Sunday, September 04, 2005
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Good News: An Airlift Begins
The repercussions of this disaster are likely to be political also, as many Americans already begin to ask why their leaders did so little, so slowly, to protect and help when it was desperately needed, over the course of days and days and days.
A real leader doesn't just lead in front of press conferences and with cameras rolling. A leader (like Governor Nagin) cares more about the people around him than personal glorification or red tape. A real leader gets things done when things need to get done. A real leader finds a way.
The leaders of America have demonstrated, I feel anyway, how they are really only in service to themselves. Let's see how they try to 'spin' their way out of this one.
Airlines Haul Katrina Supplies, Refugees
By HARRY R. WEBER
The Associated Press
Friday, September 2, 2005; 6:01 PM
-- The nation's airlines, temporarily unable to provide commercial service to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, have been putting aside their own financial troubles to fly in supplies and bring out refugees from devastated areas.
Relief flights arrived at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at a rate of about four an hour Friday.
The flights started a day after Delta executives piloted a plane that dropped off supplies at New Orleans' main airport and returned with 140 refugees on board. United Airlines, meanwhile, flew 24,000 pounds of food and water and 30 medical technicians from Chicago to New Orleans and returned with 104 evacuees.
"If we save one life wouldn't it be worth the effort?" said Jeff Grinnell, an American Airlines captain. "We're ready to go."
More than a dozen passenger airlines were part of the evacuation effort, which could bring more than 25,000 to 30,000 people out of the New Orleans area. Hundreds of private pilots are also offering assistance.
The airlift was organized by the Air Transport Association, a trade group for the major carriers, after several carriers began plans to conduct their own mercy flights.
"This extraordinary civilian airlift is unprecedented in U.S. history and is a shining example of how America can come together to help those in need," said James C. May, president of the trade group.
Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses'
Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses'
Transcript of radio interview with New Orleans' Nagin
Friday, September 2, 2005 Posted: 1859 GMT (0259 HKT)
(CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blasted the slow pace of federal and state relief efforts in an expletive-laced interview with local radio station WWL-AM.
The following is a transcript of WWL correspondent Garland Robinette's interview with Nagin on Thursday night. Robinette asked the mayor about his conversation with President Bush:
NAGIN: I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice. And that I have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources and we're outmanned in just about every respect. (Listen to the mayor express his frustration in this video -- 12:09)
You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. ... You pull off the doggone ventilator vent and you look down there and they're standing in there in water up to their freaking necks.
And they don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.
WWL: Did you say to the president of the United States, "I need the military in here"?
NAGIN: I said, "I need everything."
Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.
And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done.
They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.
WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?
NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.
I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."
That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.
I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish. ... We don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish.
It's awful down here, man.
WWL: Do you believe that the president is seeing this, holding a news conference on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether or not she has made that request?
NAGIN: I have no idea what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you.
We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak.
You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."
WWL: Who'd you say that to?
NAGIN: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.
And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives.
And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.
In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes in the city. That's a power station over there.
So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.
WWL: Why couldn't they drop the 3,000-pound sandbags or the containers that they were talking about earlier? Was it an engineering feat that just couldn't be done?
NAGIN: They said it was some pulleys that they had to manufacture. But, you know, in a state of emergency, man, you are creative, you figure out ways to get stuff done.
Then they told me that they went overnight, and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.
I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.
WWL: If some of the public called and they're right, that there's a law that the president, that the federal government can't do anything without local or state requests, would you request martial law?
NAGIN: I've already called for martial law in the city of New Orleans. We did that a few days ago.
WWL: Did the governor do that, too?
NAGIN: I don't know. I don't think so.
But we called for martial law when we realized that the looting was getting out of control. And we redirected all of our police officers back to patrolling the streets. They were dead-tired from saving people, but they worked all night because we thought this thing was going to blow wide open last night. And so we redirected all of our resources, and we hold it under check.
I'm not sure if we can do that another night with the current resources.
And I am telling you right now: They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.
Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small majority of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.
And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.
You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.
And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.
WWL: Well, you and I must be in the minority. Because apparently there's a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because of a law that says the federal government can't come in unless requested by the proper people, that everything that's going on to this point has been done as good as it can possibly be.
NAGIN: Really?
WWL: I know you don't feel that way.
NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?
You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?
And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.
WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.
NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.
Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.
You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.
And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.
WWL: What can we do here?
NAGIN: Keep talking about it.
WWL: We'll do that. What else can we do?
NAGIN: Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.
I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn 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 when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.
Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.
WWL: I'll say it right now, you're the only politician that's called and called for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.
NAGIN: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.
WWL: We're both pretty speechless here.
NAGIN: Yeah, I don't know what to say. I got to go.
WWL: OK. Keep in touch. Keep in touch.
Transcript of radio interview with New Orleans' Nagin
Friday, September 2, 2005 Posted: 1859 GMT (0259 HKT)
(CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blasted the slow pace of federal and state relief efforts in an expletive-laced interview with local radio station WWL-AM.
The following is a transcript of WWL correspondent Garland Robinette's interview with Nagin on Thursday night. Robinette asked the mayor about his conversation with President Bush:
NAGIN: I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice. And that I have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources and we're outmanned in just about every respect. (Listen to the mayor express his frustration in this video -- 12:09)
You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. ... You pull off the doggone ventilator vent and you look down there and they're standing in there in water up to their freaking necks.
And they don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.
WWL: Did you say to the president of the United States, "I need the military in here"?
NAGIN: I said, "I need everything."
Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.
And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done.
They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.
WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?
NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.
I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."
That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.
I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish. ... We don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish.
It's awful down here, man.
WWL: Do you believe that the president is seeing this, holding a news conference on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether or not she has made that request?
NAGIN: I have no idea what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you.
We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak.
You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."
WWL: Who'd you say that to?
NAGIN: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.
And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives.
And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.
In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes in the city. That's a power station over there.
So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.
WWL: Why couldn't they drop the 3,000-pound sandbags or the containers that they were talking about earlier? Was it an engineering feat that just couldn't be done?
NAGIN: They said it was some pulleys that they had to manufacture. But, you know, in a state of emergency, man, you are creative, you figure out ways to get stuff done.
Then they told me that they went overnight, and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.
I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.
WWL: If some of the public called and they're right, that there's a law that the president, that the federal government can't do anything without local or state requests, would you request martial law?
NAGIN: I've already called for martial law in the city of New Orleans. We did that a few days ago.
WWL: Did the governor do that, too?
NAGIN: I don't know. I don't think so.
But we called for martial law when we realized that the looting was getting out of control. And we redirected all of our police officers back to patrolling the streets. They were dead-tired from saving people, but they worked all night because we thought this thing was going to blow wide open last night. And so we redirected all of our resources, and we hold it under check.
I'm not sure if we can do that another night with the current resources.
And I am telling you right now: They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.
Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small majority of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.
And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.
You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.
And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.
WWL: Well, you and I must be in the minority. Because apparently there's a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because of a law that says the federal government can't come in unless requested by the proper people, that everything that's going on to this point has been done as good as it can possibly be.
NAGIN: Really?
WWL: I know you don't feel that way.
NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?
You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?
And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.
WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.
NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.
Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.
You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.
And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.
WWL: What can we do here?
NAGIN: Keep talking about it.
WWL: We'll do that. What else can we do?
NAGIN: Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.
I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn 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 when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.
Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.
WWL: I'll say it right now, you're the only politician that's called and called for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.
NAGIN: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.
WWL: We're both pretty speechless here.
NAGIN: Yeah, I don't know what to say. I got to go.
WWL: OK. Keep in touch. Keep in touch.
Katrina Exposes Apartheid and Apathy
Watching all the footage, it's distressing. It's obvious that many of the thousands and thousands of people are both poor and black.
I saw a report where a (white) woman witnessed hotel guests packing and filling their SUV's but refused to take her with them.
