So... who was at fault for the destruction of New Orleans?

I've been thinking about that a lot during the past few days, and the conclusion I'm coming to is...

...that it was nobody's fault, but a lot of people were not adequately prepared for this.

If anyone, blame the French, or one lousy Frenchman anyway...

...Because Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, Sieur de Bienville - the founder of New Orleans - conned the King of France to making all the cheap swampland that he swiped up near the mouth of the Mississippi be the new capital of French Louisiana. As New Orleans grew Bienville sold his parcels of land at outrageously higher prices than what he acquired it for. So New Orleans was a town born of a corrupt politician... and it looks like his lack of vision is going to be darn near the death of it too.

Feels weird to see that after writing it just less than a year ago.

I've seen a lot of reports blaming the New Orleans disaster on President George W. Bush. That he took away from the budget the funds that would have improved and reinforced the levees. I don't know if it's fair to blame that on him though: even if levee improvements had begun in 2001, it's been calculated that it would take twenty-five years to complete the entire project. I think a lot of things have been botched at the federal level so far as disaster relief goes - things that were far more expedited last year in Florida, f'rinstance - but in regard to the levees, I really can't put total blame on him for this. It was unwise to practically defund the measures, however. But in terms of time to do this, the levees couldn't have been redone even if Bush poured five times the requested budget into doing this.

I'm most tempted to blame the local politicians, namely Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin. Nagin especially: he really blew his chance to show leadership qualities on Saturday, two days before the storm hit. He actually conferred with the lawyers to see if he could declare a mandatory evacuation. It had never been done before in New Orleans history. It was unprecedented... but then a situation like Katrina was unprecedented also. This could have been Nagin's moment to take the initiative and earnestly try to get everybody out of town. Who cares about what the lawyers would have thought at this point? I think a lot of New Orleans people honestly thought there was nothing to worry about, that Katrina would change course, because of the city's reluctance to evacuate. A lot of them kept on partying even as the storm lay just off the coast. This is what the history books are going to judge Ray Nagin by, I'm afraid. Blanco showed a similar lack of leadership potential leading up to the storm: she failed to have adequate resources available to handle the situation. Among other things I've heard that the decision to impose "contraflow" on the highways leading out of town actually hampered some rescue/relocation efforts. She also failed to do enough to prompt people to evacuate, it could be judged.

That's how I see things as they relate to the actual hurricane. As far as now goes, it's too early to tell... but I've been disappointed in all three of the above mentioned people. Anderson Cooper was right when he confronted Lousiana Senator Mary Landrieu: the people of New Orleans do not want to hear politicians thanking and congratulating each other while they're starving to death and rats eating dead bodies in the streets. So far that's all the elected officials seem to be doing: posturing for the cameras, and blaming each other. It's way past time for the adults to take over in this situation.

But, ultimately, none of these people are going to be blamed for this. New Orleans was in a horrible geographical situation, and it played Russian roulette with the coming of each new hurricane season. This time it finally happened to get the bullet. It was an act of God, whatever His will was with regards to that once-great city. If any of us here on Earth are at fault, it is only in that we proudly have too much faith in ourselves, instead of remembering that despite all our abilities we are yet at the mercy of forces far beyond our control.

Read More

August activity made for a busy blog

I just looked through all the posts made in the previous month and August 2005 was the most active one yet: 70 posts total. This past month covered hit on just about everything. There were a lot of them toward the end as Katrina bore down and the aftermath, but otherwise it's a nice normal peek into the tortured psyche of me :-)

Read More

PaleoBlog on pro-war hypocrites

Lee Shelton posts a good essay about pro-war hypocrisy on PaleoBlog. Here's a sample:

Over the last four years, the message sent by neoconservatives to the rest of the nation has been clear: Get behind the Bush administration's "war on terror" or be prepared to face the consequences. But when the grieving mother of a fallen U.S. soldier tops the neoconservative most wanted list of treasonous, terrorist-sympathizing, America-haters, you know something's up.

