Archive: BETCHAFIVE On Katrina Relief

Because someone other than me should be reading these.
In chronological order:

1. The Disaster After The Disaster


2. Back On The Streets


3. Congressional Muck


4. Election


5. Election Eve


6. Rumors

Tags: Hurricain Katrina, FEMA, BETHCAFIVE

Request For Ammendment To Goodwin's Law

Not like I'm trying to be all Good Math, Bad Math or anything, but this comment at Protein Wisdon reminded me of something I've been meaning to mention. I think we need to ammend Goodwin's Law, or at least have a new but similar law:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of an over-generalization of the incompleteness theorem approaches one.

The notion that formal systems have limits shouldn't "forestall any talk of absolutes" anymore than the speed of light should "forestall any talk of making cars go faster."

Tags: Incompleteness Theorem, Goodwin's Law

Even More Bull

The other day, eebmore hassled me in comments about why I keep posting about stuff from the The Bull Moose. I gave some sort of glib answer, but here's the real reason: The man embodies the worst impulses in politics. To wit: It is not what people do that matters, but what you can get other people to believe (and how you can capitalize on people's desire to believe things), that matters. In other words, image matters more than anything. Perpetuating this kind of thing is bad for our country, and the Moose is its most guilty practicioner. For instance, while he likes to play the populist, he is in fact elite university educated. He likes to use culture war rhetoric about "sanguine sophisiticates" and "elites", yet he is the most quoted "anonymous staffer" in the country (truly a mark of insider status if there was one). He pretends to care about "progressive values" but will never fail to speak up in defense of any administration flexing its executive muscle. But worst of all, he likes to pretend he takes the high-road, prefering "statesmanship" to "the fever swamp".

Except when he doesn't, and unleashes his inner wingnut. While linking to a post at TAPPED he writes:

And courageous leaders like Blair are viciously slandered by Lilliputians who would rather see America and the West defeated than genuine progressives vindicated.

Now given the nature of the above, you'd think the piece the Moose is linking to was something along the lines of Noam Chomsky calling for the arrest and trial of Tony Blair for international war crimes. Except it isn't. Click the link. First of all, while the TAPPED post is a little snarky (especially about another Moose favorite, Joe Lieberman), there's nothing untrue in the TAPPED post - the Moose even says so. Second, the Moose pulls - out of thin air - an accusation which can't be inferred from the text of the post itself, and that is "the guy who wrote this wants to lose the War On Terror." In progressive cricles one would be expected to provide some evidence for this assertion, especially when they follow it up with:

Some of the the lefties who trumpet their own moral superiority increasingly find themselves objectively serving the interests of the Zarqawis who seek to drive us out of Iraq by weakening our will. They virtually celebrate every American setback while remaining mute in the face of the homicidal terror of the enemy.

Never mind that by saying "you know, lots of people are dying because of the insurgency" could be interpreted as pointing out the homicidal terror of the enemy; this is Wingnuttia Specius Freepus. Only someone who lives in the fever swamp could possibly jump from the TAPPED post to this, especially without evidence. Unfortunately for the Moose, the TAPPED post didn't say anything false. But the Moose has made claims which are demonstrably false at worst and unsupported at best. Who's engaging in vicious slander?

Tags: Bull Moose, Tony Blair, Joe Lieberman

Best.Observation.Ever.

From (of course) a city cabdriver: "You know, if you live in a nice neighborhood and don't read the newspaper or turn on the TV and see the reports of murder and drug dealing, and you go everywhere in a taxi, you'd think Baltimore was the greatest city on earth!"

The reason this is so great is that it's totally universal. Replace the local references and you can apply it to anything. Let's all try it and see...

Rumors

Nine months after the flood, and the lack of progress is frightening. We’re now into the second month of what is the official, FEMA-sponsored Regular Services Program to provide crisis counseling for Katrina evacuees throughout the country. The feds have hosted a few multi-state conference calls linking the states up with each other and SAMHSA/FEMA to discuss national strategies and needs so far. Yet strangely, the first regularly scheduled call isn’t scheduled until early June. One would think that national coordination among the states on a regular basis would have been implemented months ago, but apparently not.