A (white) man spent 8 hours swimming with his two dogs and no one in passing boats offered to help.
Some scottish tourists hid away on a hotel balcony, fearful to be seen by the growing mob.
One woman asked, why people in nearby cities were not driving in their cars to New Orleans to help fellow human beings. Those people might suggest: why didn't you leave when you had the chance.
There appears, so far, to have been an apathetic response from the government and its agencies. At ground level it reveals a rift between black and white, and rich and poor. Will the rich muck in and help, or just give interviews and donations. Will individuals drive down to help evacuate the destitute and the sick.
There is a real sense that helping the mob endangers the rescuers, and this trend is increasing.
But there is also a sense that not much help has been offered, that it's been slow to arrive (people have said they have not been offered anything to eat or drink for up to 5 days). There's a lack of urgency. For example why has water not been dropped in containers (from helicopters) especially around the convention centre housing around 30 000 starving, thirsty people.
Why is there just not a concerted effort to airlift people. Bussing people out is simply too little, too late, and too slow. Is it too expensive? It may prove even more expensive to have a city full of sick and dying, poisoned people. Use nearby airports and use those massive military helicopters with big rotors on both end. Or use civilian volunteers, using their own vehicles from nearby.
In the end, this lack of urgency and energy will probably lead to a staggering death toll, because each passing day people get weaker without food and shelter. And beyond that is the spread of diseases like typhoid and cholera. Once that happens, people won't be trying to get on buses. Rescuers will have to carry the sick onto buses and trucks.
I've heard that around 300 000 people may be in the New Orleans area, and that so far only 3 000 have been bused out. That figure may have tripled or quadrupled by now, but it's still a fraction of what is needed.
Even with excellent on-the-ground support, it is an exercise in futility to treat symptoms and merely alleviate local problems and not remove people to where there is ongoing infrastructure and support.
I'm not an expert but at this rate, casualties every hour are going to escalate in the hundreds.
The toll, when all this is over may top 5 000, but if relief efforts fail to gain momentum, that figure may double, then triple. It's a race against time. Do those in charge of relief efforts realise this?
I saw a report where a (white) woman witnessed hotel guests packing and filling their SUV's but refused to take her with them.
A (white) man spent 8 hours swimming with his two dogs and no one in passing boats offered to help.
Some scottish tourists hid away on a hotel balcony, fearful to be seen by the growing mob.
One woman asked, why people in nearby cities were not driving in their cars to New Orleans to help fellow human beings. Those people might suggest: why didn't you leave when you had the chance.
There appears, so far, to have been an apathetic response from the government and its agencies. At ground level it reveals a rift between black and white, and rich and poor. Will the rich muck in and help, or just give interviews and donations. Will individuals drive down to help evacuate the destitute and the sick.
There is a real sense that helping the mob endangers the rescuers, and this trend is increasing.
But there is also a sense that not much help has been offered, that it's been slow to arrive (people have said they have not been offered anything to eat or drink for up to 5 days). There's a lack of urgency. For example why has water not been dropped in containers (from helicopters) especially around the convention centre housing around 30 000 starving, thirsty people.
Why is there just not a concerted effort to airlift people. Bussing people out is simply too little, too late, and too slow. Is it too expensive? It may prove even more expensive to have a city full of sick and dying, poisoned people. Use nearby airports and use those massive military helicopters with big rotors on both end. Or use civilian volunteers, using their own vehicles from nearby.
In the end, this lack of urgency and energy will probably lead to a staggering death toll, because each passing day people get weaker without food and shelter. And beyond that is the spread of diseases like typhoid and cholera. Once that happens, people won't be trying to get on buses. Rescuers will have to carry the sick onto buses and trucks.
I've heard that around 300 000 people may be in the New Orleans area, and that so far only 3 000 have been bused out. That figure may have tripled or quadrupled by now, but it's still a fraction of what is needed.
