Message in a Bottle

This is absolutely the best pictorial summary of the past week (or month, or year, or five years):


Brilliant Artwork by 2 Political Junkies.

Intelligent Design Creationism today

The Dover Trial is in full swing. Chris Mooney is on the scene and reports on his blog (as well as on NPR's Science Friday earlier today). Evolutionblog is covering the trial with about five posts per second, so you have to read fast!

There is also an online anti-ID petition that you may want to sign if you are a scientist. The Discovery Institute managed to collect 400 signatures in four years. This site is trying to see how many signatures they can get in four days, and, after several hours, there were about 1600 signatures there.

The Carnival of Creepy Crawlies

The inaugural edition of the Circus of the Spineless is now up on Milkriverblog and it is absolutely amazing - about 50 entries! Everything you always wanted to know about invertebrates is there, plus some exciting photos!

Link-Love: In the Neighborhood

Here's some recent North Carolina blogging for you:

JustAskJudy has a Remarkable Obituary.

This is old, but good, if you have not seen it before. On Indiscretions: Natasha From Russia.

Gate City is sometimes serious enough to write stuff like this, about the wisdom of having the military be the first responder. Mostly though, the audience is from Germany, attracted to the blog by their Google searches of the phrase, sprinkled liberally throughout the blog "Nikki Cox - Best Actress of her generation", sometimes accompanied by a picture. I have no idea if she is the best actress, or even a semi-decent actress. No matter how many times I saw her on TV I somehow could not focus on evaluating her acting skills....

So, what is killing marriage? Everything you want to know, even if you did not know you wanted to know, about marriage and divorce, especially the legal aspects, you can find on Kramer Vs.

Trixie Update is still running. Trixie is more than two years old, and the only telemetry still going on is sleep-wake cycle. You can still access all the old statistics on diaper-changes, formula-bottles and other stuff - very interesting for parents and future parents. I hope they do the same with their next child!!!!

Tony Plutonium had a weak moment! Never waver!

A great photo of a lilly at Lalitree.

The Crazy Hippie Cat Lady is a new NC blog by Vada.

Dent is the official blog of the excellent local free newspaper "The Independent".

Our World, Our View is a blog aimed at young adults.

Lenslinger takes a look ahead.

Words (of this Yovo) reports on the shrinking shark.

Aesop's Fables for the modern age (one of many Billy's blogs).

How early is too early to read the death scene in Charlotte's Web to your child?

See if your licence plate number is on this blog and if so, for what infringement of polite driving.

Hurricane's Eye is the place where everything is calm.

Josh and Jamie are Too Clever By Half

Reason And Radical on the today's youth and on appealing to the fearfull majority.

Warcrygirl is a self-confessed World's Worst Christian - go see why.

Lex has a good post on gore for porn phenomenon I wrote about before.

Zartan works at an "adult establishment" and reports on human nature.

Russlings describes some very unconventional ways to protect animals in zoos against hurricanes and some even more unconventional ways to protect animals in the wild from people.

The Point of Babette reviews prime time TV for you.

What Would Jesus The Clown Do, asks Anonymoses.

Anton is having a grand time.

BlogAds rule!

Bigwig continues his long-running series on birds of Iraq.

Pam's House Blend is your first stop if you want to know what is happening in Freeperland.

Who ordered the CNN orange windbreakers?

A funny cartoon and the tragedy of the commons on Pratie Place.

Ron wrote an homage to nurses.

Waterfall snapped at her student today.

First Year Teacher is now a Second Year Teacher.

Jay has some good advice about blogging responsibility.

This is too funny (especially considering the satellite-photo shape of Hurricane Rita as it squeezed between Florida and Cuba).

You can find many other NC bloggers at NCblogs.com aggregator. You can find some additional ones on Rollerweblogger, Triad Blogs, on Greensboro 101 and on North State Blogs.

For examples of the best of NC blog writing, check out the local blog carnival - The Tar Heel Tavern. Erin, while being pregnant with the sixth child, writing poetry, and everything else, also collected the complete archives of the Tar Heel Tavern, and made the Tar Heel Tavern homepage prettier (with Carolina blue).

Next week is ConvergeSouth, a huge blogger conference in Greensboro, so you can meet some of the best of local, and not so local (Atrios anyone?) bloggers there. Check out the who's who of blogging expected to show up there.

Science And Politics Illustrated

This image was accompanying an article on Christian Science Monitor the other day. I was thinking for a while now to make an image with the White House and some scientific symbols to place as a banner on this blog. And now I see this - exactly what I was looking for.

Question 1: Is it ethical to swipe this image and make it "mine"?

Question 2: How do I put an image on the header? Perhaps, as the picture is vertical, I can shrink it somewhat and place it on the side-bar instead, above archives, PayPal button, etc. How do I do that?

It's time to extend a helping hand!

Shakespeare's Sister, one of my very most favouritest bloggers for almost a year now got a double-whammy today: the tax on her house doubled and she lost her job. So, go there right now and put a few bucks in the tip-jar for the fellow blogger!

Why?

Democrats who voted Yes for Roberts:
Baucus, Mont.;
Bingaman, N.M.;
Byrd, W.Va.;
Carper, Del.;
Conrad, N.D.;
Dodd, Conn.;
Dorgan, N.D.;
Feingold, Wis.;
Johnson, S.D.;
Kohl, Wis.;
Landrieu, La.;
Leahy, Vt.;
Levin, Mich.;
Lieberman, Conn.;
Lincoln, Ark.;
Murray, Wash.;
Nelson, Fla.;
Nelson, Neb.;
Pryor, Ark.;
Rockefeller, W.Va.;
Salazar, Colo.;
Wyden, Ore.

What were they thinking? If Bush sees this many Dems rolling over for Roberts, he will be emboldened to nominate someone even worse for the O'Connor seat and no fillibaster can derail that confirmation. They need a collective chiropractor to set their spine!

Skeptic's Circle

Wolverine Tom is hosting the latest edition of the Skeptic's Circle. Seeing is believing - so go there now.

Link-Love: Healthy Blogging

Chronicles of a Medical Mad House is back after a brief hiatus. Death is a pretty bad sideffect of a drug, I guess. And now I know why I always wanted to be an urologist (not!).

Dr.Charles recollects his busy day in the hospital on 9/11.

Mediblogopathy covered post-Katrina nurse volunteers, gives out a monthly nursing blog award and has collected the largest blogroll of nursing blogs ever.

