September 3, 2005
Americans do the darndest things
"The Fun Ships" to the Rescue!
The U.S. government has chartered three cruise liners to act as temporary homes for Katrina victims. The three ships -- bearing the ironic (at least in this case) names Ecstasy, Sensation and Holiday -- have been chartered for the next 6 months and can house up to a maximum of 7,000 people combined. After all the screw-ups made at just about every level of government in the past week, I'm pleased and surprised to see a creative, "thinking outside the box" type of solution.
Medieval & Renaissance Manuscript Images
Medieval & Renaissance Manuscript Images: Corsair is a well documented online image repository of the Morgan Pierpont Library. There are 58 manuscripts with over 7,000 images ranging from the 9th to the 16th century. Sample image page. Sample search results. Research information.
JWR
Chief Justice William Rehnquist died Saturday at age 80. cnn reports renquists death
Bird's Eye View of Destruction
Post-Katrina satellite images are now available on Google Maps. Click 'satellite' to see the before. Here's Superdome. Here's Highway 610 disappearing into the water, abandoned cars littering it.
via Google Sightseeing.
little somalia?
"Little Somalia" is how The Army Times has characterized post-Katrina New Orleans. And this isn't about race?
No, really, it's the Mayor's fault.
Dept. of Homeland Security: Emergencies and Disasters
Preparing America In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.Clearly, we are in good hands.
Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?
Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?
Vote Blue? No help for you!
The Red Cross has been ordered to stay out of New Orleans. Critical firefighting equipment is being left untouched. Chicago's offer of manpower and equipment is "snubbed" by FEMA, according to the Mayor. FEMA "forgets" to tell the military to airdrop food and water to the survivors. Northern Command has been ready for days, just waiting for the President to give the orders. Feds delayed paperwork giving permission for National Guard to act. Louisiana begged for federal help on Sunday in a formal request, but the Bush administration says they didn't know anything about problems until Wednesday. Meanwhile, reporters apparently grow weary of the spin doctors.
The Manolo, he has the blog
The Manolo, he has the blog. Not into shoes? The Manolo also has thoughts on the books, the movies, the music.
Also the Bad Fashion and the Pure Evil.
Not to be missed- the Manolo Mobile.
(Disclaimer: Manolo the Shoeblogger is not Manolo Blahnik)
A Fair Tax or not?
Is a Fair Tax possible? HR 25, known as the Fair Tax of 2005, would replace all corporate and individual income taxes with a 23% tax on finished goods and services, with provisions to compensate for necessities. Some think it would work as promised, but I wonder if corporations would play fairly and pass their savings along to consumers, or just enrich the bottom line?
Wagner, the repulsive giant
Wagner, the repulsive giant If, on one hand, you ever wanted to know what a swine Richard Wagner was, this is the book to tell you. It does so at length, in reliable detail, calmly, without prurience, perfectly backed with documentation, and in a translation whose only fault is in giving no Translator’s Notes for in-house German references. Joachim Köhler sustains his story with new ideas, revises other interpretations and modestly deconstructs Cosima née Liszt’s creation of “Richard Wagner Enterprises Inc”. (This she developed so far as to keep Parsifal exclusive to Bayreuth, prompting George Bernard Shaw to remark in 1889 that it “would almost reconcile me to the custom of suttee”!).
Flood myths
From a New York journalist's description of the days after the flood:
I saw persons take watches from dead men's jackets and brutally tore finger-rings from the hands of women. The ruffians also climbed into the overturned houses and ransacked the rooms, taking whatever they thought valuable.Sound familiar? This report about the Johnstown Flood was also filled with stories of "minority savegery", drunken Hungarians at the time that eventually turned out to be completely untrue or wildly exaggerated, such as the rescue helicoptor being shot at. also see previous mefi thread on LA looting here
National Geographic
Gone with the water - "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" (October 2004)
liberals want creationism taught?
In a recent poll nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools.
The Matrix shatters in New Orleans
The Matrix shatters before the eyes of the nation (sorry, WMP link) -- and on Fox News! For those old enough to remember, it's so significant that Geraldo Rivera says of conditions in the New Orleans Convention Center, "it's like Willowbrook in there." (Rivera became famous in 1972 by
exposing the horrendous conditions in a home for the mentally retarded called Willowbrook; finally, after decades of degrading himself, he remembers what his job is.) And Slate's Jack Shafer on "the rebellion of the talking heads" -- the refusal of reporters on the ground in New Orleans to regurgitate the official spin. [via TalkLeft]
We need space!
Houston is opening more relief centers for the survivors of Katrina. In the meantime, Joel Osteen, the leader of Joel Osteen Ministries and the mega-church Lakewood Church in Houston is funding meals at the Astrodome.
Lakewood Church services are held at the old Houston Rockets arena and draws crowds of up to capacity of 16,000 people.
I do appreciate his funding meals, but wouldn't this space be useful in housing the displaced people from the hurricane? Or is he more concerned with using the arena to rake in the bucks from his services?
Hurricane Katrina - BBC
Hurricane exploitation - the quotes
Chrenkoff compiles the most egregious "hurricane exploitation" quotes to come out of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. See also: the tsunami quotes.
A monumental building with floodwaters at its knees
The Louisiana Superdome. The moment that thin white membrane flew off the roof to drown, the structure in the center of the storm became a metaphor. That sad, weathered, beaten, and war-torn roof represents the city and its plight.
Music to our ears...
Music to our ears......or at least, music from a bunch of people who give a damn. A boatload of musical artists at CDBaby.com decided to give 100% of their profits to the Red Cross to help victims of Katrina.
The Bush Disconnect
"We'll help rebuild this part of the world." "...tell the good people of this part of the world that the federal government is going to help." "I know the people in this part of the world are suffering..." "May God bless the people of this part of the world, and may God continue to bless our country." Is it odd that Bush kept referring to the Gulf Coast as "this part of the world"?
Greasemonkey + Ruby = MouseHole
You've heard of Greasemonkey (which allows you to remix web pages in firefox), you might also remember the Ruby Programming Language that all of the cool kids are talking about these days. Mix the two together, make it useable through any modern browser (using a proxy), and voila MouseHole!
Cast the wicked out
American Family Association is at it again, from their Christian News Media Serivce, Agape Press...
"Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.... “New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again.""
Privatizing FEMA for New Orleans?
Innovative Emergency Management So this private company got the contract to develop the plan last year. The original release: the Baton Rouge-based emergency management and homeland security consultant, will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Now all press releases regarding it have been pulled from their website post-Katrina.
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