Lake George

"We're naming it Lake George, 'cause it's his frickin fault. Have you seen all that data about the levee projects' funding being cut over the past three years by the Prez, and the funding transferred to Iraq? The levee, as designed, might not have held back the surge from a direct Class 5 hit, but it certainly would not have crumbled on Monday night from saturation and scour erosion following a glancing blow from a Class 3. The failure was in a spot that had just been rebuilt, not yet compacted, not planted, and not armed (hardened with rock/concrete). The project should have been done two years ago, but the federal gov't diverted 80% of the funding to Iraq. Other areas had settled by a few feet from their design specs, and the money to repair them was diverted to Iraq.

The NO paper raised hell about this time and again, to no avail. And who will take the blame for it? The Army Corps, because they're good soldiers and will never contradict the C in C. But Corps has had massive budget cuts across all departments (including wetland regulatory) since Bush took office, and now we've reaped what was sown. It really pisses me off to see the Corps get used by the Administration to shield Bush -- they do great work when they're funded. This was senseless, useless death caused not by nature but by budget decisions."
 

RIP, GOP (An Exhortation)

"The Republicans haven't been winning because they have a better plan or sounder policies. They have been winning because they have spent billions of dollars on a coordinated media campaign to make a slim majority of voting America feel good about the worst aspects of their natures. They have succeeded, not by providing a national vision that inspires us to a higher nobility, but by telling us that giving in to our basest instincts is what's best for us as individuals and as a nation.

The product the GOP has been selling is absolution-- not the old-fashioned kind, purchased through self-sacrifice and dedication-- but a cheap, outsourced knock-off kind of absolution that says, 'its okay, we do it, too. We won't tell.'

How hard is it really to convince people that being selfish is the way to go? Where is the higher calling in predatory greed? What invention is required to pander to the lust for revenge?. Where is the challenge in stoking people's fears about personal safety, or in feeding the flames of prejudice?

Its not hard to aim for the lowest common denominator and that is exactly what the GOP has been doing. Rather than hatching a plan to make America a better place then convincing the public to support it, they have instead made a science of putting lipstick on a pig. They package greed and avarice and sell it as 'sound market policy.' They bind up cruelty and fear and slap on a label marked 'national security.' They take bigotry and hatred and push it out the door in a glossy package marked 'traditional family values.' There are no new ideas; only our darkest human frailties made bland with a double scoop of political weasel-words and sexed up with Madison Ave. sizzle. "

(via wood's lot)

 

White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political Damage

"In a reflection of what has long been a hallmark of Mr. Rove's tough political style, the administration is also working to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats.

'The way that emergency operations act under the law is the responsibility and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials,' Mr. Chertoff said in his television interview. 'The federal government comes in and supports those officials.'

That line of argument was echoed throughout the day, in harsher language, by Republicans reflecting the White House line."

online biography of fascinating archaeologist, filmmaker, poet Jacquetta Hawkes whose amazing pre-history of Britain "A Land" opens with the author laying in her Surrey back garden in the dark proprioceptively channelling the big island around her like something out of Blake or David Jones...



"Baffling anonymous but most poignant history held in matter - a few bones and pieces of money. Here, on a pin's head, one is privileged to see the fall of the Roman Empire"

 

"MIKE GRILL: PHOTOGRAPHS

Opening Thursday, September 8, 6-8pm
September 8 - October 10

Curated by Christopher Brayshaw



CSA Space is an independent project space owned and operated by
Christopher Brayshaw, Adam Harrison, and Steven Tong. CSA exhibits
innovative contemporary artworks of all kinds. Submissions are not
accepted; exhibitions are by invitation only and based on the curators
own aesthetic judgements. Some exhibitions are developed between an
individual curator and an artist or artists; others will involve the
whole curatorial team. CSA supports a vital, non-institutionally
administered culture and will regularly organize talks, lectures, and
other public events. Under the imprint Editions CSA, the space may also
publish booklets, exhibition catalogs, monographs and artists editions.



CSA Space
#5 - 2414 Main Street.
email: info@csaspace.ca
site: www.csaspace.ca

Open Sat, Sun 12-5 and by appointment
see Pulpfiction Books, 2422 Main Street, for admission"

"Many of the law enforcement offcials were driving around with their guns out the window."

dispatches from The Interdictor

"What a bowl of fubar soup we got served for dinner tonight. Yummy. Fuel is still a no-show. No ETA on my resupply schedule tonight.

