Posts from the time that bloggers forgot ...

Whatever happened to the airline "Put" options story?

What the 9/11 Widows never knew ...

BEAT ARMY!

BEAT ARMY!

Navy (U.S. Naval Academy aka Annapolis) vs. Army (U.S. Military Academy aka West Point), December 3, 2005, Philadelphia. The game begins at 14:30 and will be broadcast over the air by CBS.

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Update 12/3/2005: In the 106th contest between Navy and Army football teams, Navy was successful in defeating Army 42-23. Number of instances of "Beat Army" on the web according to Google: 36,000. Number of instances of "Beat Navy" on the web according to Google: 38,900.

Blackwashing the issue of crime in New Orleans

If I read one more column or hear one more opinion from a socialist with a skewed perspective of the anarchy and looting in New Orleans I'll bust. If they aren't making a point that everything we saw on television never occurred in the first place, they're claiming that any looting was a result of economic status and/or race and the only thing standing between a looter and the throes of death by starvation and dehydration.

My own aunt, my conservative leaning aunt-in-law herself is starting to believe the socialist marlarkey of these columnists and talking heads, saying she herself would loot for food and water!

What every single one of these folk -- my aunt included -- fail to realize is the argument of the storeowner and the employees of that store. Until they do, they're walking solely in the shoes of the looters with the perspective of a leftist scribe, barring from their thought processes every other perspective.

One fellow commented to me that he would loot a store of food and water to protect his wife and daughter from starvation and dehydration. He probably thought it's a noble belief with him as the protector. It isn't.

I replied to him with a list of questions to consider:

You say you would break into a store for your wife or daughter and steal food and water.

How thirsty or hungry would your wife and daughter have to be to force you into this criminal behavior? Would this have occurred because you cared for your wife and daughter or because you failed to heed the warnings and prepare an emergency kit of food, water and medicine?

Does your failure to prepare give you the right to break the law and steal someone's livelihood? How would you know the storeowner had insurance or enough money to cover the loss or make the repairs? They may have sunk every nickel they had into the store only to have someone like you take everything they had in life and destroy it.

What if the storeowner was there? Would you assault him to take the food or water if you had no money? Would you have paid for it? I've yet to hear of anyone returning to a store in New Orleans to pay the owners for the food or water or medicine lifted and I doubt I will.

Assume I haven't eaten for three days ... does that give me a right to steal your wallet to buy food? Or break into your house while you, the wife and daughter are at the movies and take food, and then something I might trade later on for food?

If you want to put yourself in the shoes of the looters, you'd better also put yourself in the shoes of the storeowners and the employees of the stores who, even if the store survived the floods, may not have a store to come back to because of the looting.

BTW, assuming the looters had absolutely no canned foods in the cupboard whatsoever, on average it would take an adult as long as 30 days to starve to death or 10 days or more to enter into a coma from absolute lack of hydration. So no adult was on the brink of death when the looting began. The straits weren't dire.

That last bit of information, as anyone who regularly reads this blog would know, is from an Associated Press report describing how Terri Schindler Schiavo would die.

I'm not a cold-hearted sonuvabitch. Nor am I without sin. If a locked door stood between the life and death of an innocent, I could find mitigation. But that locked door didn't. And if I could break through a locked door, I guarantee you I could find a way out of the city and get some help, food, water and medicine. People had time to leave the city; and those who didn't leave the city had time to prepare. People of all races took advantage of the situation and, unfortunately, because a greater percentage of the people living in New Orleans are black, the preponderance of those committing the crimes was black.

The big difference is that whites are not trying to use race as some kind of defense for criminal behavior.

I was reading the drivel from columnists claiming that leaving poor blacks to fend for themselves in anarchy in New Orleans was some kind of grandiose racist scheme and the result of a failure of the Bush administration. Now I'm reading the drivel from columnists claiming that the reporting of the anarchy -- anarchy that now allegedly never occurred -- is some kind of racist plot to demean blacks.

First and foremost, the information about the rapes and murders came from the residents themselves. The local tv news program ran video 24/7 that included interviews with storm survivors. I watched as one black woman -- a respected figure in the New Orleans community -- recounted to Roman Catholic Archbishop Alfred Hughes about the bodies of all the dead babies she saw floating and about the roving gangbangers carrying guns and raping women.

I saw interviews with black men and women who claimed they waited at the convention center and personally witnessed the rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl. In the background of the video was an ATM that had been cracked and the cash looted.

I saw video interviews from one New Orleans police station the station members had named "Fort Apache" with a handmade sign. The Lieutenant and Sergeant told about being fired at by snipers from windows in the city projects.

Eddie Compass, the resigned black Chief of Police of New Orleans, told Oprah about the violence at the Convention Center and Superdome, a charge repeated numerous times by black mayor C. Ray Nagin.

I also watched the Montel Williams show as Montel interviewed black storm survivors who claimed to a national audience they also had witnessed rapes and murders, as well as super large rats gnawing on the bodies of corpses.

The blame at that time was placed on President Bush and the racist rich whites who left the poor black families there to die at the hands of lawless bangers with guns.

Now, columnists and editorialists are claiming these events never occurred, that it was some kind of conspiracy by whites and the media to portray the poor blacks as animalistic and thugs.

So ... the question is, are black people to be believed in a crisis or are they not? Are whites racist if they believe them or are they not?

That looting was widespread should not and cannot be denied. I witnessed many looted stores myself, stores that carried no food or water but items of pawn value. Persons of every race carried out the looting.

These columns ignore the fact that New Orleans was home to a large criminal element. This criminal element was tolerated by corrupt local politicians. And many local citizens turned a blind eye to the crime in this cesspool on the Mississippi with the denial "it's not my job to get involved."

The unfortunate fact is that this criminal element is comprised chiefly of African-Americans. The city's police force, 250 of which who didn't show up in a disaster, is comprised chiefly of African-Americans. The leadership of New Orleans is comprised chiefly of African-Americans.

So who gets the blame? Whites. As usual. Whites are not responsible for the poverty of the blacks in New Orleans, where most of the employers are African-Americans paying minimum wage and no benefits for unskilled burger flipping or hotel/bar service jobs to African-Americans who -- despite grants, loans, scholarship, assistance from every source and affirmative action -- still fail to study, fail to do their homework and eventually drop out of school. Gangbanging is accepted in the culture as cool. It's the shortest distance to riches, not the long, hard road of education and sacrifice.

I'm sorry these intellectual elites are turning a blind eye to actual events, but facts are facts. Entertainer Bill Cosby told African-Americans that, as a cultural group, they needed to clean up their act, provide leadership and teach their children to toe the line instead of playing the race card as some kind of excuse. They have failed to do that.

Given a choice to move on, many hard-working, moral African-Americans are making the decision to NOT return to New Orleans because they know the attitude of denial pervasive in that city and they don't wish to be associated with it. It's not the attitude of the whites they fear; it's the complacent attitude of politicians who do nothing to solve the crime problem that plagues the city, a problem primarily of black-on-black crime.

National black leaders are no better. Defending the crimes of a criminal by saying he's black or Hispanic or white or Asian or poor is racist and discriminatory. Saying a criminal is a criminal because he made a choice to become a criminal is not. Race and economic status are no excuse for criminal behavior.

This means that anyone playing the race or economic status card as a defense for criminal behavior is guilty of racism. In my opinion Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan are racists who, by playing the race and economic status card, believe that African-Americans can't help committing crimes because they are black and/or poor. The stand they take demeans the advances made by African-Americans everywhere and contributes to stereotyping. But it keeps them in the racial excuse business, doesn't it? And that leads to contributions.

I can understand why many black columnists and editorialists have taken the position they have. They're embarrassed by the actions of African-Americans in New Orleans. If I were a 50 year old African-American, I would be embarrassed as well. You study hard, get a good job, go to church, serve your country in the military, become active in your community and in your child's activities ... and the next thing you know, African-Americans are looting guns from Wal-Mart, booze from Winn-Dixie and oxycontin from Walgreens. And there goes the rep you've tried so hard to build for yourself ... but only if you equate race with crime, which is racist.

The easiest way to explain away the actions of the looters and the criminal element of this festering city is to chalk it up to rumor, deny it ever existed, and claim that what everyone saw on television was -- in fact -- something they didn't watch. That's the position of the politicians and the heads of the Chamber of Commerce who want to see tourism in Louisiana again. Or, like black leaders seeking donations, chalk it up as a result of institutional racism. They won't say that the African-American culture has failed to make these criminal youth responsible for their own action.

African-Americans have as much as a public relations problem now as the entire state of Louisiana. Whether they blackwash the problems with the wide swath of the race card or SOLVE the problems is yet to be determined.

History says the problems will be blamed on whites and blackwashed as some kind of historical racist incident. Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and Louis "Crazy Lou" Farrakhan will earn a few more million in speaking fees and Bill Cosby will continue to be derided as some kind of whacked-out turncoat spokesman for the whites.

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GEE, OFFICER KRUPKE

ACTION
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It's just our bringin' up-ke
That gets us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!

ACTION AND JETS
Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset;
We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get.
We ain't no delinquents,
We're misunderstood.
Deep down inside us there is good!