Even with excellent on-the-ground support, it is an exercise in futility to treat symptoms and merely alleviate local problems and not remove people to where there is ongoing infrastructure and support.
I'm not an expert but at this rate, casualties every hour are going to escalate in the hundreds.
The toll, when all this is over may top 5 000, but if relief efforts fail to gain momentum, that figure may double, then triple. It's a race against time. Do those in charge of relief efforts realise this?
Oil spilling into Mississippi below New Orleans
Officials spot huge spill near tanks with 2 million barrel capacity
Updated: 1:35 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - A huge oil spill was spotted near two storage tanks on the Mississippi River downstream from New Orleans, state officials said Friday.
The oil was seen in a flyover to the Venice area by the Department of Environmental Quality.
“Two tanks with the capacity of holding 2 million barrels appear to be leaking,” the department said in a statement.
Updated: 1:35 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - A huge oil spill was spotted near two storage tanks on the Mississippi River downstream from New Orleans, state officials said Friday.
The oil was seen in a flyover to the Venice area by the Department of Environmental Quality.
“Two tanks with the capacity of holding 2 million barrels appear to be leaking,” the department said in a statement.
Friday, September 02, 2005
37/5 Irony
When I arrived at school today there was a message for me (written on my Admin File). Said we are having dinner together next week, obviously with the director. Next week is my payday, so I suppose I should attend. I had actually intended to give my two months notice on Friday, so it's ironic that after being at the school for 4 months, we have this sort of 'team building' type of dinner.
It's raining quite heavily again today, but at least it is not humid and less hot.
Last night I got the living daylights frightened out of me. Woke up to a very loud CRACK-ing kind of noise. Since I'd left my notebook on I thought it had short circuited and exploded (the battery has already stopped functioning). But it was still on. Nothing else had fallen, so it was either a plastic bottle clicking outward as the temperature changed (which can also make a loud crack), or someone throwing a cigarette box out the window and it landing flat on my windowsill (which isn't far from my bed. Bone jarring!
That happened around 3am. Only settled down to sleep again a few hours later. Watching the streaming media from msnbc, reuters, yahoo and cnn on Katrina's aftermath didn't help. It's amazing how you can be anywhere in the world, and have a very clear idea of what it is like in another place.
Currently having a fun day at school. Of course it helps that, hey hey, it's Friday.
Will probably buy a DVD Writer this weekend. Need to get in a few workouts. Getting far too slack in that area.
Have bought a lot of vegetables, and am eating fruit every day, so that's sorted.
I'm going to try to get a good balance between fun, work and exercise this weekend.
It's raining quite heavily again today, but at least it is not humid and less hot.
Last night I got the living daylights frightened out of me. Woke up to a very loud CRACK-ing kind of noise. Since I'd left my notebook on I thought it had short circuited and exploded (the battery has already stopped functioning). But it was still on. Nothing else had fallen, so it was either a plastic bottle clicking outward as the temperature changed (which can also make a loud crack), or someone throwing a cigarette box out the window and it landing flat on my windowsill (which isn't far from my bed. Bone jarring!
That happened around 3am. Only settled down to sleep again a few hours later. Watching the streaming media from msnbc, reuters, yahoo and cnn on Katrina's aftermath didn't help. It's amazing how you can be anywhere in the world, and have a very clear idea of what it is like in another place.
Currently having a fun day at school. Of course it helps that, hey hey, it's Friday.
Will probably buy a DVD Writer this weekend. Need to get in a few workouts. Getting far too slack in that area.
Have bought a lot of vegetables, and am eating fruit every day, so that's sorted.
I'm going to try to get a good balance between fun, work and exercise this weekend.
New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes
By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear.
"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of 300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."
Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the fear, anger and violence mounted Thursday.
"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive," said Canadian tourist Larry Mitzel, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. "I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire."
Katrina could cause long-term oil shock
The New York Times, The Associated Press, Bloomberg NewsFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2005
LONDON The price of gasoline and crude-oil futures contracts rose further on Thursday, as U.S. plans to tap strategic oil reserves failed to ease concern about damage to refineries by Hurricane Katrina and about shortages at gas stations in parts of the United States.
