Posted by Greg

Yesterday was the last day of my second job since graduating from law school. Now I'm jobless (until next Wednesday, anyway) and I intend to make the best of it. In accordance with the edicts found in the Blogger's Creed—if such a thing exists—I'll be blogging my daily exploits during this idle and shiftless period. I don't imagine that I'll have any particularly interesting insights or adventures, so don't feel obligated to read the diary entry immediately below the fold or those to come.

I woke up early (I know, bad form for someone living in the ranks of the apathetically unemployed) and drove my girls to school. Normally, they ride the bus. Even though there's a pretty good public school just a few blocks from our house, my oldest daughter has, for the last couple of years, been bussed across town for the last few years to attend our school district's gifted and talented magnet school. She "auditioned" in with art, but is now officially designated as talented in both art and music, as well as academically gifted. Her sister, the kindergartener, qualified through a series of tests and personal interviews for one of the twenty-two spots in the highly-selective morning gifted kindergarten class. (Though I realize I'm bragging, all this stuff is not only accurate, but looks great on the girls' resumes. If I could find a way to fit it on my own resume, believe me, I would.)

I spent the morning visiting my daughters' elementary school as a volunteer teacher's aide in kindergarten and as a lunchtime companion. For the past week, Phoebe, the younger one, has been really excited about this. She told me that when her teacher said that someone's dad was coming in to help, she said, "It's not my dad, he always has to work." She was ecstatic when she found out that it was, in fact, her dad. When she told me this story, my heart melted into warm goo.

Following the teacher's instructions, between the hours of 8:00 and 11:00, I diligently performed such tasks as pouring washable yellow tempura paint into plastic cups, tracing chalk outlines of cats onto twenty-two pieces of black construction paper, sorting and preparing Scholastic book club fliers, and alphabetizing field trip permission slips. All this while watching the class and observing the students. The best question anyone asked me, from a boy in the class: "Are you Mr. Phoebe?" "Yes, I'm Mr. Phoebe." "I knew it!"

I also accompanied the class to recess, which the kindergarteners get only twice a week. On Fridays recess overlaps with the third-grade recess, so Phoebe gets to spend about ten minutes playing with her sister, Elizabeth. I also helped escort the kids to their computer lab. (Yes, computer lab for kindergarten, with each kid working at their own workstation.) I'd like to point out that even though the kids are all gifted, that doesn't mean they're well-behaved. In fact, in some cases, it seems to be the opposite, as in how sometimes the smartest breeds of dogs are the hardest to train due to their high-energy and attention-hungry natures. Hats off to Mrs. Anderson, Phoebe's teacher, for the way she manages some of those little tykes.

After kindergarten duty, I sat out in the hallway waiting for the third-grade lunch to start and chatted with another father doing the same thing. (I wasn't the only one in the school with a "visitor" sticker on my shirt. There was a small, but noticeable, cadre of us today. I'm not sure if it was partly because it was a Friday, but I do know that our elementary school has a high level of parental involvement. It's one of the things we like about it.) The other Dad, Mr. Samuel, is an Ethiopian who came to the U.S. twelve years ago. We talked about kids learning typing skills in elementary school. I learned in high school, he learned in college. We agreed that learning to type is essential. Mr. Samuel mentioned that when he lived in Ethiopia, typing was considered something only women did. He said that almost no one in his country used computers back then, but hears that that has changed, and now kids in Eithiopia are all computer whizzes. He talked about working for the electricity and power authority, feeding punch cards into a mainframe computer the size of a small house. I talked about when our family got our first computer twenty years ago. It was a Radio Shack TRS-80 that loaded software via a cassette tape player. Then our kids came and we accompanied them separately to the school cafeteria.

After leaving the school, I grabbed a gas station convenience store hot dog on the way home, smothered with mustard, jalepenos, chili and cheez. One of my biggest vices is my fondness for convenience store hotdogs. When I got home, I read a little bit of The Goblet of Fire—trying to finish a re-read before the movie comes out—and took a nap on the couch. (These are activities worthy of my station in life.) Overheard yesterday morning at the federal courthouse waiting for a court hearing that fell on my last day of work, by an attorney probably ten years my senior: "What I want to know is whether Snape is really evil or not." On a related note, we finally relented to letting Elizabeth reading the latest Harry Potter book, which she began today.

After my son and I woke up from our naps, the whole family shuffled back and forth from the dance studio where my daughters take dance classes, mixing drop offs with errands. Later that night, we went to a local chain restaurant and shared a platter of angel hair pasta with artichokes, olives and capers.

It was a good day.

Picture taken by one of my daughters during the drive to school, demonstrating that tastes in photographic composition—including a fascination with water towers—may be hereditary.

Picture taken by Phoebe of her sister Elizabeth writing in her journal on the way to school, demonstrating that blogging tendencies may be hereditary.

Some of my work product of which I am particularly proud.

Phoebe and unruly classmates lined up for computer lab.

Kindergarten students at computer lab.

Phoebe socializing with friends at recess.

« minimize

11:26 PM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

So speculates Matt Barr ("Is Olson being careful what he says for a reason?").

5:18 PM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Breaking the Silence

2:38 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

What's the difference between what Bill Bennett said yesterday, and what Steve Levitt wrote in Freakonomics?

Here's Bennett:

If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.

And here's Levitt, pages 138-139:

One study has shown that the typical child who went unborn in the earliest years of legalized abortion would have been 50 percent more likely than average to live in poverty; he would have also been 60 percent more likely to grow up with just one parent. These two factors—childhood poverty and a single-parent household—are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future ... In the early 1990s, just as the first cohort of children born after Roe v. Wade was hitting its late teen years—the years during which young men enter their criminal prime—the rate of crime began to fall.

Levitt wrote that abortions by poor people did cause a crime rate drop. Bennett said that abortions by black people would cause a crime rate drop. If we agree that black people are much more likely to be poor than other groups in this country, then I don't see how one can agree with what Levitt wrote without also agreeing with what Bennett said.

As you might recall, around the time Freakonomics came out, there was much blogsphere discussion about that specific chapter of Levitt's book on the crime implications of Roe. A subtext of the argument was that conservatives found it morally reprehensible that Levitt's argument would be used as support for legalized abortion, while the other side was essentially saying, "facts are facts". We'll see whether people on both sides stick to their guns, or shamelessly switch sides, now that the discussion has gone from one sacred cow to another.

7:58 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Over at Tapped, Garance Franke-Ruta offers up the "Yoga test":

And if your male friends do yoga, too, well then, that's about all that needs saying about what community you're living in. You might as well be eating flax seeds.

Get thee to a studio ASAP. Maybe not in D.C. Maybe somewhere a little more palatable. Anywhere. I feel truly sorry for those who see themselves as the last bastion against Yoga. Maybe against certain styles or certain studios, but the practise itself is all about self-calibration. It's silly to take a stand against that.

As to Garance's point, I think she's right on. I recall way way back, once upon a time, Mr. Punditji referenced a yoga strap. Oddly, I don't think I've ever seen any other Yoga references from him since then.

3:23 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

Can we all agree that when someone is relying on the National Enquirer for dirt on the president, he's probably letting his hatred for Bush get the best of his judgment? Does this mean Mark Kleiman also believes all those tabloid stories about Hillary as a lesbian?

8:06 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Vance

While most people's memory of hurricane Katrina will be the flood waters of New Orleans, the memories of Rita will likely be miles and miles of cars in a traffic jam. Hopefully this will change the misguided concept of mandatory evacuations.

Paul Burka, the executive editor of Texas Monthly, hits the right points in his article in this morning's Wall Street Journal. His article doesn't really address the separate issue of the economic costs and benefits of evacuation, though. Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen explored potential solutions, but I think he makes things unnecessarily complex in this instance.

