Repost: Godspeed, New Orleans
Repost from Pensito Review, one year ago tonight — August 28, 2005.
Day: August 28, 2006
Failure of DNA Match in JonBenet Case Means Another Black Eye for the Dept. of Homeland Security
It is impossible to say what story the cable newsers would have focused on 24/7 since August 17 had Karr not been arrested, but a case could certainly have been made that more time would have been devoted to the incompetence and negligence of President Bush — and DHS’s FEMA operatives — in the wake of Katrina.
Now that no match was found between the DNA sample taken from John Mark Karr and that of the killer of six year old JonBenet Ramsey, I wish someone in the media would ask why it was the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Thailand who arrested Karr in Bangkok on August 17.
CNN, August 17, 2006:
The 41-year-old American was being held at a Bangkok immigration detention center. He faces charges in the United States of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault on a child, said Ann Hurst, a Department of Homeland Security attache in Bangkok.
Asia Times, August 19, 2006:
The young girl’s unresolved murder nearly a decade ago set off a wild media frenzy in the US. Homeland Security officials and Thai police seized Karr in his modest Bangkok apartment on Wednesday afternoon, hours after a judge in the US state of Colorado, where the girl died in 1996, issued an arrest warrant for murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault in connection with JonBenet’s death.
“Upon investigation, we were able to identify that subject, and that is John Mark Karr,” Ann Hurst, Homeland Security attache at the US Embassy, said at Bangkok’s Department of Immigration Detention Center on Thursday…
The US Department of Homeland Security, Interpol and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation have since all coordinated closely with Thai tourism and law-enforcement agencies to investigate and arrest suspected sex offenders.
So many questions.
Why is the Department of Homeland Security involved in tracking sex crimes in the first place? Doesn’t this gargantuan bureaucracy have enough to do simply tracking terrorists?
As heinous as these overseas underage sex havens are, investigating them has no relevance either to the “homeland” or the “security” of the United States.
This over-reaching by DHS also puts in its current predicament: By arresting John Mark Karr, a man who apparently suffers from a multitude of mental health problems, the department has added another big public screw-up to its resume of failures.
Compounding all this is the timing of Karr’s arrest. A cynic might wonder if DHS made the arrest to change the media’s focus from another big story that the Bush Administration knew it would be facing at the end of August, the anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
It is impossible to say what story the cable newsers would have focused on 24/7 since August 17 had Karr not been arrested, but a case could certainly have been made that more time would have been devoted to the incompetence and negligence of President Bush — and DHS’s FEMA operatives — in the wake of Katrina.
Repost: Me & Katrina � Reflections a Week Later
One day after Katrina hit, ice and water were being delivered to Homestead, 30 miles south of Miami, near the tip end of the state. While over 800,000 people were without power Friday morning, by Monday all but 90,000 had their electricity restored.
Heckuva Job � Pensito Review revisits its Katrina coverage: As I walked my dogs through Coconut Grove this morning, I marveled at the difference in my neighborhood from a week ago when we awoke the morning after Hurricane Katrina whacked us � hard. Gone were the downed trees, the downed powerlines, the masses of tree limbs, leaves and chunks of debris that littered and blocked the streets. Gone was the eerie silence, replaced by humming air conditioners, traffic noise, birds singing.
Although some scars are permanent � the canopy is shot to hell and huge 80-year-old trees that shaded our streets were lost � the huge piles of storm debris are gone, including the 20-foot-long, five-foot-high one in front of my house. Looking around this morning, it’s almost possible to forget the stunned sense of bewilderment, emotional exhaustion and loss with which I greeted the dawn last Friday.
Then there’s New Orleans. While I went without electricity for five days, I cannot begin to fathom the suffering of the folks caught in the hell hole that was New Orleans. Though it took me three days to clear my yard and make repairs, I cannot begin to fathom the sense of loss of people in Gulfport and Biloxi whose houses and all their possessions are simply gone. Though I had no ice for my Gatorade or scotch, I was never without water or food.
Prior to Katrina’s making landfall in Florida, a massive support system had been mobilized. Florida Power & Light brought in 6,000 repair workers from neighboring states, including Lousisiana. By Saturday morning, ice and water were being delivered to Homestead, 30 miles south of Miami, near the tip end of the state. While over 800,000 people were without power Friday morning, by Monday all but 90,000 had their electricity restored.
