Category: Current Affairs

Posted on

Another Yakuza Hit

Let me be (nearly) the first to congratulate Japanese mobsters for their expert manipulation of tropical weather to aim another gigantic hurricane at the United States.

I say nearly the first because no doubt Scott Stevens — the Pocatello, Idaho, TV weather guy who announced earlier this month that Hurricane Katrina was the work of yakuza weather warriors wielding a secret Soviet climate weapon — has beaten me to the punch.

Stevens is finally getting some actual press attention for his ideas: The Associated Press picked up on an Idaho Falls Post Register story on Stevens’s ideas. The USA Today version of the AP piece (“Cold War device used to cause Katrina?” — a careless headline that gives Stevens’s notion credence) quotes the weatherman on his reaction to seeing a manipulated cloud mass with his own eyes:

“I just got sick to my stomach because these clouds were unnatural and that meant they had (the machine) on all the time,” Stevens said. “I was left trying to forecast the intent of some organization rather than the weather of this planet.”

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Posted on

Last (Astronomical) Night of Summer

Explanations and observations about the above:

Yes, I’m showing my boreal and Western Hemisphere chauvinism with the above headline.

The official time for the start of autumn 2005 in these parts is 3:23 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time.

That’s 5:23 p.m. in Chicago and 6:23 p.m. in New York City, proud capitals of the Infospigot media empire. And 10:23 p.m. in London, a city unvisited by your correspondent.

For Tokyo, an outpost of the Greater Infospigot Co-Prosperity Sphere, that’s 7:23 a.m. Friday, the 23rd (the Autumnal Equinox is a national holiday there). That means the last sundown of summer falls on the 22nd, about three hours from now (5:38 p.m., Japan Standard Time; since Japan declines to spring forward or fall back, its already experiencing early sunset blues.)

And since everything is upside down and backwards on the other side of the Equator — my first big thrill visiting Australia was the realization that the reason Orion looked different was he was standing on his head — spring begins at 7:23 p.m. tomorrow in Buenos Aires, 12:23 a.m. (the 23rd) in Cape Town, and 8:23 a.m. (the 23rd) in Sydney.

Posted on

The Historical Hurricane

Two new storms — Philippe and Rita — have come to life. Next on the list would be Stan. Stan, the casual hurricane. Of course, there’s not much in these storm names. The relaxed-sounding Mitch (1998) spawned a disaster in Central America that in many ways dwarfs the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

There’s all sorts of documentation about who chooses the names and what the names are. The basic principles in naming are first to create a universal reference for forecasters and other officials and second to personify the storm in a way that makes the phenomenon concrete for the public. However, I haven’t come across any explanation of how the actual names are picked — how Mitch or Stan make it, for instance, and Mikhail and Shlomo don’t. Mostly it’s the desire to keep the names short and sweet and familiar.

But do you want a storm to sound friendly? I mean, Katrina had previous connotations for me that made it easy to imagine the storm as an awesome and potentially destructive force of nature. But Stan? What does that bring to mind? Stan Laurel. He might get you into trouble with the wife, but how much real damage could he do?

Which is why I’ve always (privately, until now) advocated a system that uses names of particularly destructive people — anyone from big-league despots down to well-known criminals. Hurricane Stalin. Hurricane Huberty. That way, you could convey the potential menace of tropical cyclones and deliver a history lesson at the same time.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Posted on

Fun with Firefox

Firefox is my browser of choice. The biggest reason, to start with, is that it’s not Internet Explorer; partly that’s a small vote against permanent Microsoft hegemony, partly it’s to escape the security problems that come bundled with Microsoft products on the Windows platform.

On a practical level, I’m not sure there’s a lot of difference between Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari (the Mac browser), Opera (the browser from Norway), or others. I have a feeling most people use a narrow range of functionality. As long as you can get to the things you want, I don’t a few bells and whistles (liked tabbed browsing, which I love because it allows me to navigate the 10 windows I like to keep open) add up to a startlingly different user experience.

But still. Some things are kind of neat to stumble upon. Such as: I noticed over the past few weeks that if I put the single letter “w” into the Firefox address bar when I’m typing in a site name — just “w,” nothing else — and hit return, the page that comes up is the White House. Other finds: “a” gets you the Apple home page; “c” brings up C-SPAN; “brekke” brings up Brekke Tours & Travel of Grand Forks, North Dakota. And so on.

I knew this was something that was programmed in. Was Mozilla (the organization behind Firefox) selling advertising this way? I noticed that typing in “failure” in the address bar took me to George W. Bush’s biography. That was a hint about what’s going on.