There are clear costs to evacuation. There is the significant cost of time, transportation, and obtaining alternative accommodations, just to name a few. For some people, those costs are greater than the risk of staying at home. By forcing those people on the road with a mandatory evacuation, you unnecessarily increase the costs for everyone. The easiest solution is never to issue mandatory evacuations. Instead, if an ominous storm approaches, try and keep the populace as informed as possible. As the risk of a storm hitting gradually increases, the for whom this crosses the risk/reward threshold will leave. This will prevent the worst of the traffic jams, because the mandatory evacuation forces people across this risk/reward threshold before their personal threshold would be crossed.

If the risk increases so much that the probability of devastation is high, make sure the populace understands that. Provide public transportation in this instance for people that cannot provide their own transportation. For people that choose to stay behind, make sure that they understand that they should not expect the cavalry to come any time soon if the worst-case scenario happens.

Often the simplest solutions are the best solutions, and I think this is one of those cases.

11:07 AM | Link | Economics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

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Posted by Tom

According to the EFF, the MPAA is once again attempting to sneak the broadcast flag into law via an unrelated bill. They pulled the same stunt last June with an appropriations bill; this time it's a budget reconciliation bill. Public outcry short-circuited their last attempt. Let's hope the same thing happens this time.

It would take an extremely unorthodox conception of democracy to think that this is how the legislative process is supposed to work. It also seems like a pretty bad tactical move for the MPAA. Yes, I'm sure this sort of thing happens all the time — but presumably for legislation that doesn't cripple voters' Tivos. People are going to notice the implementation of the broadcast flag. It's too late for the MPAA to sneak this past us. If they have their hearts set on the broadcast flag, they're going to have to sell us on it. I don't envy them the task.

8:19 PM | Link | Technology | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

M. Brown:

Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications.

The FEMA regs (44 CFR § 206.34):

During the immediate aftermath of an incident which may ultimately qualify for a Presidential declaration of a major disaster or emergency, when threats to life and property are present which cannot be effectively dealt with by the State or local governments, the Associate Director may direct DoD to utilize DoD personnel and equipment for removal of debris and wreckage and temporary restoration of essential public facilities and services.

Update: I forgot to mention also that the now-discredited reports of anarchy were one of many justifications for why US armed forces could not intervene. Check out, for example, this Fox News report:

WILSON:Only a governor can order the state's National Guard troops to back up local police at such times. The president can send in U.S. military personnel, but they may not operate in a law enforcement capacity, a point made by the secretary of defense on Sunday.

RUMSFELD: The Department of Defense is not involved in law enforcement in the state of Louisiana. We're here to assist with evacuation. We're here to assist with humanitarian activities.

WILSON: That's because of a legal doctrine known as Posse Comitatus, which has been on the books since the 1870s. The experts we spoke with today said that state and local planners should always operate under the assumption that, in a major natural disaster, it will take 48 hours for the federal government to respond in a meaningful way.

The call never came, administration officials said, in part because military officials believed Guard troops would get to the stricken region faster and because administration civilians worried that there could be political fallout if federal troops were forced to shoot looters.

Now, as it turns out, there wasn't really any mass anarchy to deal with anyway. All those commentators (and bloggers) talking about Posse Comitatus may want to reconsider that one.

2:18 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Andrew Sullivan describes grieving mother Mary Tillman as "[a] far more credible person with some serious questions about the death of her son in combat," and describes a few of Pat Tillman's hobbies. When you get right down to it, Sullivan is saying is that he simply prefers the aesthetics of Pat Tillman's death to Casey Sheehan's death. That sounds like a deplorable sentiment, but it's the kind of cold analysis that enters the political calculus once symbolic figures are introduced.

But Sullivan isn't talking about Cindy Sheehan's viability as a political figureheard, he's talking about her credibility with regard to the "serious questions about the death of her son in combat" in contradistinction to Ma Tillman's credibility vis-a-vis the same. It ought to be clear that Cindy Sheehan got all the credibility she could ever ask for to talk about her son's death when her son died—her politically unpalatable opinions of PNAC nothwithstanding (and, in fact, not relevant whatsoever). Sullivan is ultimately saying that it would make him feel better if a pair he liked more were to take up the grieving mother/dead soldier mantle. That has to be one of the more subtle but absolutely vile things I've read in reference to Sheehan.

2:10 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

After releasing just three albums that sold a few thousand copies each—I can never remember if it was the Velvet Underground or Big Star that Lester Bangs was writing about when he said that every single person that bought one of their albums went out and started a band of their own*—Big Star is reforming and putting out a new album. This
review at Pop Culture Press has the skinny:

A couple of years back, Alex Chilton told his fellow members of Big Star that he really wanted to do an album of new Big Star material 'with this band.' And that's the key ingredient in this record's success -- the decision to make the record was made by Chilton with the others' enthusiastic agreement -- they didn't even have a record label, and didn't really know if anyone would put it out, much less agree to let them have complete artistic control of the end result. And it's with great pleasure that Big Star In Space can be counted an artistic success. Now, whether anyone buys it remains to be seen. There is, after all, a more enormous hurdle of preconceptions to be dealt with than any reunion since The Beatles or The Jam (both of whom resisted the urge to reform, at least partly due to those very preconceptions).

Even though the review blockquoted above is favorable, I'm apprehensive. The first three albums have such a lightening-in-a-bottle feel to them that I can't imagine something else measuring up. I am certainly glad that they pulled Alex Chilton off of his New Orleans rooftop. Absolutely. He's never been the dead-cult-idol-type, a la Ian Curtis or Nick Drake. (And anyway, even if Big Star did need that slot filled—which it didn't—Chris Bell already has that covered.) In fact, part of his mystique is that he never went anywhere. He's still out there, somewhere, singing with that perfect rock voice. Maybe because Big Star seems like such fragile genius, I've never really felt compelled to buy his solo albums. Still, I'll check it out and hope for the best. And hey, The Soft Boys' first album together in over twenty years turned out to be quite good, so that's encouraging.

9:55 PM | Link | Music | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

Over the past week the movie Serenity got a lot of good free publicity from bloggers by offering us free tickets to an advanced screening. Now I think they deserve a bit of bad publicity.

After signing up for the screening, I received this email from Grace Hill Media yesterday:

9:24 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

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Posted by Venkat

Newsweek catches a serious trend: Artisans: They've devoted their lives to creating exquisite food with the best ingredients. Now, thanks to the Internet, they're taking their passion nationwide:

Twenty years ago you couldn't find an unprocessed loaf of bread to save your life. Now, hearth-backed breads are sold everywhere. Remember that processed orange stuff that was American cheese? Today hundreds of superb local practitioners make American cheese of great refinement.

The Internet has been very, very good for artisanal producers, and the only out-let for those too small to wholesale. Sure, you could go to local farmers markets, as June Taylor still does every Saturday at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza, talking to customers, because "we're in an upward struggle in the world. We need to support the community." Here, volume's beside the point. All the action's at junetaylorjams.com.

3:14 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

It's a bit natural to get out of hand with rhetoric. It's expected. That is, after all, what rhetoric is about. Still, this post over at Captain's Quarters is a classic study of how easy it is to get out of hand with it:

ANSWER has a long history of supporting repressive and brutal regimes such as Kim's and Saddam's, and have positioned themselves as neo-Stalinists as a result. . . .

That doesn't mean that everyone who attends these rallies lacks sincerity in the message. It should warn them, though, that continued association with such groups will eventually destroy their credibility. Apologists for dictators do not have any moral standing for protesting American foreign policy.

Even still, if you want to go down that road and play the hypocrisy or the 'inaction' game it's hard to not be derailed by headlines like this ("Bush Waives Saudi Trafficking Sanctions") or this ("From Patriot to Proliferator" ("Musharraf negotiated Khan's final surrender: The scientist would confess on television to unspecified proliferation in exchange for keeping his wealth and strict confinement to his home.")) [reg. required].

What a joke.

2:40 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

Universal Studios is giving out free movie tickets to advanced screenings of Serenity next Tuesday in theaters all over the country. († Chris Lawrence) I've never seen Firefly but I probably will get the DVDs in the months ahead.