Analysts said the effects of the hurricane on the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico - particularly the refining sector - would last months and could become the catalyst for a sustained oil shock.
Some economists suggested that the effects of the storm on the oil industry could shave at least one percentage point from the U.S. growth rate in the fourth quarter.
Before the disaster, most analysts expected growth of about 3 percent.
Kunstler: Connect The Dots
People are emailing me to ask is this the start of the Long Emergency?
It is certainly an event of great significance. The effects of damage to our oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico is already being felt in rocketing gasoline prices and a burgeoning supply crisis, especially in the southeast. The home heating situation is becoming a crisis before householders even turn their furnaces on. Half the houses in America are heated with natural gas, which is now clocking in at $12 a unit (1000 cubic feet). It was $3 a unit in 2003. It could go to $16. Connect the dots.
The crisis at the gasoline pumps will thunder through the economy, most ominously in the bubble suburban sprawl-building sector, which adds up to over 40 percent of business activity in the US. How many people will now contemplate buying a new McHouse 32 miles outside Atlanta (or Dallas, or Kansas City, or Washington), and what will happen in the production home-building industry as a result?
What will happen in the financial sector when the no-money-down-interest-only mortgage racket ceases to generate ever more hallucinated tradable debt? What will happen to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two federal governments sponsored entities at the center of that racket, and to their sponsor, whose treasury certificates are held by nervous foreign investors? And finally what happens to a dollar hammered by high energy costs and repatriated treasury certificates?
Turning to New Orleans. . . viewing the hurricane damage on TV, it is hard not to conclude that most of the building stock in the city is irreparably ruined. One can't help feeling that the city we knew and love is really gone forever. Some kind urban settlement will remain, but New Orleans' downtown of hotel towers and megastructures may be the first comprehensive ruin of the Modernist city.
Much of the stuff just outside New Orleans, and along the Gulf Coast, was largely post-war suburban fabric -- collector boulevards with their complements of fry pits, malls, muffler shops and subdivisions.
We'd hope that the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana will not undertake to rebuild them they way they were. The era of easy motoring is over now, and to rebuild suburban sprawl would be a double tragedy.
Of the desperate behavior seen in New Orleans this week, I don't have much to say right now. The significance of it is largely self-evident. The suffering of the people stuck in the Superdome is very impressive, though. One wonders at the failure of FEMA to airdrop water and food to those stuck on highway overpasses and in high-rise buildings such as Mercy Hospital. On the agenda next, I'm sorry to say: cholera and typhoid fever. I'll be back here on Tuesday.
This article from www.kunstler.com
It is certainly an event of great significance. The effects of damage to our oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico is already being felt in rocketing gasoline prices and a burgeoning supply crisis, especially in the southeast. The home heating situation is becoming a crisis before householders even turn their furnaces on. Half the houses in America are heated with natural gas, which is now clocking in at $12 a unit (1000 cubic feet). It was $3 a unit in 2003. It could go to $16. Connect the dots.
The crisis at the gasoline pumps will thunder through the economy, most ominously in the bubble suburban sprawl-building sector, which adds up to over 40 percent of business activity in the US. How many people will now contemplate buying a new McHouse 32 miles outside Atlanta (or Dallas, or Kansas City, or Washington), and what will happen in the production home-building industry as a result?
What will happen in the financial sector when the no-money-down-interest-only mortgage racket ceases to generate ever more hallucinated tradable debt? What will happen to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two federal governments sponsored entities at the center of that racket, and to their sponsor, whose treasury certificates are held by nervous foreign investors? And finally what happens to a dollar hammered by high energy costs and repatriated treasury certificates?
Turning to New Orleans. . . viewing the hurricane damage on TV, it is hard not to conclude that most of the building stock in the city is irreparably ruined. One can't help feeling that the city we knew and love is really gone forever. Some kind urban settlement will remain, but New Orleans' downtown of hotel towers and megastructures may be the first comprehensive ruin of the Modernist city.