Well in a sense this isn’t too surprising. For the crisis counseling professionals out there, when it comes to community-wide response to natural disasters or mass-violence incidents the counselors are usually coming in last when it comes to response. And they are usually the last ones out as well. Granted, FEMA has had a ton of stuff to deal with since last September. They fucked up, they’re still fucking up, and after so much notorious waste was created last year the GAO is on their asses to prevent any further unnecessary spending on mental health response. So FEMA – it seems from my vantage point – hasn’t had an opportunity to prioritize the SAMHSA programs until now. Not that that’s an excuse, but more the reality. Mental health unfortunately isn’t a priority in the feds’ perception. Providing mental health services isn’t as sexy an initiative as say, rebuilding some extravagant new tax-free version of New Orleans-cum-Hollywood brought to you by Harrah’s Casinos.

Yet mental health issues will continue to cause harm today and tomorrow to the thousands and thousands of evacuees still dispersed like second class citizens across the landscape of the country. Where we are the drug and alcohol use and incidence of family violence (that is reported and we know about) is spiraling. The recent multi-state communications these past few weeks have laid it out for all of us working on the state level to appreciate how enormous the problem is. The grapevine among the states farthest from the Gulf bears bad news: Wisconsin has an estimated 1,650 registered evacuee households, mainly in the Milwaukee area. Missouri now has an estimated 4,000 registered evacuee households – although down from 16,000 last year. Indiana reported 2,600 registered households. In Iowa the approximate number of evacuees is about 1,500 – mainly in the Des Moines area. Iowa is also worrying that some of their returning evacuees may be carrying mumps down to the gulf.

And the needs of the northern states pale in comparison to places like Florida (estimated 72,000 evacuees) Texas (250,000+ evacuees), or Louisiana itself. Our counterpart in NOLA made it clear that there are still hundreds of missing and unidentified bodies in the morgue, and the commercial, transportation and housing infrastructure is dismal. In a few weeks, school is out. There is a real concern that kids down there won’t have a whole lot to do other than hang out in wrecked neighborhoods or bake in FEMA trailers in asphalt lots that are overwhelmed and under-policed.

Tags: Hurricane Katrina, FEMA

"Get In On It"

No. Seriously? At half a million bucks? ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME? (link via Bmore Crime).

Seperated At Birth?

Ambigusously, No!

That eebmore is a smart guy

Indeed.

Update: Daniel Nexon is too.

Still Wondering

Still wondering if Joementum really wants the former outreach director of an anti-Semitic organization endorsing him.

Update: It's been pointed out to me that it's not really fair to call the Christian Coalition anti-Semitic. So I retract the above. But it stays up because I feel that, unlike certain other bloggers, it's only fair my stupidity should be in plain view.

I Wonder Too...

I wonder if Joementum would want a former Marxist endorsing him.

Quick Reminder

Again, for those 3 of you locals who read this blog but not The Shank or the Atomic Books blog, Kos and Jerome are at Atomic tonight. I'll be there.

What A Wonderful Idea!

To which I can only add: There are so few stateside oportunities to learn how to get your limbs blown off and have shrapnel jammed into your head.

A Modest Proposal

Let's all of us in blogtopia (y!sctp!) agree that the blog post you are currently reading is the last one ever titled "A Modest Proposal".

You Know What I Love?

I love that Bill O'Reilly thinks half the country is as paranoid as he is (link via Mr. Willis).

Quick question for the CDC

ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME?

It's A Funny Old World

And I find this particularly hilarious.

I also appreciate message of hope.