ACTION
There is good!

ALL
There is good, there is good,
There is untapped good!
Like inside, the worst of us is good!

SNOWBOY: (Spoken) That's a touchin' good story.

ACTION: (Spoken) Lemme tell it to the world!

SNOWBOY: Just tell it to the judge.

ACTION
Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
My parents treat me rough.
With all their marijuana,
They won't give me a puff.
They didn't wanna have me,
But somehow I was had.
Leapin' lizards! That's why I'm so bad!

DIESEL: (As Judge) Right!

Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
He's psychologic'ly disturbed!

ACTION
I'm disturbed!

JETS
We're disturbed, we're disturbed,
We're the most disturbed,
Like we're psychologic'ly disturbed.

DIESEL: (Spoken, as Judge) In the opinion on this court, this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home.

ACTION: (Spoken) Hey, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived.

DIESEL: So take him to a headshrinker.

ACTION (Sings)
My father is a bastard,
My ma's an S.O.B.
My grandpa's always plastered,
My grandma pushes tea.
My sister wears a mustache,
My brother wears a dress.
Goodness gracious, that's why I'm a mess!

A-RAB: (As Psychiatrist) Yes!
Officer Krupke, you're really a slob.
This boy don't need a doctor, just a good honest job.
Society's played him a terrible trick,
And sociologic'ly he's sick!

ACTION
I am sick!

ALL
We are sick, we are sick,
We are sick, sick, sick,
Like we're sociologically sick!

A-RAB: In my opinion, this child don't need to have his head shrunk at all. Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease!

ACTION: Hey, I got a social disease!

A-RAB: So take him to a social worker!

ACTION
Dear kindly social worker,
They say go earn a buck.
Like be a soda jerker,
Which means like be a schumck.
It's not I'm anti-social,
I'm only anti-work.
Gloryosky! That's why I'm a jerk!

BABY JOHN: (As Female Social Worker)
Eek!
Officer Krupke, you've done it again.
This boy don't need a job, he needs a year in the pen.
It ain't just a question of misunderstood;
Deep down inside him, he's no good!

ACTION
I'm no good!

ALL
We're no good, we're no good!
We're no earthly good,
Like the best of us is no damn good!

DIESEL (As Judge)
The trouble is he's crazy.

A-RAB (As Psychiatrist)
The trouble is he drinks.

BABY JOHN (As Female Social Worker)
The trouble is he's lazy.

DIESEL
The trouble is he stinks.

A-RAB
The trouble is he's growing.

BABY JOHN
The trouble is he's grown.

ALL
Krupke, we got troubles of our own!

Gee, Officer Krupke,
We're down on our knees,
'Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease.
Gee, Officer Krupke,
What are we to do?
Gee, Officer Krupke,
Krup you!

Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
© 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed.
Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher.

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Porn spam Easter egg of the day:

Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard.

Moving on ...

Sometimes external factors force you to make decisions you'd rather not make or change the direction you want to take. I'm not talking about Katrina. The post size limitation of Blogger is one such factor affecting me now. I can't continue my previous post ... it's getting too long and Blogger apparently won't accommodate a post of that length. So I'm forced by something beyond my control to split my post, change the header and move on.

Not a problem.

Since Katrina hit, I've been contemplating what it's going to take to clean up and rebuild New Orleans and if we're all capable of the self-sacrifice that's going to be required.

Consider this: Current estimates are that 165,000 homes in the greater New Orleans metro area will have to be condemned, leveled, the trash carted away and the home rebuilt -- including everything that entails like plumbing and electrical -- before it can house a family. Think about that number. And this doesn't include businesses or repairs to homes not destroyed! If construction crews are able to do this for 1,000 houses a month, an average of 33.3 houses a day, the construction will be completed in about 14 years. Every 2x4 in the country will be sucked up and needed by New Orleans and the other cities damaged by Katrina. And every available piece of dry wall. Every brick, and every bit of cement we can produce. But there's a problem. A BIG problem. And I'm not talking about the huge landfill that will be needed for all that refuse.

The U.S. has moved to a service and information economy. The vast majority of us don't work-work. We push paper, trade bonds and stocks in big buildings terrorists like to target, and operate computers. We collect rent and commissions on homes we didn't build and we sell products we didn't make. I don't know if you've looked around your neighborhood at who's doing the construction lately. It's not, for the most part, Americans. They are immigrants, primarily from Mexico and Central and South America, but also many from the Slavic countries, who are wearing the hardhats. Of the nearly half a million workers immediately unemployed by Katrina -- and now Rita -- very few could be considered construction workers.

Over the years unions, sometimes with the help of organized crime, ensured limited availability of skilled construction trades because it meant higher wages. Assuming constant demand, if you reduce the available supply you can force an increase in price. "Well, I've GOT to have it. I know you're screwing me but I have no choice." The problem is that now we won't have enough $90 an hour electricians available to wire the homes we need built. Or the carpenters or framers or bricklayers or painters or roofers or even sheetrock hangers.

Given this, can we do it? Can we rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and pay for it without putting the country in a depression or facing an inflationary recession when we're done and the bills come due? I can't answer that. But I think if we get together and attack this problem like we formulated the D-Day invasion and the conquest of Nazi Germany, we've got a shot. Iraq and Afghanistan may not have put us on a war footing mentally, but this sure will.

We have to look at ideas from the past, like Levittown, NJ, the planned community of affordable, cookie-cutter houses built and bought after World War II by returning soldiers. Levittown was the first mass-produced community of stakeholders, owners with mortgages not renters or public assistance vouchers. If you didn't help build it, you couldn't get to live there. Community meant community, including vigilance against crime left not just with the police, but with the nosey/caring neighbors as well. In this community, seeing how many kids you could father with how many women, how much dope you could sell and how you could rip off your friends, your neighbors, the corner store and the government were NOT acceptable behavior.

We have to look at how we took unskilled kids from the farms and trained them en masse to drive tanks and fly planes. Of course we could always decide to build modular housing in some low wage country like China, but then it increases our debt to China and teaches the unskilled and poor in the U.S. no trade. They, once again, flip burgers and depend on social services for survival. And they pop out children who, in turn, have children and continue this cycle of poverty and state dependence.

We have to look at how we ramped up the defense industry and trained Rosie the Riveter to build a B-25 bomber every 10 minutes. It's way past time to leave the 9-5, M-F week. We've got 24/7 needs and it's time for labor, the economy and government to understand that. We're inefficient using our clogged roadways, our schools, our businesses and our factories just 12 hours a day.

[Update 9/26/2005: A friend alerts me that at least two Catholic schools in the Baton Rouge area, including Redemptorist, are running a 2nd shift of students. The first shift attends classes from 7 a.m.-1 p.m.; the second shift -- comprised of students from the New Orleans area -- attend classes from 1 p.m. -7 p.m. The New Orleans area students are instructed by many of the same teachers who taught the class in New Orleans. As my grandmother used to say, "That's using your noodle!"]

We have to look at how we can utilize resources and train and employ every single American available in this, perhaps by building modules in particular regions and then staging them for final assembly in New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Waveland, etc.

But first we, in Louisiana, have to listen to some of those politicians who questioned whether New Orleans should be rebuilt given its likelihood of getting hit by hurricanes. And we have to build a levee and seawall protection system that protects the area and minimizes the devastation from something like this ever happening again.

One step at a time. One day at a time. And eventually we'll get through this.

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Just found this ad in the "Help Wanted" section of the local newspaper:

Necesitamos Trabajadores Ahora. Trabajo General, Mantenimiento de Remolcador, Plomero, Electricista. Y otros tipos de trabajos. Llamar al 225 ...

This translates as: "We need Workers Now. General work, Maintenance of Tugboat, Plumber, Electrician. And other types of works. Call 225 ..."

¡Deje el buen rodillo de las épocas! -- Let the good times roll!

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Those are the problems that have to be solved before any money is allocated for rebuilding. But once we've come to a consensus on how we're going to protect New Orleans, train the builders and develop cohesive communities of vigilant neighbors, we've got to find the money. (At least that's the way it's done in the private sector -- develop a prototype, formulate a business plan and then seek financing. In government the method, it seems to me, is to score as much money as possible and then figure out ways to spend it all so you can then ask for more.)

The U.S. can't keep going outside this country to the nations of the world, borrowing the savings of their citizens and putting this country's grandchildren and great-grandchildren into debt. Again, I think the solution lies in answers found to fund the WWII war machine: bonds sold to citizens, a type of War Bond dedicated to the recovery of the Gulf Coast. The U.S. seeks to float billions of dollars in bonds to foreign countries before first asking its citizens to fund the effort. Then, when these bonds come due, the citizens are forced to pay not only the principle but also the interest through increased taxes. And the money goes into the coffers of countries outside the U.S., making them stronger and the U.S. weaker and giving us less say in world affairs.

Some might say weakening the U.S.'s ability to stick its nose into the tents of the nations of the world is a good thing, but it also means, for example, that if we want China to buy our bonds, we keep mum on its human rights violations. And that breeds hatred for the U.S. by people who believe the U.S. is more powerful than it really is in situations like this.