To paraphrase the Bard, "Methinks the neocons doth protest too much." Perhaps their violent outbursts against criticism of the war in Iraq are nothing more than feeble attempts to draw attention away from their blatant hypocrisy.

(p.s.: if anything, yes, I would have to consider myself to be a paleo-conservative. But that's not fashionable these days, is it?)

Read More

Video games becoming too easy?

AfterShock posts on his blog on an interesting phenomenon: are video games becoming a pushover to play? One of the things he cites is Super Mario Brothers 3 on the original Nintendo system, that it had no "save" feature so you had to play through the entire game in one sitting. Anyway I thought it and the article he found was pretty neat reading so check it out.

Read More

Teen steals school bus to get others out of New Orleans

Give this kid a medal now! From Local6.com:

Storm Victims Steal School Buses To Flee New Orleans

POSTED: 12:13 pm EDT September 2, 2005
UPDATED: 12:52 pm EDT September 2, 2005

Several school buses were stolen from Orleans Parish, loaded with storm victims and driven out of New Orleans toward Houston in desperate acts to leave the ravaged city, according to reports.

Three school buses were stopped Thursday night in Port Allen, La., just west of Baton Rouge after they were stolen, according to WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge. The evacuees were placed on other buses and transferred to shelters in Texas.

An 18-year-old also decided to take matters into his own hands and stole an abandoned city school bus and drove storm victims to Texas, according to a CNN report.

The teen driver, Jabbar Gibson, 18, said he had never driven a bus before but wanted to save people.

"If it wasn't for him, we'd still be in New Orleans on the Gulf," bus passenger Randy Nathan said. "He got the bus for us."

Authorities allowed the renegade passengers inside the Astrodome but Gibson could find himself in trouble after taking the school bus.

If they prosecute Jabbar for taking the initiative - that elected politicians refused to show - there oughtta be hell to pay. Way to go Jabbar Gibson!

Read More

This might explain where Dick Cheney has been...

Halliburton just landed a contract to repair Navy installations in the Gulf. Whatcha wanna bet Cheney's been working behind the scenes the past few days getting all the paperwork in order for this?

Whatcha wanna bet that this was a non-competitive bid, too?

Read More

Was New Orleans aid held back for a Bush photo op?

I'm getting several reports (including this one and this, Interdictor's blog which has been an invaluable source of firsthand information) that supplies of food and fresh water had been brought to New Orleans already. But the National Guard was under orders not to begin distributing them. They only started going in with the supplies today when President Bush arrived. They could have started rolling into the Superdome and Convention Center areas yesterday if not earlier (or they could have just airdropped them in from helicopter) but they were held back.

So it must be asked: was this conveniently timed to "coincide" with Bush's arrival?

Read More

George W. Bush is officially worse than useless now

I'm "watching" him on teevee right now (which actually means that I've got my back to the screen so I'm only listening to what happens, without the visuals distracting me). No leadership qualities coming out of the President of the United States at all. He's congratulating a lot of other politicians, saying a lot of broken phrases, is stumbling for words. I heard that just before flying out he did a White House appearance and said there's be "millions of tons" of food flown in (does he even know what he's saying?). He's in the Gulf coast area right now, will be taking a flying tour of Alabama and Mississippi and apparently will do another high flyover of New Orleans later today. In other words he's not seeing what's going on firsthand.

A year ago he was much faster in helping out Florida after it got wracked by its hurricanes. Not only that but he actually got on the ground and was shown handing out ice to people after they got hit by Hurricane Ivan.

But I guess when it's not an election year it doesn't matter, right? No way around it: last year's response was political posturing. This year, we're seeing the real George W. Bush. We are seeing a man who has avoided real responsibility all his life, has either handed the task over to "someone else" or botched it completely and found somebody to put the blame on. He's gotten by on family status and political connections. And now there's something that he finally can't spin away or cast blame on: this time the buck really does stop at George W. Bush's desk. And without anyone to bail him out, we are seeing how ineffective and incompetent he is as President... just as he's been ineffective and incompetent all his life.