A World Of Books And Silent Times In Thought

Yesterday I read, in Entertainment Weekly of all places, that on May 6 2006 Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens died. This was especially weird because in that same issue there's a feature on Nick Cave, an Aussie-indie-rock contemporary of Grant's; if you were in a death pool you'd have given Cave much shorter odds. After all, it's Cave who's the Baudelairean junkie death-poet while McLennan was just some dude with a sweet voice and a knack for penning the most wistful melodies and poignant lyrics you (maybe) never heard. That McLennan died of a heart-attack in his sleep, at age 48, makes a little more sense; a heart so big that, at age 23, could be responsible for "Cattle And Cane"(scroll down) was too powerful to be contained, in times like these, in a 48 year old body.

I haven't heard the Go-Betweens records which were released this millenium. For me their story ended in 1988 with 16 Lovers Lane, which was satisfactory enough. Their core album discography - Send Me A Lullybye, Before Hollywood, Spring Hill Fair, Liberty Bell and the Black Diamond Express, Tallulah and 16 Lovers Lane - forms what's almost a musical novel recording the evolution of two friends' - McLennan and his partner Robert Forster - understanding of the great big world and everything important in it. They were nominally a "beat group", starting out in the punk-era as a guitar, bass, drums trio, with McLennan on bass because, well, they needed a bassist and in that era you formed a band around ideas and figured out who played what afterwards. Later on the line-up expanded, McLennan switched to lead guitar, and eventually they added violin and oboe. Early material sounds a little bit like Television without the guitar solos and with better songs. As they aged, the sound mellowed but the tension and sophistication in the lyrics and the melodies expanded. They broke up after a decade because McLennan and Forster figured it was time. After the breakup McLennan made solo records, teamed up with Steve Kilbey of The Church in Jack Frost and hung out with Ed Kuepper of the Saints and Laughing Clowns before reuniting with Forster for the Go-Betweens return.

That core discography is one I go back to again and again. At least once a year, normally on a Sunday and normally sometime between September and December (yeah, go ahead and laugh, I don't mind), I pull out the records and listen to them in order all the way through. Then for the next week I'll keep one in heavy rotation. 10 years ago it was the earlier material that stayed on; now it's the later stuff. Their music has that property of revealing itself to you; something that sounded silly or effusive two years ago suddenly makes sense. It's like you have to have as much life experience as they did when they recorded the song in order to get it. And they're one of the very very few bands who's lyrics I actually give one eff about - even though I may not be able to quote them, when I play the records I suddenly find myself having to pull out the lyric sheets and see what they're trying to say with the music. Needless to say I find McLennan's death tragic, but those records are going to be with me forever, and that's a gift for which I'll be ever-more thankful.

Rest in peace Grant, and thanks for the music.

Update: Enjoy the video for "Cattle and Cane".

Nuture Sane Administrators

Scared yet? Or maybe relieved. I'm not sure which is more appropriate...

Do Please Read The Piece Linked Below

This here post by Belle Warring at Crooked Timber is the funniest Yellow Elephant post I've read in a long time.

Down With Crappy Animated Line Drawings!

This little piece of pro-corporate propoganda (link via Unfogged) is several flavors of horseshit. What's noteworthy to me, though, is the totally retro-flava of one of its central rhetorical tricks.

Back in the 1990's, in the heydaze of the dotbomb, you'll recall how we were all one glorious democratic mass of pulsating entrepreneurial spirit, our desires finally truly represented by that most micro-democratic system of all: the Market. And remember how it was that horrible ol' government, with its stodgy unhep beurocrats, was truly Our Enemy just as corporate America was We The People? I am You as Ken Laye is Me and therefore the corporations should be free - they will be decent in a way the government can't! As anyone who lived in a state served by Enron now knows, that was, charitably, not true.

So it's fitting to hear a former Voice of Clinton making that same conflation now. When he says "let the people, not the government decide..." he's trying to pull the trick of making us believe that AT&T and Verizon are We The People. I'm sure that anyone who's been awake for the last 4 days is asking "ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME?"

Tundra Fever

She's gone brown bear crazy
He's gone white bear hazy
They've got Tundra Fever

They're in love!

