I'm checking for pods.

Bush takes responsibility for blunders.

Blood for oil... again... not to mention environmental catastrophe

Now that the cleanup is beginning, I wonder what will be done in the way of rebuilding New Orleans. I have found these two articles very interesting, they have been passed around a lot: the National Geographic article Gone With the Water published in 2004, and the Scientific American article Drowning New Orleans by Mark Fischetti from 2001. These are fascinating reads. (click the title bar if my links don't work for some reason. It's a link to the snopes.com entry on both items)

Excerpts from these articles:
A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city.

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however--the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level--- more than eight feet below in places--- so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't--- yet.

The area was undoubtedly sinking, the articles say that the delta was sinking at a rate off an acre every 24-33 minutes, or 25-30 square miles a year. What was causing this? Is this a natural disaster or a man-made one? Even without the bunglings of Bush and FEMA, it's both.

The soil will naturally compact and sink, then spring floods would build up soil deposits. That is what nature wants, but industry and commerce have re-engineered everything with levees, canals and pipelines.

Former petroleum geologist Bob Morton, now with the U.S. Geological Survey, noticed the increased loss of wetlands during peak oil and gas production and discovered that the extraction of these things was a major cause of the slumping land.
--"When you stick a straw in a soda and suck on it, everything goes down," Morton explains. "That's very simplified, but you get the idea."--

There is an excellent program on New Orleans that is playing on the History Channel now which is all about the levees, the science, the industry and the reasons why. In fact, I was writing this post when it came on, and since it's so late now, I am taping it to watch later. Coincidence!

Anyway, it pains me that when New Orleans is rebuilt, the same dangerous scenario will again threaten the people living there. I wonder if Halliburton and the others are taking those people's lives into consideration? Something needs to change here, and I'm not sure exactly what, how to do it, or how much it will cost. Hoping for the best, but not expecting it.

- Hurricane Katrina -

Bug blogging

It's finally raining here! Everything but the cactus has been withering, and we take a xeriscapist attitude toward the outdoors, if a plant is not supposed to grow here and can't take the extended periods of 100 degrees and sometimes no rain (...and give me a break, weather-people! If it's 97 that's hot enough to be a milestone of it's own. Stop telling me it's going to be cooler today when the high is expected to be 99! geeeeez louise!!! ---weather-rant over) then we will say our sad goodbyes. Better luck to the seeds.

We've been seeing quite a few of those biiiiiiiig roaches in the house. You know those 2 to 3 inch long guys that fly? This picture is about actual size, not sure if it's the exact species but the size is right. When I was living on the Gulf coast of Florida we saw MANY more of them, really... Texans shouldn't even complain... but here I go. heh heh. They seem to be coming in looking for water. hmmmm... that must be why they're called "water bugs" (also "palmetto bugs"). The data on them says that the rain will drive them indoors even more, so we might as well brace ourselves for company. There was one underneath the clear plastic cutting board late the other night, the board has little legs that lift it up where water can pool under it. Uuuuugh!! The other thing they like to do is walk upside down on the ceiling, which are too high to allow upside-down bug catching, and they could just drop down on you in your sleep from there. We don't kill them (except for using Chem-free pest control periodically, they have the least toxic methods and I mainly want to rid the house and yard of scorpions, fire ants and termites. The other bugs, unfortunately are collaterol damage). When we find one of these guys, we catch it and toss it outside.

You would think that cats would kill and eat something big and tasty like that, but that's not what has happened in our case. Two cats encountered one on the screened porch last week, Alex the little skinny cat made a beeline for the house, and big Duncan was oblivious to it, letting it crawl right under his tail. Well, actually I'm glad they don't want to eat them. All their food is expensive special or prescription stuff, which is gross enough on it's own, and I'd just as soon not get any kitty kisses after that. Errrg.

Comic taken from Two Lumps

- Cockroaches -
EDIT 11/11/05: This post is proud to be included in The Carnival of the Cockroaches #4 at Blog d'Elisson!

What Would Willie Do? He 'd help out.