5:50 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

That's the preface, written by one "Consituent from New Mexico," to the Republican Study Committee's report (PDF) for "Operation Offset," the program through which the GOP is slashing spending in order to facilitate the reconstruction costs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (and likely, as becomes more menacingly clear by the minute, Hurricane Rita). The list of targets for trimming include all the traditional GOP bêtes noires, including the arts, which are afforded special hostility:

Eliminate Funding for the National Endowment of the Arts
The NEA funds art programs and initiatives through grants to various entities. In 2001, America spent $27 billion on non-profit arts funding: $11.5 billion from the private sector; $14 billion in earned income (ticket sales, etc.); and $1.3 billion in combined federal, state, and local public support (of which $105 million was from the NEA (0.39% of total non-profit arts funding)). The funding could easily be funded by private donations. Savings: $1.8 billion over ten years ($678 million over five years)

Eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities [sic]
The NEH funds humanities programs and initiatives through grants to various entities. As with the NEA, the general public benefits very little from NEA [sic], and it could easily be funded by private donations. Savings: $2 billion over ten years ($769 million over five years) [bold emphasis mine]

Why not mandate that federal dollars dog-eared for NEA and NEH be redirected toward Gulf Coast arts restoration projects for the next few years? If the idea is to rebuild New Orleans, this work must be done anyway, insofar as you want a N'awleans and not a Shreveport. If the idea is to rebuild New Orleans as a much better city, greater effort should be made to bring some equity to the quality of life of the artists who add so much value to the city. A federal priority to restore New Oreans must include spending on culture.

Does anyone doubt that by "the general public benefits very little" the RSC means "Piss Christ, Piss Christ, Piss Christ"? You can review recent NEA grants by three categories (excellence fellowships [1], infrastructure partnerships [2], and Challenge America grants [3]) by state, and I think you'd be hard pressed to say that Texans and Louisianans aren't benefitting from NEA projects in their respective states. Take a look: Texas (1, 2, 3); Louisiana (1, 2, 3). The irritating myth that the NEA funds decadence and deviance really must be stopped before conservatives muck up the very programs that their own constituents highly value but cannot realistically subsidize.

We can go line by line through those items: It won't be the NYC gallery crowd who suffers when Brownfield, TX, loses the Rialto Brownfield Bluegrass Festival. At the same time, the whole nation benefits from San Antonio's ArtPace artist residency program. I don't see so much fat to trim here, and I'm sure I'll be far less convinced once the damage from Katrina and Rita has been tallied.

(Cross-posted at Grammar.police)

12:34 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

I woke up this morning to news reports that Rita's predicted path has shifted to the east, meaning she's headed straight toward me. She'll most likely be a tropical storm by the time she gets here, but I think it's a safe bet I can turn off my sprinkler system for the weekend.

Good thing Allison's prepared. At Wal-Mart last night, there wasn't a gallon of water to be had.

11:17 AM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

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Posted by Steve

Harry Reid announced he will vote against the confirmation of John Roberts.

Perhaps this is calculated as token opposition to a candidate expected to be easily confirmed. Maybe it's a throwaway vote to reassure the Democratic Party faithful that their soft spoken Senate minority leader is no lapdog of the Bush administration. We would not have expected the confirmation vote to be unanimous anyway, would we?

But on the other hand...

If a conservative Democrat from a conservative state will not vote for the eminently qualified Roberts, who will he vote for? Here's Reid's explanation:

Explaining his decision on Judge Roberts, Mr. Reid said in his Senate speech that he simply had "too many unanswered questions" about the nominee, who he complained had refused to distance himself from seemingly callous writings while a lawyer for the Reagan administration, including a memorandum in which he used the term "illegal amigos" to refer to illegal immigrants.

"I'm not too sure," Mr. Reid later told reporters, "if his heart is as big as his head."

I am inclined to believe Reid's vote is intended to be symbolic because his stated reason cannot possibly be the real reason. It will be extremely interesting to see how the Democratic members of the Gang of 14 vote.

If large numbers of Democrats follow Reid's lead and vote against Roberts, the message to Bush will be brutally clear: there is no absolutely no reason to try to please the Senate Democrats, because they will oppose you for the sake of opposing. You might as well nominate someone solidly conservative, preferably young and with no family history of heart disease.

8:01 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

Cobb:

Now is the time for all good Reparationists to thank God for Katrina and thank George W. Bush for 60 Billion dollars.

More:

[T]he President of the United States has said unequivicably that New Orleans is too important to abandon. He's giving away money. Let me repeat that. He's giving away money. You don't have a job? Here's $5000 for training. You don't have a house? Here's free government land so you can build a new one. You need a place to stay in the mean time? Here's $600 a month for 6 months. All that on top of unemployment insurance, Social Security and all the other entitlements. This, ladies and gentlemen is field day, and don't think that Conservatives aren't bitching under their breath.

The same people who couldn't stand the idea of victims of September 11th getting government money, can't stand the idea of Katrina victims getting government money. I know that some Lefty blacks from the Coalition of the Damned can't take any pride unless they feel that their successes are costing whitefolks a pound of flesh. I assure you that teeth are gnashing. But that changes nothing. Step up to the trough ladies and gentlemen. It's feeding time.

Cobb is always provocative and thoughtful, but I think this analogy is severely limited. Sure, hurricane relief is reparations for something, and perhaps most of its beneficiaries will be black (though I think that remains to be seen). But it's not the sort of reparations we speak of when we speak of reparations. It is not intended make up for hundreds of years of slavery and discrimination, and it is not to be distributed on the basis of race.

Labeling hurricane relief "reparations" is a disservice to both sides of the reparations debate. It sidesteps the aims of the pro-reparations movement (those who Cobb suggests want their "pound of flesh"). Meanwhile, if welfare counts, the anti-reparations crowd an argument that the bill is already paid.

It's better, I think, to debate reparations on the terms its advocates choose. There's plenty enough reason to reject it for what it is. Why pretend it is something else?

12:01 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

A few observations as week 3 of glorious, glorious NCAA football winds to a close:

1:29 AM | Link | Sports | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

Lisa de Moraes, who writes, among other things, excellent pieces of television criticism for the Washington Post, has a thoroughly unfair article in today's edition. Labelling the upcoming television lineup "the Season of Die, Women, Die!", de Moraes snappily swings through a tableau of televised female suffering, insensitive network executives, and bumbling, inarticulate writers.

But although she evokes sympathy for the on-screen victims and ire for the architects of their plight, she's strangely careful not to spell out what dynamic she thinks is at work, instead opting for sarcastic but unilluminating variations on Hmm... why ever could this be?

She gets closest to showing her hand here:

...did you know that last season's highest-rated scripted, live-action series among males ages 18 to 34 were "Desperate Housewives," an ABC prime-time soap about a bunch of forty-something hotties on suburban Wisteria Lane, and "CSI"?

Surprising, huh?

From which, we conclude, young men like their older women in teddies having sex with teenagers who cut their grass (or, in the case of Teri Hatcher, naked and in the bushes), but they like their younger women -- well, dead.

Calling this uncharitable would be a colossal understatement.

The implication that some sublimated form of misogyny is responsible for televised violence against women is a charge that requires a bit more proof than mere eyebrow-raising. The simple fact: in our still-inequitable society, women continue to regarded as things — and I use that word intentionally — to be cherished and protected. There is no doubt this attitude can be problematic, heavily intertwined as it is with the Madonna/Whore complex. But it is a stretch to attribute to it the sort of ignobility and malice that de Moraes seems to perceive.

The Damsel in Distress is a pretty well-established archetype — and that's all that's really going on here. CSI and its ilk have ushered in a fad for gruesome police procedurals. It shouldn't be surprising that these shows try to outgun one another in shock value. Nor should it be surprising that a woman in danger remains an image well-suited to shocking.

The writers, directors and executives that are responsibile for depicting violence against women may indeed be misogynists intent on venting their bile via the small screen. It's possible. But it seems much more likely to me that they're just hacks.

