September 01, 2005
Hiatus for Katrina
filed under: Hey, What's The Big IdeaI'm suspending posting for now. There's something about the boomerang disaster that Katrina has become, where most of the country wrote it off as a near miss on Monday and has only slowly caught up since, that is freaking me out.
There's a catastrophic human cost being paid right now - infants airlifted to medical facilities without their parents; elderly parents dying in their childrens' arms, too weak to evacuate; hospitals beseiged by armed gangs - that needs to supplant the rest of the country's discourse for a while but somehow hasn't yet.
So for now, my tiny corner of that discourse is going off the air.
Please find a way to help - donations, prayers, whatever.
If you've got the heart for it and need to know the scope of the disaster:
UPDATE:
As the Mayor of NOLA has to resort to going on national television to BEG for help, I wonder what the f*** is going on out there. Why can someone not do something. Give an order, put someone in charge, and go. Get those people food and water and get them the hell out of there. We can airlift MREs into Afghanistan as PR before we bomb the shit out of them, but we can't feed refugees in downtown New Orleans?
If you haven't given yet, fer chrissakes give. Everything you can. If you want to put your political spin on it (and if your political spin is progressive/liberal) then give through this, which will go straight to the Red Cross tagged as being from the "Liberal Blogosphere." Let's show we can do more than blather around online.
"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.
Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of lives. Together, we're raising $1 million for the Red Cross and prove that the liberal blogosphere can help our fellow citizens.
Please donate now.
though folks' pain and need should always be helped if we can, there are some odd overtones to this event.
this area of the country is perhpas the least congruent (other than some parts of Idaho & Montana) with the modern idea of a strong central government organizing its citizenry (napoleonic code, voodoo, whatever).
realize that the solution is the US army occupying the area with orders to 'shoot to kill'. that's not as disturbing to me as the one week lag in their arrival (koppel's interview with the fema director last night was spot on).
the result is the entire country wishing, wanting, for the militiarization of the area of the tragedy. frankly, i think that's why relief was so slow in coming.
big brother wants you to want him.
but, yes, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the exposed.
Posted by: dave at September 2, 2005 01:22 PMHate to be too region-centric, but let's not forget that hundreds (by some reports, thousands) died in Baghdad this week too...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-083105iraq_wr,0,6185939.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Amazing - Terrorism's biggest victory scored without a shot being fired in anger.
Most of what I see here - in blogs, in day to day conversations - focuses on the irony of the American government trying to manage the disasters its caused in the middle east when it can't even take basic care of its own people in the face of a local disaster.
Will this finally make americans realize that their government has spent the past 50 years enriching itself at their expense, and using the police and the military as platforms to protect the wealth and status of the rich, rather than actually trying to solve people's problems?
(Didja notice how officials blamed the looting in NO on "crazed driggies who couldn't get their fixes"? How about "abandoned people who couldn't find food?")
Well, probably not.
hey, if you want to make as big an impact as possible w/ your donation, try www.manilowfund.com - that's right, mr. copacabana himself is TRIPLING donations, but only til 50k, so get on it. yes, it's cooler to align yourself with liberal blogs, but cool ain't feeding the kiddies.
good work tolans, miss you.
Posted by: jaime at September 6, 2005 03:20 PM"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.
NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/national/nationalspecial/09military.html?ei=5094&en=29839ee3ffe8c2ba&hp=&ex=1126238400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all
toldyaso.