I know I said I'd lay off so much hurricane commenting earlier but this has to be said for all time, for sake of anybody who might ever find this: George W. Bush is now the worst President that the United States has ever had. Everyone is seeing it now. Even people who don't usually follow politics are seeing how foolish this man really is. Twenty years from now anyone who admits that they supported Bush is going to be spat upon and ridiculed... bank on it.

EDIT: This seems to be as good a time as any to post this graphic that someone sent me yesterday. In true Nero fashion, as New Orleans was drowning our President was strumming a guitar and eating cake...

Read More

"Lestat"... with music by Elton John?!

Haven't read many of the more recent ones (I think Pandora was the last one and that was some years back) but I've always enjoyed the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. If nothing else than because of its sweeping sense of history: it's set against the backdrop of so many eras and locales.

As anyone who's even casually approached the books knows, New Orleans is a major setting for most of the series. That's where the story of Louis begins in Interview With The Vampire, and we watch Lestat and Louis (and later on Claudia) as the town grows around them. Later we see that it's where Lestat has his headquarters during his other adventures after he arises from his "sleep" in The Vampire Lestat. Rice is from New Orleans and its pretty obvious she loves interjecting the details and spirit of her town in this story.

A couple of times during the past few days I've found myself wondering, half-jokingly, how it is that Lestat would handle life as a vampire in New Orleans post-Katrina. That made me wonder how Anne Rice herself fared, hoping she safely got out. I did some "Googling" and haven't found it reported anywhere yet that she's okay (praying she is) but I did find one lil' item that made me wrinkle my brows. From WDSU.com:

Anne Rice's 'Lestat' Musical To Have World Premiere

POSTED: 9:04 am CDT August 24, 2005

NEW YORK -- "Lestat," a musical inspired by novelist Anne Rice's best-selling "Vampire Chronicles," will have its world premiere Dec. 17 at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco.

The show is a first for the songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, but John's third Broadway musical, following "The Lion King" and "Aida." Hugh Panaro ("Les Miserables," "Side Show") stars in the title role.

The show's public relations representative, Wayne Wolfe, said "Lestat" is scheduled to play San Francisco through Jan. 29, 2006, before opening on Broadway in March 2006.

So the tale of Lestat is gonna be a musical, with songs by Elton John. Yah I know he's done some ummm... questionable things in the past few years (the "boy scout" incident makes me sick every time I think about it) but let's face it: the guy is a talented musician who's made a lot of real classics. I'm way more than a little curious now to see what he's gonna do with Lestat and Louis and Claudia and Marius and the rest. I do wonder how this kind of horror will translate to the stage though. Let us hope that Lestat: the Musical will have a better run on Broadway than Carrie: the Musical (not joking this actually happened!) did.

Read More

I'm gonna try to lay off the hurricane posts for awhile

For the past several days I've been watching the Katrina tragedy, pouring over probably ever news story that's come out of it. I've been posting about a lot of them here, mainly the ones that had some particular interest for me. And I've been writing about how Katrina is effecting some things here, even far away from where the storm hit.

Mostly, this has been for my own benefit. As a personal chronicle of how I watched this story unfold. And it's still unfolding, the tragedy is becoming considerably worse if that's even possible. I'm still going to be watching this. But I also need to be "the old Chris Knight" again too. The kind of guy who finds things to laugh at and think about. Anyone who finds this blog, I hope they can go away at least mildly entertained and enlightened, and that ain't really happening right now.

So I'm going to try and cheer up some. Not ignore the Katrina story entirely, but the best thing to do - for me personally especially - would be to keep going, to not let this or anything associated with it bring life to a crawl.

