| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
07 Sep 2005 04:30:42 PM |
| Object: |
OT: The 'City' of Louisiana |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8514671/#050905a
September 5, 2005 | 8:58 p.m. ET
The "city" of Louisiana (Keith Olbermann)
SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it
all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a
city that is largely underwater..."
Well there's your problem right there.
If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a
crisis, this was it.
The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their
insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might’ve
saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that
it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear
itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python's
Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming
identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the
future tense in terms of relief they could’ve brought last Monday and
Tuesday — like the President, whose statements have looked like
they’re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.
But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever
be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called
“The Department of Homeland Security”: “Louisiana is a city…”
Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has
paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the "I-Me" switch
in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were
or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the
difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a
supermarket.
And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have
resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to
save the stranded — even the internet's meager powers were correctly
devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural... and
government-made.
But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in
Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not
the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week
or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial
silence I mentioned, should come to an end.
No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas,
nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord
knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee
improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of
trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.
But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year
largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the
country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media
in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station
in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they
couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated
by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government
had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and
hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government
couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers.
And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror
government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration —
against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.
It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological
weapon called standing water.
Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the
response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder
which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the
administration, although we still don't know where some of them are.
Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this
time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You
Die'?
I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.
For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been — as we were
taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted
for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who
had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week.
I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering
how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define
his government — our government — "New Orleans."
For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of
pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st
Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm
not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind
phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered
Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of
government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public
safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime
object for which governments come into existence."
In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage
itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever
is in the White House.
As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the
region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable
for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows
when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee
break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the
muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our
government's credibility.
Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.
E-mail:
• September 1, 2005 | 5:21 p.m. ET
Desperate pleas for help (Keith Olbermann)
SECAUCUS — If you have not yet seen the desperate pleas from people at
the New Orleans Convention Center to NBC cameraman Tony Zumbado, they
will run in full on Countdown tonight at 8 p.m. ET, and Tony is
scheduled to join us.
We don't often 'pitch' you on specific items in the program but what
Tony captured constitute transcendant images and comments from
Americans who followed the rules and saw the system break down around
them.
We will also tonight face up to the scientific practacalities of what
happens after they get the people — and the water — out of New
Orleans. The national intuition suggests it'll be months before the
place is inhabitable. The realities may be that it'll be years.
And we'll premiere tonight a segment called "I'm Okay" — a small
public service, suggested by a viewer, for victims who have not been
able to contact relatives and friends in other cities, at the end of
the hour.
E-mail:
• September 1, 2005 | 8:25 a.m. ET
Are we being realistic about New Orleans? (Keith Olbermann)
SECAUCUS — We are not acknowledging much besides the best-case
scenario in New Orleans.
The city may not be back in six weeks. Or six months. Or six years.
That’s kind of shocking to say, given the trauma and dislocation of
the last five days. But it’s true nonetheless. We have to be hopeful,
for the 23,000 now getting a tour of the sports domes of the
southwest, for the million or more feeling far away and lost, for the
people still trapped, for the unknown hundreds or thousands dead.
But long-term we may be doing them — and ourselves — more harm than
good.
Consider two pieces in this morning’s papers from separate fields —
science and sports — in which relying on the best-case scenario can be
fatal or financially disastrous. While we instinctively shake our
heads at Mayor Ray Nagin’s revision of his recovery timetable from
10-12 weeks, to 14-16, while we wonder why he should be so dour when
our modern world can put the Stock Exchange back on line on 9/17/01,
when we have technological capability undreamed of even when we were
rebuilding Europe after the Second World War — it may prove that even
Mr. Nagin may be wearing rose-colored glasses.
Look at what Howard Beck and Pete Thamel are writing in The New York
Times about the National Basketball Association moving the New Orleans
Hornets franchise out — not just for a few weeks, or the first half of
the season, but until October, 2006. The NBA is about people and
money, and when it senses a lack of either in one of its franchise
cities, it bails. Yesterday, an e-mail went out from the league to
each of the 30 teams instructing them to make provisions for playing
the Hornets somewhere else this season.