12:40 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Vance

I've disagreed with former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall before, but in this opinion piece (subscription required) for the Wall Street Journal, he's spot on. Chapter 11 is indeed killing the airline industry. As Crandall notes:

In bankruptcy, airlines renegotiate aircraft and facility leases, disavow selected contractual obligations, revise or abrogate labor contracts, and even repudiate pension obligations -- all the while continuing to operate. Airlines often remain in bankruptcy for extended periods of time.

Chapter 11 also protects inefficient, unprofitable capacity, since aircraft are always worth more in the air than on the ground. Without Chapter 11, failed airlines might have to liquidate, selling off their physical and operating assets. This would remove capacity from the system and restore some measure of pricing power to the industry's remaining participants.

Chapter 11 also undermines responsible managements. In an intensely competitive industry providing a commodity product, the "dumbest competitor" -- unrestrained by fear of failure -- sets the standard.

Granted, Crandall is quite biased in this discussion, as his allegiances lie with American Airlines, one of the few remaining carriers that isn't in bankruptcy. But his point is valid.

2:41 PM | Link | Economics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Kudos to the Governator for banning 'sodas' from high schools.† The reaction of one Bakersfield High School student:

“You just need the caffeine to get through the day,” said BHS student Carly Journey.

If we don't get our act together with respect to American youth, we're gonna be hurting. I can't ever see a kid from another country saying something as crazy as that. As an immigrant who achieved success in this country Arnold knows that. Again, kudos to him.

† Kudos to Coke and Pepsi for instituting a similar ban in "U.S. middle schools." Although why they were there in the first place I'm not sure.

4:25 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

I saw the first episode of Bones Tuesday night. It was pretty good but nothing special, though that's probably because I have no love for CSI-type shows and I watched it only because of David Boreanaz. The premise is that a forensic anthropologist (Emily Deschanel) teams up with an FBI agent (Boreanaz) to solve crimes in cases where bones are the only clues to the case. And yes, big surprise, there's some sexual tension between the two. Deschanel plays the Mulder role of someone obsessed with her job because of her family history, except that she's the logical one. Boreanaz is pretty much the Angel character of someone who tries to redeems his past by saving people, except he's no longer undead and he no longer gets the good lines that the Buffy/Angel writers give him. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but at a few points of the show there'd be dialogue between the two and I'd expect some snappy line to end the scene, but it never comes and it usually ends with the Typical Poignant Dramatical Line.

Elsewhere, the commenters at Volokh are having fun with guessing what's in the hatch in Lost based on the clues the show's people have given elsewhere. Spoilers obviously.

11:28 AM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

In mid-October 1856, Rock Creek, Wyoming, things were nearly as bad as they could get. Winter had come early, eighteen inches of snow lay on the ground, food had run out entirely and the members of the Willie Handcart Company were quickly dying. The pioneers in the company tried to dig into the hillside to protect themselves from the harsh weather, but on the evening of October 17, thirteen people passed away. They were buried in a shallow common grave, with the bodies arranged in a circle, heads out and feet to the center. Mary Hurren, eight years old at the time, remembered her father, James Hurren, lifting her up so that she could see into the grave, where one of her playmates lay dead. The next day, two of the men who helped dig the grave also died, and James Hurren dug a grave for those men as well.

The ill-fated Willie Handcart Company, together with the even-worse-fated Martin Handcart Company, which left a little bit later that same year, suffered more than any other group of Mormon pioneers. Horrible luck and random circumstances combined to make things extremely hard on the Willie Company. A grasshopper plague the previous year had badly hurt Utah Territory's economy and diminished the early settler's ability to contribute to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, the pool of money used by the LDS Church to provide financial assistance to converts from around the world (but mostly Europe) to make the overland journey to Utah. It was decided by Church leaders to encourage the use of handcarts, rather than covered wagons, to make the thousand-mile trip from the banks of the Missouri River in Iowa and eastern Nebraska to the Salt Lake Valley. Using handcarts—wooden framed vehicles that were either pushed or pulled down the wagon trail—expenses could be cut by a third to a half, meaning more pioneers could make the journey for the same expense.

9:04 AM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Michelle Malkin:

I am not an architect, but here is my 9/11 architectural philosophy: War memorials should memorialize war. If you want peace and understanding and healing and good will toward all, go build Kabbalah centers.

I am not an architect.

3:53 PM | Link | Culture | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

I'm a fan of Roberts, mostly because of his incredibly smooth presentation and his calm and levelheaded demeanor in public. Like everyone else I guess he will be easily confirmed. And I hope that he opens up SCOTUS oral arguments via TV to the public.

But yesterday's questioning highlighted one odd fact. He failed to recuse himself in an extremely important case with the administration (and the President) on one side while he was being considered for the job by the administration. (See Slate here† and WSJ here† for more on this. As noted in the Slate article:

The nominee's Aug. 2 answers to a Senate questionnaire reveal that Roberts had several interviews with administration officials contemporaneous with the progress of the Hamdan appeal. One occurred even before the appeal was argued. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales interviewed the judge on April 1. Back then, it was an ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, not Justice O'Connor, who was expected to retire. The attorney general, of course, heads the Justice Department, which represents the defendants in Hamdan's case. And as White House counsel, Gonzales had advised the president on the requirements of the Geneva Conventions, which were an issue in the case.

A separate issue entirely is whether the administration broke any rules here.

† Marty Schwimmer

1:10 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

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Posted by Venkat

Matt Barr took a look at the numbers—which Justices voted in favor of Roberts's position, and how often:

Here are the percentages of the time Justices voted in Roberts' favor, current members of the Court (excluding O'Connor, who won't serve with him) first, then retired members. Format is percentage-slash-number of cases:

Scalia .825/20
Rehnquist .775/20
Kennedy .750/20
Thomas .750/10
Souter .679/14
Breyer .333/3
Stevens .275/20
Ginsburg .000/3

O'Connor .775/20
White .647/17
Blackmun .471/17
Marshall .400/10
Brennan .200/5

Still, it's pretty interesting.

5:53 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Seriously, if this isn't proof positive that Islamofascists have infiltrated into the deepest core of our society I'm not sure really what we can do for you.

If, like me, you are a bit confused, click below the link for an explanation.

3:10 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

Amy Sullivan, who is always particularly insightful when she's writing about politics from a religious angle, has written some spot-on commentary at Washington Monthly about the biggest obstacle standing between Gov. Mitt Romney and the White House:

But moderate Republicans aren't the ones who could derail a Romney candidacy. His obstacle is the evangelical base—a voting bloc that now makes up 30 percent of the Republican electorate and that wields particular influence in primary states like South Carolina and Virginia. Just as it is hard to overestimate the importance of evangelicalism in the modern Republican Party, it is nearly impossible to overemphasize the problem evangelicals have with Mormonism. Evangelicals don't have the same vague anti-LDS prejudice that some Americans do. For them it's a doctrinal thing, based on very specific theological disputes that can't be overcome by personality or charm or even shared positions on social issues. Romney's journalistic boosters either don't understand these doctrinal issues or try to sidestep them. But ignoring them won't make them go away. To evangelicals, Mormonism isn't just another religion. It's a cult.

In the past, when asked about Romney's chances, I've reached the same conclusions and given the same response as Sullivan. Romney's biggest challenge will come during the Republican primaries, with South Carolina (home of Bob Jones University) as his most likely Waterloo. Republicans, after all, have to be able to carry the themselves well among the reddest residents of the reddest states. As much as I'd like to believe that religious affiliation doesn't play a large role in national politics, I just don't. Romney may be the best Republican candidate available, but I think he's unlikely to make it far in the primaries.

