current events

I’m disturbed by the further torture revelations from the 82nd airborne. What we all feared when we heard about Abu Ghraib, that torture of people in our custody was routine, systematized and widespread, has turned out to be true. I am sickened and dismayed. I want it to stop, I want accountability and consequences, and I want our military fixed so this does not happen again. I want a sense of honor, I want adherence to the Geneva conventions, I want to be the good guy and not the savage bully. I’m tired of might makes right.

As a result of this, I’m especially shocked by the group being referred to as the torture nine:

1. Sen. Wayne Allard [R-Colorado]
2. Sen. Kit Bond [R-Missouri]
3. Sen. Tom Coburn [R-Oklahoma]
4. Sen. Thad Cochran [R-Mississippi]
5. Sen. John Cornyn [R-Texas]
6. Sen. James Inhofe [R-Oklahoma]
7. Sen. Pat Roberts [R-Kansas]
8. Sen. Jeff Sessions [R-Alabama]
9. Sen. Ted Stevens [R-Alaska]

If moral values = torture, then I stand before you as decidedly amoral. You are not the sort of people I want in power, and in at least one case, my vote can (and will) let you know this directly. My memory is long.

I’m desperately hoping that since Uzbekistan has yanked out the welcome mat from the U.S. air base that we’ll take a more aggressive attitude toward its tyrannical ruler, Karimov, who besides using all the usual methods to quell dissent (systematic torture, public massacres) has taken a play page from the Soviet regime and even throws activists into lunatic asylums. I hear George Bush hates tyranny. I’ve moved to Missouri, so I’ll take up the state motto: Show me.

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Now that his poll numbers are low and hurricane Rita might make landfall at his own home state, Bush and his lackeys are “in almost hourly contact” with state and local officials. This time around they have made sure to pre-position supplies and troops. I don’t suppose it would occur to the president to suggest that now is a good time for him, Condolezza Rice and Dick Cheney to go on vacation, thought he acted as though it was appropriate before, during, and up two days after Katrina. It’s not that I begrudge Texas an adequate response, but I’m bitter that Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama could not get the same.

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This is completely trivial, but it’s setting my teeth on edge, and what is blog for if not for getting minor irritants off my chest? What I’m peeved about : the apparent inability of journalists trying so hard to be respectful and correctly pronounce Niger to figure out that Biloxi is pronounced by locals as Bih-lux-ee, not Bih-LOCK-see.

That is all. I feel much better now, thank you.

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There is much good news today. Children are going to school in new places, which are taking them in with open arms. Many companies are continuing to pay their employees : Harrah’s will pay (and cover healthcare) for 7500 workers from its three ravaged casinos for 90 days (I’ve never felt so good about the gambling industry in all my life), even McDonald’s is covering two weeks, and though Wal-Mart is only giving their employees three days pay which is shameful, any pay is better than no pay. Some people from the suburbs around New Orleans were allowed to take a look at their homes and try to salvage mementos a couple of days ago. The New Orleans airport, the last place that held sizable numbers of people in need of evacuation (mostly critically ill people) has been basically emptied. Search and rescue teams, both official and self-appointed, are still bringing people back. They’re doing house to house searches as well, and getting the grisly work of marking houses with corpses. The New Orleans zoo suffered the death of few animals (two river otters and some watefowl). They had an alligator wander off as well, but they think it’ll come back. The aquarium is another story, they’re stating the loss of at least one third of their fish, though it seems their magnificent structure on the riverwalk is architecturally sound. Tipitina’s (where I’ve seen countless shows) is in good shape, and Preservation Hall (where I went once, as a child) seems to be mostly unscathed as well. The French quarter seems to have weathered the storm and will still be there for tourists in times to come. Already natives are talking about preparing for Mardi Gras and JazzFest, showing their indomitable spirit and hardcore dedication to big parties. The Army Corps of Engineers (who to my mind, along with the Coast Guard and local policemen, firefighters and medical workers who didn’t desert their posts are the only people who reacted quickly and to noticeable good effect in this debacle) has completed the herculean task of levee repair and started pumping out the city. Only 5 of the 148 pumps around the city are currently working, but this is a beginning. [I apologize for the lack of links in the preceding paragraph. It’s somewhat sloppy of me, but this is all current news, readily available. Use news.google.com on your own, for once. The rest of my post is time sensitive and I just haven’t got the time to be thorough right now.]