Or perhaps China will demand something more, like a blind eye from the U.S. when it seeks to reannex and subjugate Taiwan ...

Many programs are foisted upon the taxpayers of the world -- individuals and businesses -- by politicians without our consent. As a democratic republic, we elect representatives we believe will represent our best interests and fund projects we want funded. We place our trust in them to determine who will get the checks. Each time we buy something and each time we earn a paycheck, we send money to a universal fund to pay for these programs. But because we don't assent each time, we don't always have a true connection to any particular program. We need that connection to fund space exploration, and we need that connection to the recovery.

A bond sale program to the citizens of the U.S. for the recovery of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast makes them individual stakeholders in the recovery. Furthermore, it makes us save some funds -- something economists always want us to do -- and allows us to earn interest we as a country might otherwise pay to a foreign power. It's a method of financing that should be considered. If we believe a thriving, rebuilt Gulf Coast is important for the country, Americans should hold the mortgage.

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Sounding off: In my opinion it's downright cruel of the state government not to level with people whose houses have been destroyed by flooding and must be rebuilt. Many of the people expect they'll be able to move back to New Orleans within a year. Most of the people don't yet realize it may be 10 years or more before housing construction in New Orleans is completed. Gov. Blanco needs to be brutally honest with Katrina's refugees who already have suffered so much. They need to start planning the rest of their lives, and they need the truth to make those plans. It's up to Gov. Blanco to give them that truth however bitter the pill.

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A song for the Gulf Coast, courtesy of and apologies to Lee Hays and Pete Seeger:

If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the Northeast
I'd hammer in the far West ... all over this land,
I'd hammer for Gulfport
I'd hammer for New Orleans
I'd hammer out homes with love for all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land!

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In addition to a world renowned flood control system, The Netherlands is also generating interest from Louisiana engineers for its "floating houses." Reports Der Spiegel:

The cellar, in this case, is not built into the earth. Instead, it is on a platform - and is much more than a mere storage room. The hollow foundation of each house works in the same way as the hull of a ship, buoying the structure up above water. To prevent the swimming houses from floating away, they slide up two broad steel posts - and as the water level sinks, so they sink back down again.

It's nice to see that instead of squabbling, some people are actually thinking about the problems.

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The Associated Press is finally waking up to the problems facing those who would rebuild:

With hundreds or even thousands of builders wiped out by Katrina — their tools lost and workers scattered — homeowners looking to rebuild quickly are in for a shock.

The scope of home destruction is so sweeping that it will likely stretch rebuilding for years. It took more than a decade to reconstruct all the homes destroyed by Hurricane Andrew, after it hit Florida in 1992. Katrina destroyed 10 times as many homes as Andrew.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco says at least 140,000 homes in southeast Louisiana were either lost or are unrepairable and will have to be condemned and leveled. Additionally, she claims 81,000 businesses, or 41 percent of the state's employers, have been destroyed or displaced.

The Katrina debris clean-up alone is expected to take more than a year. Officials say one million cubic yards of debris have been removed out of an estimated 40 million cubic yards of waste. That estimate includes: 22 million tons of vegetative and other refuse; 350,000 ruined cars and 60,000 wrecked boats; one million household appliances such as refrigerators and stoves, as well as the debris that will be generated from the demolition of as many as 160,000 unrepairable homes and businesses.

And I thought cleaning my house was a monstrous undertaking! (Not that I've done anything of the sort lately ...)

Two Louisiana state engineers think a one year estimate is optimistic and the clean-up actually will take two years or more. They believe 300,000 truckloads of debris will have to be removed into landfills, and area landfills now are straining to handle 400 trucks a day. If you do the math, it will take 750 days at current capacity, more if capacity is reduced and the state has to approve new landfills to replace ones that are filled. Current cost in Jefferson Parish to dump a load of trash: $28 per ton. This translates to $1.12 billion just for landfill fees.

Probably the most recyclable debris are the ruined vehicles. Reuters reports that tow truck operators are hauling 400-500 vehicles per day from the previously flooded sections of New Orleans. At this rate, with an estimated 350,000 ruined vehicles, it will take 700 days for the removal to be complete. Some portions of the vehicles -- like the rotted seats -- will end up in a landfill but automotive recyclers, the current appellation for the old fashioned junkyard, will have first crack at the rest of the vehicle ... thus giving new meaning to "Man, did I get a crappy alternator from the junkyard!"

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From the "When will they ever learn?" Dept: Small business owners from the Gulf Coast were up in arms at an overflow meeting Oct. 6 in New Orleans that, Agence France Presse reported, "verged on anarchy." Despite the billions being spent for reconstruction along the Gulf Coast, 6 percent of the contracts have been let to area businesses. Most of the contracts and subcontracts went to out-of-state suppliers. Yogi might call it "deja vu all over again," except this time no blood was shed. The riots in Afghanistan alleged to have started over the report of the flushing of a copy of the Koran at a Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility? That wasn't the reason. It turns out the Afghanis were incensed that Chinese contractors rebuilding Afghanistan weren't hiring Afghanis for the work.

The Associated Press reports that it's not just out-of-state suppliers who are getting work; it's out-of-state workers, namely (you guessed it) labor from Mexico and Central America. And big labor, New Orleans politicians and the Rev. Jesse Jackson are unhappy about it, claiming the immigrants are taking jobs from Louisianians. This, despite the fact that hundreds of unskilled general labor jobs are going wanting. A good wage in Mexico is $4 a day and, although the clean-up work is difficult, nasty and in unhealthy environmental conditions, the immigrant laborer in New Orleans is making $10 per hour plus overtime. Katrina's victims are eligible for unemployment, up to 60 percent of their base pay, but not greater than $258 weekly, or 25.8 hours pay at $10 per hour. No word on whether Vincente Fox is doing the "I told you so!" dance.

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Some folk arriving at The 6th Estate in recent days have been directed here by search engines after entering words such as: construction Katrina New Orleans Baton Rouge carpenter electrician bricklayer mason framer sheetrock roofer rebuilding

Here's the link you want folk: Help Wanted

That's the online version of General Help Wanted section of the local newspaper in Baton Rouge.

Here is a Spanish translation of the same section.

Good luck! And thanks for wanting to help Louisiana rebuild!

(More to follow ... )

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Porn spam Easter egg of the day:

Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.

Mogadishu, Louisiana

It's eerie watching the images from a city just 70 odd miles down the road and reading about the looting. I want to hit the button and eject the DVD. I've played this video game and seen this post-apocalyptic vision many times before -- "Demolition Man," "Escape from New York," and even "Mad Max" but where the heroes drive flat-bottomed air boats.

But it's not a video game or a DVD. It's real and it's just down the road at a city called New Orleans. I remember how we looked at the scenes in Baghdad after liberation and gave the high-hat to all Iraqis for the actions of a few. That scene was a replay of the chaos in Somalia, and the raids on the aid convoys. We, the educated, the technologically-advanced, the Americans, are better than that and are immune and protected from disaster and the resulting chaos.

No, we're not. The unmuffled sounds of military helicopters flying overhead out of Ryan Airport in Baton Rouge prove that.

But those helicopters aren't arms of American imperialism -- they're there, like they are in Iraq, like they were there in Somalia, to save the helpless from the lawless. There's no excuse for the lawlessness and looting in this disaster's aftermath, as there was no reason for it in Iraq or Somalia or Haiti or any of the thousands of countries we've aided.

Already the call is out to blame President Bush for the hurricane. What can we expect from a segment of the populace when Madison Avenue has developed us into a generation that needs immediate gratification to survive?

I'm on the road a lot and the attitude doesn't surprise me. I had to make a delivery to New Orleans on Saturday and wasn't able to leave Baghdad on the Mississippi until late. The people were leaving in a steady stream and highway courtesy was rare -- people driving without their headlights on, failing to use directional signals, switching lanes every 10 seconds, tailgating, driving with their fog lights on when there was no fog.

If you drive like this and don't already know: This is discourteous. It's selfish behavior. How can I equate the discourteous traits of driving to looting? It's not a stretch; it goes to character. Both behaviors easily could lead to death.

The Democratic woman governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, called for today to be a statewide "Day of Prayer," starting with a morning prayer service. Yesterday, local CBS affiliate WAFB-TV allowed Archbishop Alfred Hughes -- the displaced leader of the Roman Catholic diocese of New Orleans -- to sit at the anchor desk at primetime and lead the tv audience in a prayer. Moments earlier he had admitted the underwear he was wearing was borrowed because he had left New Orleans in a hurry, bringing no clothes with him.

Interestingly enough, I saw no media coverage of any bitching by lawyers for the ACLU, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Bri'ith or even the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It proves that God exists in foxholes. And proves we Louisianans feel like we're in a foxhole.

It's getting a bit uncomfortable in Baton Rouge as rumors of the chaos of New Orleans' disaster start leeching northward along with the flow of humanity. Almost overnight we've become the largest city in the state. The natural disaster that pushed the best of New Orleans to Baton Rouge also pushed out its worst.