Although I highly recommend Sullivan's article, I have one small factual nit to pick. In what can only be a typographical mistake of syntax, Sullivan refers to Romney as "the first Mormon to run for president." I can only think she intended to say that if Romney is "the first Mormon to successfully run for president," he'll have to change a lot of minds. Sullivan herself notes that Orrin Hatch ran as recently as last election cycle. And, of course, the governor's father, George Romney made a pretty good run at the White House until a verbal gaffe (i.e., saying that he had been "brain washed" into supporting the Vietnam War) derailed his campaign. Of course, the "first Mormon to run for president" would be Joseph Smith, who declared his candidacy in 1844.

1:38 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Jeff Goldstein repeats the now ubiquitous charge (in some parts) that:

[Gov. Blanco only] asked for troops on Wednesday. . . [and refused] to give up control to the feds.

These are important distinctions apparantly lost on a Beltway Type such as yourself. In your ramblings, you simultaneously condemn apparent inaction by FEMA and other Federal agencies, but don't want the Feds to "invade" a State without being asked to bring in whatever authority and disaster relief they may have. It is apparent that Michael Brown shouldn't be allowed within 100 miles of any FEMA authority. Probably the best person to head FEMA would be someone accustomed to responding to such situations-a high ranking member of our Armed Forces. But you, being of the Left, would probably oppose that.

12:34 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

It seems odd for the NYT to run this dredging up of the goings on at Tora Bora-post 9-11 on the fourth anniversary of 9-11, but it's nevertheless worth reading. The US policy at Tora Bora of delegating the fight on the ground to its proxies seems no different than its policy in years past (recounted in detail in Ghost Wars). Still, given the rage the country felt, it's odd how few American troops were engaged in the battles of Tora Bora:

Indeed, by December 2001, when the final battle of Tora Bora took place, the cave complex had been so refined that it was said to have its own ventilation system and a power system created by a series of hydroelectric generators; bin Laden is believed to have designed the latter. Tora Bora's walls and the floors of its hundreds of rooms were finished and smooth and extended some 350 yards into the granite mountain that enveloped them.

Now, as the last major battle of the war in Afghanistan began, hidden from view inside the caves were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 well-trained, well-armed men. A mile below, at the base of the caves, some three dozen U.S. Special Forces troops fanned out. They were the only ground forces that senior American military leaders had committed to the Tora Bora campaign.

11:40 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

How can this happen?

The most hellish image in New Orleans was not the battering waves of Lake Pontchartrain or even the homeless children wandering on raised highways. It was the forgotten thousands crammed into the fetid depths of the Superdome. And what most news outlets failed to report was that those infernos were not designed by the people within, nor did they represent the spontaneous eruption of nature red in tooth and claw. They were created by the authorities. The people within were not allowed to leave. The Convention Center and the Superdome became open prisons. “They won't let them walk out,” reported Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, in a radical departure from the script. “They got locked in there. And anyone who walks up out of that city now is turned around. You are not allowed to go to Gretna, Louisiana, from New Orleans, Louisiana. Over there, there's hope. Over there, there's electricity. Over there, there is food and water. But you cannot go from here to there. The government will not allow you to do it. It's a fact.” Jesse Jackson compared the Superdome to the hull of a slave ship. People were turned back at the Gretna bridge by armed authorities, men who fired warning shots over the growing crowd. Men in control. Lorrie Beth Slonsky and Larry Bradshaw, paramedics in New Orleans for a conference, wrote in an email report (now posted at CounterPunch) that they saw hundreds of stranded tourists thus turned back. “All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot.” That was not anarchy, nor was it civil society.

Look here for video of Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith emotionally confirming that people stranded in New Orleans were not allowed to leave.

1:50 AM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Brown has been demoted. He has been replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad w. Allen. I'm not sure whether this precludes the formation of a "Katrina czar," a subject of much discussion today (especially in connection with a certain former mayor of NYC).

UPDATE: Spoke too soon—he hasn't been demoted. He's leaving for Washington, but the official word is that he's going where the need is greater: "The department said Brown was returning to Washington to manage FEMA's national operations because it is still hurricane season." Even if Chertoff can't admit Brown's incompetence, I'm glad to see that Brown's been taken out of the mix.

1:48 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

I got the feeling this NYT piece ("Political Issues Snarled Plans for Troop Aid") painted an unnecessarily blurry picture of the legal tug of war resulting in the slow deployment of federal resources in the aftermath. After second thought I think I understand why. The piece notes:

Aides to Ms. Blanco said she was prepared to accept the deployment of active-duty military officials in her state. But she and other state officials balked at giving up control of the Guard as Justice Department officials said would have been required by the Insurrection Act if those combat troops were to be sent in before order was restored.

[update: Jeff Goldstein has more. I don't know for sure but I don't think I agree on the legal points. He notes "[f]irst of, on Monday, New Orleans was manifestly not a “war zone,” which leads me to believe Ms. Blanco’s mental timeline is off a bit." If it's not a "war zone" (i.e., no law and order) deplying DoD resources "for removal of debris and wreckage and temporary restoration of essential public facilities and services" is clearly authorized by the FEMA rules. Either way, sure looks like something that should be clarified legislatively if there's any doubt.]

3:47 AM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Now that I'm finally seeing the season opener of precious, precious NFL football—the digital cable was on the blitz for no fewer than three quarters—I have two questions. Did Pats owner Robert Kraft ever get his ring back from Pooty-Poot? And can we really let the Brady Bunch take the field before the team proves that its front office isn't funneling Super Bowl rings to the Russian underground?

12:20 AM | Link | Sports | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Of course, leave it up to Howard Bashman to notice.

Thanks!! That made my day.

[My earlier post on the oral argument here. You can access the decision of the Washington Court of Appeals here.]

2:31 PM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Oh, vomit. This is disgusting:

House and Senate GOP leaders announced the "Hurricane Katrina Joint Review Committee," which will include only members of Congress, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats by a yet-to-be-determined ratio. The commission, which will have subpoena powers, will investigate the actions of local, state and federal governments before and after the storm that devastated New Orleans and other portions of the Gulf Coast.

"Congress is actively responding to the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said in a statement released during an appearance attended only by Republicans, after an all-GOP planning session.

Having the federal government determine how to divy the blame between itself and state/local governments—particularly when the difference falls along partisan faults—is the sort of Soviet, anti-transparency crock that only this congressional Republican leadership could devise. You'd think that the famously industry-cozy GOP would be more familiar with the concept of an independent audit. A child wouldn't endorse this plan; it ensures that we will not meaningfully improve our disaster-response mechanism.

UPDATE: Hilzoy offers some great words about how the much-bemoaned "blame game" serves to bolster accountability and good governance. I'm sure her essay would read like Sanskrit to Frist and Hastert.

UPDATE II: The SF Chronicle reports: "'I do not believe that the committee proposed by Speaker Hastert and Senator Frist is in the best interest of the American people,' said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Both he and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said they would not appoint members to the panel as currently contemplated."

11:34 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Though I may disagree with them frequently and on any number of significant issues of the day, I don't doubt that the people of other political affiliations with whom I interact are for the most part reasonable and deserving of my respect. I count libertarians, (a couple of) Republicans, and even some anti-globalization liberals among my friends. I've heard it said here in D.C. more than once that it takes some time before liberals realize that not all conservatives have fangs.

That said, there's another deep divide in this nation, a conflict that has carved the country roughly into three camps. I'll have no truck with two of them. It is deeply dispiriting to know that vast swaths of the nation lack any sense of moral clarity whatsoever, that people can possess such ignorant and, frankly, self-destructive views, but the fact remains.

One courageous scientist [scientific team, that is —ed.] has attempted to assemble quantitative data to gauge the depravity of the nation. His data are crude but shocking nevertheless: The results are presented below, by county, in map form.

2:21 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Brian Williams of MSNBC checks in with a post describing a sudden proliferation of police and National Guard figures in New Orleans and some unexpected consequences from the ersatz militarization of the disaster zone. Williams describes one case in which "a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads." [Ellipses his.] That's an awful story, and the soldier was reprimanded. The hope is that we won't hear about any more violent conflicts between the people there whom we all know only want to help in a very, very difficult time.

