Oh No! Not the Comfy Chair!

Did anyone see Good Morning America yesterday morning (Tuesday July27th)? This was reporting on a par with Diane Sawyer dropping the ball when interviewing the Dunce in Chief after Katrina. GMA toured Gitmo with the Chief Interrogator. During the tour they showed us an interrogation room complete with a Lay-z-Boy for the interviewee. I missed the rest of the interview because I could only here one thing in my head, "Oh no! Not the comfy chair!" Yes, the confederacy of dunces is using Monty Python torture techniques. Does the Geneva Convention allow this?

How could the GMA reporter let that one go? Perhaps more importantly, is the government trying to parody itself? They did say they had more austere torture I mean interrogation rooms. If I was showing the press an interrogation room at Gitmo, I would show the standard room with a regular chair and a polygraph. I'd keep the rooms with the torture equipment like the rack and the comfy chair out of sight.

Evacuation Again--Vindication Redux

After Katrina there was much criticism of New Orleans local government for not evacuating the city properly. We have opined many times before that the evacuation of New Orleans was incredibly successful.

Ten months later the issue has been raised again by a bit of rain in Washington DC, the seat of our national government. While the city has not required evacuation, the pundits have at least been considering the possibility. Their conclusion: you can't evacuate a city of that size.

Katrina funds down the drain

I know much has already been written about the waste and fraud following Katrina. (I've been afflicted with the equivalent of Ignatius' closed valve the past few weeks and haven't had the energy to post). However, a new round of revalations gives me another opportunity to put in my 2 cents.

$1.5 billion, around 15% of the funds doled out so far has been designated as misused. The vast majority, if not all, of this is due to mismanagement by the federal government. A cool thirty percent of this ($400 million) was for FEMA trailers that were never used, and $8 million to refurbish an army base for refugees (remember we use this politically incorrect term to remind us that US citizens are being treated like a 3rd world populace). The focus of press reports though appear to be on fraud by opportunists. We expect these people to come out of the swamp when disaster strikes. The blame for the fraud lies squarely at the door of FEMA.

Of course the documented fraud is probably only the tip of the iceberg. The no bid contracts that have cost us trillions of dollars in Iraq may have cost countless billions on the Gulf Coast. We need government accountability for the rampant spending at the Federal level. Much of this is actually a civil service issue. The government machine is out of control and needs to be reined in by Congress. I know this makes me sound anti big-government; I actually don't have an opinion on this. Whatever size government, it needs oversight.

We've been studied!

Yesterday I was doing some long neglected web server maintenance and figured out how to get into the statistics section and find all the sites that have linked to this site. Usually I use Technorati for this but it doesn't give as much information.

I was pleased to discover that the New Orleans bloggers were studied this past semester at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) as a new media case study.

I do question a bit what exactly were were a case study of - unhinged potential vigilantes, civil dissidents, or potential first residents of the upcoming free speech gulag wing of Guantanamo? Perhaps I shouldn't be so paranoid and we were just representative citizen journalists in the new media. Anyway, either we are all famous, FAMOUS, or some of our readers may have been just doing their homework. I thought you might be interested to hear it.

New Orleans Music in Exile

Despite my earlier report that I do not have the Starz InBlack channel, in fact I do and I managed to TIVO the Music in Exile piece and finally watch it. The piece focused on musicians scattered to Austin, Houston, and Memphis.

I know someone else already posted on this but I keep dwelling on it and so I have to comment. Kermit Ruffins had to try out at open mike night at some lame ass smooth Jazz club in order to get a gig in Houston? For a manager who somewhat sheepishly said he didn't know who he was and the club was now inspired to change their format since Kermit was so good? The indignity of it. That really pisses me off. Kermit, come back to New Orleans. We know who you are.

Of course it's easy for me to say. The documentary explained how the number of gigs in the city is so reduced now it's hard to support groups that used to have no trouble playing multiple venues in one day. Also I think the Funky Butt is closed which is one place I saw Kermit play so that's at least one less club for him to come back to.

Perhaps as the convention trade in the city picks back up our musicians will come back to pick up as many of their old gigs as they can.

Obfuscation

It's hard to know which one is my favorite quote from the ruling that did not help victims much but gave FEMA a well-deserved tongue lashing. Some passages are summarized here.

If I have to choose, I'll go with:

while FEMA may not be legally required to notify applicants or recipients of assistance about what FEMA provides, much less provide any data regarding its availability or the requirements for obtaining such assistance, one can only wonder why FEMA would choose to not do so, as has so often been the case herein.