We know that New Orleans not only evacuated its teachers and PTA mothers and small business owners but also (at this point, "some" of) the lower echelons as well -- the ne'er do wells of the Big Easy who may seem colorful adorning the French Quarter but who are definitely out of place in the more conservative community of Baton Rouge. We're not visiting the sinful city for a weekend of drinking and debauchery; the demons of hell have come to live with us ... and apparently it's going to be for a LONG time. It's like having the round-heeled tart you had fun with Saturday night knocking on the door of your house in the 'burbs Sunday morning.

Their crack dealers make our crack dealers look like small town yokels. I doubt if FEMA has heroin dealers and kilos of smack pre-positioned ready to rush to Baton Rouge. What happens when strung-out junkies needing a fix no longer have access to their regular dealer channels or money? I guess we'll find out. There already have been robberies in the area traced to the displaced. The local constabulary calls them "isolated incidents" but nonetheless has strategically placed shotgun carrying deputies in the vicinity of an evacuee center. I guess it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you don't have security and something happens, there will be political hell to pay.

So Baton Rouge hasn't yet felt the criminal pain of suddenly being the state's largest city. But all those looted guns eventually will be evacuated from the Big Easy by their new owners, and Baton Rouge is the first major stop on the line.

---

I wish I could write mystery fiction well. I've realized that a hurricane presents the perfect opportunity for evil intentions. A head wound from a baseball bat would look exactly like a head wound from flying debris. I'm sure that more than one of the bodies they find in the aftermath will have had their life snuffed this way. It seems like it would be the New Orleans' way. And with Lake Pontchartrain waters washing away any evidence that could be present, it would be the perfect crime.

Update 12/12/2005: Deja vu all over again.

---

Living in Baton Rouge today, I suspect, must be a bit like living in Washington, D.C. in December 1941, and a bit like living in Rick's "Casablanca." All of a sudden we've become the central command in a war zone, not a war against an ideology but a war against the destruction visited upon this country by an uncontrollable force. And we've become the prime stopping off point for an influx of haggard, destitute, desperate refugees who have no idea when they'll be able to go home.

(I write "refugees" knowing full well that some people might have a problem with that term. But "evacuees" implies, to me at least, that the situation is temporary. It's a word incapable of connoting the immediacy and true need that a word like "refugee" does.)

The front is in New Orleans, but we're really the closest place with an decent airport and much of the infrastructure needed to support a command post and staging area. Planners at the Pentagon have always wondered if the U.S. today could fight a two-front war, if its citizens and the civil defense apparatus could handle an attack on our shores. Would we have the same mettle that forged Londoners during the Nazi bombing raids and the strength and stamina to rebuild once the enemy was subdued? The planners -- and the world -- are now getting their chance to find out.

War isn't just dropping bombs. As anyone watching the coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq must know by now, that's just the first stage, an attempt to get the upper hand in governmental decision making regarding the future of people's lives. Once the enemy's on the run, you've got to implement order and rebuild. The dead have no more problems on this earth. The struggles remain for the living.

My late mother used to tell me stories of shortages at the stores and the rationing during the depression and then, later, World War II. Sometimes all the stores had to sell were staples like beans or onions, which is how she acquired her lifelong taste for baked bean sandwiches and onion sandwiches. I complain now about the lines at the gas stations down here and the price of fuel. During the war years, for gasoline -- if cars were owned -- families were issued ration cards and would be allowed to buy a certain amount of fuel on a certain day of the week only. That fuel would have to last them all week. Even if they could have afforded fuel, much less a car, my grandmother didn't drive so I doubt if this was a problem for them.

And then there was a shortage of nylon, a relatively new invention useful for ladies stockings and parachutes. Because parachute material had priority, the nylons were in short supply. My mother, grandmother and Aunt Loretta would roll in laughter, tears streaming down their faces, reliving the story of the one pair of nylons they shared between them. Apparently, at one point or another, my mother -- a klutz in denial -- went tumbling down some steps while wearing the nylons. The first cries out of the mouths of my grandmother and my aunt were concern, not for my mother, but for that rare pair of nylon stockings. Priorities.

The shortages exist in the stores in Baton Rouge, though it affects far fewer items. Some of the shortages are caused because the maker of that item, like the bakery for the Thomas' NY Style Everything Bagels I love for bagel pizzas, is located in the storm ravaged New Orleans metro area and not currently producing food. And some of the shortages are caused by the mass influx of people in Baton Rouge.

The meat counter at my local Sam's Club was nearly empty Sunday (9/5/2005) when I went shopping. Admittedly I went shopping at closing time on the second day of the weekend. But the shortages of certain items were evident. Empty pallets holding nothing but cubic feet of air filled the aisles. The freezer section looked more like a cardboard box recycling area than an area to display product for sale.

Sam's Club is the warehouse store owned by the same company that owns Wal Mart. They love profit, the place is huge with lots of storage and the shelves hardly ever are empty. The store brand of dog food I buy - out. The Land o' Lakes brand Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese for the bagel pizzas - out. The lower-priced frozen hamburger patties - out. Ground turkey - out. Breakfast sausage links - out. And, of course, no Thomas' bagels, just some offbrand from a bakery in Arkansas, plain, with no sesame seeds or onion. My entire grocery list was nearly wiped out.

This isn't what I would call a struggle for life. It's an inconvenience. I substituted and, unfortunately, won't lose a pound from hunger or brand deprivation. It's a far different time from when my mother was young, the country was at war and items were scarce. The onion sandwiches I eat today (sliced onion-the hotter the better, soft butter, salt, pepper, bread) I eat by choice, much to the chagrin of my friends and associates, not by a lack of alternatives. We're more efficient, not only at producing both guns and butter, but delivering them rapidly where and when they're needed. But our efficiency has given us a short temper. We expect it as a right.

Some people are angry and their blood is boiling because of the slow response of FEMA. I guess I am too. When anyone's life is at stake, any second delay is a second too long. We wanted and needed them yesterday. The death toll is expected to be high, in the thousands. But I keep reminding myself if a hurricane like this had hit in the 1940s, the death toll would have been in the 100s of thousands. So I'll pray for the dead and I'll pray for the survivors. And I'll thank God Katrina didn't occur 65 years ago. It's not much and it won't bring back the dead, but it's the solace that will keep me going, trying to be a better man.

---

As if Baton Rouge and the State of Louisiana didn't already have enough to worry about, the district attorney for Orleans parish confided to a local tv reporter yesterday (9/20) that much of the evidence in new and on-going cases was destroyed in the flood. Additionally, he noted that witnesses have been evacuated to places far and wide. As witnesses and evidence are relatively important in proving cases beyond "reasonable doubt," he said citizens should expect that many arrested offenders may get off.

I can guarantee you that anyone in the Louisiana legal system -- or the federal legal system in the case of Louisiana's convicted notorious former governor Edwin Edwards -- is now scrambling to determine whether evidence already in custody was destroyed in the hurricane. If evidence is destroyed, how can a conviction be upheld on appeal? Ever see how they stack old cases in that tv series "Cold Case?" In cardboard boxes ...

The national media have yet to grasp the facets and the potential of this fiasco ... but it'll be fun when they do. Reports the local newspaper:

The hurricane has affected 5,934 civil and criminal cases pending in the Eastern District in New Orleans, according to information from court officials.

In addition to those numbers, an estimated 600-700 cases in the Lafayette-based U.S. Western District Court and 4,700-7,000 cases in the Baton Rouge-based U.S. Middle District Court involve New Orleans-area attorneys.

There are no firm numbers on how many displaced attorneys have made contact with the court or how many are grappling with such problems as lost witnesses, lost evidence and lost clients.

Whether the destruction of evidence will open the gates of Angola and local and federal prisons across the country remains to be seen, but if so, the nation would not have seen as many criminals placed upon the streets of middle America at once since the Mariel boatlift.

---

I've been trying to decide whether to change the date of this blog entry, but every time I go to do it, I stop myself. The entries on my blog are not a daily diary of my activities but more of an open ended, ongoing commentary of how I view things. As I note on the blog's sidebar, "This news and commentary blog is constantly under construction and old posts may be updated with more timely information."

Additionally, for some reason or another, my circadian rhythms on this subject feel like a clock that stopped when the water level started rising in Chalmette. August 31, 2005. 1450 CDT. I'm shocked by what I see in America. This is a day I no longer remain an observer of events in the New Orleans metro area and in Baton Rouge but instead become a commentator on the changes I see, the news I see not yet reported and the issues yet to be addressed.

I'm not rich so I can't donate much to help the evacuees and refugees. By the time I get my clothes together and washed, the local tv stations are running commercials that the shelters have got all the clothing donations they need. I'm a trained EMT and pretty much from Day 1, when I hear the destruction is widespread and getting worse, I'm trying to volunteer my help, but EMTs aren't needed. I call around and offer my help, and receive an interrogatory in reply: "Are you a nurse, a doctor? We need nephrologists. Sorry. We'll put your name of the list."

Like Meatloaf sang, "I'm all revved up with no place to go."