Much of the stuff just outside New Orleans, and along the Gulf Coast, was largely post-war suburban fabric -- collector boulevards with their complements of fry pits, malls, muffler shops and subdivisions.
We'd hope that the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana will not undertake to rebuild them they way they were. The era of easy motoring is over now, and to rebuild suburban sprawl would be a double tragedy.
Of the desperate behavior seen in New Orleans this week, I don't have much to say right now. The significance of it is largely self-evident. The suffering of the people stuck in the Superdome is very impressive, though. One wonders at the failure of FEMA to airdrop water and food to those stuck on highway overpasses and in high-rise buildings such as Mercy Hospital. On the agenda next, I'm sorry to say: cholera and typhoid fever. I'll be back here on Tuesday.
This article from www.kunstler.com
37/4 Cinderella
There's a new teacher at our school, starting tomorrow I think. Her name is...wait for it...Cinderella.
There's something unreal about my life at the moment. Lately I have been following the news even more intensely than usual, and at times, it's hard to see that what is happening is real. The horrific conditions in New Orleans are almost unimaginable, and made worse by scores of indidivuals now taking their revenge on a society they may feel has ravaged them.
When you go to work tomorrow, and you see a beggar behind the windscreen of your car, or curled up against a step of a bakery store, consider that persons anger at his personal malaise. Consider how alienated they feel by a society that rushes by them on the way to work, on the way to buy more air time, on the way to a movie. Consider an act of kindness, wherever you are in the world.
Katrina has wrought, unquestionably, a real test of human survival, and on a massive modern scale. I hope that we will all learn from it, and not be smug or malicious about it.
Once again it is shocking that the President seemed to do nothing of value before the storm hit. I had read the reports, and the threat seemed to justify a massive evacuation, a civil and military airlift really. You have a city below sea level, and weather people saying there will be a 22 foot storm surge. What else is there to think about doing but make sure the people who could not leave are helped to safety?
One can speculate that some people didn't want to leave, or even that some stayed purposefully to loot. These must be in the minority.
Other inverted fairy tale news is that Bird Flu has killed another person in Vietnam. You may think it is irrelevant. Global warming may seem irrelevant. But it is all part of a connected world which is now swinging against what has become an unhealthy human cancer throwing our whole organism out of balance, and creating what Kunstler calls The Long Emergency. It is a collection of long term threats we face in every area. From supplies of energy, to disease (massive infections of deadly flu's), to food and fresh water shortages, with the background noise being filled by sizzling droughts or gushing floodwaters all slowly converging, destabilising. This is followed by the restoring of imbalances in favor of all the living populations we have preyed on for generations now, on our planet - and imbalances wrought by us will now be unwrought to our cost. These cannot be prevented or even mitigated, unless, as Kunstler puts it, we decide to be good neighbors. Not just to each other, but to beetles and foxes, owls, fish and earthworms. The question is, will we?
The next few weeks ought to be interesting, and important. It is unreal to be doing the work I'm doing, when the world seems to be moving inexorably towards one emergency after another. I think there needs to be a very real sense of things each individual needs to do to mitigate these effects, which seem to be gaining momentum.
One of the most crucial is developing vaccinations. Lobby the medical authorities in your area. One vaccine we need to have everywhere is for bird flu (H5N1). Another is starting to develop local capacity. Local renewable energy investments. When large systems of infrastucture breaks down because of energy shortfalls or extreme weather damage (or disease contamination)once our food stores are gone, aka our supermarkets are stripped and looted, where else can people go to feed themselves? So perhaps it is a good time, to start growing vegetables in our gardens. One of the major casualties of high oil prices, will be the mobility of food grown on foreign and faraway farms. Worsening climates will make the job of actual production difficult as well.