Granted, Katrina was a borderline Category 2 when it rumbled through my neighborhood with winds just under 100 mph, and it was a Cat 4 when it hit the Gulf coast. But where was the preparation? Where was the emergency management? It’s not like we didn’t know where the hurricane was heading, when it would hit and what were the likely landfalls. So why did it take so long to get help to the people?
Maybe it’s a matter of practice. I mean, after all, Florida dealt with four hurricanes last year and one early this summer. And as much as I personally think Jeb Bush is one of the worst governors Florida has had (and that’s saying something), he does recognize the realities of emergency preparedness and response, and he communicates and he gets stuff done.
Chalk the misfortunes of the residents of the Gulf coast up to bad luck compounded by incompetence. I think the folks in New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama were just damned unlucky to get hit with a Category 4 hurricane on Ray Nagin’s, Kathleen Blanco’s and George Bush’s watch. Now, it seems, they’re just damned.
Gitmo Has Survived Ernesto, Army Ready to Help FEMA
Gimme shelter: Tropical Storm Ernesto did less damage to the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, today than Paris Hilton’s recent vow to remain celibate did to the straight males of the world. The storm rolled over the controversial base earlier this morning in a direct hit that didn’t hurt too much.
DoD is working with FEMA experts to prepare for any eventuality.
According to a press release hastily dispatched by the Department of Defense, the base experienced on 33-knot winds with gusts up to 38 knots, or a 40-50 mph range, and only had 2.1 inches of rain fall on the detainee camp.
“We were prepared,” base spokeswoman Satcey Byington said. “Most people sheltered in place and came out when the ‘all clear’ sounded this morning at about 10:30.”
Does that mean the guys in organge jump suits and face masks just curled up in their chain-link cubes and hunkered down? Strangely, the release did not mention the hundred-odd remaining detainees, though it did hail the shelter-in-place talents of the 7,000 military personnel.
Then, in a move that did little to quell the fears of those of us in danger of being molesto’d by Ernesto tomorrow, the DoD said that the military was already cooperating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on delivering assistance in the storm’s aftermath.
DoD is working with FEMA experts to prepare for any eventuality. “We have the defense coordinating officer and the defense coordinating element from FEMA Region 4 deployed to the State Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee, Fla.,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today. DoD also has representatives at the Regional Response Coordination Center in Atlanta.
“There has also been a determination that should there need to be logistical staging, that Fort Rucker and Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and Homestead Air Reserve Base and Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida will serve as FEMA logistical staging areas,” Whitman said.
Well, I guess that’s better than having ice trucks in Maryland, but Miami is still a 10-hour drive from Tallahassee, a good seven-hour hike from Jacksonville, and don’t mention Alabama — and that’s with clear, dry roadways and working traffic signals.
Anyway, a co-worker reports that Winn-Dixie is out of water already as of her lunch break, and long lines have formed for gasoline. And though we’re being told there’s no need to panic, people are already getting testy over who gets the last loaf of Wonder Bread.
Kind of reminds me of how Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff and George Bush were “ready” for Katrina’s landfall in New Orleans last year and the job they all did. On the eve of Ernesto, Jon and Trish and I think it might be interesting to mine the archives and revisit some of the low lights of Bushco’s performance a year ago.
Stayed tuned for a look back at the “heckuva job” done by our goverment in response to the nation’s worse natural disaster.
As Bush Polls Go, So Go Gas Prices
They posited an interesting theory today on the Tom Joyner Morning Show. I don’t know if it’s original or not, but radio host Tom Joyner suggested it:
Every time Bush’s poll numbers tank — and both Newsweek and FoxNews have him at 36% approval right now — gas prices go down.
I don’t know about you, but we’re paying about $2.83 a gallon in these parts, about $.15 less than we were paying at the beginning of the month, when closer to 40% of Americans approved of Bush.
Kind of makes you go, “Hmmmm.”
Tennessee Politics: The Senate Race between Harold Ford Jr. and Bob Corker Could Presage Big Changes in the Volunteer State
Is Tennessee Ready to Elect an African American Democrat to the Senate? Does Rep. Zach Wamp Practice His Imitation of George Bush? And What about Bob ‘Family Values’ Corker’s Daughter’s Girl-on-Girl Action Photo?