It turns out that, as usual when you’re looking something up online, this road leads to Google. Looking at Mozilla’s “Firefox Tips & Tricks” page, I found this: “By default, if you enter a search term in the address field and press Enter, a Google ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ search is performed, and you’re taken to the first result of that search directly.”

(For those who haven’t tried it, Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” option takes you to the page listed first in the Google search of any term. So if you do the standard Google search on “w,” you’ll see the standard long list of results, with www.whitehouse.gov at the top; if you plug in “w” in the Google search blank and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky,” then you’re taken directly to the page listed at the top — so the White House home page at www.whitehouse.gov comes up.)

Posted on

The City and the River

I didn’t listen to Bush tonight, much. I did hear the part that was excerpted for the late local news here in liberal-land. If I knew nothing of his history, I’d say I liked what they chose to play: He said he’s responsible, the people deserve better, and there will be an honest effort to learn from the catastrophe. Having seen him on the job for the last five years, the most optimistic sentiment I can muster is “uh huh.”

However, I will not now stoop to the blame game. Let us consider what others might be saying about the present and past of New Orleans and its region and what it might tell us about the future.

First: From Sunday’s Washington Post, an interesting piece of historical perspective from Joel Garreau, a reporter who suggests the city, as it was, will never come back. The biggest reasons, he says: the people who control the resources to rebuild simple won’t pay, and the people who live in the city lack what it takes to make it happen.

“In his 2000 book, “Bowling Alone,” political scientist Robert Putnam measured social capital around the country — the group cohesion that allows people to come together in times of great need to perform seemingly impossible feats together. He found some of the lowest levels in Louisiana. (More Louisianans agree with the statement “I do better than average in a fistfight” than people from almost anywhere else.) His data do not seem to be contradicted by New Orleans’s murder rate, which is 10 times the national average. Not to mention the political candidates through the ages who, to little effect, have run on promises of cleaning up the corruption endemic to the government and police force. New Orleans is not called the Big Easy for nothing. This is the place whose most famous slogan is ‘Laissez les bons temps rouler’ — ‘Let the good times roll.’ ”

Second: Recommended by the proto-Infospigot (aka, my dad) is an “American Experience” documentary on the 1927 Mississippi River floods. The disasters may differ in origin, but the utter disregard for the poor looks familiar. The show was on Tuesday night (September 14), but public TV being public TV, it’ll be on again.

Technorati Tags: ,

Posted on

Question 31

You’ve used drugs. Or, heaven forbid, you’ve sold drugs. You got caught and convicted. Then, like Saul on the road to Damascus, a beam of light dazzles you and a voice tells you to go straight. You decide you want to go to college. You’re strapped for cash. You fill out the Free Application for Financial Aid. You come to Question 31:

“Has the student ever been convicted of possessing or selling illegal drugs?”

A help screen for the online question explains: “A federal law suspends federal student aid eligibility for students convicted under federal or state law for possession of or sale of illegal drugs (not including alcohol and tobacco).” If you answer yes, you need to fill out the two-page Worksheet for Question 31 to find out when you might be eligible for financial aid.

In a society that wants to make sure everyone gets the message that drugs (except alcohol and tobacco) are very, very bad, that all makes perfect sense. If you used or pushed and got busted, you’ve got to pay the price. Not just in taking whatever punishment the legal system doles out, but in losing, for at least a while, access to financial aid (including many student loans) that might help you get through school and away from the drug culture (except alcohol and tobacco).

The way our drug laws are enforced, look who gets hurt. Yeah, a few hapless middle-class kids might screw up and find they can’t get aid. But — you wonder if anyone’s done a study — most of the people made ineligible by Question 31 must come from the same slice of America that’s so richly overrepresented in jails from coast to coast.

To be fair, the law behind Question 31 does restore aid eligibility to those who undergo an “acceptable” drug rehab program. An acceptable program administers at least two surprise drug tests. The treatment option is positive; but again, you wonder how this works in practice. How long does it take to find an acceptable program, and in a nation where most of the poor are uninsured, who pays for it?

Posted on

Storm Terror on Tarheel Coast

From this morning’s Wilmington (N.C.) Star News:

“Even if Ophelia were a Category 4 like Katrina, Rickey Sprinkle might not have left: He hasn’t fled a storm since he arrived on Pleasure Island in 1977, and he wasn’t going to start for a storm like Ophelia, he said. Kure Beach has high ground, he said.

“ ‘I don’t think anybody is going,’ he said, buying canned foods like Beanie Weenies and Vienna sausage. ‘It’s not going to blow that bad.’ ”

Technorati Tags:

Posted on

So Where Are the Strong?

Apropos of my bro’s comment last night:

(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding

by Nick Lowe

As I walk through

This wicked world

Searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself

Is all hope lost?

Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside,

There’s one thing I wanna know:

What’s so funny ’bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What’s so funny ’bout peace love & understanding?

And as I walked on

Through troubled times

My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes

So where are the strong

And who are the trusted?

And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony.

‘Cause each time I feel it slippin’ away, just makes me wanna cry.

What’s so funny ’bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What’s so funny ’bout peace love & understanding?

So where are the strong?

And who are the trusted?

And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony.

‘Cause each time I feel it slippin’ away, just makes me wanna cry.

What’s so funny ’bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What’s so funny ’bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh

What’s so funny ’bout peace love & understanding?

Posted on

Dead? So What?

At some point, there might have been some sort of emergency logic in not picking up bodies lying (or floating) in public view in New Orleans: Help the living first, because you can’t do much for the dead. But does that logic still hold two weeks after the disaster? At some point you’d have to think that leaving corpses lying in the open might be considered harmful both physically, for the disease potential and encouragement of vermin, and psychologically, for the impact on morale of such callous disregard for the dignity of the deceased.

Reading the New Orleans Times-Picayune, it looks like the “authorities,” whoever they are, haven’t reached that point:

“Traveling by pirogue through the flooded Broadmoor neighborhood Saturday, two men spotted a body floating in a side yard at Rocheblave and Octavia streets. They reported it to National Guardsmen and a civilian airboat operator, who said they were aware of it .

“For 13 days in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the body of Alcede Jackson lay on a porch at 4732 Laurel St., wrapped in a plastic bag and covered in a blanket beneath a sign quoting the evangelist John and commending Jackson to ‘the loving arms of Jesus.’

“Across town, a left turn at Fern Street in the Carrollton neighborhood provided a clear view of the corpse of a man lying face-down on the sidewalk near a vacant lot. He wore blue jeans. His head was uncovered. Residents who witnessed the scene also informed a pair of National Guardsmen stationed on North Claiborne Avenue. They said they knew.”

Compared to this, the “bring out your dead” scenario in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was downright humane and efficient.

Technorati Tags: ,

Posted on

Gut Instinction: The Michael D. Brown Story

August 29:

President George Walker Bush: “For those of you who are concerned about whether or not we’re prepared to help, don’t be. We are. We’re in place. We’ve got equipment in place, supplies in place. And once the — once we’re able to assess the damage, we’ll be able to move in and help those good folks in the affected areas.”

September 1 (from ABC’s “Nightline”):

Ted Koppel: “Mr. Brown, some of these people are dead. They’re beyond your help. Some of these people that have died because they needed insulin and they couldn’t get it. Some of the people died because they were in hospitals and they couldn’t get the assistance that they needed. You say you were surprised by the fact that so many people didn’t make it out. It’s no surprise to anyone that you had at least 100,000 people in the City of New Orleans where are dirt poor. Who don’t have cars, who don’t have access to public transportation, who don’t have any way of getting out of the city simply because somebody says, ‘you know, there’s a force five storm coming, you ought to get out.’ If you didn’t have buses there to get them out, why should it be a surprise to you that they stayed?

Michael Brown: Well, Ted, you know, we’re, I’m not going to sit here and second guess –why or when evacuation orders were given or why or why not the city didn’t have buses available. You know, that’s just not the thing that we need to do right now. Frankly, if they, if they had, if they had put buses there. …

Koppel: I’ve heard you say during course of this evening on a number of interviews you just found out about it today. Don’t you guys watch television? Don’t you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting about it for more than just today.

Brown: We learned about it factually today that that what existed. We’ve been so focused on doing rescue and life-saving missions and evacuating people from the Superdome that when we first learned about it, of course, my first gut instinction, instinct was, get somebody in there, get me truth on the ground, let me know, because if it’s true we’ve got to help those people.

September 3:

Bush: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

September 9:

Although Brown was not allowed to answer [questions about why he was being relieved of disaster-response duties in Louisiana, he later told an Associated Press reporter in an interview that it was not his idea to go back to Washington. Asked if he was being made a scapegoat, he said: “By the press, yes. By the president, no.”

September 12:

Brown: “I think it’s in the best interest of the agency and the best interest of the president to do that and get the media focused on the good things that are going on, instead of me.”

New York Times:

45 Bodies Found in a New Orleans Hospital

By Kirk Johnson

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 12 – The bodies of 45 people have been found in a flooded uptown hospital here, officials said Monday, sharply increasing the death toll from Hurricane Katrina and raising new questions about the breakdown of the evacuation system as the disaster unfolded.

Officials at the hospital, the Memorial Medical Center, said at least some of the victims died while waiting to be removed in the four days after the hurricane struck, with the electricity out and temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.

Technorati Tags: ,