Mental Nurse writes a job description.

I've seen this happen to me - someone copies and pastes my entire posts - ALL of my posts - on their blog. I ignored it, as there was always a link in the end. Now, Shrinkette makes me worried about it.

Should med school make you depressed? Over My Med Body does not think so.

Drunken Lagomorph is a nurse who works in jail. Occasionaly, this means reading some inmates' worrisome letters, and sometimes it means laughing (along with the inmates) at the humorless wardens, and sometimes hearing some highly quotable stuff.

It's Time For Your Meds if you are Crazy Tracy, a North Carolina nurse working 12-hour shifts (just like my wife).

Emergiblog is also written by a 12-hour night-shift nurse. It is a pretty new blog but I am already addicted. I wait for a new post like some people wait for the next episode of their favourite TV show (or the next Harry Potter book). There is so much fun (and funny) stuff, and it is all beautifully written. How about a look at some very old advertisments for amphetamines, or K-Y Jelly, or Curad bandages. Each old ad, or book, or picture provokes an association and the words just flow....

There is trouble during a night on call at Blogborygmi.

Nurse: Superhero, Villain...or Vampire? Ask Nurse Rachett's Alter Ego (is this the same person who wrote a brilliant, yet now defunct blog, called Nurse Rachett's Notebook or something like that?).

Is repetition good or bad? That's the question of Living Large, a new arrival at the OR scene, but already joining the in crowd, or is she?

A very frustrating day in the life of a Head Nurse.

What does a neurologist carry in his black bag? Ask Greg P on Information Is Free.

And last but certainly not the least, Orac of Respectful Insolence is at his best when he destroys the alties.

Sand in the Tank

A lot has been written, particularly in the wake of Katrina, about the role of government and especially about the insidious habit of conservatives to undermine it from within, then use its shoddy inefficiency to blame the "government" and push to cut its funding.

And while I may sound wonky and whiny and others may sound too fiery, nobody matches the humorous eloquence of Lance Mannion. His most recent post on the topic of deliberate sabotage of the government by conservatives is just brilliant. I like especially the very end, a metaphor of the car:

If the Goverment is a car setting out to give every one a ride to work, then for 40 years the Republicans have been puncturing the tires, pouring sand in the gas tank, stealing the distributer cap, and, whenever they can get their hands on the wheel, driving it straight into the nearest ditch and then, pointing to the wreckage as the tow truck backs up to it, saying, See, this proves that people were meant to walk.

And they do this so that they don't have to chip in on gas.

Tom DeLay exterminated in a pest control raid

U.S. House Majority Leader DeLay Indicted by Texas Grand Jury

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative Tom DeLay, the second-highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, was indicted by a Texas grand jury on a single count of criminal conspiracy, according to the grand jury clerk.

DeLay, 58, who faces up to two years in prison, will temporarily step aside as House majority leader, he said in a statement. House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he will recommend that Representative David Dreier of California to replace DeLay, the Associated Press reported.

-----snip-----

I And The Bird

The new edition of I And The Bird is up! Go Fly!

Carnival of Education

Carnival of Education #34 is now up on Education Wonks. Go Learn!

The cycles of history

Since no newspaper wanted to publish this op-ed by Rick Perlstein, Atrios printed it on his blog. I guess this means it is fair game to disseminate further, so here is the whole text:

The Op-Ed Which Wasn't Run

A white friend who's volunteering in refugee shelters on the Gulf Coast tells me the kind of things he's hearing around the small city where he's working.

A pastor is obsessed that "local" women not be allowed near the shelters: "At a community meeting they said these were the last evacuees, the poorest of the poor"--the most criminal, being his implication, the most likely to rape.

My friend says: "There were rumors that there were basically gangs of blacks walking up and down the main drag in town harassing business owners." The current line is that "some of them weren't even evacuees, they were just fake evacuees trying to stir up trouble and riot, because we all know that's what they want to do."

He talked to local police, who report no problems: just lost, confused families, in desperate need of help.

Yet "one of the most ridiculous rumors that has gone around is that 'the Civic Center is nothing but inmates. It's where they put all the criminals.'"

I immediately got that uncanny feeling: where had I heard things like this before?

The answer is: in my historical research about racial tensions forty years ago. I'm writing a book against the backlash against liberalism and civil rights in the 1960s. One of the things I've studied is race riots. John Schmidhauser, a former congressman from rural Iowa, told me about the time, in the summer of 1966, he held a question and answer session with constituents. Violence had broken out in the Chicago ghetto, and one of the farmers asked his congressman about an insistent rumor:

"Are they going to come out here on motorcycles?"

It's a funny image, a farmer quaking at the vision of black looters invading the cornfields of Iowa. But it's also awfully serious. The key word here is "they." It's a fact of life: in times of social stress when solid information is scarce, rumors fill the vacuum. Rumors are evidence of panic. The rumors only fuel further panic. The result, especially when the rumors involved are racial, can be a deadly stew of paranoia.

In the chaotic riot in Detroit in 1967, National Guardsman hopped up on exaggerated rumors of cop killers would descend upon a block and shoot out the streetlights to hide themselves from snipers. Guardsmen on the next block would hear the shots and think they were under attack by snipers. They would shoot at anything that moved. That was how, in Detroit, dozens of innocent people were shot. In one case, a firefighter was the one who died.

And now, a similar paranoia has turned deadly in New Orleans too. The early report Sunday was that police shot at eight suspicious characters at the 17th Street Canal, killing five. On Monday the report was clarified: the victims were contractors on their way to work to fix the canal.

It's not that human beings haven't committed awful crimes amidst the toxic muck of New Orleans--just as they did in the urban riots of the 1960s. It's not as if the onslaught of poor, frightened, and alien-seeming evacuees aren't making life nerve-wracking in the many scattered towns where they are straggling in as refugees. With statistical certainly, they have.

But now New Orleans has filled with tens of thousands of Army, police, and National Guard soldiers. They are doing courageous, necessary work. But that are also operating in a cultural context rife with paranoia. Many of the people they are policing are armed as well--also possessed of a hair-trigger paranoia that might presume every shotgun-like crack, every snapped powerline, every detonated firecracker, is a sniper's shot aimed at them.

And now there is that New Orleans diaspora, poor black men ("fake evacuees"?) wandering around unfamiliar towns.