There are not too many other things to suggest. Eat healthy, and begin to support small local food producers (people selling fruit at stalls, or farm stalls on the sides of roads near your neighborhood). Right now is not the best time to buy a car, or a house. If you do buy a car, buy a small one, and buy a new one, they're more fuel efficient. If you buy a house, make sure it's as close as you can find (walking distance close) to a school, a farm, a fresh water supply, and where you intend to work. Consider changing your job.
It may also be a good time to look at selling stocks. Katrina will likely shave 1% off America's GDP growth this year. But its net effect may be a viral-like affliction locking into financial markets, tipping the world into recession. But it might not.
No one really knows. It's up to the individual to buy on the rumor or on the news. When no one really knows, one rumor is as good, or bad, as the next. All we can do is stay alert, and take care of those left alive, even if only in our hearts.
In a crisis it is only kindness that will save us.
Not much else to report. Am glad this week is almost over, and am hoping it will get drier and cooler soon.
Next week I start working in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I really want to enjoy this weekend, and emerge refreshed on Monday. I think I'll be going to the Hard Rock Cafe in Apgujeong to meet Karlee and co.
Had a nice dinner tonight, deji galbi (been wanting to have that for a while) and stocked up on some groceries. Had a good chat with Diana, who lives in the same building as I do.
Need to go for a run tomorrow.
There's something unreal about my life at the moment. Lately I have been following the news even more intensely than usual, and at times, it's hard to see that what is happening is real. The horrific conditions in New Orleans are almost unimaginable, and made worse by scores of indidivuals now taking their revenge on a society they may feel has ravaged them.
When you go to work tomorrow, and you see a beggar behind the windscreen of your car, or curled up against a step of a bakery store, consider that persons anger at his personal malaise. Consider how alienated they feel by a society that rushes by them on the way to work, on the way to buy more air time, on the way to a movie. Consider an act of kindness, wherever you are in the world.
Katrina has wrought, unquestionably, a real test of human survival, and on a massive modern scale. I hope that we will all learn from it, and not be smug or malicious about it.
Once again it is shocking that the President seemed to do nothing of value before the storm hit. I had read the reports, and the threat seemed to justify a massive evacuation, a civil and military airlift really. You have a city below sea level, and weather people saying there will be a 22 foot storm surge. What else is there to think about doing but make sure the people who could not leave are helped to safety?
One can speculate that some people didn't want to leave, or even that some stayed purposefully to loot. These must be in the minority.
Other inverted fairy tale news is that Bird Flu has killed another person in Vietnam. You may think it is irrelevant. Global warming may seem irrelevant. But it is all part of a connected world which is now swinging against what has become an unhealthy human cancer throwing our whole organism out of balance, and creating what Kunstler calls The Long Emergency. It is a collection of long term threats we face in every area. From supplies of energy, to disease (massive infections of deadly flu's), to food and fresh water shortages, with the background noise being filled by sizzling droughts or gushing floodwaters all slowly converging, destabilising. This is followed by the restoring of imbalances in favor of all the living populations we have preyed on for generations now, on our planet - and imbalances wrought by us will now be unwrought to our cost. These cannot be prevented or even mitigated, unless, as Kunstler puts it, we decide to be good neighbors. Not just to each other, but to beetles and foxes, owls, fish and earthworms. The question is, will we?
The next few weeks ought to be interesting, and important. It is unreal to be doing the work I'm doing, when the world seems to be moving inexorably towards one emergency after another. I think there needs to be a very real sense of things each individual needs to do to mitigate these effects, which seem to be gaining momentum.
One of the most crucial is developing vaccinations. Lobby the medical authorities in your area. One vaccine we need to have everywhere is for bird flu (H5N1). Another is starting to develop local capacity. Local renewable energy investments. When large systems of infrastucture breaks down because of energy shortfalls or extreme weather damage (or disease contamination)once our food stores are gone, aka our supermarkets are stripped and looted, where else can people go to feed themselves? So perhaps it is a good time, to start growing vegetables in our gardens. One of the major casualties of high oil prices, will be the mobility of food grown on foreign and faraway farms. Worsening climates will make the job of actual production difficult as well.