This is a disaster unlike most disasters where EMTs might come in handy. In this disaster, we're 5th wheels. EMTs aren't allowed to start IVs on dehydrated victims, or do glucose tests and administer insulin to diabetics who have been days without their meds. Paramedics can do those things; EMTs can't. We're the first responders whose primary skills are ABC -- airway, breathing, circulation. Initial assessment. Open and maintain an airway. Heimlich if necessary. Make sure the patient is breathing, or kick start them with CPR and/or an AED. Take spinal precautions. Control life threatening bleeds. PUHA - Pick Up, Haul Ass. Vitals, splints, ongoing assessments on the way. "If they can't breathe, nothing else matters." Right, Miss B?

But ABCs aren't needed here. Electricity is needed. Clean water is needed. And above all, some mature, apolitical decisions by the incompetent mayor of New Orleans and the inexperienced governor of Louisiana are needed. We need a general, a goddamn warrior to make decisions to fight a war to save lives and what we've got are ward healers: a loudmouthed incompetent psycho and an inexperienced tourism-trained bureaucrat concerned about turfmanship. People are going to die. The obvious call for a Dunkirk-like flotilla of private watercraft to rescue survivors doesn't go out until day four.

On 8/30, I'm dumbfound like anyone else -- why isn't aid pouring into New Orleans? I put an e-mail out to an e-list of fellow alumni from the U.S. Naval Academy, wondering why the 'gator Navy, amphibious ships from Virginia, hasn't been dispatched to the Big Easy. Days later I find out the USS Battaan (LHD-5), an amphibious assault ship with a full hospital, helos, 1,800 open berths and the capability of making 100,000 gallons of fresh water daily rode out Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico and was waiting off the Louisiana shore to offer aid. But the aid wasn't given immediately because none of the infighting, incompetent politicians in Louisiana had asked for help!

I read about the frustration of other EMTs, paramedics, nurses and physicians wanting to help, having skills and supplies and being thwarted. I read a story about fire fighters stuck in an Atlanta airport, drinking beer and learning about sexual harassment from FEMA, frustrated they haven't been called to help yet in the way they think they're supposed to help. I try to explain in a Yahoo news story message board note what I've found out. I write to no one in particular:

I understand what these guys must feel, wanting to get into the fight so to speak. But there are way too many helping hands at this point for the work that can be done.

I live in Baton Rouge and I'm an EMT. I've been unsuccessfully trying to volunteer since day one. But this isn't like an explosion or an attack like you'd expect with a lot of trauma cases. It's a logistics problem primarily with people who need to be evacuated and sheltered in safe locations. And it's a civil law problem with looters taking advantage of a breakdown in order and preventing evacuation and repairs. And it's an engineering problem to get the water drained, the gas mains shut off, the sewer, telephone and water lines fixed and electrical fixed. It's a MASSIVE environmental problem that needs to be cleaned up safely. And it's going to take years and a lot of effort in the really, really, really crummy jobs.

They don't really need fire fighters or EMTs. They'll need demolition and construction crews, and people willing to shovel the remnants of a toxic soup. Most of all it's a MASSIVE economic nightmare because this all has to be paid for somehow and most of those businesses are out of business - forever - and most of those people are unemployed. And all that toxic, polluted water going back in the Lake Pontchartrain is going to wreck the oyster beds and poison the shrimp and destroy the Gulf Coast seafood industry for years. All those waterlogged cars are destroyed and will have to be removed. All that furniture and things that people have collected will have to be removed. Most of the structures will have to be knocked down. Do you know of a landfill large enough for all this crap? People don't yet realize how truly MASSIVE this problem is and how long the effects will be felt ... 20 years, 50 years? More?

By the end of the first week, I can't hold it in. I understand why I'm not needed but understanding is logic and I'm way-y-y-y-y past logic at this point about the issue. Those people may not need the kind of help I'm trained to offer in an emergency, but I have to help -- no ifs, ands or buts about it -- if only for my sanity. I'm like most everyone out there, in the U.S., in the world. Except I'm 70 miles away from the problem and not helping. I know this thing will be going on for years and there will be plenty of opportunity to help once the bloom is off the disaster rose, the cameras are gone and the jobs are really dirty and mundane. But it doesn't matter. I'm getting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder just watching the news from the local channels 24/7. I don't have cable and it's flip, flip, flip, flip. I'm trying to watch every station at the same time, read every article as it's posted on the internet. I've got to help, please let me help! Number one rule in a disaster for EMTs: Don't self-respond. But I'm ready to toss that rule right out the friggin' window. I'm ready to hit Wal-Mart, buy 10 cases of water bottles and PUHA.

Other EMTs from the Baton Rouge area I know call and write me. How can we help? I don't know, I tell them. I've called around and hit brick walls. I write a friend at the state bureau of EMS and ask, no, more like plead. We've got to help. What do you need? We'll do it. September 9, I finally get my chance. On September 10 I pen this note to my relatives and friends:

Got back late last night, was bushed and crashed so didn't pen any notes. I was the medic on a volunteer Search and Rescue team sent into Orleans east and St. Bernard to look for survivors or identify homes, through odor, that could contain victims. We came up empty handed on both counts. In one section not really afflicted by the levee flooding but which had flooded because of the storm surge the water had dropped about 3 feet in places judging from the water marks. But there was still water there, enough for the airboat I was riding in to traverse the neighborhoods. There were broken tree limbs and mud all over the place in this particular subdivision. It appeared to me that nature put up a good fight but, in the end, was unsuccessful reclaiming what man had changed. Snapping turtles and water moccasins played in the still flooded street instead of children. The odor was horrible, and we weren't even in the worst portion of the city.

There is serious destruction in New Orleans but many homes and businesses also were spared. Most of the utility poles along the main streets are down. You've seen the pictures. You know the score. Not even considering the repairs, the clean up will be very, very expensive and take a long time. The water level in Orleans east has dropped but it is still high in St. Bernard, in enclaves and subdivisions north and east of Six Flags, where the water reaches to the roofs of may of the single story dwellings. If people survived the flooding there, they've been in the attic for nine days, where temperatures will reach over 130 degrees and would not have survived the heat. It was marked as an area that needed physically to be checked for victims once the waters receded.

What we did see were many, many pets that were left in New Orleans, several which were quite emaciated but whose fear of the airboats was still greater than their hunger. The storm had knocked down backyard fences and given them their freedom. The driver of one of the other airboats managed to save a very friendly and quite hungry adult male pit bull and a pit bull puppy that had been locked in a house by their owners. The owners had left a window open. As the airboat driver went up the street he said he could hear the dog barking. I had brought some peanut butter and cheese crackers with me as rations for survivors, and the pups inhaled them. Even better, the adult male's name and the telephone number of his owner were engraved on a tag on his collar. The phone may not work now but he's been identified and eventually he and the puppy will be reunited with his owners. His name, btw, is Zeus, which is also the name of one of the Mardi Gras parades.

There is still disorganization -- a lot of hurry up and wait, who's going where, who's authorized what. We didn't leave Baton Rouge until 9:30 although the airboats had arrived by 6 a.m. and I had arrived by 4 a.m. The original mission, to help in the recovery of 58 bodies from Memorial Medical Center, was scrubbed because of fear the propwash from the airboat would disperse contaminants into the air. (Final count, 45 bodies from 317 bed facility.) When the second mission was assigned, we had to wait to ensure we had security available. No boats can proceed on any missions without armed guards. We arrived in New Orleans about 11 a.m. but didn't get out to start searching until 12:30 p.m. Our security was a team of four green beanies, a Green Beret "A" team from Fort Campbell, Ky.

But while there is disorganization, there is a definite feel to the air that folk down there have the strength to rebuild. With the arrival of the National Guard and the airborne, New Orleans has turned a corner. "New Paris" has been liberated with Louisiana's hometown hero, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, in the role of DeGaulle. And the liberation has brought some scenes that you never thought you'd see, like twin Blackhawk helicopters landing on Chef Menteur Hwy. in tandem to pick up a team of door-to-door searchers and transport them to another neighborhood. Surreal! But then again, that's one of the things the French are known for ...

I contemplated posting this communique to the blog as well, but it contained information -- specifically the information about the bodies at Memorial Medical Center -- that was not yet public, so I refrained. Besides ... two airboats, six civilians, a Green Beret "A" Team ... and we managed to save two dogs and pass the word about the other pets in the area. But they were some really happy and friendly dogs, which in my experience is rare in a Louisiana pitbull. It was better than nothing.

I spoke with a friend a few days later who had volunteered and been assigned to that body recovery mission. He told me that mission was scrubbed and he, instead, was sent on another. The intel his group received claimed 30 survivors and 21 dead waited at Lindy Boggs Medical Center, one of the first hospitals to lose its generators. As with any war, the intel was bad -- incorrect and out of date. There were no survivors left, they'd already been rescued, but there were 19 cadavers for transport. A fire fighter and EMT for more than 20 years who has seen his share of accidents, he looked me straight in the eye and then straight past me for a five-mile stare and said it was the worst job he's ever had in his life and no amount of Vicks VapoRub would stop the stench of 9-day-old death from penetrating his nostrils. But someone will have closure because of it.

