by, and I really don't know that many people here. Did they do a background check? Or was the person who relayed my name my RA? Who knows? But something fishy did go down then; I'm just not sure what.
• Once on the other side of the partition, a secret service agent asked if I had my key. I said yes and went toward the elevator. He explained that I had to take the stairs. (After all, it would be an easy matter to assassinate Edwards from inside the elevator shaft.) So I went to the stairs and found the door to be locked. Actually, the door to the stairs is always locked, but, since I live on the fifth floor, I'm not accustomed to taking the stairs and therefore am not in the habit of unlocking the door to the stairwell.) "Do you have your key? asked the SS man once more, this time said more as a command. I grabbed my key from my pocket, unlocked the door, and ran up the stairs to my room before he had an opportunity to shoot me.
• One thing I find interesting is that fire inspections had taken place that morning. We did know about these in advance. A couple of men came to each room in the building, checked to make sure that the smoke detectors were working, that the sprinklers were unobstructed, and that no forbidden items (such as extension cords or candles) were present. The scheduling of this in my dorm on the morning of Edwards' arrival could not have been a coincidence. Could they have been looking for weapons and subversive material as well? Even before I knew anything about the coming of Edwards, it struck me as odd that the first thing they asked when they came to my room was if I was Kinsey. Why did they need to verify my identity just to check for fire hazards?
• I later learned that while I was in class (or perhaps trying to get back into my dorm) SS men did come up to my floor and go into every room in my wing looking for God knows what.
• At the end of the speech, I found out the purpose of the blue partition. Edwards and his bodyguards used it as an exit point from the rally. It gave them safe corridor for leaving the quad and making it out to a waiting vehicle. In other words, Edwards walked through my dorm. How weird is that? Here's the pic. (One of the bodyguards became quite alarmed when he saw my camera sticking out the window aimed straight at Edwards.):
• I want to make it clear that I'm still voting for Kerry, despite all my problems. What frustrated me was that I had no idea Edwards was coming, and I never received any sort of instructions on what the rules would be and where I could and could not go. If all of that had been e-mailed to me the day before, my experience would have been much more positive. As it was, I was lucky to have been allowed into my room at all. I learned today that some people who arrived in the building later than I did were not allowed up.

And He Brought along His Fucktards

As I type this, one of John Kerry's lackies is standing outside my dorm yelling into a loudspeaker and interfering with the lives of hundreds of U of O students who are trying to study or sleep. No one even told me he was coming. I'm always so out of the loop. I knew something wan up when I looked out my window this morning and saw this:

Fortunately the police are here to keep an eye on the Bush supporters:

But they also wouldn't let me into my own dorm even though the main entrance was just thirty feet in front of me. Here's what the lobby looked like when I finally got in:

The only way up was through the evil blue partition. This was scarey, and I will say more about it in a subsequent post. (Right now I want to get the pics up while Kerry is still speaking, so I can say I'm blogging live.)

Here's a view through my window:

Someone just came to my door this minute and made me close my window. This is ridiculous! I live here for Chrissakes!!!

Anyway, the tiny white flecks that look like members of a termite infestation are democrats. See?:

Okay, I'll have more commentary along with a rant against the secret service in tomorrow's entry. I will post this right this minute. Kerry is still talking, so this truly is a live entry. (I bet it has typos; that's just how live it is.)

The Zeitgeist Online

Today I delved into the Google Zeitgeist, which is a sort of statistical analysis of search patterns done on google. (Zeitgeist, by the way, comes from the German word . . . well, Zeitgeist and translates roughly as spirit of the times.) The site is loaded with gobs of information. For example, these are the top 10 gaining queries as of last week:

1. california recall
   
2. arnold schwarzenegger
   
3. kobe bryant
   
4. shirin ebadi
   
5. rugby world cup
   
6. napster
   
7. red sox
   
8. uma thurman
   
9. n-gage
   
10. christopher columbus
    

I'm amazed that so many people could spell Schwarzenegger. I was also surprised to discover that there is a Rugby World Cup. Who knew?

But that just scratches the surface of what information is available. It's fun to delve a little deeper, and I was especially intrigued, and sometimes puzzled, by some of the search terms currently popular in other countries.

In September, the most popular fictional character in Canada was Spongebob Squarepants.

For the Germans, holidays must be extremely important; three of the top ten queries in Germany were halloween, oktoberfest, and weihnachten (Christmas).

In Spain, the third most popular query was smallville.

In Italy, the number one search term was trenitalia. That must be one cool train line.

In both the Netherlands and Australia, Eminem is at number 1.

And in Japan the fifth most popular query was ウエディングドレス (wedding dress), with 地震 (earthquake) in seventh place.

There is also an archive of past statistics, so you can track changes over time.

Another interesting way of getting a glimpse of the current zeitgeist is on Yahoo! News, where you can see which of the current slew of news stories are most viewed, most e-mailed, or most highly rated by readers. You also have the option of viewing the most popular news photos.

Curious about what kind of people still have not switched over to Google? Well these are the sorts of things they search for on Lycos.

Finally, if you want to stay up-to-date on what people are reading, Amazon has a page listing their top 100 sellers of the hour.

Half-Mast

Indiana governor Frank O'Bannon passed away September 13th, and flags throughout the state were placed at half-mast for several days. This picture was taken in Muncie on September 28th.

Columbus Day

Once again it's Columbus Day, accompanied by the yearly debate on whether or not it should be celebrated or renamed First Americans Day. Regardless of people's positions on this issue, my impression is that most Americans fail to grasp the level of oppression to which the native populations in this country have been subjected. (I cringe whenever I hear people singing This Land is Your Land.) I think this pattern of oppression and denial is common to most countries with large native populations whose lands were invaded and permanently taken over. (Some examples are South Africa, Australia, Tasmania, Brazil and Japan.)

I, like most Americans, am woefully underinformed about the history of the conquest of indigeneous peoples in the US. So instead of trying to write about it, I'll refer you to an excellent book on the subject that I read a few years ago. This Columbus Day I highly recommend that you buy yourself a copy of From a Native Son, which is a compilation of scholarly essays by indigenist Ward Churchill. I learned a lot from this book, including the fact that one of the main reasons the American colonists fought for independence was that they wanted to settle the West, and Britain had made agreements with various tribes that all the land west of the Mississippi was theirs. Churchill also exhaustively compares the Jewish Holocaust to the genocidal practices waged against the indians and concludes that the indigenous holocaust was no less severe.

Whether or not you agree with Churchill's opinions, the essays are well-written and researched. Anyone who wants to argue either way about the future of Columbus Day would do well to read it. Also, because indigenous peoples in the US are still suffering a great deal of oppression, it would behoove all Americans to become informed about these issues.

Happy Columbus Day!