It is the job of all of us to help ratchet down the paranoia: not to let the rumors spread. So none of these people start firing on each other.

Paranoia is not the exclusive province of Iowa farmers forty years ago, or--urban snobs take note--Louisiana yokels in rural parishes now. In 1992, in New York City, during the Los Angeles riots, the word spread on certain street corners about rioters burning buildings and overturning cars just a few blocks away. All of it was fantasy.

But now, everyone with an email account can be implicated in the spreading of such fantasies--nationwide.

One of the most riveting early accounts of conditions in New Orleans was an email sent around by Dr. Greg Henderson. "We hear gunshots frequently," he wrote. It wasn't long before that got transformed, in the dissemination, into: doctors get shot at frequently. An Army Times article reported that desperate evacuees at the Superdome, terrified that losing their place in line might mean losing their life, "defecated where they stood." Now, it's easy, if you take a moment to think about it, to understand that happening to people, perhaps elderly and sick, under unendurable conditions of duress. As circulated on the Internet, however, another interpretation takes shape: these people are not like us. Them. Savages that, if they come to your town, might just be capable of anything. Even if they are just lost, confused people, in desperate need of help.

We can do better. We must do better.

Stop Roberts

From an e-mail:

"If you were listening to Thom Hartmann on his widely syndicated radio program
today, you know he was breathing fire in opposition to John Roberts.  You also
know from your own experience that the primary toll-free telephone number for
Congress (877-762-8762) is mysteriously and suddenly out of commission with just
a fast circuit busy signal (try it yourself), even in the middle of the night. 
Yes, Thom thought that was extremely odd also, especially with so many of us
calling to declare our strong opposition to John Roberts.

WHAT WE MUST NOW DO is create a permanent record of this situation and use that
to generate even more messages and phone calls to the Senate in the next 24
hours.  If you are a member of any BLOGS go to ALL of them overnight and start a
new thread or article, and/or leave a comment on an existing one.  In your own
words there are three simple key points we need to make in any order you like:

1) Whether we have in fact overloaded the primary toll-free number with our
calls or whether someone deliberately cut the line to slow down the calls, it is
in FACT down now.

2) There is a growing ground swell of opposition to the stealth reactionary
Roberts that can no longer be ignored.

3) To take action there are two alternative toll-free numbers still working,
888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588, plus an action page that will give you all the
direct phone and fax numbers of your own senators, http://www.millionphonemarch.com.

What we want to accomplish is to create as many entries on as many blog threads
as possible, to reach as many people as we can who wish they knew what to do to
stop this administration from scuttling our Supreme Court, but who just don't
where to start.  Feel free to make your own arguments as to why Roberts must be
stopped, just as you do when you send your personal messages to your senators. 
If you would like some additional ideas, this piece from OpEd News might be
useful:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thepen_050914_we_can_stop_roberts_.htm

Leahy, Feingold and Kohl have been excoriated on the blogs for their judiciary
committee votes, which even they admit were "close calls."  All we have to do is
get one or two of them to heed the voice of the people and the MOMENTUM is on
our side.  All they simply need to say is that they have been hearing from their
constituents, and while they may have been initially inclined to support
Roberts, they can no longer do so.

And you can also send your friends who want to know more about why Roberts must
be stopped to the one click congressional email and letter to the editor action
page, where there are many informative links, at

http://www.millionphonemarch.com

Take heart that we have achieved alot of radio visibility in the last couple
days.  More and more people are starting the question why Roberts is being
hustled through the process without even a proper examination of what he really
stands for.  Will it be enough?  That is entirely up to us alone.  First we must
BELIEVE we can win.  After that the rest is easy.

We must reach out to our fellow citizens every way we can.  Please take action
NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this
message to everyone else you know.

Link-Love: In the Classroom and Academia

Teaching math is not easy, but Profgrrrl enjoys it anyway.

The Education Wonks on teacher blogs, the best school system in the world and teaching Intelligent design creationism in schools.

If you read this you'll understand how Toliet Paper With Page Numbers got its name. Also, why academics generally do not make great leaders.

Tall, Dark and Mysterious. Who? Moebious Stripper, of course. On the same topic of academic's personality, as well as some positives about math teaching and using the F***ing graphing calculator.

Why do we sterilize our spaceships? Mr.B explains. I love the Bitch, PhD blog even more now that Mr.B (and some excellent guest-bloggers) are on board. That blog was always so much fun, but now it is triple fun! Aside from powerful posts on academia, feminism and sex, how can one resist cool posts about The Pseudonymous Kid?

Jerry Wilson of Getting Real (Over Coffee) is now a proud HDTV owner. On a more serious note, think of the US and Cuba as Hatfield and McCoy.

Steven D. Krause, on his official blog, on the state of the university. Also, The Happy Academic ponders not being on the job market and not being an administrator.

Jason Kuznicki of Positive Liberty went to a sneak preview of Serenity, while Jonathan Rowe gets serious about The Living Constitution.

Amy is back in school and loves the library.

Speaking of libraries, the best blogging is this, on Caveat Lector, who suggests that best librarian blogging is on Random Access Mazar. I report, you decide (which one is better).

La Profesora Abstrada on Independence of the Mexican Congress.

Steve Levitt and Steve Dubner, the authors of "Freakonomics", write a Freakonomics blog.

Yikes! Tenure dossier, a need to have a biopsy done, a cheating husband, and starting classes. How much more can Dr.HIstory take all at once?

Private schools are better. You think. Think again. What are YOUR favourite sci-fi TV shows? In other news, AssortedStuff is Campaigning for Intelligent Science in the Classroom.

Hugo Schwyzer teaches a Woman's History class, so there are always thoughtful and provocative posts about men, women, and hard work, or Young Women's Reflections on Sexuality and Domination, or fish and bicycles, or truly enjoying Christian Rock, or men's rights advocates alternatives to marriage.

The Alley Notebooks on domestic fantasies and a great trip to San Francisco.

Phantom Professor: I, Student and a quilt.

Gentleman's C is great fun to read. Here are some links if you are into figuring out your academic genealogy (I know mine: Underwood - Menaker - Pittendrigh - Dobzhansky - Chetverikov). The Angry Student passed a PhD defense (I'm gettin' there!). And even the nicest, smartest neighbors can be total morons when it comes to science.

From Acta Online, a disturbing survey of high-schoolers about what college is all about, on the Solomon Amendment (about army recruiters on campus) and on preponderance of girls in college.