Tempers are prone to flash—but by whose authority are police and National Guard officials declaring search and rescue efforts off limits to the media?

1:12 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

Taking a break from Katrina, here's my annual leap at the opportunity to embarrass myself with NFL predictions. Last year's are here, the comments are amusing too. Also, Forbes has its annual look at the business side of the NFL.

11:10 PM | Link | Sports | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Every attempt I've read to explain the evacuation holdouts generally seeks to assign rational, if unreasonable, motives to these individuals—that folks refuse to flee without their pets or are afraid that their homes will be looted, for example. I wonder if there aren't more plausible macro-level explanations that have to do with the psychological and sociological dimension of disasters.

1:25 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Vance

Finding a politician that is complaining about the price of gasoline in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is like shooting fish in a barrel. In Oregon, Senator Gordon Smith says consumers "are being victimized more than any free market would warrant." Senator Hillary Clinton is even more forthcoming, saying, "I want to go after the oil companies and the oil speculators and the manipulators of the money, because they're the ones who I think are really behind this." Over in Washington state, Senator Maria wants to investigate the price gouging oil companies. So does Senator Ben Nelson.

There's one small problem with all of this bluster; none of them have any evidence at all to support their cries of price manipulation.

1:11 PM | Link | Economics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

As noted below, FEMA regulations allow DoD resources to be used in these types of emergency situations for the "temporary restoration of essential public facilities and services." A DoD release notes that "DoD Response Began Before Katrina Made Landfall."

Rumsfeld must have been frantically working the blackberry . . . from the Padres game . . . on Monday. Not terribly inspiring from the man who "is responsible for directing the actions of the Defense Department in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001."

3:18 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

Bits of this Newsweek story ("The Lost City") paints a picture as if the few administration folks who were actually around were busy lawyering it up as Katrina hit.

The Newsweek story notes:

For days, Bush's top advisers argued over legal niceties about who was in charge, according to three White House officials who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. Beginning early in the week, Justice Department lawyers presented arguments for federalizing the Guard, but Defense Department lawyers fretted about untrained 19-year-olds trying to enforce local laws, according to a senior law-enforcement official who requested anonymity citing the delicate nature of the discussions.

It's one thing to listen to an administration crying about having to dot its i's, when it acts the same way across all levels in response to perceived legal constraints. It's another thing entirely to listen to an administration which doesn't hesitate to push the envelope (take your pick, from arguing to the Supreme Court that it needs to detain people for national security reasons that it later releases to sweeping aside the Geneva Convention as an . . . I forget what the word was, "anachronism?"). It's tough to deny that expansion of the scope of executive powers is one of the hallmarks of this administration. While existing laws probably allow the President to snap into action in the face of a national disaster regardless of what state and local goverments are doing (you can surely envision a terror scenario that leaves behind no state or local government whatsoever) an approach which pushes the envelope should have no trouble coming to this conclusion.

Meanwhile, this AP report† sheds a bright spotlight on some of that lawyering. The story notes that five hours after Katrina made landfall, Mr. Brown was busy writing memos. The memo (which Josh Marshall links to) written by Michael Brown requests assistance in making available DHS employees "willing††† to deploy . . . for a two-week minimum field assignment to serve in a variety of positions."

Yikes.

More: I quickly searched for rules regarding Presidential authority to act in these types of situations and did not find a quick and easy answer. (Anyone come across a link to this?) I did, however, come across a tid-bit in the FEMA regs (44 CFR § 206.34):

During the immediate aftermath of an incident which may ultimately qualify for a Presidential declaration of a major disaster or emergency, when threats to life and property are present which cannot be effectively dealt with by the State or local governments, the Associate Director may direct DOD to utilize DOD personnel and equipment for removal of debris and wreckage and temporary restoration of essential public facilities and services.

I continue to doubt that there exists much uncertainty as to when and how the President and his folks can act in these situations. They probably have broad powers. (They may not be able to comandeer the National Guard but they could probably send in their own resources.) If not, I would think this would have been clarified post 9-11.

I double checked and what I found seems to indicate that a Governor's request is required unless "the affected area is one in which 'the United States exercises exclusive or preeminent responsibility and authority.'" (See here (Section II) and here, (pp 6-8). This isn't an obvious conclusion to me, but then again, I'm not familiar with the statutes and rules.) In this instance this is irrelevant since Gov. Blanco issued the request on August 28, 2005. DOD resources could have been and should have been standing ready, and deployed immediately thereafter. I wonder, was the request ever made??

10:51 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

Via Laura Rozen, FEMA has taken down its link to "Operation Blessing," an organization headed by Pat Robertson whom FEMA suggested should be given charitable donations for New Orleans refugees. Rozen links to this NY Daily News piece describing how, in 1994, Operation Blessing diverted money intended for Rwandan refugees living in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to a Ziare diamond mining outfit, a gift given to Robertson by Mobutu Sésé Seko (née Joseph-Désiré Mobutu) and for which Robertson served as the "principal executive and sole shareholder."

Perhaps when Robertson suggested that Hugo Chavez be assassinated, he was actually offering to provide the arms for the operation. Nevertheless, he's not the man to whom you want to give your money for New Orleans relief. Here's hoping it was an oversight and nothing more that saw the link put up on the page in the first place.

1:30 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

They say you should not go to the grocery store when you are hungry, or make a major purchase when you have been drinking. I think we should hold off on restructuring the federal government while they are still pulling bodies out of the water in New Orleans.

Kevin Drum agrees:

This is nothing more than musing on my part right now, but I think it would be a good idea to think twice before jumping on the "Get FEMA out of DHS" bandwagon. To a large degree, after all, responding to a major natural disaster and responding to a major terrorist attack require a lot of the same things. It's true that a terrorist attack might call for unique kinds of medical care and a broader security response, but the similarities make up an even longer list: food, water, medical attention, evacuation, temporary shelter, coordination with the National Guard and the Pentagon, search and rescue, and so forth. It really doesn't make sense to have two separate agencies whose missions are about 80% identical.

I may change my mind on this later as I learn more, but this is something that requires more than a knee jerk response.

10:59 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

Here is a thorough and well-sourced Katrina timeline showing who did what, and when.

11:10 PM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

I don't usually do this sort of thing, but this is one I've been thinking about for a while. It's kind of stupid, but it's unrelated to politics/hurricane or hurricane/politics, so I'll post it for variety's sake, if nothing else.

It's relatively simple. Here are the guidelines:

• Post the names of every music act for which you own every album they ever made in one format or other;
• EPs and singles don't count;
• The band has to have more than two proper albums to be included in your list. Bootleg and unauthorized releases don't count;
• compilation/live albums don't count if you own (nearly) every song that appears on the compilation/live album, but if an act had less than three proper albums during its entire career, compilation/live albums can bump the total up to three;
• Burned copies don't count. You have to actually own the albums. Caveat: if that particular album is out of print, a copy counts.

Here's my list, off the top of my head (to be confirmed, modified and adjusted at a later time):

The Old 97's
Big Star (the first two albums on double CD, the third on LP)
Ben Folds Five (but not Ben Folds)
Chomsky
Death Ray Davies
The Foxymorons
The Housemartins
Pleasant Grove

Band that I had all of their albums, up until the point I lost interest: R.E.M.
Band that I never bothered to go back and get the first few albums, but had everything they put out once they got good: The Replacements.

My list will probably grow after I have a chance to look over the collection. Obviously, this little exercise is particularly hard on bands that had long careers or were very prolific.

Still, I'd like to see what musical acts show up on others' lists, so take this meme and run with it. If you don't, then Hurricane Katrina has already beaten us.

1:38 PM | Link | Music | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

We will be talking about Katrina for the rest of our lives.

There is plenty of time to critique our nation's disaster preparedness, and we will. We should. It is how we improve. Something always could have been done better.

Bush will take his knocks. FEMA will form a committee. Congress will hold hearings. Writers will write. Bloggers will blog. Everyone knows the script. Projects will be funded, protocols drafted, resolutions unanimously passed. Such is the reassurance of progress until the next calamity. And then, another round of recriminations.

