The Tide in the Attic

I have a book recommendation for parents who want a good book for talking about this week's events related to Katrina with their kids. It's a book I enjoyed greatly as a child, called The Tide in the Attic, translated from the Dutch by Aleid Van Rhijn (the original Dutch title was Een Helicoter Daalde), illustrated by Margery Gill, translated by A.J. Pomerans, published Criterion 1962, 127 pages.

"When the dikes broke and the water rose higher and higher, Kees, his parents and little sister, Sjaantje, their maid and hired man moved up and up in the house until the only place they could escape from the rising water was the roof. There the six, with the dog and the cat, crouched for a day and a night until they were rescued by helicopter. There are no heroics in this story of the disastrous 1953 flood in Holland; the writing is simple, realistic reporting." (Horn Book Apr/62 p.174)

I adored this book as a child, and read it again and again. There are used copies available at Amazon, and others at abebooks.com. And there's always the library, where I hope to snag a copy.

Culture War and Katrina

Here's an excellent article in Salon analyzing how the two opposite sides of the culture war (think of Lakoff's analysis) look at the devastation of New Orleans and see two completely different things, coming up with completely different conclusions about what happened and what should be done.

Edited to add: Here is a list, with illustrative excerpts, of a sampling of liberal blogs vs. conservative blogs. They are truly seeing things with entirely different orientations.

Oh my god, I've gone to flab

As I mentioned, I'm trying to resume morning workouts. When I started karate (last November), I gradually dropped my morning workouts; I was trying to keep up my cardio by doing elliptical workouts on breaks at work at the office gym. Though I felt guilty about it, I did not keep up my weightlifting.

Today, I tried to do a FIRM workout, the lower body segment of Body Sculpt. It absolutely hammered me, and I couldn't use the weights I used to use. I had to resort to using measley 3 lb weights on the box press.

Am furious with myself for how much I've let myself go. I don't know how long it will take to get myself back to a semblance of where I used to be.

The flags are finally lowered

Here is the White House proclamation.

Applying Lakoff

This was a comment I made in snippy's journal. I urge you all to read George Lakoff's Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, in order to understand what is going on as people rage over exactly what happened with the aftermath of Katrina.

Have you read Lakoff, by the way? If not, you should. It seems to me that this is a classic example of what he is talking about. He explains that Liberals and Conservatives operate by thinking of the country using two different models of familes. The Liberals operate with the "Nurturant Parent" model (emphazing cooperation, nurturance, "helping," and the Conservatives with the "Authoritarian Father" model (emphasizing hierarchy, chain of command, the strict father overseeing children, correcting them for their own good, because they would run wild without his firm discipline.) Lakoff emphasizes that both worldviews have their own internal, consistent morality.

It seems to me that what is happening is that under the Nurturant Family model, Liberals are furious because the government is not acting as a nurturant parent. It has left its children to starve and die. Under this system, that is the greatest possible sin.

And Conservatives are furious, because the looting in New Orleans is proof that the children have run amuck (as children will do when the parent--the government--are not there to provide firm guidance and order) but the fault lies not with the father at all, who is, but with the badly behaving children. They must be punished for stepping out of line.

Edited to add: I think I also must refer you to this thread between me, snippy and joelrosenberg. I cited a blog entry by Juliette Ochieng here and she replied here. Her reply helps me better understand the conservative thinking here, and what makes conservatives angry: Lakoff explains that the father is there to protect the children: She is exemplifying a strong value of the conservative father model, btw: the father protects the children, rather than hurts them and that is what is so morally offensive about the rampaging in New Orleans. So I mischaracterized the source of conservative ire above. It is not that the children are running amuck that is so offensive. It is that individual fathers are failing to protect their children. Again, one of the greatest moral lapses in this moral system.

Edited to add again: I don't think I quite have my analysis right; am prob. mischaracterizing conservative thought. Don't have time to fix; must clean the house. You must all limp along without me.

Edited to add again: Emotions are running high, but I've managed to get people with disparate viewpoints actually talking here. I would prefer that people not go off in a huff, because I want to get different points of view, and we can't solve these problems if we don't try to find common ground. Surely finding common ground involves helping the people who have been hurt. Nobody on my friends list (I think) wants to kill people in the Gulf States, or is agitating for their ruin or distruction. So please try to keep it civil, people

Folksongs

Gacked from Jim McDonald at Making Light: Everything I need to know in life I learned from British folk ballads.

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New Orleans GOP Convention 2008?

So . . . what do you think of the National Review's suggestion that they hold the GOP National convention in 2008 in New Orleans?