Do video/computer gamers make better surgeons? Eide Neurolearning Blog has some data. Also, on The Different Ways We Read: The Movie in Your Head.

Eric Gordy (whose main blog is East Ethnia) is using blogging technology in the classroom. Check out his class blog Mediacourse.

Camicao is also using blogs in the classroom and links to others who do the same.

Dr.B is celebrating fourth blogiversary and also muses about using blogs in teaching.

Easily Distracted was distracted by the NYTimes article about female college students who want to become stay-at-home moms, especially with the blogosphere response to it. There was quite a lot of it, of course, and the actual questionnaire showed up somewhere (demonstrating how bad the survey was) and some of the students gave interviews (about how bad it was).

What information is important? asks Peter Levine. Also, an interesting proposal for rebuilding New Orleans.

Check out the Life as a Middle School Teacher, Learning Curves and Understanding sor some in-the-trenches classroom blogging.

Shadow Boxing and the urban-rural divide on One Stop Thought Shop.

Golf (err: Gulf) Coast BloggerCon

Lindsay Beyerstein did what many of us wish we could. She went down to New Orleans right after Katrina struck and reported/blogged from the scene, in a series of posts on her blog. She liked the experience so much, she decided to turn pro.

Now, she also wants to organize a Gulf Coast BloggerCon, and here is a copy of her post so you can see what she has in mind:

Blogging is a key component of the media coverage of the historic 2005 hurricane season.

The contributions are varied as the contributors: Citizen journalists are blogging storms from their own homes and shelters. A self-styled blogger/activist press corps has emerged. Mainstream news organizations are assigning reporters to blog. At least one paper, the New Orleans Times Picayune, reinvented itself as a blog during Katrina. Blogs all over the world are fundraising for disaster relief. Political bloggers are helping to shape the public discourse on the hurricanes and the reconstruction. And so on.

Hurricane season isn't over until November, and the reconstruction will take years. But I don't think it's too early to start thinking about ways to share what we've learned so far.

It would be great if we could organize some sort of Gulf Coast blogger convention in early 2006. There's so much to talk about. Here's a short list of topics that might be interesting fodder for discussion:

* The relationship between journalism and activism
* New partnerships between bloggers and the media, e.g. the Houston Chronicle's Stormwatcher's blog
* Online fundraising for disaster relief
* Technical tips for blogging in a disaster area: equipment, safety, logistics
* Access. What it is and how to get it. This discussion should focus not only on the institutional access enjoyed by the press, but also the unique access enjoyed by citizen journalists to members of their own community
* Blogging the reconstruction. How bloggers can help keep attention focused on the needs of the Gulf Coast in the years to come

Next week at Converge South I'll try to see what people there think about this idea. Sounds great to me. How about you?

ConvergeSouth

A wonderful article about ConvergeSouth blogging conference.

Link-Love: Philosophers and their ilk

Doctor Free-Ride of Adventures in Ethics and Science blog has had some good posts lately: What scientists know (or don't), Numbers don’t lie … unless they’re statistics and Anti-science chickens coming home to roost.

Related to that first post is this one, Everything you Read is Useless, by Mike Webb of Educated Insolence.

Who's Zaphod Beeblebrox? asks Brian Weatherson on Thoughts Arguments and Rants

Mormon Metaphysics continues reviewing Tomasello's book.

Check out Missing Shades of Grue and Phronesisaical for some excellent blogging.

For the Record is one of my favourite blogs and I wonder why I link to it so rarely! So here's the link and you go and explore.

The Little Professor on getting a job in academia, geeting a job in academia if you are a blogger and the right to photocopy.

Brandon of Siris wrote a list of Must-Read Science Fiction Novels. I think I'll write one of my own soon (my own list, not a novel!).

Leiter Reports had guest-bloggers from For The Record. Here's one post about socialized medicine, but all of their stuff was very good. Brian Leiter is back now, and you should make it a habit to visit his blog from time to time...

The Warriors

The other day I saw (on a blog, from an e-mail? Don't remember now...) this article about a porn website on which our soldiers in Iraq exchange gory photos of mutilated Iraqi bodies for a free subscription to porn. War Pornography was published on a news website I was not familiar with, so I posted the link in the comments to a couple of good liberal blogs, asking for the verification of the story.

The next day, Nation published a shorter story on the same topic: The Porn of War, which prompted Billmon to write an excellent post, Heart of Darkness, in which he links this phenomenon to the big question: Should we pull the troops out:

"Some withdrawal advocates simply want to see American soldiers taken out of harm's way, and are indifferent to Iraq's future, which they believe was never our business to begin with. Others are trying to fit the war into an ideological template they've cherished since Vietnam, in which the U.S. is always the imperialist aggressor and the insurgents are always the people's champions. Still others don't want to admit that a neo-colonial occupation could ever be the better alternative (or the least worst one, anyway) even for a fragmented Third World nation on the brink of civil war. Most, I suspect, are simply trying to find a path out of the swamp, and are picking and choosing the arguments that look like they might get us there without too many more deaths on our conscience."

(And on the topic if we should pull the troops out of Irq, ask the experts: Juan Cole says so. While initially I was of the mind that perhaps we could stabilize the country etc., the way BushCo behaved there quickly made me switch to the idea that we need to get the hell out of there).

Please go and read the whole long Billmon's post - it is worth your time.

The comments on Total Information Awareness in response to the story were also very interesting. This exchange, in particular, put forward something I've been thinking about for a long time now:

------------------------------------
"Bottom line = That's war guys.

It's been observed by many combat veterans that the American 18 year old, when trained, armed and placed in combat, is as barbaric and as brutally savage as any 18 year old that rode with Ghengis Khan's hordes.

The trading of pictures is just another form of trophies of war behavior. Again, standard stuff down through the eons.

Liberals like to deny this reality by citing works like one discussed here a while back wherein the author (himself not a combat vet) attempts to prove that most troops won't engage the enemy with aimed fire and that killing is traumatic to most, etc, etc.

Conservatives don't face up by 1) denying that it ever happened 2) relying on their security in knowing that we are the good guys so what ever....

Both camps are wrong. War is brutal and it brings out the worst in all who participate (though it can also bring out the best in those who participate as well, regardless of side).

And those [who] participate generally adapt to the environment by becoming modern day savages.

Good on them. They're human.