On a personal note, I’ve reconsidered setting out our spare room through Hurricane Housing, because it looks like we may be able to help house displaced persons through our church. I browsed my area code at Hurricane Housing and can see that people in St. Louis are extending open arms, which greatly pleases me. As a transplanted southerner, let me assure you that St. Louis is a great place to live! We’ve also applied to try and foster a displaced person’s pet, since most shelters don’t allow people to keep their pets with them. Can you imagine having survived, having come this far, having managed to get your pet out with you and then being told you have to give him up? Our check to my local chapter of the Red Cross went in the mail. They’re feeding 700,000 people a day right now, they need the money. We’ll also be donating through our church (which has so far raised 2,000 dollars in aid). If, for whatever reason, the Red Cross is not an agency you feel you can donate to, let me offer you the opportunity to donate to aid Katrina’s victims through UMCOR. If you mark your check for the proper advance number (for Katrina it’s Advance #982523 — mail your check to UMCOR PO Box 9068 New York, NY 10087-9068) it will be spent by UMCOR for victims of Katrina to the last cent, and for nothing else. Overhead for UMCOR is paid by the church, so literally EVERY dollar will be spent as aid. If you’re local and looking for opportunities to help, my church is making up health kits to send to hurricane victims. There’s an eighteen wheeler truck that will be leaving the state Friday, so these have to be made up today, or by tomorrow at 9 AM latest and dropped off to my church (I’ll gladly email directions or come get the kits from you). They also need diapers and blankets (new is best, but freshly laundered will do if they are in good shape). The distribution center is fortuitously very near New Orleans. Normally used for international aid relief, supplies at the distribution center have been depleted to help disaster stricken people on our own soil this time around.

Here’s what goes in the health kits:

• one hand towel
• one washcloth
• one comb
• one metal nail file or nail clipper
• one bar of soap (bath size)
• one toothbrush
• one tube of toothpaste (4-7 ounces)
• six band-aids

Seal all items up in a gallon plastic bag with a zipper closure.

Additionally, I am making up three boxes (one for a child Sophia’s size, one for someone my size, one for someone Kurt’s size) of clothing and toiletries for one of the 2,000 refugees who are arriving to the St. Louis area beginning yesterday.

If you’re a local and would like to do the same, here are the instructions on what to put in a box and where to send it, snagged (and tidied, slightly) from the email I received on the subject:

Here we go with “Adopt A Person!” If you would like to join us, would you kindly fill a box of clothes you think a person (your size) would need. They can be used, clean, and ready to wear. New stuff is good, and yet one idea is to generously share what we already have with others who have nothing. Shoes are important, socks, underwear, night-clothes, casuals and work clothes. Add other stuff to wear too that you’re thrilled to give another. Remember, they now have nothing, so we’re going to give them a good start at rebuilding. Fall and winter are coming.

If you’re willing, please put in a modest toiletry bag of new stuff too: toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, razor, hair brush, comb, deodorant., sanitary pads, lipstick, fun stuff you’d like to receive if everything you owned got washed away (by the horrors of Katrina). If you’re filling a box for a man, please fill it with guy stuff that they’d need (you know—golf balls, Rams outfits, etc. :-) Just kidding. Dark socks, underwear, belts, shave cream, slacks, khakis, jeans, shirts, p.j.’s, nice clothes to go to work in, casual, sweaters, jackets, etc., or anything you’re willing to equip the person with that you’re adopting. Put in after- shave, shave cream, soap, floss, tooth paste and brush, and razors and blades. Just imagine yourself being in this man’s (or woman or child’s) shoes, and pack from your heart. It will be a wonderful box!

You can adopt more than one person, of course. Just pack a separate box for each and label it accordingly (woman, girl, man, boy, baby, and size.

Since we want to touch the hearts of these individuals, as well as clothe them, we’d encourage you to put in your picture, your address, and a note letting them know they are not alone. A word of comfort and encouragement might be splendid! You may never hear back from them, or you may. If you’d rather remain anonymous, that’s fine too.

On the outside of the box, please mark if it’s for a WOMAN, size _____, a MAN, size____, or a GIRL, size ______, BOY, size_________. Babies too, and sizes. Please address your box: “My Adopted Person from the Gulf Hurricane” directly to The St. Patrick Center, 800 North Tucker, St. Louis, MO 63101.

Thanks for reading, and for considering helping out. If you do make up a box, let me just reiterate that these people will NOT be prepared for how cold it will be here in the next few weeks. I had the benefit of everything in my wardrobe and I was still struggling to dress appropriately and to keep warm last winter. I apologize if this post is a bit spammy. These are concrete ways that you can use your own two hands and stuff you probably already have in your house to help. It seems like a lot of people are looking for ways to help. I haven’t said the last thing I will say about Katrina, but I feel that my recriminations can wait a bit longer while we take the time to offer comfort and aid.