What: Neighbors in Need benefit concert. All proceeds from the concert will go to the Red Cross Katrina Relief effort. (title bar has link)
Who: Willie Nelson, Ray Price, Jimmie Vaughan, Lucinda Williams, Eric Johnson, Patti Griffin, The Flatlanders, Bob Schneider and more
Where: Frank Erwin Center
Date: Wednesday, September 21

More benefit concerts scheduled than I can keep up with! This is the biggie. I'll bet they make a DVD of it like they did of Willie's tsunami relief show (where we make an appearance during What would Willie do?. I usually cry when I listen to Patty Griffin, but this time I think Lucinda will be the one to do me in. Eric is included, so I'm thrilled about that too. I can't imagine the Neville Brothers not being there either, since they are new Austinites.

Update 9/14/05: Sure enough, the Neville Brothers have been added to the lineup. We got 11th row seats. Lucky us!
- Music
- Austin -
- Hurricane Katrina -

Coverage or Cover-up?

US Agency blocks photos of N.O. dead. Controversial subject, but worthy of discussion.

An agency [FEMA] spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats and that "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect."

"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman said in an e-mailed response to a Reuters inquiry.

OK, that's a point well-made, especially about the space in the boats, but isn't it the job of the press to create an accurate picture of events that are happening?

...and then there's the censorship/propaganda aspect of doing that, illustrated by this statement in the article: "The Bush administration also has prevented the news media from photographing flag-draped caskets of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, which has sparked criticism that the government is trying to block images that put the war in a bad light."

I would personally rather have the "red-pill" version of things, no matter how bitter it is.

I found this German photojournalist site (through SOMEONE'S blog, can't even remember which one) that is really QUITE graphic! The journalists were definitely right down in the heart of things, and pulled no punches for the sake of anything. It's a little confusing here and there navigating all the slides especially since the text is German (you can translate the site through Babelfish, which will create a few funny translations, but the photos are un-funny enough to balance that out unfortunately)

Here is one place to start which has the background info on the photographer's activities, and this page presents a navigation menu of most of the slide shows. Brace yourself though, this is a bit more graphic than some of the stuff on CNN.
- Hurricane Katrina -

Friday Cat Happy Hour

Do I smell catnip???

Wheeeee!!!! My head's upside down!!

I think I freaked myself out there...

Whoa!! Everything got blurry!

Hey, what's up? Did I miss something?

- Carnival of the Cats - This week's carnival - Cats - Catblogging - Friday Ark -

New Google Satellite images

Google maps (click the link or title bar, then zoom) now has an extra setting when you are viewing the upper Gulf Coast area, this is in addition to Map, Satellite, and Hybrid. It's called Katrina. They have a relatively small area online now, and you can just toggle between the different settings: before, after, with roads, without...

We have a permanently changed nation.

- Hurricane Katrina -

Well Fiddle-Dee-Dee!

From snopes.com (click the title bar for the article)

Claim: Former First Lady Barbara Bush said of the war in Iraq: "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

Status: True.

I'm having trouble describing my feelings for this woman right now. She's not a bitch, or a pig, not to me. That would be insulting to certain animals... animals I like. I decided to try my favorite insult generator, the Abuse-a-tron. Here are a couple of things it came up with:

"You steal food from the cat’s dish, you drooling, toe jam kissing, armadillo jumping, chemically-based cub of a malodorous pervert."

"You wag your tail like your mother, you tick-plagued, sewage slobbering, cat romancing, discognizant heir of a raving hobo."

heh heh... it's getting there... actually that second statement might be a better description of Duhbya.
- Barbara Bush -

Let them eat cake, but we don't want them crumbing up THIS place.

Barbara Bush must have been in a cruel and insensitive mood when she made these statements on NPR after touring the Houston Astrodome which is filled with disaster victims:

LISTEN to Marketplace archive

"Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

"What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

This reminds me of when I was young and we visited my great-aunt who lived somewhere in the deep south (I think it was Mobile, AL or thereabouts). She made a remark that I will never forget. She stated that black people (and used a term now viewed as derogatory instead of "black people") were much happier and better off "when they was slaves" (sic).