A curse on the flag wavers and politicians who want to sell us the idea that we are different and that war is noble.

avedis
----------------------------------------------
I'll agree that war is hell, and humans (especially young males) can be brutal. In the proper circumstances, almost all of us could become so. I'm not concerned by the gore, nor even at the display of trophies. Like you said, avedis, normal combat stuff.

My concern is that this graphic violence is so well accepted, encouraged, even celebrated by what appears to be a larger and larger part of our military and even civilian populations. Tens of thousands look at this site every day, and has anyone in the government or the military said anything against it? A small point, but it sure looks to me like the Geneva Conventions are being violated. As Billmon wrote, at what point does the "brutality mentality" needed to win in Iraq spill over to here at home? It's the occupier/occupied variation of an old theme, Lincoln expressed it, that slavery enslaves not just the slaves, but the slaveholders as well.

This is one more straw to add to our occupier's burden. At what point does the load become just too much? Transport yourself back to 2002 and the runup to the invasion. Would you have said at that time that all the "compromises" to our self-image that we've since seen would have been acceptable, or even possible? Or is the slowness of the descent hiding just how far down we've gone?
cw
-----------------------------------------------

CW, I share your concerns. We are losing even the veneer of civility.

But then I don't even know what that means.

I came from a sub-culture where people sit around the country club in the evening, having a few drinks, and discussing - with an odd glee and pride - how they were going to screw someone out of their money.

I mean, is that civilized? But that's how business has been done in America - at the higher levels - since day one.

Since the 1960's our culture has been becoming more crass. This is due, I suppose, in large part to the proliferation of mass media as a huge business enterprise and the need to appeal to the masses, who - and pardon the snob in me - are crass.

Shakespear said that, "Men love not to hear of the sins they love to commit."

But the masses find such sins entertaining and they lack the formal upbringing that teaches that such sins should be kept hushed.

So I think all of that is an influence in creating the conditions and circumstances that concern us.

Also, I see the US as undergoing a transformation of conscience that resembles that of Germany circa 1935.

We are allowing the dark forces of the psyche to take the lead. I don't know why. I'm not sure anyone does, but the rightwing has recognized this shift and is riding it.

This thing has a momentum and a life of its own. I'm afraid it will have to live out its natural life span before the pendulum swings the other way; which it will, eventually.

I only pray that the destruction wrought by this zeitgeist will be reparable.

avedis
--------------------------------------------

Now, don't get me started on the "bad apples" theory, as the rot has already quickly spread to the whole barrel of apples.

I'd rather take a look at some unspoken assumptions underlying all of the rhetoric - both on the Left and on the Right. Those hidden assumptions are also taboo topics: the myth that US soldiers are wonderful guys and the myth that the USA is the greatest country in the world. The two are connected to each other, of course, by a myth of American superiority. We went to Iraq (and many other places before) because the Iraqis could not help themselves - they are kids and they need adult help. What a load of bull! Why do we think we are any better or smarter than Iraqis?

But, before I launch into my tirade, I'd like you to right-click ("open in new window") on these links and take your time reading those articles before coming back here. It is worth your while, believe me:

Parenti
Superpatriotism
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia Sojourn
Iraq
Milosevic

In the articles above, Michael Parenti describes, with sharp accuracy, what happened in Yugoslavia, and how this links to Iraq (Noam Chomsky, in his book "The New Military Humanism" explicitely explains how the intervention in the Balkans made attack on Iraq possible). I have some qualms with his description of Yugoslav economic system (he is a socialist, after all, so he has his axe to grind) as he ignores the economic reforms of 1990 - arguably the best year in the 1000-year history of the country, as well as the story of how the regional leaders (Milosevic, Tudjman and Izetbegovic) worked hard to undermine the reforms and thus undermine the authority of the federal government led by then Prime Minister Ante Markovic.

Also, I do not agree about his rosy descriptions of Milosevic. A very good friend of mine is a family friend of Milosevic, so I have it on good faith that he is actually quite a nice guy in person. But, even Molly Ivins admits that Bush is a nice guy in person. I have written before that the two are very similar to each other: each is way over his head, surrounded by yes-men and propped by some very shady characters. With these two caveats taken into account, Parenti's analysis is spot on.

The take-home message from Parenti's articles is the neccessity of every US Administration (Dem or Rep) to defend the myth that US-style political system - and even more importantly the US-style economic system (the winner-take-all "free-market" capitalism) - is the only viable system. Every country that pursues a different model and succeeds has to be demonized, then destroyed. Recent examples: Yugoslavia, Cuba, Iraq and - watch-out tin-foil-hatters - Venezuela.

The goals of US foreign policy are a) to open up rich markets for US megacompanies, b) to eliminate any examples of successful alternatives, and c) to keep Americans from revolting against the economic system that is designed to make rich richer and poor poorer. Attack on Yugoslavia served all three purposes. Attack on Iraq does the same. Afghanistan was done quickly and half-ass-edly because it did not do anything to further any of the three goals - it is just something that the US populace expected to be done in response to 9/11, so it was "done". North Korea is a disaster - a great example of an alternative system NOT working well - so attacking it would serve none of the three goals, either. That's why we are not attacking North Korea and never will.

The Myth of the Wonderful American Soldier

First of all - I do not want anyone to die. I don't want anyone to get killed in any war. Not even the worst of the worst scum on Earth deserves to be killed - life in prison is just fine. And yes, I support the troups by asking for full and immediate withdrawal from Iraq. But this is because they are fellow human beings, not because I think they are wonderful human beings.

I am speaking statistics here, but most of the soldiers are 18-year olds, from poor families, from poor little towns, from poor Red states. A person who is curious, open-minded and hungry for knowledge does not apply to join the military - he is more likely to apply to graduate school. A person who wants to help other people and make a difference in the world will not join the military - he is more likely to join the Peace Corps, get a job with Red Cross, volunteer at a local shelter, and get politically active. Joining the army is the last-ditch effort to escape poverty and misery of dying little towns and villages of America.

A regular soldier grew up in a little village, surrounded by neighborly bickering and gossip, getting zero education from the atrocious local public school, getting indoctrinated into quasi-Christianity in the local Baptist church, enjoying a good fist-fight every now and then, followed by a can of Miller Light, some dope, some greasy food and some porn. He is ready to join the military because he truly believes that soldiering is something heroic. He is more than happy to join an organization which, unlike the chaos of his home, is based on order, hierarchy, discipline and obedience. He does not need to drink Kool-Aid for political indoctrination - he, like Obelix, fell into a cauldron full of Kool-Aid when he was a baby and is thus irrevocably indoctrinated for life.