There are not too many other things to suggest. Eat healthy, and begin to support small local food producers (people selling fruit at stalls, or farm stalls on the sides of roads near your neighborhood). Right now is not the best time to buy a car, or a house. If you do buy a car, buy a small one, and buy a new one, they're more fuel efficient. If you buy a house, make sure it's as close as you can find (walking distance close) to a school, a farm, a fresh water supply, and where you intend to work. Consider changing your job.
It may also be a good time to look at selling stocks. Katrina will likely shave 1% off America's GDP growth this year. But its net effect may be a viral-like affliction locking into financial markets, tipping the world into recession. But it might not.
No one really knows. It's up to the individual to buy on the rumor or on the news. When no one really knows, one rumor is as good, or bad, as the next. All we can do is stay alert, and take care of those left alive, even if only in our hearts.
In a crisis it is only kindness that will save us.
Not much else to report. Am glad this week is almost over, and am hoping it will get drier and cooler soon.
Next week I start working in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I really want to enjoy this weekend, and emerge refreshed on Monday. I think I'll be going to the Hard Rock Cafe in Apgujeong to meet Karlee and co.
Had a nice dinner tonight, deji galbi (been wanting to have that for a while) and stocked up on some groceries. Had a good chat with Diana, who lives in the same building as I do.
Need to go for a run tomorrow.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
No One Really Knows What Will Happen Now
At the moment this is an All American crisis. You might think that it (Katrina)was a significant event, but you're missing the point. It was a Significant Oil Event.
America is currently consuming its own emergency reserves.
The good news is there is a pattern of oil consumption which predicts a dip in consumption before winter, where a different type of oil is used that is easier to refine.
The bad news is, it probably doesn't matter much because there's simply not enough oil to meet demand, in the US and elsewhere.
In the northern hemisphere, there is one thing we can anticipate. Autumn is coming, and after that, winter. If you can't read between the lines, here it is in bold:
Things are about to change.
Robert W. Dalton.in the New York Times:
Some relief might come from more imports of gasoline from Europe. The Environmental Protection Agency relaxed pollution standards nationwide to allow the use of lower grades of gasoline. Earlier the agency had relaxed standards in the four states most affected by Hurricane Katrina: Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Industry experts expect suppliers from Europe to help fill the gap. But it will not happen overnight. "The United States is the highest-price market in the world right now, and that will attract European products in large flows," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. "That's undeniable. Price is the magnet."
"But we have a liquidity crisis," he added. "We need to create supply instantaneously."
Much of the problem with gasoline supplies is psychological, for consumers as well as investors.
Markets were initially calmed by reports that one large pipeline concern, Kinder Morgan had indicated that its Plantation pipeline, running from New Orleans to the East Coast, was undamaged and expected to resume operating by Tuesday.
Then, Kinder Morgan unexpectedly pushed back the start-up date for the pipeline, which is capable of 620,000 barrels a day, to yesterday. Then it said there was no clear resumption date.
Some energy industry strategists were adamant that market forces would prevent gasoline lines from forming. Others were not so sure.
"I hate to be an alarmist, but we're in a situation without much precedent," said David Pursell, a principal with Pickering Energy Partners in Houston. "With the gasoline market as tight as it is, people complain about $3 gas but they'll put $5 gas in their car if they suddenly think it's not available."
Robert W. Dalton, in Spartanburg, S.C.; Brenda Goodman, in Atlanta; and Vikas Bajaj, in New York, contributed reporting for this article.
Next Article in Business (1 of 25) >
Waiting for a Leader
Published: September 1, 2005
George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.
We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.
Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.
While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?
It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.
George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.
We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.
Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.
While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?
It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.
Allan and his siter Janet. Looking forward to seeing them again. Allan's an engineer and part time musician. He's been composing a lot of music lately and playing at gigs around Johannesburg and Pretoria. He says he knows someone who is competing in South Africa's Pop Idol who is helping him get more involved in the music industry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)