It defies reason that a federal agency whose exclusive provision -- and indeed, sole reason for existence -- is to assist fellow Americans in a time of natural disaster in meeting their utmost needs would fail to notify people of the available services and the requirements for engaging those services, in some clear, consistent, and accessible way.

It also defies reason that such an agency would be seemingly more concerned with fraud on the individual level than with actually helping those persons whose lives have been literally turned upside down through no fault of their own.

I must also mention this one.

Rather than hiding behind bureaucratic double-talk, obscure regulations, outdated computer programs, and politically loaded platitudes such as "people need to take care of themselves," as the face of the federal government in the aftermath of Katrina, FEMA's goal should have been to foster an environment of openness and honesty with all Americans affected by the disaster. Sharing information in simple, clear, and precise terms and delineating the terms and conditions of available assistance in an up-front and forthright manner, does just that.

Despite the voluminous "administrative record" provided to the Court by FEMA, and despite FEMA's stated good intentions to the contrary, the Court has seen scant evidence that any such desire for openness and clarity guided any of FEMA's communications, and this obfuscation has acted much to the detriment of plaintiffs, and indeed, the entire country.

Nevertheless, the Court finds that FEMA is not legally required to notify applicants or recipients of assistance about what FEMA provides or how to obtain such assistance. Regrettably this Court must leave any dissatisfaction with the law in this regard for those in the legislative branch to remedy.

There is only so much a judge can do if law has not been broken. Is it too much to hope for that the Congress will follow the advice of Judge Duval Jr. and pass some useful laws instead of debating non binding resolutions and other B.S.? My disgust with the executive branch is starting to bleed over onto the legislative branch as well.

Is Staying the Course the Right Approach?

As the costs of the war in Iraq escalate--with no end in sight--while the government can't pay for disasters like Katrina at home, it's worth considering the impact the war is having on the so called war on terror.

Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda was created by the protracted occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in the 1980s. If the Russians had cut and run foreign fighters like bin Laden may have gone home before he became an entrenched guerilla. After the war, bin Laden had a large following who looked to him for leadership. These people went on to form al Qaeda, and we know where that led. So how does this relate to Iraq? The same exact thing is happening there.

The number of insurgents in Iraq has steadily increased from 3000 in May 2003 to 20,000 in May of 2006. Similarly, the number of foreign fighters has increased over the same period from 100 to 1500. In other words, the longer the US stays in Iraq the greater the number of insurgents and foreign fighters. There is no reason to believe that a continued military presence will reverse this trend. This may be over simplistic, but the parallels to the Russian adventure in Afghanistan are clear. New life is being breathed into al Qaeda by our presence in Iraq. The longer we stay the more militant these people will become. We are not fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over there, as the Dunce in Chief has famously said. We are fighting them over there so we can guarantee having to fight them over here for many years to come.

Advocating for a swift withdrawal from Iraq is not an unpatriotic vote against the troops, it is a vote for our security here at home.

Bush protects Hawaiian islands

It's not on the Gulf Coast but it's a good start. Could the designation of 140,000 square miles of coral reefs, islands and atolls be a sign that Bush is bending to public pressure to do something for the environment? It seems he really liked the Cousteau movie on the area, and since there's no oil there it wasn't a problem to do something good there. I don't care why he did it, it's a great step forward for conservation.

Jamie Hayes

Heres an update on Jamie Hayes, one of my favorite French Quarter artists. He has had to close his French Quarter gallery which I always enjoyed lingering in, and is relocated to California. Check out his website and maybe even buy something. It looks like he isn't actually a French Quarter artist at the moment though, his words on that were not very encouraging.

As I write this, we are still displaced. Still uncertain about the future. I have just returned to California from this year's Mardi Gras celebration and I was especially proud to be part of it. Thanks to my wife Pam I made a 2006 commemorative Mardi Gras poster, but I was terribly saddened by the lack of progress rebuilding the city; -bringing New Orleans back. I suppose it is impossible to rebuild 200,000 homes in 6 six months.

My art business there was 100% dependant on tourism and there were no tourists anywhere in sight; not two days before Mardi Gras anyway, and not two days afterward either.

There are no tourists there today.