Was waiting on the street freaking out the Federal Cops guarding the Bogs building until the actually came over to talk and found out who we are and what we're doing.

Then Homeland Sec comes driving by and yells water and hums a 20 ouncer at our feet without slowing down. I know I'm not looking too hot right now, but come on. I'm standing out there with my flashlight on in the middle of the road, obviously waiting on a convoy.

Bunch of stressed out, trigger-ready police and military types driving by suspicious as all hell. It's not safe just standing out on the street even if you look like you belong there.

Anyway, I'm gonna sit tight up here until something definite appears on the street."

Noam Scheiber

"What makes the post interesting is that it cuts to a central dilemma for conservatives, which is that, at the level of worldview, they simply aren't able to accommodate an event like Katrina. They want to be able to say that government's job is basically to defend us against external enemies and criminals, and that short of that it's every man for himself. But despite efforts by people like Haley Barbour to try to fit Katrina into that rubric (with their preoccupatoin with shooting looters, who have come to occupy the role terrorists played in 9/11), it just doesn't fly. Yes, looters and armed thugs are now a problem in New Orleans. But, beyond the obvious (i.e., a category 4 hurricane and New Orleans' unfortunate geography/elevation), the reason the city has become such a hell-hole isn't looters; it's that the government wasn't very competent either beforehand or afterward at mitigating the effects of a natural disaster which were clearly possible to mitigate."

Couldn't Pay the Price of Admission

"Lots of people in that area - the poor and the old and the sick - get checks from the goverment on the 1st of the month. They spend for the month with that money, so by the end of the month they are broke.

The storm hit on the 29th.

Many people could not afford the $50 to fill their gas tanks to leave. The interviewee said they people were begging him to please loan them the money for gas. They were forced to stay, and forced to stay when they were broke."

Why no mention of race or class in TV's Katrina coverage?

"But we aren't one united race, we aren't one united class, and Katrina didn't hit all folks equally. By failing to acknowledge upfront that black New Orleanians--and perhaps black Mississippians--suffered more from Katrina than whites, the TV talkers may escape potential accusations that they're racist. But by ignoring race and class, they boot the journalistic opportunity to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of a whole definable segment of the population. What I wouldn't pay to hear a Fox anchor ask, 'Say, Bob, why are these African-Americans so poor to begin with?'"

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Why city's defences were down

"'There doesn't seem to have been much attention paid to people who didn't have private automobiles,' he said. 'I didn't hear anything about school buses or city buses being used to aim people out of town.' He said that there appeared to be little forward planning to cater to those on low incomes who would be unable to return to their homes for up to two months but who would not have the money to pay for that time in a hotel. 'The Department of Homeland Security says on its website that it deals with natural disasters,' he said. 'They don't seem to have done a very good job. There doesn't seem to have been any long-term planning.'"

Wonkette

"A tipster informs us that down in New Orleans, they have a name for the flood waters that have invaded the city: Lake George. "

How New Orleans Was Lost - by Paul Craig Roberts

"Chalk up the city of New Orleans as a cost of Bush's Iraq war.

There were not enough helicopters to repair the breached levees and rescue people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National Guardsmen available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against looting.

The situation is the same in Mississippi.

The National Guard and helicopters are off on a fool's mission in Iraq.

The National Guard is in Iraq because fanatical neoconservatives in the Bush administration were determined to invade the Middle East and because incompetent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld refused to listen to the generals, who told him there were not enough regular troops available to do the job.

After the invasion, the arrogant Rumsfeld found out that the generals were right. The National Guard was called up to fill in the gaping gaps.

Now the Guardsmen, trapped in the Iraqi quagmire, are watching on TV the families they left behind trapped by rising waters and wondering if the floating bodies are family members. None know where their dislocated families are, but, shades of Fallujah, they do see their destroyed homes.

The mayor of New Orleans was counting on helicopters to put in place massive sandbags to repair the levee. However, someone called the few helicopters away to rescue people from rooftops. The rising water overwhelmed the massive pumping stations, and New Orleans disappeared under deep water.

What a terrible casualty of the Iraqi war – one of our oldest and most beautiful cities, a famous city, a historic city.

Distracted by its phony war on terrorism, the U.S. government had made no preparations in the event Hurricane Katrina brought catastrophe to New Orleans. No contingency plan existed. Only now after the disaster are FEMA and the Corps of Engineers trying to assemble the material and equipment to save New Orleans from the fate of Atlantis. "

"French Quarter, Nov 5, 1941" by Charles W. Cushman

(thanks Plep)