An Interview with the Editor of 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera about the State of Politics in Tennessee
The August 3, 2006, primary election in Tennessee resulted with Rep. Harold Ford Jr. as the Democratic nominee, and former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker as the GOP candidate.
Harold Ford is no liberal, and while that fact gives him a fighting chance in a state that has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since Al Gore was reelected in 1990, it may not be a net-plus for the Democratic Party, especially when you consider his record in the House:
[Rep. Ford] has voted to outlaw gay marriage and to repeal the estate tax, and wants to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning. He supports getting rid of the handgun ban in the nation’s capital and says the Ten Commandments should be posted in courtrooms around his state. He favors school prayer, argues that more troops should have been sent to Iraq and wants to seal the border with Mexico.
Still, capturing the majority in the Senate is the name of the game this cycle, and the election of a Democrat in Tennessee, albeit a conservative, could tip the balance against the GOP and George W. Bush.
We have been very curious about the political atmospherics in Tennessee, circa 2006, and so we invited our friend Alice, the editor of one of our favorite sites, 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera, up to the Pensito Review electronic garret for a mug of green tea and a chat about politics in the Volunteer State.
The Interview
PR: Welcome to the electronic garret here at the Pensito Review world headquarters, Alice. Sorry about the dust. Hope you’re not allergic.
A: Having just moved into a rental house that is in the middle of a complete new window installation, I am conveniently accustomed to dust.
PR: You’re a transplant to Tennessee, but you seem to have taken root in Chattanooga. I know you’ve been involved in a number of local campaigns. How does the slate of local candidates look this year?
Quote du Jour
The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.
— Carl Hiaasen, columnist, The Miami Herald
Preparation H (Hurricanes, That Is)
When a hurricane strikes, there is an undercurrent in other parts of the country of victim-blaming. “What do those idiots expect if they live on the coast?” “Why don’t those morons evacuate when there’s a hurricane out there?”
The obvious answers to the first question are a) It wasn’t like this when I moved here 37 years ago…and I don’t really want to start over in Fargo at my age, and b) Like there’s no weather where YOU live?
For the answer to the second question, you just have to be here. In the time since we (meaning those of us in Florida and the Gulf states) started tracking Ernesto, it has been variously forecasted to hit New Orleans, Pensacola, Tallahassee, Cedar Key, Tampa, and the Keys. At what point do you say, “O.K., this is it! I’m packing the car!”
When Rita hit last year, post-Katrina, people in South Florida were chastised (mostly by the governor and other Republican officials) for not stocking up on enough emergency supplies. After all, they should be prepared to fend for themselves for a couple of weeks now that everyone’s had fair warning government will not save them. But what does it mean, exactly, to fend for yourself?
Here’s an idea. This helpful piece of advice is in my local paper today, since my town is in the current forecast to be the exit point for Ernesto as it leaves Florida.
Your written family/pet disaster plan
Crate/carrier and bedding
Food, water, manual can opener, dishes
Plastic bags, paper towels, newspaper (when shredded, can be used as cat litter)
Cleaning supplies, disinfectants
Collar, leash, harness
Muzzle, gauze rolls
Identification tags
Current medical and vaccination records
Extra bottles of daily medications or copies of prescriptions with expiration dates
Current photos of you and your pet(s) together
Pet comfort items: towels, blankets, toys
A list of hotels, motels and boarding kennels that accept pets
Detailed instructions for animal care and rescue workers
First aid kit for your pet(s)
Flashlights, batteries
Flat tire repair kit
Out-of-state telephone contact number
Label all pet supplies with your name, address and telephone number
Source: St. Johns County Office of Emergency Management
I can’t imagine what the flat tire repair kit is used for, but maybe my dog and cat will appreciate it.
The list seems a tad ambiguous. Why do I need detailed instructions for animal care and rescue workers if I’m taking my pets with me? What’s the out of state phone number for? Should I be teaching Pepsi and Stinky how to dial on my cell?
The point is, hurricanes are a crap shoot, and the best we can hope for is to make the right last-minute decision — because until the science of meteorology gets a little more precise, that’s all we can do. So please, Fargoans and the rest of you, don’t get mad at us if we get hit. We really did try to think of everything.