There is something hurricane-related though, that I'm strongly considering that would sorta involve this blog. It may or may not happen. If it does I'll definitely be using this blog for it, if it's at all possible. 'Twould mean doing something a little radical with it, but I'd trust that it would be in good hands.

Anyways, I'll try to be that... thing, that I used to be before all this happened again :-)

Read More

Fats Domino has been found

Updating from a report earlier today, it's now being reported that Fats Domino has been located and that he is okay. So some good news.

Read More

MSNBC cameraman's historic account from New Orleans

You need to be using Internet Explorer to watch this 'cuz it's a Media Player stream. Tony Zumbado at MSNBC shot some horrific video and has a report from the New Orleans Convention Center that may be one of the most important first-hand accounts of what's really going on there.

It must be said: there is something very, very wrong with a situation when the person most in authority is Harry Connick Jr., a musician. I'm hearing that Boy Scout troops are being organized to go in and help now too. So far, there's been nada a peep from FEMA.

This will go down as the biggest FUBAR of a situation by the American government in history.

Read More

It's like readying for a siege: report from a grocery store

I went to the Food Lion just down the street earlier tonight. You would think this place is about to get hit by a blizzard or something: the milk aisle had 1/10th, maybe less, of its full capacity of milk out and available. If they have any more in the back fridge they better restock fast. Otherwise... sheesh I've never seen that little milk on sale at this time of year.

Just out of curiosity I checked the availability of other items. I noticed that there was a lot less baby food and diapers, then again I don't regularly check those kinds of things 'cuz we don't have babies yet :-) Lots of bottled water gone too. Bread: didn't look like any abnormally large purchasing of that going on right now. Also, lots and lots of people out buying tonight: I don't think I've ever seen this particular Food Lion so busy.

I wasn't out doing any real "power buying" but that's what looks like a lot of people are doing right now.

Thought that much of the current situation might be worth making a note of.

Read More

Fats Domino is missing

The music legend hasn't been heard from since Monday. He reportedly was going to ride out the storm. His address is now underwater.

Praying he and his family made it to safety.

Read More

The efficiency of FEMA

This is going to sound cold-hearted and cruel, but I'm going to say it anyway...

It's been talked about in conspiracy-theory circles for years how the Federal Emergency Management Agency is supposed to be the means by which an evil cabal of politicians will take over. That FEMA has all kinds of rules on the books (and they do indeed, folks, you can look 'em up) that empowers them to deal harshly with their fellow Americans if the word comes down from the President.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think it can now be safely said that we have absolutely nothing to worry about, 'cuz if THIS is the best that FEMA can do in the wake of Katrina, they'll positively come apart at the seams if they tried anything bigger.

Read More

Some good news

Colonial Pipeline is restarting its line up and down the east coast. Once they're back up to capacity we should see a lot more gasoline around here.

It can't come soon enough though. I went out for supplies last night - Lisa and I have decided we will not be making any more trips out than we absolutely have to, and to consolidate the trips out as much as we can 'cuz there's no telling how much gas there is out there right now - and the cheapest I saw gas was $2.99 per gallon. The most expensive was $3.49. Anyhoo, when Colonial gets the whole line going full-bore again we should start seeing a little bit of a drop at least.

Read More

Michael Sheard has passed away

"You have failed me for the last time, Admiral." And with those words from Darth Vader, Admiral Ozzel - Michael Sheard's character in The Empire Strikes Back - went down in history as the first of many victims of Vader's deadly "Force choke".

I met Sheard a few times, the most recent being at Star Wars Celebration III in Indianapolis a few months ago. I knew he played Ozzel and he was the guy who played Adolf Hitler in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade but I didn't know 'til today that he'd been in a TV show over in Britain called Grange Hill and by all accounts his character on that show was a wild success. He also did a few episodes of Doctor Who.

So it is that I must sadly report his passing away yesterday. That and just wanted to say that he was a really neat actor and all-around nice guy.

Read More