very simple

I know, I know, I’m a bad blogger. It got to the point this weekend that my brother actually started hectoring me about the fact that I’ve slacking off on my "responsibilities". (reason number 1948324 to have kept this thing anonymous). Sure, some of the reason is the hurricane – I have nothing eloquent to say about it, because it’s all just so devastating. And blogging about anything else seems, just, well, frivolous. I find myself mumbling incoherently about the inadequate response of our federal government. I think Miss Alli captured how I feel perfectly.

I said to my dad this weekend that Bush should have at least given the impression that he cared, even if he didn’t. When my dad pointed out that he thought Bush just didn’t give a shit, I said "I know, but you’d think his PR advisors (who, if nothing else, are quite good at getting the president to project a certain "image") would at least have forced him to pretend, instead of allowing him to go off to fundraise in San Diego".

And look – I recognize that the levee problems were decades in the making – through both Republican and Democratic administrations, both at the federal and local level. And there will certainly be plenty of time to both repair the physical damage and improve the system. But what I’m talking about more acutely is the immediate, post-damage response of the federal government. Governor Blanco, for all of her faults in this, declared a state of emergency before the hurricane hit. Michael Brown is an imbecile – they should have stopped giving the guy access to the microphone as soon as he started blaming the victims at the same time FEMA was turning wal-mart trucks full of water away. And it’s not just him – its folks in charge of FEMA up and down the chain of command – I heard a local official on NPR on Monday, I think they were from Mississippi (lest we forget the horrendous damage there as well), discussing the fact that they had food and water to bring to stranded people, and FEMA wouldn’t allow trucks to go in without armed guards, because they local FEMA official was afraid the trucks would be hijacked. Even after the local officials told him repeatedly that there had been no incidents of violence in the Mississippi area. It got to the point where the local officials commandeered the local National Guard to take the stuff off of trucks, load it onto their helicopters, and had them fly the supplies in. At a cost of an extra $1 million in fuel. Because FEMA wouldn’t allow the trucks to go in, but said nothing about helicopters.

But I find that if I write more than that, I devolve into helpless rambling and sputtering. I keep going over the "what-ifs". In particular, it’s totally possible that instead of a hurricane, a terrorist decided to blow up the levees. Isn’t that the type of thing the Department of Homeland Security (which houses FEMA) is supposed to be there for? We would have had no warning, no time to evacuate anyone, including the wealthy white people, rather than the days of weather forecasts predicting catastrophe.

And yes, I also understand that there are always some people who will refuse to leave under any circumstances. But many of the people there couldn’t leave, whether they wanted to or not. There was no plan in place (and for this, the local and state officials are just as responsible) to evacuate the largely poor, elderly, and handicapped population that did not have access to cars or couldn’t drive. There wasn’t even an adequate plan in place to protect people in the "emergency shelter" of the Superdome. And there are some people who argue that this was bound to happen sooner or later, so why didn’t people stop living in New Orleans, like, 50 years ago? Please. Sure, I wouldn’t choose to live in a city that is in the shape of a bowl below sea level, but I (and a whole lot of other people) DO choose to live in NYC, site of two major terrorist attacks in the last 15 years. Plenty of others choose to live in flood plains, earthquake zones, "tornado alley", hurricane belts and the desert.

Argh. now I’m just ranting.

Other news. Hmm.

My brother left for the Peace Corps yesterday. He’s in San Francisco until Thursday and then he heads for Micronesia. He also promised to send more updates for the website once he’s settled. Depending on whether he’s in a place with phones/computers/electricity, it may be long stretches between updates.

I’m finally contemplating migrating the blog(s) to movable type. I think I’ve hit my limit with the iblog software and need something more dynamic. But I also think it’ll take a few months to configure everything, including templates, so I’ll still be updating here until it’s actually up and running.

I’m nicely settling into my new place, everything is pretty much done except for things like ordering window treatments.

More soon… 

Tags: current events