Never Say Anything

Well that's one way to react. I've fallen into the "too terrified for words" camp myself. At least the Bull Moose has another opportunity to chastise the left-wing-fever-swamp / unserious-civil-libertarians for hating the President so much they'd sacrifice an important strategic advantage. Plus he'll get the bonus opportunity to praise corporate America for its brave patriotism for contributing bravely to the War on Terror. I think I can probably write his blog posts for him now, except it's not obvious what he'd say about this. Oh wait, yeah it is. Something about how policy elites (shorthand for "people who know what they are talking about") do not understand the seriousness of the serious war in which we are seriously engaged and should take it more seriously by either shutting up or agreeing with the President. That's what Teddy Roosevelt would want.

A publicity stunt that doesn't suck!

I am generally not an admirer of street art projects that feature painted animals. I thought the pandas in DC were OK, but I hate hate hate!!! the recent crop of painted crabs littering the streets of Baltimore.

I was happily surprised earlier this week, however, when I emerged from Union Station in DC (after missing my train)only to find a fierce Terrapin warrior, bedecked with the symbols of my home state a few miles to the east. I felt a slight surge of Terp pride, even as I wondered what it was doing in this strange and bewildering urban wilderness. Clearly someone had thought to post a guardian for traveling Marylanders outside of the station.

It turns out there are fifty of them, and lot of them are pretty cool looking. While I recognize that this is a cheezy marketing ploy by a bunch of development professionals, and remain skeptical of most hackneyed public art projects that are managed by such people, I like this one. At least the Terps look cool, and presumably they are raising money for the University, which is, as far as I'm concerned, a good thing.

Again With The Civility?

Not soon after we got a call for civility in the Iraq War debate we now discover that the Left is mean and uncivil, doubts Ana Marie-Cox's qualifications for judging comedy (because she's a woman), thinks Richard Cohen's mom is ugly and is damn sure Mark Kleiman has a fat ass. Or something to that effect. While I'm tempted to just agree with Fixer, being a blogger, I have to add my own two cents (again).

I'm actually all for civil discourse - in fact some of the most civil debates I've had were with someone who disagrees with me on pretty much everything (excepting the deliciousness of beer and the supremacy of Miguel Tejada). However, civil discourse is only useful when there's an actual debate going on - you know, the whole "engagment in formal argument" thing (emphasis on formal). In the case of the "Colbert Incident" that's sort of impossible, no? For the record, I didn't think he was funny - but that's because I hate it when people more famous than us steal our material. However, on the matter of "what's funny", you are entitled to your own clueless opinion and you're free to voice it in as many blog posts, op-eds, and bathroom graffiti as you see fit. Just don't expect me to read (let alone pay for the privilege of reading) them, jerkface. For a few reasons, though, these new calls for civility are effin' irritating.

First, it's a little late in the day to call for civility when it's clear the disagreement boils down to one side saying "over half the country should be beaten up or deported or jailed or shot on charges of treason because they don't agree with the President" and the other side saying "uhm, no and go eff yourself for saying so". What we have here is slightly more than a difference of opinion.

Second, most of the paid opinion spewers in this country have no expertise in any given subject, yet are paid to dispense their clueless opinions in op-eds, blog posts and television broadcasts. And the internet has only made it worse. Stoke a man's intellectual vanity with a few ill-defined big ideas, send him to far flung corners of the globe for discussions with cab-drivers, and he gleans a new form of global economic interaction. A drunken British journalist - famous for being a contrarian because he failed to miss when he took aim at a few barn doors (and he likes to smoke) - a psychiatrist (who's expertise in treating neurosis qualifies him for a career in international affairs), and members of an obscure philosophy cult team up to engage the rest of us in an on-going seminar in which policy questions are aligned with the Great Politics they studied decades ago (the rest of us call it "The Iraq War" and will be living with the consequences for years if not decades). Armed with tear-stained copies of Road To Serfdom and Atlas Shrugged a sub-literate bore becomes an expert in economics (meanwhile an actual expert in economics is dismissed as "arrogant" and "shrill"). An ex-congressional staffer finds himself the moral compass of a nation and uses his bully-pulpit to ponder such grave issues as the likablitiy of the President. A book, the central argument of which is "politics bores me", is hailed for its political insight. Another British countrari-yawn helps propel a work of shoddy racist pseudo-science into the mainstream, and even after the work is shown to be a fraud, he still boasts of this "achievement" and lands a gig at a major news magazine. The list of insults to our intelligence and affronts to our sense of decency goes on and on and effin' on some more and reasonable people are supposed to be civil. ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME?