---

For me, death took a holiday following Katrina. My dog Rocky, diagnosed less than a month ago with a fast growing cancer, had stopped eating in the days prior to the hurricane. When healthy, he'd inhale as many biscuits and dried pig ears as he could, but not even breakfast sausage links or hamburger would convince him to eat now. The tumor on his neck had grown to the size of a baseball and was rock hard, and the tumors in his kidneys wouldn't allow him to process water. He'd drink half a dish full of water and then, shortly thereafter, lift his leg and try for the Guinness Book of Records for dog urination duration. Were there such a category, he'd be the hands down winner.

He didn't appear to be in too much pain, but he was mopey and getting very weak in his hips. Pain seemed the next step and I was determined to keep my best friend from that discomfort. But Katrina had taken the power out at the vet's office I use. My calls to determine whether an appointment was required for them to help me kill my dog were answered by voice mail. But then Rocky started eating again. No biscuits, but he'd gnaw a bit on a dried pig ear. And when I was able to get over to Sam's Club early enough to score breakfast sausage links and hamburger patties before they were sold out, Rocky seemed interested but not interested enough to give himself a full belly by any means.

His second wind gave me a chance to enter the denial phase of the grief stages once again. "He'll get through it, it'll just look like he swallowed a miniature football," I lied to myself. "I've seen other dogs with large benign tumors, like that Shar-pei owned by the guy I bought a used refrigerator from back in '91." And it gave me enough comfort to convince me I could leave him alone with his sister so I could go on a trip to Orleans east and St. Bernard and try to help.

But the second wind in Rocky's life that followed the killing winds and water of Katrina was short-lived. Rocky once again stopped eating and got weaker by the day. And, in the last two days, he even stopped drinking water. He had lost 25 percent of his body weight in a month and it showed. I could have continued to let him starve to death, or suffer and die miserably from dehydration like Terry Schindler Schiavo. But I didn't. So, before Rita could take the power from the vet and me, on Sept. 23, I took my boy to the vet and tearfully said good-bye, or at least said good-bye as best I could. Goodbye Rocky Raccoon (how he got his name -- not a tough guy, he was a big marshmallow and he looked like a raccoon ...). Goodbye Panda Boy ( ... or a Panda). Goodbye Rockimus Houndamus (when Gladiator was popular in the theaters). Goodbye Rock-in-toshio (sort of like "Macintosh" but pronounced in three strong syllables with a Japanese accent a la "Shogun"). Goodbye my buddy, my boy, my friend. All good dogs go to heaven. Tell them you did your job and were loved deeply. When you see your mama, the family and St. Scott, tell them I said "Hey!"

---

Has anyone else noticed how much political capital Texas Gov. Rick Perry has grown during the hurricane crisis on the gulf coast, from his assistance finding shelter for displaced New Orleanians to his mature leadership during the evacuation of Texas communities from Rita?

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco had the same opportunity to step up to the plate, but they struck out and, to differing degrees, failed to take responsibility. But it appears that while everyone else was losing their heads, Pres. Bush and Gov. Rick Perry kept theirs.

Looks like the G.O.P. has another horse available for a future race.

It's not that Gov. Perry's administration didn't make mistakes, but he's readily admitted the problems he faces. Everyone makes mistakes; it's the leader who uses the education from those errors to advance.

I went searching through my personal archives and found this Associated Press article from last year:

Ivan Exposes Flaws in La. Disaster Plans
Sun Sep 19, (2004) 2:38 PM ET
By KEVIN McGILL, Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS - Those who had the money to flee Hurricane Ivan ran into hours-long traffic jams. Those too poor to leave the city had to find their own shelter — a policy that was eventually reversed, but only a few hours before the deadly storm struck land.

New Orleans dodged the knockout punch many feared from the hurricane, but the storm exposed what some say are significant flaws in the Big Easy's civil disaster plans.

Much of New Orleans is below sea level, kept dry by a system of pumps and levees. As Ivan charged through the Gulf of Mexico, more than a million people were urged to flee. Forecasters warned that a direct hit on the city could send torrents of Mississippi River backwash over the city's levees, creating a 20-foot-deep cesspool of human and industrial waste.

Residents with cars took to the highways. Others wondered what to do.

"They say evacuate, but they don't say how I'm supposed to do that," Latonya Hill, 57, said at the time. "If I can't walk it or get there on the bus, I don't go. I don't got a car. My daughter don't either."

Advocates for the poor were indignant.

"If the government asks people to evacuate, the government has some responsibility to provide an option for those people who can't evacuate and are at the whim of Mother Nature," said Joe Cook of the New Orleans ACLU.

It's always been a problem, but the situation is worse now that the Red Cross has stopped providing shelters in New Orleans for hurricanes rated above Category 2. Stronger hurricanes are too dangerous, and Ivan was a much more powerful Category 4.

In this case, city officials first said they would provide no shelter, then agreed that the state-owned Louisiana Superdome would open to those with special medical needs. Only Wednesday afternoon, with Ivan just hours away, did the city open the 20-story-high domed stadium to the public.

Mayor Ray Nagin's spokeswoman, Tanzie Jones, insisted that there was no reluctance at City Hall to open the Superdome, but said the evacuation was the top priority.

"Our main focus is to get the people out of the city," she said.

Callers to talk radio complained about the late decision to open up the dome, but the mayor said he would do nothing different.

"We did the compassionate thing by opening the shelter," Nagin said. "We wanted to make sure we didn't have a repeat performance of what happened before. We didn't want to see people cooped up in the Superdome for days."

When another dangerous hurricane, Georges, appeared headed for the city in 1998, the Superdome was opened as a shelter and an estimated 14,000 people poured in. But there were problems, including theft and vandalism.

This time far fewer took refuge from the storm — an estimated 1,100 — at the Superdome and there was far greater security: 300 National Guardsmen.

Mea Culpa!

Oh, have I been feeling guilty for not posting to The 6th Estate for so long! I'm even having dreams of my old editor from Electronic News, a sage curmudgeon and ex-postman named Jim Lydon, screaming at me for copy!!!

Well, I still don't have time to post much. I've got some great road stories, some razor-sharp commentary, some major venting to do (rebate scams, cell phones, etc.) and a promised review of Lisa's web site to post ... but again, not enough time in the day or minutes in hours. But I'm not dead or disabled. Just keep those cards and letters coming in, and take the downtime to scope out any the 95 previous posts included here -- "It's gold, Jerry, GOLD!"

Message to Lane-O: Screw Intel. They'e grown big enough to start acting and thinking like GM. Find a company that appreciates your hard work and intelligence. And congrats on earning your M.B.A.!!! You hotdog! Now you and Shaq are fellow alum!

Message to Janie: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/08-05/0812kiss2.jpg

I leave everyone with a great contribution from Gwen, "The Parable of the Spoons."

The Parable of the Spoons

A holy man was having a conversation with God one day and said, "God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like."

God led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, "You have seen Hell."

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, "I don't understand."

It is simple" said God, "it requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other. While the greedy think only of themselves."

D.O.N. Brand Snake Oil

I received a letter in the mail today from a company named "D.O.N." in Warminster, Pennsylvania. It was bulk mail, but it was in a nice glossy envelope. I am familiar with the direct mail business, and this was a nice piece. With postage, the company had spent close to a dollar to contact me. I opened it.

"D.O.N." turned out to be Department of the Navy. The direct mail piece was a device to recruit medics for the U.S. Naval Reserve.

"D.O.N." got my name from the subscription list from a professional magazine to which I subscribe, the Journal of Emergency Medical Services. At 50 and as a Vietnam-era veteran of the U.S. Navy, I don't mind "D.O.N." sending me recruiting literature, but I'm way past the age the Navy wants. As long as Congress and the DoD stick to age maximums, "D.O.N.'s" wasting money trying to recruit me. If they decide to raise the maximum age for reserve enlistment, "D.O.N.," you have permission to contact me.

What got me angry though was "D.O.N.'s" direct mail subterfuge, using "D.O.N." in the return address block instead of Department of the Navy. I can only guess that some civilian direct mail huckster convinced someone in the Navy Recruiting Command that it must disguise the direct mail pieces it sends to Emergency Medical Technicians if it wants them to read their pitch. And, obviously, someone in the Naval Recruiting Command went along with the scheme to sell service to this country as a peddler might sell snake oil. The Navy I know recruits men and women with "the nicest sense of personal honor;" it doesn't have to run a bunco operation. So this shift toward subterfuge is unsettling to me.

Maybe it's because that civilian read the newspapers that recruiting is down for all the services. Maybe they heard that applications to the nation's military academies, which rose to a post-Vietnam War high in the months following the 9/11 attack, has dropped off. So now, to make the numbers, the civilian contractor has the Navy convinced that it has to disguise the product it's trying to sell: the opportunity to serve this country proudly and patriotically.

The special interests have taken the news of dropping enlistments and twisted it to suit their purposes. The Democrats who want to run for president are saying it means the U.S. has to withdraw from Iraq or institute a draft. The gay lobby is saying it means the U.S. military needs to drop "Don't ask, don't tell" and allow open homosexuality among members of the military. Me, I think it means the chaff is being separated from the wheat.