It’s not all good news, of course. Many people are separated from their families, and right now there seems to be no good, systematic way for parents and their offspring to find one another and be reunited. Putting people on buses and planes and not telling them where they’re going seems to be part of the problem here. The dangerous sludge that still covers large parts of New Orleans is likely going to make the people staying behind (an estimated 10,000 who weathered everything reasonably well and seem to think the worst is over) very, very sick. The gasoline and other chemicals floating in that fetid water is making tinderhouses out of many buildings, and fires are burning, with no water pressure to put them out. Firefighters are resorting to dumping water on fires from helicopters. No, all is not well, nor anything near it, but progress is discernible.

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I know that things are going to get worse before they get better. Dread rides the corners of my mind, even though I have verified the whereabouts of everyone I know in the vicinity of the Gulf Coast. I know that it is not time to lay blame or point fingers or consider accusations. All that behavior is just a smug diversion that clouds the issue, and saps energy from what’s important: to lend a helping hand. I’m still struggling to digest the enormity of what has happened, the scale of those who have been affected. Any statistical ramification I follow stuns me : the leap in the number of people who are homeless, or will be seeking jobs, or have nothing left to lose. Even when I don’t concentrate on people it’s overwhelming : the loss of a major port city, the refineries along the Gulf Coast closed, pollutants despoiling the Gulf coast and likely increasing the Gulf dead zone, the loss of all the goods warehoused in New Orleans (like coffee) waiting to go to stores to be sold. What has happened at the zoo? At the art museum? At the aquarium? And outside of all that, which I cannot take in, there’s still a more critical matter. I cannot comprehend the stunning number of casualties, of which we have not heard even preliminary counts. There are people dying now, and there will be people dying tomorrow, and into next week they will still be dying. They may die from exposure or starvation or dehydration or the sicknesses that will soon spread. I cannot face this inevitability without feeling profoundly distressed. Why is something so predictable not also avoidable?

I know this is not the time or place to be angry. My anger is trivial in the face of this overwhelming and terrifying tragedy. And yet. I am furious. Probably my anger is misplaced, a backlash against the horror that’s constantly with me now. All I know is, I’m angry and I’m done being nice, or even circumspect, about it.

Yesterday Bush said in a speech, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

WHAT? Excuse me? If I, a regular run-of-the-mill civilian living in the Midwest with no connections and no power knew that the levees would not hold, how can anyone claim ignorance? No one anticipated? Really? Because little old me sitting here with nothing more than my radio was told multiple times that the levees would break under anything over a CAT 3, and Katrina was clocking at CAT 5 (and a half, some people reported, though I don’t know how you get the extra half) before landfall. So she turned away and gave New Orleans a glancing blow instead of the full force, so she was only a CAT 4 when she came ashore, I could still do the math, and I did expect a breach of the levees. The first mandatory evacuation in the history of the city called for because no one believed the levees would be breached? I don’t think so. Not that I could picture the devastating reality, and the pictures of flooded New Orleans I finally saw yesterday made me cry, but you can’t expect me to believe that this caught everyone at every level of government: military, state, parish, city, and federal with their pants down. So what is it, then, Mr. President? You think I’m stupid? Or gullible? You think I don’t care if you aren’t honest? Are you really this insolent, that you will stand up before me as the leader of my country and lie to me about what you knew and what we all knew? Because, outside of not genius, not specially informed, regular me, here’s another set of people who thought the levees were in a bad way, and unlikely to hold:

• the Army Corps of Engineers
• FEMA
• NOAA
• The LSU Sea Grant President’s forum
• The New Orleans Times-Picayune
• American Radio Works

I call bullshit. Was one thing when I suspected you a liar, and when your facts never meshed with what I read, heard and observed from other primary sources. Now you’re asking me to disbelieve firsthand knowledge that I have. Pretending that a week ago neither I nor you could possibly have suspected the city might flood and we’re just as gosh-golly-shocked-surprised as possibly could be. I’m sorry, Bush. I won’t play that. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just saying you didn’t anticipate a breach so you won’t have to explain why you didn’t do anything about it. Blood’s not even as high as it’s going to get and you’re already washing your hands of it. I cannot respect a leader who does not respect his people.

President Bush also talked about being severe with looters and sundry lawbreakers: “I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving, or insurance fraud.”