This point is not partisan. Let me put it another way. In my line of work you spend a year to two years pounding on your keyboard, sometimes 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, to make a product which will hopefully make your company some money. The product is released and within hours hundreds if not thousands of people are out there in the internets posting to forums or writing on-line reviews voicing their opinion of your labors. A week later three magazines publish yet more opinions. Sometimes you get lucky and everyone loves your work. Other times people will write very unkind things. Consumers know when they're being had and they aren't shy about saying exactly what they think of the work you've done. Sometimes they'll question your abilities. Sometimes they'll question your intelligence. Sometimes they'll wonder what kinds of drugs you were on when you did the work. Sometimes they'll question your (horror of horros) masculinity and (often in the same breath) they'll say mean things about your mother. This is par for the course in my industry and I have never, not once ever, heard calls for civility. You eff'ed up, you live with it. If you don't eff' up, you get to keep your job.

Like it or not, paid punditry is a job - you are paid for your opinions. I do not see any reason why anyone paid an order of magnitude more than me for the privilege of dispensing opinion talking out of their ass should be treated with special care. If anything, they should be held to a higher standard and therefore should be prepared to deal with even graver insults.

Advice on Crime

Effers and anyone else reading this, I could use some help. I am doing some research on the depiction of interracial (romantic or sexual) relationships, interracial marriage, and/or mixed-race characters in modern U.S. crime fiction. If you know of any works that may be of interest, I would appreciate recommendations for novels, short stories, etc (NOT films). Also, I am looking for modern works, say in the past 2-3 decades (i.e. no Faulkner). Finally, I am looking at works that depict modern times (again - past 2-3 decades). Thus, stuff like Walter Mosely’s “Easy Rawlins”/Devil in a Blue Dress novels wouldn’t work. Thanks in advance.

Obey Your Giant Cute Overlords

From our own Dave G. comes a link. Not just any link, mind you, but a link to the absolutely 100% live PandaCam at the National Zoo. Giant pandas. Streaming to your desktop. Go.

The Re-Return To Niceness

Over at OxBlog, Patrick Porter calls for civility in the Iraq war debate. Wadda maroon. He clearly doesn't know that arguing rationally about the interpretation of the existing facts is totally pre-9/11 (it's one of the "everything" that changed dontcha know). Nowadays you attack the man, not the ball. Who'd want to read anything else? Oh, you'd rather go to symposiums at the New America Foundation. Sissy (also objectively pro-Islamonazi...)

Oddly, "warmonger" is one of the words Porter claims is an epithet. But if the term is used to describe someone who advocates a series of wars of choice, I'd say it's not so much an epithet as it is an apt description. "Proponent of robust Wilsonianism" just doesn't have the same ring to it. But what's a little semantic quibble between reasonable people?

Must suck to be a Crip in the Big Red One

Not sure what to say about this, which I stumbled on to at Defensetech. Not suprising, but certainly sobering.

S.O.L.

Requests For Comment

Got this link in email today. I found it enlightening (please do not let the headline fool you), but am curious what our resident culture vultures may make of it. It's certainly the most interesting take I've seen on the use of biblicism.

CTG In Bmore

For the two Baltimore liberals who read us but don't also read the Atomic Books blog, take note that Kos and Jerome Armstrong will be there on May 18th.

Where's my Stetson Kennedy?

The following is a set of lyrics written by Woody Guthrie in 1952 (from this album).