The military may not be for everyone but it is a good use of a man's or woman's time. It's honorable to serve this country and be on station to protect its citizens. You may not get that idea from the opinion and editorial pages of the nation's newspapers or from the nightly news broadcasts, but it's a fact nonetheless. Some people understand that. They enlist or enter officer commissioning programs. It's not a large percentage, but remarkably this is the same percentage of the population who usually show up to vote, to help out at school functions, to talk to teachers at Parent-Teacher Organization meetings, to coach little league or to mentor scouts or Junior Achievement.

I've read that the parents are upset the military is trying to recruit their children. If the military tactics as they recruit in high school or college are like this, I'd be upset too. Maybe the use of "D.O.N." on the outside of the envelope as the return address was a subterfuge to slip the direct mail piece past the parent and into the hands of the offspring. If so, I'm sure that civilian contractor who designed that direct mail piece never served in the military. It's not something to be embarrassed about.

A friend of mine's son, who was accepted to medical school, signed up for the U.S. Air Force against his mother's wishes. The father, my friend and a Marine veteran of Vietnam and dyed-in-the-wool Southern blue dog Democrat, didn't encourage or discourage his son. He realized his son was an adult and could make his own decisions. No mother really wants her children in the military, because the world is an unsafe place and there's always a chance she'll have to hang a Gold Star Flag in her window. But the son realized that the Air Force would help pay his tuition and living expenses while in medical school, and give him rare experience once he graduates. And he won't graduate with quarter million dollar school loans that need repayment.

The Navy is not a used car with taxicab-yellow primer and a rolled-back odometer. It's not a credit card with a low intro rate and a hidden 28 percent interest rate and $35 late penalty fees. It's not AT&T trying to sneak through an unauthorized fee on my phone bill (which it did in May and June). And it's not a mortgage scam that would result in people losing their house if they miss a single payment. The Navy's a group of men and women who put their personal lives on hold for a few years so people in the U.S. can sleep soundly at nights. Some of them find that rewarding and fulfilling and continue on making it a career.

People who have no experience with the military might see that "D.O.N." as red flag confirmation of their worst fears -- the military will do anything, including any dishonest, immoral tactic to take their child and put that child in harm's way as cannon fodder. The facts are otherwise. I know. But "D.O.N.'s" making a real bad first impression.

If the military wants to increase the quantity of recruits it's getting, it should try the truth.

[The Navy is not the only service to use subterfuge as a recruiting tool. The U.S. Army posted this job opening for "Broadcast News Analysts" on the Louisiana labor web site. I spoke with the sergeant who placed the ad on the labor web site and he claimed he didn't have enough room to identify it as an advertisement for the Army.]

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Looking into the abyss and finding the dark heart of man

The primary drawback to journalism is the inevitable depression and cynicism that follow when you realize you're tilting at windmills and no matter what you write or what you do, you come to the stomach-churning revelation that the greedy and selfish will dominate. It's why I don't earn my living in journalism today.

A true believer in Darwinism understands this better than one who believes in the omnipotent. If you believe in an omnipotent being, intelligent design, there is a chance the weakest and most vulnerable in nature will survive, protected by the strong. I know that, as humans, no matter how weak we are, we are strongest when we protect those who are weaker and unable to defend themselves. For example, when we shed the blood of sons and daughters in some foreign land so that others may find the freedom we enjoy. No greater love has no man or woman than he or she lay down their life for another ... that type of thing.

But under Darwinism, it is survival of the fittest, which for humans is the richest and the most connected. Morality and compassion mean nothing. It is beyond political labels. It is all about power. It is, as the kids say, all about the Benjamins.

So it is that I have been watching as an inevitable monstrous leviathan comes to a denouement, leaving me once again with a sickening view of Dorian Gray's portrait exposing the true souls of men.

In Louisiana, under the late stripper-loving and allegedly psychotic governor Earl K. Long, a charity hospital system was organized and funded to provide care to the poorest of the state's citizens. It also serves as a classroom for the state's schools of medicine. There are several hospitals located in the poorest sections of strategic population centers around the state that are part of the Charity Hospital system. New Orleans is home to Charity Hospital and Baton Rouge is home to Earl K. Long Hospital. They are the jewels of the Long legacy and, in the opinion of many, put Louisiana head and shoulders above any other state in the country in the compassion category. It is where much of the state's oil revenues go.

"Earl K," as the Baton Rouge charity hospital is known, is old and substandard however. It doesn't meet current regulations and it has been losing accreditation by medical boards. Its morgue, for instance, is tiny by any standard and, lacking a door, would offer no way to contain any biohazard that could be present in a cadaver.

Losing certification means the state can't use the hospital to train the medical students of the state's medical schools. And it also means that the state will lose federal money. So it has to build a replacement hospital or farm all the patients out to private hospitals and pay the private hospitals' fee. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

Last year, it was estimated that the cost to build and equip a new hospital would be $300 million; this year the estimate is $400 million. That's nearly a half billion dollars the state will spend to serve the medical needs of its poor, indigent and elderly, and those without health insurance.

A hospital brings not only patients but also businesses that serve and supply the staff and patients. And it brings renewed vigor to the area. So multiply $400 million by at least three times that in neighborhood improvement within 10 years' time.

Knowing this much money is involved, do you think there is any discussion whatsoever of trying to keep "Earl K" in north Baton Rouge, where most of the city's indigent, poor and elderly are located and where the state owns land already? Not on your life.

At the very best, the new hospital will be located in mid-city, where there already is located a decent hospital for those with health insurance; Baton Rouge General Mid-City. Oh, and backers say a banker's hours out-patient clinic could be built where the most trauma cases are, north Baton Rouge.

But the odds are favoring that the hospital will be located in southeast Baton Rouge, where there already are four private hospitals -- including the area's largest and most modern, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, as well as Surgical Specialty Center, Summit Hospital and Woman's Hospital. While south Baton Rouge is a dense population center, it's where the percentage of poor and indigent is minute because of housing costs. Because it's dense, land prices are at a premium and traffic snarls lock up the roadways throughout the daylight hours, even for emergency vehicles.

So why build a charity hospital to serve Lousiana's poor and indigent where there really are no poor and indigent living? It's not just that the physicians want to practice at as many hospitals as possible and not commute to north Baton Rouge. The answer is more complex than that. As I noted, it really comes down to the Benjamins. There is no way on God's green earth that the powers-that-be are going to allow a $2 Billion payday for north Baton Rouge. The poor are poor and will remain so. They hold minimum wage retail and service sector jobs that offer no health insurance. And they are going to be shit out of luck.

The state symbol for Louisiana features the state bird, a pelican, in her nest feeding her offspring. After this, in my opinion, they should change it to a group of cigar smoking, duck hunting pelicans -- male and female pelicans -- feathering their own nests.

Currently 20 percent of the population of the U.S. has no health insurance. Without changes in the courts, the insurance industry and the medical industry, you can expect this percentage to rocket to more than 50 percent in the next 30 years as more and more private employers renege on promises of health care to employees and retirees.

Consider that General Motors has been all over the airwaves and the newsprint whining its health costs for its workers and retirees is $1,600 of each and every car it sells, making it uncompetitive. It's demanding rollbacks in healthcare and pensions and threatening to accomplish this in bankruptcy court if necessary. This is true of the airlines, and will be true of every major industry in this country as baby boomers age. As a customer of health care, you can expect only the senior managers of private companies and state, federal, county and municipal employees to have health insurance.

And so the charity system organized by former Gov. Earl K. Long to serve the poor and indigent will be called upon to serve not only the poor and indigent but also a growing number of middle-class families with medical needs who don't get health insurance from their employers. Without adequate health insurance, if they have health problems -- or even costs associated with pregnancy and well-child exams -- they will rapidly slide into the class of poor and, possibly, indigent.

The not so subtle push in the media by the federal and state governments to curtail obesity, smoking and other issues is really Uncle Sam's way of telling folk to take responsibility for their own health issues, because if you're poor or indigent or elderly, you will be at the back of a very, very long line dying to receive medical care. It's one way to solve the Social Security problem.

[Update 6/21/2005: The Washington Post reports that more middle class families are uninsured and that more and more won't be able to afford health insurance as time goes on. It writes: "As health costs have risen over the past decade, more businesses have scaled back or dropped coverage entirely. The first group hit were poor workers, but ... the trend is continuing into higher-wage groups."]

[Update 6/24/2005: A Stanford University economist believes job-based health care is "hopelessly flawed." And a Princeton University economist says the lack of affordable health insurance impedes entrepreneurship and product development because many who might start their own companies won't because they fear the loss of health insurance for their families.]

[Update 7/10/2005: There is growing support for a universal health care system, similar to Canada's. A Hillary Clinton-contrived universal health care plan that proposed a bloated bureaucracy to administer it and physician assignment system one might expect from Stalinists failed to gain support during the initial presidential term of hubby, Slick Willie. But a solution is needed. Reports the Associated Press: "Across the nation, the number of uninsured is 45 million and rising, and 16 million lack enough insurance to cover all their medical bills. Premiums for employer-sponsored health plans rose an average of 11.2 percent in 2004, the fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Companies are raising employee fees for health care, increasing co-payments and decreasing benefits." Expect more to join the roles of the un- and under-insured as corporations, concerned about the diminishing size of executive bonuses, wiggle out of health care and pension promises to an aging workforce.]