What I found was lots more traffic. Way more than I ever saw before the storm and loads and loads of pickup trucks with construction workers from all over the country. Lots of Mexicans. Don't get me wrong, I love Mexicans and lived in their beautiful country for over 10 years. It's just that prior to Katrina I never saw a single Mexican in New Orleans. Ever. Now, every morning Claiborne Ave. is lined with groups of mostly illegal migrant workers waiting to be picked up for work- to remove the dangerous mold growing inside the flood-damaged houses. Nobody else in New Orleans wants to or is willing to do that dangerous, surely unhealthy kind of work.

...

While I was in New Orleans I met up with some great old friends, guys I'd known for more than 30 years, who kindly offered me a great paying job selling sheet rock and roofs. It was something I was actually considering. On my last night in town, I was having dinner with my good friend Kirt Smith, the former manager of my art galleries, who like me is terribly saddened by the unexpected changes in our lives. Kirt is still living there. Still trying to hang on. We were at our favorite restaurant Jaque-Imo's, Uptown on Oak St. (I am happy to report that there are still long lines of people waiting to be seated, and the food is as great-spectacular as ever!) I am one of the lucky few with a "carte blanche," because of my friendship with Jack Leonardi, the owner, so we were able to get a table right away. Over fried green tomatoes and stuffed shrimp, I talked with Kirt about the job offer to sell roofs (and sheet rock) and even tried to enlist him, "If you do it, I'll do it." His response was:

"Some people are put on this earth to sell roofs, and others are here to entertain. You belong to the group that do the latter, Jamie."

I hope we dont lose Jamie Hayes forever, but New Orleans' loss will be California's gain. New Orleans will continue to inspire both the old and a new generation of artists, we are just in transition right now. Its sad to see the Jamie Hayes Gallery shut but at least he's still out there and positioned for a rebound, and that is good news.

Foreign Languages Bee

The winning word in this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee was "ursprache". The runner-up was eliminated after missing, "weltschmerz". The hot favourite came in 4th after missing, "heileschein" (I may have misspelled this too). These 3 words have one very important thing in common. They are all German words, not English words. Shouldn't the Spelling Bee teach us how to spell in English. I wonder if the German Spelling Bee asks the kids to spell "accommodation" (one of my English teachers favourites)--I doubt it.

German words of course don't translate well into English. All 3 of these words are the type of German words that requires a full sentence in English. If these words have ended up in an English dictionary somewhere, it is not because they are used in English by anyone, but because someone was unable to translate them into English and thought it would be a good idea to add it in.

The Bee wasn't all about German. One of the easiest words of the night was "douane". I knew this one because I studied French and visit there frequently. This is also not an English word, but is the French word for Customs, and you will see it shortly after deplaning in Paris. My wife's favourite was kilim (because she guessed it right). This is a Turkish word for a kind of carpet. Again not an English word, just the transliteration from the Turkish.

All these foreign root words actually makes the Spelling Bee more challenging than I ever imagined. However, this is not a test of spelling, it is a test of your knowledge of foreign languages. This should be encouraged, American children could certainly do with some knowledge of things non-American. Let's just not call it a Spelling Bee.

That sinking feeling

We’re sinking, sinking, arrrrrrrrrgh. But wait, haven’t we been sinking since I was a little kid? Isn’t that why we always had to get those piles of dirt that we used to slide down until dad managed to spread it out over the lawn? So isn’t this dire news really not news at all? OK maybe we are sinking faster than they thought we were. But did anyone really think they knew how fast we were sinking? I mean, I may not have known that a hurricane might obliterate us all, but I did know we were sinking. EVERYONE knows we are sinking. So maybe I shouldn’t give up hope yet.

This article on the other hand is full of more an “imminent threats”. Levees slumping 6 feet overnight? Granted that is way out in the marshland in Buras, it’s a wonder that place is even there anymore. But now the Army Corps of Engineers is backtracking on their pumping capacity promises at the compromised canals in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. Apparently they haven’t even decided where and how to situate the pumps and are still thinking about it. They decided to skip the “computer modeling step” due to the aggressive schedule. But after they put in the first few pumps they decided computer modeling wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Col. Richard Wagenaar, chief of the New Orleans District, called it "a hydraulic challenge," and described the pumps as all wanting to suck up the same water.
"You can't just buy 15 or 16 more pumps and just stick them out there," he said "You have to put them in the right place and tie them into concrete and steelworks. It's major construction."

Sometimes I think we do deserve to have our city die, as a punishment for our gross stupidity.

If that’s not bad enough news, evidence is gathering to support the concept that maybe hurricanes are related to global warming after all. I suppose its good new that they are figuring it out, but bad news if it’s true.

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