Peg Kerr's Journal

Noted by docbrite: "Not satisfied with simple incompetence, FEMA is actually looting us now."

Wow. That is so low.

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.

Here is an article about a clever solution to the sort of problems we had with Katrina: a backpack that first responders can carry. The person wearing it generates electricity which is stored in the generator, just by walking. A cool idea.

What also caught my eye was a throw away line halfway through the article. hamsterwoman, you'd love this. Apparently, a hamster running on a wheel will generate enough energy to run a cell phone. That's what the cell phone companies need to start telephone service again: give everyone a hamster!

You are invited to leave a comment offering a suggestion that would help avoid the sorts of problems we saw with Katrina, the next time we face a disaster. What would you do differently? Be creative!

Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals.

Is this a reputable news source? Has anyone read anything about this in U.S./other authoritative coverage?

Because I gotta believe, if this is true, that this is going to be a big deal for the "compassionate conservative" pro-life right wing, the ones who rode into town to make Terri Schiavo's last days such a circus.

This is huge. This has got to shock even Bush supporters. Unless the Bushwackers find some way to pin this on the liberals (perhaps they'll try to spin it that the doctor was one of those cowardly left wing "culture-of-death" types? Or spin it that if the doctor had believed in the right to bear arms like a true red-blooded American should, she would have stayed at the hospital to defend her patients at gunpoint, instead of fleeing to save her own "cowardly" neck?)

Here is the proclamation. This isn't the minimum wage, as I thought initially, but wages governed by the Davis-Bacon wage determination. See article explaining here and here.

You know what this means, don't you? More profits for Halliburton!

Oh yes, and you saw that gasoline emission standards are being relaxed, too.

What's next? Go ahead, speculate. How far will he go?

If you haven't seen it, ABC News has released a poll assessing opinions about the government's handling of Katrina.

Americans are broadly critical of government preparedness in the Hurricane Katrina disaster — but far fewer take George W. Bush personally to task for the problems, and public anger about the response is less widespread than some critics would suggest.

In an event that clearly has gripped the nation — 91 percent of Americans are paying close attention — hopefulness far outweighs discontent about the slow-starting rescue. And as in so many politically charged issues in this country, partisanship holds great sway in views of the president's performance.

The most critical views cross jurisdictions: Two-thirds in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say the federal government should have been better prepared to deal with a storm this size, and three-quarters say state and local governments in the affected areas likewise were insufficiently prepared.

Other evaluations are divided. Forty-six percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the crisis, while 47 percent disapprove. That compares poorly with Bush's 91 percent approval rating for his performance in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but it's far from the broad discontent expressed by critics of the initial days of the hurricane response. (It also almost exactly matches Bush's overall job approval rating, 45 percent, in an ABC/Post poll a week ago.)

Similarly, 48 percent give a positive rating to the federal government's response overall, compared with 51 percent who rate it negatively — another split view, not a broadly critical one.

See the rest of the analysis at the link above. The poll sample was only about 500. I wonder how many, if any, were people who were directly affected by Katrina (lost homes, job or relatives) and how that would affect their responses.

Edited to add: The poll has been criticized by MediaMatters for their polling method (too small of a sample; one day poll taken on the Friday night of a holiday weekend). Thanks to sarekofvulcan for the link.

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.

Way to go, Jabbor Gibson.

Let's hope they don't arrest you.

Edited to add: Actually, I almost hope that they do. You will have no trouble whatsoever getting a pro bono attorney, and having the case thrown out of court, and you will probably end up with a college scholarship.

akamarykate raises a good point.

Why aren't the nation's flags at half-mast? She wrote this on the tail end of one of her entries here:

While I was out today I started feeling like something was off. And then it hit me: not a single flag was at half-staff. It's a little thing; certainly compared to just the generosity coming out of this city financially and otherwise it doesn't matter at all. It's just a bit of symbolism, after all. But it felt wrong. It felt really wrong, the more I noticed it. Are they waiting for some kind of official declaration? Because that sure wasn't the case the morning of the London bombings. I wonder if people are just so stunned they aren't thinking of the ceremonial stuff.

I replied:

The flags are at half-staff in Minnesota, because we had another soldier killed in Iraq. I remember hearing it on the radio: "Minnesota is lowering the flag for private so-and-so." And I heard that, and I thought, (no disrespect to private so-and-so) WTF, we're losing more people than we've lost in a natural disaster in over a century, since the Galveston flood, and this may be worse. And one dead private outweighs all those THOUSANDS of black folk down South? I mean there was no question about every flag going down on 9/11, right?

She replied:

Wow--this is just baffling.

I mean there was no question about every flag going down on 9/11, right?

And rightly so. So why not this? How can anyone who's paying attention at this point not understand the extent of this? I don't know if people are afraid to start mourning, because once we do I'm not sure when it's going to end, or--I'm not sure what the "or" is. But when the flags on fire stations aren't down, when the flag at the #@!*! Shell station is whipping around at the top of the mast while they raise the cost of gasoline every hour, it seems more than a little callous.

So how about it, folks? Should the flags not be at half-mast because this is a natural disaster and not an act of war (other than the man-made disaster of our government's screw ups, of course). SHOULD THE FLAGS BE AT HALF-MAST, and if so, WHY AREN'T THEY?

Edited to add: minnehaha K. pointed out that according to the Flag Code, the flags do not have to be lowered for a natural disaster. dreamcoat_mom had a thoughtful response here that I recommend. She has a very good point, too, that the partisan potshots should until the survivors are safe and the dead have been laid to rest. (And she's saying this as someone who does not support Bush and is genuinely sad for our country.)

I'm sorry. It is so so hard for me. I always thought of myself as being a pretty rational person about politics, but it is so very hard, when I see what is happening in the country, not to scream in rage at the radio. I just about lunge to turn it off when I hear Bush's voice because I'm so angry at so many things he has done. So it is hard to evaluate this objectively.

I just thought about it, though and realized I can honestly say this: even if we had a President I really really liked, I would still be disappointed not to have the flags lowered. Formal flag code etiquette, phooey. This nation is in mourning--or it should be--and with the scale of the loss being what it is, I think that it should be acknowledged with our national symbols.

Edited to add: Never mind. Now that Rehnquist has died, they'll probably lower them for him.

Gacked from be_bold:

Air America Radio's Public Voicemai
1-866-217-6255

Air America Radio's Public Voicemail is a way for disconnected people to communicate in the wake of Katrina.
Here's how it works:
Call the toll-free number above, enter your everyday phone number, and then record a message. Other people who know your everyday phone number (even if it doesn't work anymore) can call Emergency Voicemail, enter the phone number they associate with you, and hear your message.
You can also search for messages left by people whose phone numbers you know.
Air America Radio will leave Public Voicemail in service for as long as this crisis continues. You can call it whenever you are trying to locate someone, or if you are trying to be found.

Please spread this one around. It's totally free and may help families and friends who have been separated connect with each other again.