I done spent my last three cents
Mailing my letter to the President
Didn't make a show, I didn't make a dent
So I'm swinging over to this independent gent

Stetson Kennedy
Writing his name in
Stetson Kennedy
Writing his name in

I can't win out to save my soul
Long as Smathers-Dupont's got me in the hole
Them war profit boys are squawking and balking
That's what's got me out here walking and talking

Knocking on doors and windows
Wake up and run down election morning
And scribble in Stetson Kennedy
I ain't the world's best writer, ain't the world's best speller
But when I believe in something I'm the loudest yeller
If we fix it so you can't make no money on war
Well we'll all forget what we was killing folks for

We'll find us a peace job equal and free
We'll dump Smathers-Dupont in a salty sea
Well, this makes Stetson Kennedy the man for me

I’ve been playing this song a lot on my guitar and I’ve been kicking around a way to make it accurate (it’s already relevant) to today.
It’s pretty obvious that Bush-Cheney is Smathers-Dupont, they’re the war profit boys that need to get dumped in a salty sea.
But who is Stetson Kennedy?
Is there an Independent gent that I can believe in like Guthrie believes in Kennedy? Is it possible to have such belief in a politician anymore? Are we too cynical? Is the system too corrupt?

I believed in Kucinich during the primary. I didn’t, however, believe he had a chance of winning. Curious. I wonder where I drew that line between believing in him as a person and believing in his viability as a candidate. And I wonder why I drew that line.

I expect this is the point where people say in the comments: “Why? Because he couldn’t win, stupid! He didn’t have a chance.”

And I suppose that’s why I drew the line. But I guess I need to stop thinking that I believed in him, because obviously I didn’t.

But! I want to find somebody to believe in. I think the left needs a Stetson Kennedy. A candidate we can lift to our shoulders and parade around; an independent gent we can believe in as a person and a candidate.

I don’t think belief is dead. I don’t think we’re too cynical or the system too corrupt. Whatever he is, regardless of how he got there, George W. Bush has been president for 6 years. A lot of (insane) people believed in him during the 2000 primaries when, next to McCain, he looked like a damn developmentally-disabled monkey.

And, it’s not like the left doesn’t believe in people. Most of the blogosphere is practically falling at the feet of Stephen Colbert ‘cuz of his White House Correspondents dinner speech. Read the comments from the Colbert posts at crooks and liars, we’re just DYING for someone to believe in.

What I’m saying is, let’s find that person, let’s believe in that person, and let’s make them President regardless of what ANYONE else says.

‘Get us a peace job, equal and free
And dump the wingnuts in a salty sea’

Unfrozen Cave-Man Bull Moose

Could we pretty please call a permanent moratorium on the use of culture war rhetoric when discussing what our Iran policy should be? Phrases like "geopolitical sanguine pseudo sophisticates" used as perjoratives, coming as they do from someone who's career is as a DC political flack, are less than unhelpful. Never mind that the failed Iraq policy was concocted by ur-elites from the University of Chicago as the full flowering of a bogus philosophy. If we've learned one thing, it's that the self-proclaimed "rubes" who brought us the Iraq war are the ones who are far too sanguine - about the effectiveness of "robust" foreign policy options.

Also, is anyone but the Moose actually making this claim?

Everyone knows that when Ahmadinejad threatens to wipe Israel off the map it is just a quaint Persian plea for respect and understanding. And when the Iranians suggest that they will share their nuclear knowledge with their brothers in Sudan - why worry? What is a little arms race in the Middle East anyway?

Uhm, no. Serious "sanguine sophisticates" are indeed concerned. They are also concerned with what happens when you let self-proclaimed (elite university educated) rubes wage war they don't know how to manage. I thought that'd be the lesson of the Carrier Landing; little boys should not be allowed to play with adult toys.

Update: For an instance of a non-sanguine sophisticate who's taking things seriously, as opposed to playing the rhetoric game, see Steve Clemons.