After growing up blowing up frogs, hanging cats and having sex with farm animals, slaughtering humans is no big deal. The darkies are animals, after all.

Now, not all soldiers are like this. But the smart guys tend to be seggregated. They rise through the ranks quickly and go to war when they are 28 years old, not 18. They do intelligence, or fly fighter jets, or play with fancy electronics back at the HQ. They are rare animals and too valuable to waste as cannon-fodder on the front lines of the battlefield. That is where the 18-year-olds go. And that is where they are all placed together to play-off of each other's insecurities and build each other's egos.

While commenters on LGF or Free Republic try to one-up each other who can slander the 'evil libruls' better, the soldiers have an entirely different game to play. Words are not enough. They have rifles and are supposed to use them. Machismo in-words-only is not enough. The "real men" prove themselves to their buddies by being as ruthless and merciless in their killing as possible. There's a reason why they post their pictures on the porn site, or why they posed for pictures at Abu-Ghraib - it builds their self-esteem and covers up for their fear and insecurity.

Also, don't forget the Stanford Prison Experiment. Even the nicest of the nicest are capable of atrocious cruelty. Yet, the young men and women on the battlefronts are even less socially conscious and are developmentally primed for such behavior to begin with. Also, don't forget how much trouble the veterans of previous wars had to get integrated back into the civilian society. You start out as half-animal, you go to war and become a complete animal, then are expected to come back and be a human again? That's tough even for the educated and sophisticated. Can you imagine how hard it is for those boys and girls fighting in Iraq right now?

I don't want to leave you with an impression that I am looking down my elitist nose (and I have a very big nose!) at these people. I do not think they are stupid. I see them as victims. They are growing up in a cruel society in which, due to poverty, religion, miseducation and bad childrearing practices, they remain emotionally and intellectually stunted. They grow up to be cruel, and work hard to perpetuate the cruel society. While some of them express their cruelty verbally (on Wingnut blogs, for instance), and very few express it financially, many have no choice but to express it physically - by joining the military and ending up in crelty competitions with their colleagues. I want to see a society in which all of the young people can grow up to fulfill their fullest potential - emotionally and intellectually. In such a society, the military would be a very different kind of organisation, too. It would be reformed from within, capitalizing on smarts instead of cruelty of the soldiers.

The Myth of the American Superiority

After the last November's elections, almost a year ago, I wrote a very long post about the Big Picture that the election results unveiled. I hope you'll go and read it (again). For the purposes of this post, however, let me just quote a tiny little bit out ot it that I think is relevant:

"Within months, perhaps a couple of years, we will not be:

#1 Military superpower. The world has now seen the limits of our military. We will be stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, beaten by Iraqi partisans a little bit every day. Troops will be more and more doubting and demoralized (as they were in Vietnam towards the end). New conscripts will be there not because they thought enlisting was honorable, or because they hold a naive belief that a stint in the army "turns a boy into man", but due to economic conscription. Removal of Pell Grants and a horrible job situation leave the military as the ONLY option for many young people. The obvious impotence of our military will allow others to thumb their noses at us and go unpunished because we cannot do anything about it (perhaps the Serbs will reclaim "spite" by kicking out the Americans out of Kosovo now that they can see it is a tiger with no teeth). New alliances will be forged, the Russo-Chinese one being the most dangerous. We will not be considered the "only remaining superpower" any more. What is that going to do to our collective ego?

#1 Economic superpower. New Depression, world-record deficit, tanking of the dollar, sale of Federal IOUs by East-Asian countries, switch to Euro as an official currency of international trade, and formation of the European Market which is already bigger and richer than American, will together dethrone the USA from the Number One spot in economy of the World. Read the new books by Reid and Rifkin about the New Europe. They (and Japan and China) will dictate to us from now on, and not the reverse. What is that going to do to our collective ego?

#1 Technological superpower. What happened to the American ingenuity? The USA is slipping fast in its ranking in science and in technological innovation. We have been boasting of our "knowledge-based" economy, but soon we will not be Number One in this area any more, and the agriculture and manufacture are gone already. What are we going to do? Tourism? Who's gonna come? There will be nothing to offer the world that the world cannot invent, produce, and sell cheaper by themselves. What is that going to do to our collective ego?

#1 Moral superpower. That is already gone. An incipient totalitarian theocracy that acts like a bully abroad holds no moral sway over anyone. It will just take some time for the news to arrive to the Red states. We are the last to learn that we are now considered to be a Third-World country. What is that going to do to our collective ego?

Buckle up! The Bushies are about to destroy the core meaning of what it is to be an American. The "City on the Hill" will be gone. The "shining beacon of freedom" will be gone. The "greatest democracy in the world" will be a laughingstock. It is going to hurt."

I think I was right. In all four domains, we have sunk even lower.

Can you point out a single war that US waged on its own and it actually won (or not made up an excuse to leave before the "job is done") on a country larger than San Marino?

In WWI we sent, too late, our boys to die, with no arms and ammunition, in the French trenches.

In WWII, we were again too late, then spent our time in tangential theaters (Pacific and Africa), then, once the Europeans and Russian liberated themselves, paraded into Europe and proclaimed ourselves "liberators".

We had to leave Korea. We had to leave Vietnam. We had to leave Somalia. We had to leave Serbia. We had to leave Iraq - now twice. Taliban is recuperating in Afghanistan. Osama is nowhere to be found. Haiti is in disrepair. When was the last time we went somewhere, won the war decisively, and left the country in better shape than it was before our attack? So, where does the myth of our military superiority come from? From the A-bomb, of course.

The only reason why the rest of the world still respects us is our nuclear arsenal. Our bombs are the only reason why we have not been kicked out of the UN yet, ostracized by the world, under economic sanctions, and our military bases kicked out of various countries around the world.00

Our A-bombs are the last and only thing for which the world respects us right now. It is not our science - we have creationists running the show. It is not our economy - foreigners pay for every cent our government uses for any purpose. It is not our conventional military - too poor of a track record there. And it is certainly not for our moral stance. They don't hate us for our freedoms. They pity us for being so ready to relinquish those freedoms just because a dozen bearded wackos managed to kill some of us in NYC and Pentagon. They shake their heads at the hysterical fear of so many of us that takes its outlets on whichever "other" is available: Iraqis, gays, women, blacks, poor, liberals, atheists, Moslems.