Regardless how culpable Bush turns out to be, this much is certain: the man can't give an inspirational speech to save his life.

Maybe it is because, due to the circumstances of the 2000 election, Bush has never enjoyed a moment's credit as our legitimate leader. Everywhere he goes, everything he does, half the people have hated his guts every minute of his presidency. Maybe it's clumsy handling by political advisors unnaturally adept at reading polls and counting noses, yet strangely insulated from the currents and tides of public emotion. Maybe it's just his style.

For whatever reason, the guy has no knack for the symbolic trappings of leadership. The most inspirational moment of his presidency was his pitch from the mound at Yankee Stadium in 2001. Nice pitch, no doubt, but it's a problem for a president to be poignant only when he's not talking.

A commenter in the BTD Forum put it this way:

I wanted to see Bush face Katrina with the same maniacal enthusiasm Lt. Dan had in Forrest Gump. I wanted to see Bush knee deep in mud passing food out to people (who cares if it's a photo op), I wanna see Bush mending a gas pipeline. I want inspirational leadership.

I would have settled for a decent speech. A validation of our collective grief. A requiem for the dead. A spiritual reminder of nature's power. An invocation of the American spirit. A call to action. A vision for the future.

Instead, we get pictures of our president playing a guitar. We hear promises of get-togethers at Trent Lott's soon-to-be-rebuilt beach house.

It's the leadership thing, Mr. President. Appearances matter.

11:27 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

The Katrina blame game has so far broken down along two lines. We should have allocated more money for levee construction and maintenance, one theory goes, and we should have been better prepared for the aftermath since the threat of major flooding in New Orleans has been known for decades. So far, so good. Next comes the assignment of blame squarely upon the federal government, and specifically George W. Bush. That part's not so clear.

If we are holding Bush responsible for his own actions, which seems fair, perhaps we should give him credit for saving thousands of lives by pressuring the state and local governments to evacuate the city. August 28, 2005:

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

There seems to be a widespread assumption among Bush's detractors that the federal government bears primary responsibility for all aspects of disaster preparedness in every municipality, everywhere. No doubt the division of blame between federal and local authorities will be sorted out in time, but there is no question the state is involved as well. Here (.pdf) is the Louisiana Emergency Evacuation Map bearing the signature of Governor Kathleen Blanco. It shows exactly where and when each part of the state was supposed to be evacuated when a hurricane approached. The New Orleans urban area was to be evacuated 30 hours before the onset of tropical storm winds, since, while it had the benefit of levee protection, the city remained vulnerable to any Category 4 or 5 storm.

Let's check with the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. This site includes tips on how to evacuate, including this suggestion: "Keep your vehicle in good repair with a full tank of fuel." Here are the highways to use (more).

Where is the plan for people who do not have cars?

Were these plans inadequate? Were they executed correctly? Did we do the best we could? Whatever the Katrina post-mortem ultimately reveals, it appears some of the questions, at least, should be directed to the state and local governments.

Apart from the evacuation and recovery efforts, the main knock on Bush is that the federal government failed to provide adequate funding for construction and maintenance of the levee system. According to this graphic, the New Orleans levees were built by the Army Corps of Engineers and maintained by local levee districts. The levees on the Mississippi River are a federal project, while the costs of hurricane protection levees were shared by the corps and the local districts. There are also levees constructed entirely by the local districts, using funds from the state and local property taxes.

The 17th St. Canal breach greatly increased the scope of the flooding after Katrina. It occurred in one of the hurricane levees jointly funded by the Army Corps of Engineers and the local levee district. If the levees were indeed underfunded, the problem appears to have existed at the local as well as federal level.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a roundup of information tending to rebut the "Blame Bush" camp.

UPDATE 2: As a resident of Charlotte, whose NBA team left a few years ago to go to New Orleans, I have to wonder if, in retrospect, spending $110 million dollars of public money on a new basketball arena seems like a prudent ordering of public priorities.

UPDATE 3: Consider this:

Other federal and state officials pointed to Louisiana's failure to measure up to national disaster response standards, noting that the federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts on the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period. "Fundamentally the first breakdown occurred at the local level," said one state official who works with FEMA. "Did the city have the situational awareness of what was going on within its borders? The answer was no."

I've poked around a bit on the FEMA web site. I don't see anything specifically referring to a 72-96 hour time frame within which localities are supposed to be self-sufficient. However, there is a great deal of information showing that local and state governments are expected to be extensively involved, especially in the early stages of a disaster. The envisioned situation is most assuredly not one in which the feds are expected to swoop in and take care of everything.

The National Response Plan is a 426 page document establishing "a comprehensive all-hazards approach to enhance the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents." The plan also "forms the basis of how the federal government coordinates with state, local, and tribal governments and the private sector during incidents."

The Plan emphasizes local response:

All incidents are handled at the lowest possible organizational and jurisdictional level. Police, fire, public health and medical, emergency management, and other personnel are responsible for incident management at the local level.

According to the Plan (see page 8), in New Orleans the state and local responsibilities broke down as follows:

Mayor:

1) Coordinate local resources to respond to emergency; 2) Direct evacuation, curfew, quarantine as needed; 3) Communicate with public; 4) Enter into mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions; and 5) Request federal assistance through the Governor.

Governor:

1) Coordinate state resources to respond to emergency; 2) Utilize police powers as needed (including making or rescinding regulations); 3) Communicate with public; 4) Encourages participation in mutual aid agreements with other states; 5) Acts as Commander in Chief of state military forces (including National Guard); and 6) Requests federal assistance when it becomes clear that state resources will be insufficient or have been exhausted.

FEMA's Handbook For Emergency Preparation and Response:

The president can issue a Declaration of Emergency to supplement the state and local effort to save lives and protect property. The president can act only after a state governor has requested a Declaration of an Emergency be issued.

In this case, Bush declared a state of emergency on August 27 at the latest, and possibly on August 26. It seems strange, then, that he had to follow-up with Nagin and Blanco to pressure them to evacuate New Orleans on August 28.

2:29 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

"The Supreme Court is an institution far more dominated by centrifugal forces, pushing toward individuality and independence, than it is by centripetal forces pulling for hierarchical ordering and institutional unity."

11:23 PM | Link | Law | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

Because when you say that they should have done this, that or the other thing first, you can look at that problem in isolation, and you can say that.

But look at all the other things they had to deal with. I'm telling you, nobody thought this was going to happen like this. But what happened here is they escaped -- New Orleans escaped Katrina. But it brought all the water up the Mississippi River and all in the Pontchartrain, and then when it started running and that levee broke, they had problems they never could have foreseen.

And so I just think that we need to recognize right now there's a confident effort under way. People are doing the best they can. And I just don't think it's the time to worry about that. We need to keep people alive and get them back to life -- normal life.

This is a quote from former president Bill Clinton, and you know what, he's absolutely right. Did anyone think it would get as bad as this?

I haven't seen any of the hurricane coverage on television, because I don't think I would be able to watch without breaking down. But I have been reading about it online, and it's been depressing, in two ways. Depressing because of the hopelessness of it all, that the efforts of the best in people in their rescue efforts are being thwarted by the worst of people, the ones raping women and shooting at rescue workers. Depressing because too many people are using this disaster to score political points, many putting it squarely on the shoulders of George Bush. I'm sure that there was something more that he and the government could have done, but I just don't have the energy and patience to go through the dozens of links necessary for me to determine whether the levees would have held if they had spent that extra $100 million or whatever, whether any of this could have been done before Bush was president, whatever they could have gotten more people out of the area this weekend, etc. But it's ridiculous to say that it wouldn't have been this disastrous if it weren't for Bush's misfailings. And then there are the lunatics and idiots who are blaming the hurricane on global warming, making gibes about Bush's being on vacation and his playing the guitar, and saying that if it weren't for Iraq we'd have all the National Guardsmen we need to help out. I'd respond to some of this, but there's really no point, and frankly I'm sick of it. Of course there's going to be loonies on the Internet, but people in the establishment, like Howard Dean, have no such excuse. Yes, Howard, Bush gets all warm and fuzzy when he hears about people paying $6 for a gallon of gas while his oil executive cronies make millions. Happy now? I still don't know how half the country could make this man as their de facto leader. When you put him next to Clinton, there's no comparison. Clinton shows time and again that he gets it in a way that too many people in his party do not. I'd say more but I'm already late for work.