I wonder if even one of the evacuees in Houston would consider themselves to be in a situation that is working very well? So these people, because they some were poor and/or black, they are fine and dandy now, living on handouts and charity even though they've lost EVERYTHING but their very lives? What a racist and elitist comment.

I guess just because you dress them up (in pearls) doesn't mean you can take them anywhere. Foot-in-mouth disease must run in the family.

So much for the "let them eat cake" part of the story, listen to the audio file about how the "don't move here" sentiment you sometimes run into in Texas might be seeping over into the evacuee situation.
- Hurricane Katrina -
- Barbara Bush -

Giraffe spotting

If you stare at the above picture long enough, you will see a giraffe.

Not a quiet week at all

Wednesday (the 31st) we went down to the anti-war rally with Cindy Sheehan. There were some powerful speeches and musical pieces performed by Eliza Gilkyson and the Flatlanders. It was larger than other rallies I've been to here and I'm thinking that maybe the tide is turning when it comes to the way people feel about ending this war and about this president, esp. in the light of the government's handling of the Katrina disaster. At the very least, people feel that they (the powers-that-be) need to take care of the things that are most important first, the lives and well-being of our people. Priorities are horribly screwed up here.

We have several thousand refugees here in Austin, so this is more than close to home. I will probably be volunteering to help with the donation process, or whatever else they assign me to do. This is a long-term process and is going to need lots of helping hands and $$$. This whole thing is just heartbreaking, it's unimaginable.

On a more cheerful note, we had a nice music week, with 2 fantastic Greencards shows at the Saxon on Friday and another in Kerrville on Sunday. We had a great time at all of them. Had the opportunity to introduce Eric to a couple of the Cards so that was a little highlight after the Saxon, and Robert Earl Keen graced the stage as a surprise guest in Kerrville for a couple of songs. A little bird had told me that he'd be there so I wasn't surprised, heh heh. This was the Wine and Music Festival, a bit smaller than the more well-known Folk Festival. Very nice and mellow vibe.

The problem with going to Kerrville is the same as the nice part of it -- from Austin it's all backroads -- very pretty in daytime but treacherous at night. There were lots of deer on the sides of the roads waiting to cross, waiting for the headlights, that is. We had one encounter which luckily only resulted in the deer's foot glancing off the back of the car. We didn't even get a scratch out of it and I hope it was the same for the deer. FRIGHTENING!! I hate night driving. Didn't get home until 3 a.m. so half the day Monday was spent sleeping. A good way to spend Labor Day, huh?
- Music - Austin -

Mixed Blessing

Every time there's a big disaster that requires charity donations, there are always a large number of choices. During the tsunami relief cycle, it became evident that some charities were more efficient, or perhaps reliable than others, and then there are always some that are outright fraudulent. I personally stick to the secular ones who don't have an ulterior motive of evangelizing or otherwise conducting some kind of religious crusade... as though converting or assimilating the needy people is part of "helping" them.

For what it's worth, I have just learned (via J-Walk) that Operation Blessing, one of the charities that has popped up on the screen on CNN and others, is one of Pat Robertson's projects, and has received big funds under Bush's Faith-Based Initiative, apparently even though he criticized the fund.
LINK
ANOTHER LINK

For all I know, OB is doing a fine job of helping people out without crusading or pocketing the money... but Pat Robertson has been on my sh*t list for a long time, and personally I think I will stick with the Red Cross.
- Hurricane Katrina -

Friday Grand Chat Noir

This is Samson, (aka Jax). He's not shaved!! He compulsively overgrooms that big ol' belly and other parts, tough habit to break but we're trying to keep him wiped down with Bitter Apple. He was an awful mess when we rescued him last year, so the few bald spots still left are a fairly small problem. He's a sweet and hilarious sack o' snuggles.

- Carnival of the Cats - This week's carnival - Cats - Catblogging -