This summer I went to Wilmington, NC to a wedding. Wilmington is a heavily Republican area. During five days there, the only Kerry/Edwards sticker I saw was on my car, and even that one went missing one night. Before the wedding I went to a local place to get a haircut. The lady, about 40-ish I'd say, was talkative. I kept saying uncommital stuff just to egg her on, to hear the whole story.

She was talking about "them". Those "them" apparently was a grab-bag category that included Osama Bin-Laden, Iraqis, Moslems, terrorists of all kinds, and foreigners of all kinds. She was deathly afraid of all of "them".

It never crossed her mind that all those people don't have much to do with each other, or that most of them are kinda nice if you get to meet them. It never crossed her mind that no terrorist is going to waste the time, money and lives to hit Wilmington, NC. It never crossed her mind that 9/11 was a freak accident - one time when the bunch of wackos managed to do something successfully for their terrorist aims. It never crossed her mind that Al Qaida is not some huge monolithic organization, but just a bunch of morons collecting porn on their old computers and always scheming something but rarely ever trying to actually put their schemes to work. When they do, they are successful because our defenses are pathetic, not because they are geniuses.

Yet, in the end, she said this [paraphrase]: "You know, some people say that perhaps we here, in America, don't have the most equal of societies, you know, towards women and gays and such. But you know, I'd never go live anywhere else. Who cares about your rights if you are not safe. I'd rather give up on some of those rights than get killed by terrorists."

Whoa! She is willing to wear a jumper in order to be safe, and she'll be safe if she votes Republican, because Republicans are known to be good at security against the phantom menace she believes in. How many things so wrong can one pack into so little talk?

Yes, we still think of ourselves as somehow superior to the rest of the world. Every foreign intervention is (officially) based on the premise that we need to help because the locals are unable to help themselves - how arrogant!

But this is a core value of the conservative moral order. They do not see the difference between patriotism and nationalism. The American superiority is the in-group snootiness - the essential emotional state of a conservative. So, why do the liberals buy into it all the time?

I was happy to see my kids bused to school there

As Test Scores Jump, Raleigh Credits Integration by Income

By ALAN FINDER

RALEIGH, N.C. - Over the last decade, black and Hispanic students here in Wake County have made such dramatic strides in standardized reading and math tests that it has caught the attention of education experts around the country.

The main reason for the students' dramatic improvement, say officials and parents in the county, which includes Raleigh and its sprawling suburbs, is that the district has made a concerted effort to integrate the schools economically.

Since 2000, school officials have used income as a prime factor in assigning students to schools, with the goal of limiting the proportion of low-income students in any school to no more than 40 percent.

The effort is the most ambitious in the country to create economically diverse public schools, and it is the most successful, according to several independent experts. La Crosse, Wis.; St. Lucie County, Fla.; San Francisco; Cambridge, Mass.; and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., have adopted economic integration plans.

In Wake County, only 40 percent of black students in grades three through eight scored at grade level on state tests a decade ago. Last spring, 80 percent did. Hispanic students have made similar strides. Overall, 91 percent of students in those grades scored at grade level in the spring, up from 79 percent 10 years ago.

School officials here have tried many tactics to improve student performance. Teachers get bonuses when their schools make significant progress in standardized tests, and the district uses sophisticated data gathering to identify, and respond to, students' weaknesses.

Some of the strategies used in Wake County could be replicated across the country, the experts said, but they also cautioned that unusual circumstances have helped make the politically delicate task of economic integration possible here.

The school district is countywide, which makes it far easier to combine students from the city and suburbs. The county has a 30-year history of busing students for racial integration, and many parents and students are accustomed to long bus rides to distant schools. The local economy is robust, and the district is growing rapidly. And corporate leaders and newspaper editorial pages here have firmly supported economic diversity in the schools.

Some experts said the academic results in Wake County were particularly significant because they bolstered research that showed low-income students did best when they attended middle-class schools.

"Low-income students who have an opportunity to go to middle-class schools are surrounded by peers who have bigger dreams and who are more academically engaged," said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who has written about economic integration in schools. "They are surrounded by parents who are more likely to be active in the school. And they are taught by teachers who more likely are highly qualified than the teachers in low-income schools."

To achieve a balance of low- and middle-income children in every school, the Wake County school district encourages and sometimes requires students to attend schools far from home. Suburban students are drawn to magnet schools in the city. Low-income children from the city are bused to middle-class schools in the suburbs.

Some parents chafe at the length of their children's bus rides or at what they see as social engineering. But the test results are hard to dispute, proponents of economic integration say, as is the broad appeal of the school district, which has been growing by 5,000 students a year.

"What I say to parents is, 'Here is what you should hold me accountable for: at the end of that bus ride, are we providing a quality education for your child?' " Bill McNeal, the school superintendent, said.

Asked how parents respond, Mr. McNeal said, "They are coming back, and they are bringing their friends."

Not everyone supports the strategy. Some parents deeply oppose mandatory assignments to schools. Every winter, the district, using a complicated formula, develops a list of students who will be reassigned to new schools for the following academic year, and nearly every year some parents object vehemently.

"Kids are bused all over creation, and they say it's for economic diversity, but really it's a proxy for race," said Cynthia Matson, who is white and middle class. She is the president and a founder of Assignment By Choice, an advocacy group promoting parental choice.

The organization wants parents to be responsible for selecting schools, and it objects to restrictions that, in certain circumstances, make it difficult for some middle-class children to get into magnet schools.

"If a parent wants their kid bused, then let them make the choice," Mrs. Matson said. "But don't force parents to have their kids bused across town to go to a school that they don't want to go to."

Supporters of economic integration contend that the county offers parents many choices but that the school district needs the discretion to assign some children to schools to avoid large concentrations of poor children. "I believe in choice as much as anyone," Mr. McNeal said. "However, I can't let choice erode our ability to provide quality programs and quality teaching."

The board of education had two motives when it decided to make economic integration a main element in the district's strategy: board members feared that the county's three-decade effort to integrate public schools racially would be found unconstitutional if challenged in the federal courts, and they took note of numerous studies that showed the academic benefits of economically diversifying schools.