There’s only one reason for that. The NBA has examined the situation
and has serious doubts that there will be people in New Orleans to go
see basketball any time this winter, or roads for them to travel in,
or public health conditions permitting 15,000 people to gather in one
space.
When I interviewed FEMA Director Mike Brown on Countdown last night, I
took him into the future and asked him if, when New Orleans was
“reopened,” he would look back at the greatest step in that process,
the decontamination of the water now drowning the city. He agreed
completely. It’s not just water — it’s water with decomposing people
and animals in it. And it’s water full of chemicals and solvents and
battery acid and anything else dangerous in a city. And it’s water
destroying homes and foundations and roads. And it’s water ruining, of
all things, the water system.
And the remedy might even be worse than the cure. Guy Gugliotta and
Peter Whoriskey writes in The Washington Post this morning that
scientists are afraid of what happens after they drain the floodwaters
back into Lake Pontchartrain. It’s not just water any more, they say,
it’s a toxic soup now being dumped into the delta surrounding the
city. Getting it out of people’s houses is one thing. Getting it out
of the ecosystem is — in the worst-case scenario — more expensive than
the Gross National Product of this country.
If that isn’t enough to make you wonder when the concept of “New
Orleans” will be operative again, there’s a nauseatingly prescient
article in the files of U.S. News And World Report. Posted exactly six
weeks ago, the piece posited a hurricane-delivered flood that “could
take months to drain,” and quotes an LSU expert as forecasting
somebody “creating a refugee camp for a million homeless residents.”
When Chicago burned in 1871 it was widely predicted that the city
would return to being prairie brush by the spring of 1872. No one
would ever live in San Francisco again after 1906. Europe would never
stand upright after the way everybody bombed each other from 1939 to
1945.
Those were all pinheaded predictions. And this piece here is not going
to suggest the place is finished. I’m just suggesting that realism is
as important as optimism right now. The danger to the immediate future
of New Orleans wasn’t the hurricane, and it isn’t the looting, and it
isn’t lack of resolve nor skill. The danger? The city is still soaking
in it.
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: OT: The 'City' of Louisiana |
07 Sep 2005 05:19:31 PM |
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Quote
SECAUCUS - Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it
all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a
city that is largely underwater
Unquote
It seems mister Chertoff wants to run for president.
He must have been aware of the successes of both Reagan and Bush
and was practising to win in the same way:)
If he wants to be sure
he should commit some adultery too
That should give him the liberal vote shouldn't it:)
Honestly,
it seems that there was no plan for an event like this.
The Netherlands (low-lands) are under sea-level for the greater part,
and we do have a plan in case the worse storm comes.
(but the worse storm here is no match for Katrina)
What surprises me is that nobody wants to take repsonsibility
Of course the mayor has no means,
all his resources are flooded.
Disaster plans for something like this
should be made by the state I guess,
and relief should be a fedral issue.
(not an issue for whatever body happens to be run by your political
enemies)
If you read some of the posting in other threads
you get the impression that blaming either republicans or democrats
seems the first priority
Alas
Making sure it won't go so wrong next time
is not everybody's cup of tea.
Think about it
Peter van Velzen
September 2005
Amstelveen (below sea-level)
The Netherlands
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: OT: The 'City' of Louisiana |
14 Sep 2005 05:18:26 AM |
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On 7 Sep 2005 10:19:31 -0700, "pbamvv@worldonline.nl"
<pbamvv@worldonline.nl> wrote:
Quote
SECAUCUS - Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it
all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a
city that is largely underwater
Unquote
It seems mister Chertoff wants to run for president.
He must have been aware of the successes of both Reagan and Bush
and was practising to win in the same way:)
If he wants to be sure
he should commit some adultery too
That should give him the liberal vote shouldn't it:)
Honestly,
it seems that there was no plan for an event like this.
The Netherlands (low-lands) are under sea-level for the greater part,
and we do have a plan in case the worse storm comes.
(but the worse storm here is no match for Katrina)
I understand your storms are getting worse. I've seen a few
documentaries on the dikes-especially the southern ones.
[]
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
.
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