8:43 AM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

It is exhausting to watch the news.

All of us are on edge, preoccupied, frustrated and helpless. My wife and I grimly joked that even if we wanted to grab a bus and drive down to help, we can't. There's no gas here.

The Katrina news cycle is not even a cycle. There is no ebb and flow. It went from bad to worse, then straight to unimaginable horror. Day 1: could be a bad storm. Day 2: there's a lot of flooding, but at least the Super Dome held. Day 3: the water is still rising, and what about these looters? Day 4: dead bodies, dehydrated babies, desperate pleas, the unbearable frustration that no one is there to help!!

That's the part that is killing me now. Why can't we get trucks with food and water to those people at the convention center? They say the National Guard is set to arrive over the weekend, but where are they now? How long does it take to fill up a truck with National Guardsmen and haul it down to Louisiana?

I have to believe, for now, that rescue is impossible. I cannot believe - I do not believe - that the U.S. government, the Red Cross, and millions of plucky Americans with 4x4s are deliberately refusing to get in there and help. To get me through tonight, I choose to believe it's not possible to reach the convention center. I shall assume the bridges are washed out. I shall imagine floodwaters still too high to drive trucks through. I have seen throngs alongside the highways leading into town. I choose to believe the rescuers are rescuing as many as they can.

But I don't really know. No one seems to know. For all the press and around-the-clock TV coverage of Katrina, it's shocking how little information is coming out of New Orleans. All the news stations show the same footage. All the newspapers are running the same stories. I just checked Google News in the vain hope of learning why we can't get food to the convention center. The top stories are international newspapers' accounts of how looters set fires and shot at rescue helicopters... yesterday. It is clear most stories will never be told.

So far no one has mentioned something everyone has noticed: race. It seems as though 99% of those suffering in New Orleans are black people. Some day we'll sort through it all. Who left. Who stayed behind. Who had cars and internets and friends in Atlanta. Who didn't trust the warnings, or couldn't afford to take the chance of being late for work again. Are we sitting idly by, fretting in our armchairs, guiltily absorbing images of anguished black faces like so much news-pornography? Are we doing all we can? We will have time to sort it all out, and we will.

But for now we seem content focus on more manageable assignments of blame. A German newspaper suggests Katrina is our reward for global warming. The jihadists view the storm as a sign from Allah. Some say it is the fault of George W. Bush.

We watch and we listen and we read intently, in awe yet serious, probing for new information that makes sense. Why can't we get food and water to the convention center? WHY? We watch and we listen and we read desperately, yearning for an answer or some assurance. And on and on the story spirals downward, worse and worse, unforeseen complications and unintended consequences.

We watch and we listen and we read but we are impotent.

Useless.

Spent.

11:14 PM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Steve

There's a lively debate in the comment section to Kriston's post below wherein he takes George W. Bush to task for saying:

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Kriston links approvingly to this post by Kevin Drum, in which Drum provides four links in support of his assertion that, "Everyone was anticipating a breach of the levees before Katrina hit." Only problem, the links don't say that.

Breach:

n.
1.

a. An opening, a tear, or a rupture.
b. A gap or rift, especially in or as if in a solid structure such as a dike or fortification.

It is true that the levees breached, but Kevin Drum's links do not discuss that possibility. They all discuss the possibility that the water would flow over the top of the levees.

Link #1: "A 20-foot storm surge arriving in concert with both high tide and 20-inch rains could overwhelm the city's more vulnerable lakeside levees and then flow downhill all the way to the French Quarter."

Link #2: "How high are those levees again?"

Link #3: "The debris, largely the remains of about 70 camps smashed by the waves of a storm surge more than 7 feet above sea level, showed that Georges, a Category 2 storm that only grazed New Orleans, had pushed waves to within a foot of the top of the levees. A stronger storm on a slightly different course -- such as the path Georges was on just 16 hours before landfall -- could have realized emergency officials' worst-case scenario: hundreds of billions of gallons of lake water pouring over the levees into an area averaging 5 feet below sea level with no natural means of drainage."

Link #4: "If the storm were strong enough, Ivan could drive water over the tops of the levees that protect the city from the Mississippi River and vast Lake Pontchartrain. And with the city sitting in a saucer-shaped depression that dips as much as 9 feet below sea level, there would be nowhere for all that water to drain."

It's possible that it was widely anticipated the levees would actually breach, but Kevin Drum's links do not prove his point. It appears for now that Bush's statement was truthful and correct.

5:49 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Tom

In the wake of Katrina, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has offered a considerable amount of aid, both in the form of cheap oil and humanitarian assistance. The administration's response has been understandably lukewarm, but it's still a generous offer, and one for which I'm sure many Americans will be grateful.

But I'm not sure how they'll react to another recent pledge from Chavez. This one will provide free eye surgery to 150,000 poor Americans annually over the next ten years. Oh, and there's this other tidbit: it's presented in collaboration with Fidel Castro.

It all seems a little weird to me, and I imagine it'll seem downright insulting to a lot of Americans. We don't like thinking of ourselves as charity cases. But still, there's no getting around the fact that not only does the rest of the developed world have universal healthcare, we now have developing nations offering us medical services.

Is this a political ploy from Chavez? Of course it is. But that doesn't make our country's failure to provide these services any less shameful. Seems to me like there's political hay to be made here.

4:09 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Greg

During lunch, I wondered aloud to a co-worker what was going on at Tulane University. Curious, this afternoon I looked up Tulane.edu. It turns out that the university web page has been turned into a blog for informing students, relatives and other interested parties about the state of things. The last entry, as of yesterday at 6:00 p.m. reads:

Things continue to be unstable in New Orleans, although there is hope that we have experienced the worst. We continue to put the safety of students and employees first. We are working around the clock to bring continuity to the university and to re-establish our presence, however much of this is dependant on the city of New Orleans and Mother Nature. One of our greatest frustrations is our inability to communicate with our larger community due to the failure of all utilities, including e-mail and cell phones. Over the next few days we will have a better handle on the timeline for our recovery. In the meantime, nearly all of our students have been relocated to their home communities or other safe locations under our supervision. All of our residence halls are secure and the contents appear intact. I know all of our students are anxious about our re-opening date; again, in the next few days we will be able to speak more confidently about a start date for the fall semester.

The faculty, staff and students of Tulane University, especially in our medical and public health schools, have proven to be an extraordinary group who have not only conducted themselves with patience and decorum but have reached out to others in acts of exemplary valor in situations small and large.

Tulane University is a great institution with loyal students, faculty, staff and alumni. We will recover from this event and be stronger because of it. I will be in touch as we know more and the situation develops.

[President] Scott Cowen

Best of luck to the Green Wave.

3:34 PM | Link | Media | Comments (0)

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Posted by Venkat

I'll join Kriston.

This post by David Kopel at VC is totally crazy:

Shooting the New Orleans looters is, under present circumstances, an appropriate response to the collapse of civic order, and a first step towards the restoration of that order.

2:33 PM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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Posted by Kriston

I'll broach the subject of the politics of disaster management and agree with Kevin Drum—I had to pick my jaw up off my keyboard when I read this statement by President Bush:

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

1:30 PM | Link | Politics | Comments (0)

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Posted by Hei Lun

On the off chance that you haven't seen or read about it, here's a link to a long list of charities compiled by Instapundit. And Michele Catalano has posts collecting good news from the area here and here.

11:08 AM | Link | Miscellaneous | Comments (0)

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