The Witching Hour

At this point it looks as though Rob is going to The Witching Hour and I'm not. We can't afford for us both to go (heck, it's a stretch to send one of us) but he gets part of his expenses reimbursed as a member of the Board of Directors (and I'd resigned, remember?) And then there's the problem of what to do with the girls being in school.

So: treat him right, folks. And have fun without me. *sobs*

Good luck to those of you outrunning Rita

There are quite a few on my friends list who may be affected (if my LJ map is reading everyone's location correctly): evilari, lizardlaugh, odyssea, kelleyscorpio, genealogygirl, nmalfoy, maybe ascian, rusty76, aerden, mlleelizabeth, alfreda89, and doubtless others that I have missed. Stay safe, everyone. Don't take needless risks by staying. Get out while the getting is good.

And as for everyone else: yeesh. If the storm hits the Texas refinery area, they're predicting gas might hit $4 or $5 a gallon next week. Fill up your tanks now.

Denigrating the needy

In this entry here Respectful of Otters muses about the trouble that those who operate from just world hypothesis have with images of undeserved suffering, such as we saw with Katrina. In order to remedy the cognitive dissonance, some resort to tarring the victims of Katrina as deserving the suffering.

Read the entry. Respectful of Otters closes by pointing to a particularly nasty piece on Snopes here. Read it and reflect upon those who insist that racism had absolutely nothing to do with the abysmal response to Katrina. Ugh.

Edited to add: cheshyre has pointed to some excellent posts by Digby on the role of race as related to Katrina, giving examples of Republican retoric, 1, 2, 3 and 4. (You can read the syndicated feed for this blog at digby2). Thanks, cheshyre.

Storm

I love the lightening.

And the thunder.

And the rain.