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Rest in Peace Joseph Trius

Until Watergate and "Deep Throat," the use of the anonymous source was invoked rarely, and then mostly by gossip columnists and police beat reporters. After Watergate and, even more so, after the movie "All the President's Men," every editor wanted to be Ben Bradlee/Jason Robards, and every reporter wanted to be Bob Woodward/Robert Redford. It changed the public image of newspaper reporters from the scandal mongers of "The Front Page" to government-toppling superheros and newsprint rock stars.

(No one I knew wanted to be Carl Bernstein/Dustin Hoffman. The actor who played "Ratso Rizzo" in "Midnight Cowboy" seemed appropriate for the Bernstein role -- two peas in a pod so to speak. Or maybe it was because Bernstein was "Ringo" to Woodward's "Paul McCartney" -- both Beatles, but that's where the similarities ended. One had talent; the other had bad teeth and whose only claim to fame was a lot of rings. And who wants to fantasize about being a drummer when you can fantasize about singing lead and getting all the girls? Me, I fantasized of being Carl Kolchak. He was an imperfect slob in cheap suits, an empty wallet and no permanent relationships who thumbed his nose at authorities and tended to speak plainly, thinking he was being helpful, and really irritate people doing so. I could relate.)

Even worse, the movie of the Watergate cover-up made every person with a newstip think of themselves as "Deep Throat" aka W. Mark Felt/Hal Holbrook. No one wanted to go on record with their comments, no matter how mundane the story, and those who did go on record were inconsequential Chamber of Commerce publicists paid to make mundane comments and bore the daylights out of readers with well-worn cliches.

I was working on a small newspaper in northern Vermont early in my journalism career. When you're a reporter for a small town newspaper, you write about small town events. And many small events are big news in a small town.

The only credit card I had then was a Shell Oil credit card so I always bought my fuel from the local Shell gas station. About three months after I moved to Vermont Shell notified all its dealers that it was pulling out of providing fuel to stations in northern New England. The station owner where I bought my fuel told me he wouldn't be accepting my credit card anymore, and that's how I found out about Shell's plans to leave northern New England. When I asked the station owner if he'd still be in business, he said yes, that they were becoming an independent, with an independent name, but would be buying fuel from British Petroleum/BP. He knew I was a reporter and said he didn't want his name mentioned as the source of the information when I wrote the article.

I called Shell and confirmed the information, but only that station owner knew who he would be buying fuel from when Shell stopped providing it to him, and what the name of his new fuel station would be.

That's but one incident. There were countless times I was tasked to cover a mundane event and could get no one to go on record with their information, like the car wash owner who was opening a second car wash but didn't want his name attached to the information. "Call me an anonymous source. Yeah, like Watergate. My wife will laugh when she sees that in print."

My complaint to the editor was that if they don't go on the record, don't give them the publicity they want. But he was adamant about getting the news in the paper, even it meant that information about a filling station using BP gas and the opening of a new car wash came from anonymous sources everyone knew.

My late friend Bill D., a longtime reporter for the Boston Herald who lost his job after Rupert Murdoch broke a strike at the paper, told me of an amazing solution to the sourcing problem and adamant editors.

Bill had spent 13 years in an Army airborne STRAC unit, early Special Forces, but was cashiered from the service after breaking his back in a Jeep rollover accident that killed the fellow soldiers riding in the same vehicle. After leaving the Army Bill got a job on the police beat for the Boston Herald. Bill gained some notoriety as a police beat reporter during the "Boston Strangler" case by getting tips from beat cops who, upon discovering a new victim of the Strangler, would call Bill before they called the station.

Long before the "Boston Strangler" case, however, Bill's job was to file reports on criminal activity for the newspaper. Everything went fine until a new editor was hired who demanded Bill name suspects when news reports of violent crimes from the police blotter were filed. Bill would ask the desk sergeant who committed the crimes, and the desk sergeant invariably would say in his South Boston brogue "T'ree yous" were seen fleeing the crime scene. It didn't matter what crime it was, the answer from the desk sergeant was always "T'ree yous," Bill explained, meaning "three youths" were spotted.

"T'ree yous" did not sit well with his editor. Bill told me the editor wanted names. "And don't come back without a name!" the editor screamed at Bill. When I knew Bill, he had been sober for many years. Back then, when he was just starting his career at the Boston Herald, he said, he wasn't. He drank while in the Army and was drunk while riding as a passenger in that Jeep, which he says probably saved his life because he was so loose. And he could be creative when necessary to cover his tracks. Thus was born a person who never lived, the degenerate criminal mastermind "Joseph Trius" -- whose last name coincidentally sounded exactly like "T'ree yous."

Joseph Trius started being named in crimes of all sorts, not only by Bill, but by other reporters whose editors demanded the names of suspects in crimes that, as yet, had none. After awhile, Bill told me, there were letters to the newspaper demanding that the police and mayor catch Joseph Trius and prevent him from continuing his crime spree.

When the mayor called the police captain and they both called the editors of the Boston Herald wanting more information on Joseph Trius, Bill knew the net was closing on his ploy. A friend at the coroner's office had a John Doe, an unidentified body, mangled and disfigured in a horrible accident, and that body became Joseph Trius. The police captain and mayor couldn't prove it was Joseph Trius, and they couldn't prove it wasn't. And all they really wanted, Bill told me, was for the crime spree by Joseph Trius to end so they'd stop looking so bad in the newspapers. And Joseph Trius' obituary was written.

I never checked this story for facts. It's, as they say, just too good to check. Bill's passed on and he's the one who'd know. It might just be a good yarn from an old newshound and it might be the truth.

Knowing Bill, I tend to believe that Joseph Trius existed in the pages of the Boston Herald at one point. Maybe not the portion with coroner; that seems a bit far-fetched. But this story brings a chuckle to me when I think of it, and reminds of the elfish, mischievous look Bill often had recounting war stories of newsrooms long past. He'd bemoan the pink-collarization of the newsroom and the growing number of WoodStein-wannabes in the newspaper business as much as Kathleen Parker laments the fact that "Deep Throat" didn't turn out to be a woman.

As I wrote, the worst result of Watergate and "Deep Throat" was the growing prevalence of the anonymous source in news reports. People could snipe from the shadows without ever showing the necessary moral courage and backbone to stand publicly behind their accusations.

Was the situation in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s so bad that even the second highest man at the Federal Bureau of Investigation couldn't find justice without taking his information anonymously to the press? If the political situation were that bad, we would have been months away from a fascist dictatorship, which we weren't. So W. Mark Felt's political motives and lack of moral courage have to be examined. He could have been a hero if he, like fired Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, stood in the glare of the public eye and made his accusations. But he didn't. He sniped from the shadows like a mole at work for a foreign power. Felt kept his own job but succeeded in helping unseat the man who robbed him of a promotion to J. Edgar Hoover's job. He comes off as the ultimate disgruntled employee.

Watergate made Bob Woodward famous, and the continuing cache of his keeping the confidence and identity of "Deep Throat" helped make him rich. He is modern journalism's only rock star. Carl Bernstein didn't have that relationship with Felt or the public persona of the telegenic Woodward and thus has foundered, a sidelines "Ringo" to Woodward's "McCartney."

Mark Felt didn't become rich, so it's not really surprising if you believe in the Deep Throat character's advice to "follow the money" that Vanity Fair and a lawyer for Felt's family scooped Woodward and the Washington Post by being the first to officially unmask the man behind the "Deep Throat" tips that helped tumble the Nixon presidency. It's apparent the Felts have viewed the wealth and fame Woodward gained primarily through a mentor relationship with Mark Felt and sought travel accomodations on their own gravy train.

It seems apparent, also, that Woodward was bright enough not to rub the Felts' noses in his wealth and fame. One account reports Woodward ensured his limousine parked 10 blocks away from Felt's residence when Woodward went visiting.

Woodward was surprised to hear of the Vanity Fair report and waited a full day before confirming Felt as his source known as "Deep Throat." Were the unmasking coordinated, Woodward would've at least been a co-author of the Vanity Fair article. So this tells you that Woodward now has a competitor for any future books on "Deep Throat" and the Watergate investigation. It's doubtful Woodward paid any money to the Felts though they may have asked. Felt is now 91 and has suffered from at least one stroke; caring for a 91 year old stroke victim is expensive, even if that victim had held the #2 spot in the FBI.

Time has shown us all that former President Richard Nixon, while flawed, performed some valuable services for this nation. And it has now shown us that the wings of the "angels" that brought down his administration were irreparably tarnished as well. The crusading journalism was not altruistic but another example of a D.C. area sniper. It reminds me of that old saw: Those who enjoy sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made.

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I have updated my post "Who's spinning you and why?" with hyperlinks to the transcripts of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers' remarks to the annual convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the follow-up question and answer session.

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I'd like to apologize for not posting as often as I had been. This is my busy season, and when I have a few, non-driving and waking moments, it's usually way too hot to write, which is creativity stifling to me. It's not that I'm without things to say; I'm just too pooped to put them together on the ether and share them. I don't get paid for this punditry and the puppies have to eat. I'll try to post more often, but it may be a flurry and then a dearth of opinion. Thanks for your understanding.

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