I cannot explain how disinterested I am in looters, though I’ll try. Things are not as important as people. Property is not an inviolable right. There’s more to life than the buying, selling, stealing and ownership of material objects. Yes, I don’t understand why someone would shoot at a rescue helicopter. Yes, attacking hospital staff for their dwindling pharmaceuticals seems criminal and outrageous. Yes, I can’t imagine why, with everything gone, a flat panel TV would suddenly be attractive, even free for the taking from the plundered big box store. It’s puzzling and incongruous but I can only imagine that if I were in a place where the bodies of my neighbors are floating past me in the street I might become just a tad unhinged myself. Let’s just try for crowd control and avoiding riots and protecting the masses, ok? We need only enough security to be able to evacuate people, and not an ounce more. Leave the stuff (except possibly the guns, which definitely need to be controlled, but then I’ve always thought we had too many of those around) alone and let the looters take whatever they want, until they can take no more. When the sun goes down, they’re still stranded in a flooded city.

Two of the cities of my heart have been hit hard this year. I say prayers for New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, and all the places in between. I pray for all the people who this instant are living horrors I couldn’t possibly understand. May they find peace where they can, in the small unsullied places, because the times are uncertain now and are likely to turn more so. I know that my tears cannot help you, who are hungry and tired and remembering that there was a time when you could take a shower whenever you felt like it and you didn’t have to smell the stink of corpses on each breath, but they are what I have to share with you. I weep for you, and I pray for you, and I send you the small pittance I can through the Red Cross. I pray too for the rescue workers, who work beyond the point of exhaustion in a task that is grim in its inevitable toll. Every person you bring back to our world counts. You are all heroes, and you represent us in ways I could only wish that our president might. I thank you.

Other links :

• FEMA reports that their restructuring under homeland security has crippled them to cope with natural disasters, which to our misfortune we all now have cause to know.
• A cogent examination of the ugly socio-economics of New Orleans evacuation.
• Fats Domino, missing since the storm, was photographed being rescued but has not been found.
• Why the dark, and time, are our enemies.
• A list of things the president could have done. Perhaps if he thought the position of FEMA director important enough to give to someone with experience in disaster relief, instead of someone who wants to blame this disaster on the people who didn’t leave, he’d be getting better advice on managing this catastrophe.
• If you have room, and could put someone up, consider offering.
• How hard it will be to rebuild New Orleans.

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I am grieving for New Orleans, my birthplace, which will never be the same again. As usual I have avoided photographs and television coverage, but I’m still shaken by what I have heard about this place I love. Eighty percent of the city underwater. The shape of the city reconfigured by the levees that didn’t hold. People kept out of their households for maybe a month or more. The hospital life support systems failed and patients being evacuated. The superdome without power. No air conditioning and no lights, and the bathrooms essentially non-functional for tens of thousands of people. Bodies left to decay while frantic search and rescue missions continue. Not to mention that Lake Pontchartrain’s waters, which are now covering New Orleans, have long been the sewage outflow for the city. How long before outbreaks of cholera? Dysentery? Not to mention the hard hit gulf cities of Gulfport and Biloxi in Mississippi, places that have basically been wiped off the map. So many people have now lost everything. I join the voices of so many others urging you to consider donating something (money, time or blood) to the Red Cross and their relief effort. It is needed.

It is a sad time and my heart is heavy.

I have had a number of strange dreams lately that I have failed to write down. In one I found a baby swimming in a bathtub. In another I had caught some kind of extinct fish, named something that started with “Aep”.

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Please make my government stop elevating people to its highest offices who at best condone and at worst encourage torture.

Seriously.

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First there was the war I was against, then there was the horrifying scandal at Abu Ghraib along with the indefinite detentions at Guatanamo which, while I’d said nothing about them on this blog before now, I’m appalled by. Distressing as all that is, it’s apparently not a big enough wedge between me and my government (and my fellow citizens who are in favor of these atrocities), because now there’s the discussion about whether we should resurrect our use of death squads. Only this time, we don’t even consider it unseemly enough a tactic to keep it secret. I don’t recognize this country. Why do I have to speak against the shameful behaviors of my country and its leaders? Why can’t my country behave morally and with dignity? Why do I have to be so alienated from the government that acts in my name but acts in ways I would never condone or even excuse? I feel suddenly like I have to actually say that I think death squads are a bad idea. How did it come to this? How can it not be obvious to every person in this nation right on up to the president and his advisors that this is bad policy and worse than bad ethics?

To quote slacktivist, in this similarily tongue-tied post which you should all read (if you haven’t already) : “Gaah. I just … gaah.”

iTunes says I was listening to Sweet Allure from the album “Beneath the Surface” by Balligomingo when I posted this. I have it rated 3 stars.

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