"There is a lot of evidence that it's just sound educational policy, sound public policy, to try to avoid concentrations of low-achieving students," said John H. Gilbert, a professor emeritus at North Carolina State University in Raleigh who served for 16 years on the county school board and voted for the plan. "They do much better and advantaged students are not hurt by it if you follow policies that avoid concentrating low-achievement students."

One sign of the success of the Wake County plan, Mr. Gilbert said, is that residential property values in Raleigh have remained high, as have those in the suburbs. "The economy is really saying something about the effort in the city," he said.

About 27 percent of the county's students are low-income, a proportion that has increased slightly in recent years. While many are black and Hispanic, about 15 percent are white. Moreover, more than 40 percent of the district's black students are working- and middle-class, and not poor.

Wake County has used many strategies to limit the proportion of low-income students in schools to 40 percent. For example, magnet schools lure many suburban parents to the city.

Betty Trevino lives in Fuquay-Varina, a town in southern Wake County. Ms. Trevino drives her son, Eric, 5, to and from the Joyner Elementary School, where he goes to kindergarten. Students are taught in English and Spanish, and global themes are emphasized at the school, which is north of downtown Raleigh, more than 20 miles from the Trevinos' home. With traffic, the trip takes 45 minutes each way.

"I think it works," she said of her drive halfway across the county, "because it's such a good school."

Many low-income children are bused to suburban schools. While some of their parents are unhappy with the length of the rides, some also said they were happy with their child's school.

"I think it's ridiculous," LaToya Mangum said of the 55 minutes that her son Gabriel, 7, spends riding a bus to the northern reaches of Wake County, where he is in second grade. On the other hand, she said, "So far, I do like the school."

The neighborhood school has been redefined, with complex logistics and attendance maps that can resemble madly gerrymandered Congressional districts.

The Swift Creek Elementary School, in southwest Raleigh near the city line, draws most of its students from within two miles of the school, in both the city and suburbs. But students also come to Swift Creek from four widely scattered areas in low-income sections of south and southeastern Raleigh; some live 6 to 8 miles from the school, while others are as far as 12 miles away.

Ela Browder lives in Cary, an affluent, sprawling suburb, but each morning she puts her 6-year-old son, Michael, on a bus for a short ride across the city line to Swift Creek.

"We're very happy with the school," Ms. Browder said. "The children are very enriched by it. I think it's the best of both worlds."

Of the county's 139 elementary, middle and high schools, all but 22 are within the 40 percent guideline, according to the district's data. Some are only a few percentage points above the guideline, while others are significantly higher.

The overwhelming majority of the 120,000 children in the district go either to a local school or a school of their choice, officials said. Slightly more than 85 percent of students attend a school within five miles of home and another 12 percent or so voluntarily attend magnet or year-round schools.

Although the figures can be calculated many ways, Mr. McNeal says about 2.5 percent - or about 3,000 children - are assigned to schools for economic balance or to accommodate the district's growth by filling new schools or easing overcrowding in existing ones. Most of those bused for economic diversity tend to be low-income, he said.

A school board election will take place in October. While the board has continued to endorse economic integration, some supporters worry that that could change one day.

"It's not easy and it can be very contentious in the community," said Walter C. Sherlin, who retired two years ago as an associate superintendent. "Is it worth doing? Look at 91 percent at or above grade level. Look at 139 schools, all of them successful. I think the answer is obvious."

ConvergeSouth

Ed Cone explains why you should come to Converge South BloggerCon. Along with the guests and luminaries Ed mentions in the article, the local talent will also be present in great numbers. My session is on Friday at 10:30am or so. Hope to see you there!

Tar Heel Tavern

The Tar Heel Tavern #31 is up on Pratie Place.

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

Next Tar Heel Tavern (thanks to Erin for making the homepage prettier and for assembling the Archives - go there to subscribe to the newsletter!) will be hosted by the ever-delightful Pratie Place.

Send your entries to melinama AT mappamundi DOT com.

Tangled Bank - call for submissions

Next edition of the Tangled Bank will be hosted by GirrrrrlScientist aka Hedwig The Owl of the Living The Scientific Life blog. If you have a recent entry (or plan to write one soon) about science, nature, medicine, environment or the relationship between science and society, click on that link for instructions where to send your permalinks.

Dear Google, Thank you for blog search...

This guy has a great idea. Write a blog post titled "Dear Google, Thank you for blog search...". Put in this image and e-mail google.com asking for the Blog search link to be placed on the front page like this:

Blogging Blogs

Jay Rosen on NYTimes pay-per-view editorial page and on the power of bloggers in the world of MSM.

Chris Anderson has a new version of his definiton of the Long Tail, a new fun tool to understand it and two posts explaining what the Long Tail isn't.

Everything you wanted to know about blogging you can find on SoapBlox.

Danah Boyd explains what Glocalizing Web2.0 Systems are, on poverty, on the phenomenon of MSM citing blogs and why culture matters even in a math class.

Problogger is trying to help you earn some money with your blogging and Successful Blog explains the secrets of blogging to beginner and master alike, while Web Pages That Suck explains the Don'ts of blogging and web-construction that I wish more bloggers would read (myself included, of course).

After the fantastic success of the Ministry of Reshelving action, Avant Game moves to new pursuits, including place storming. But, was reshelving such a great idea? Dunno, this post is suspicious, methinks.

Contentious is another excellent blog exploring the ins and outs of blogs, from technical stuff to its effects on the practice of journalism.

9rules network is something to consider joining.

Colin McEnroe is teaching a blogging class. Among else, all his students are starting their own blogs and writing their first fresh opinions about Dooce, Kottke, dKos, BoingBoing and other famous blogs. Some of their opinions are very good, insightful and instructive. They are all well written. I'd like to boost them by sharing a little link-love - please go and post a comment encouraging their early blogging efforts. Here they are:

Mysterious Pink Lady
Experiencing Technical Difficulties
I hear Kos music
More Pinkness and Eyestrain
Trust the Abyss
Dances (and Disses) With Dooce
Dude, you're scaring me
Lungfull Taichung Angel guest star marathon poet
DJ Mobile
Blogs With Cats
Jean DuBlog
The Rev. William Slone Modest
By Neddie Jingo
MeMo.
I cant's help if I am lucky

The Daou Report has elicited a lot of blog response. The male A-listers mostly say "Heh". But the feminist bloggers are providing some excellent analysis, e.g., Echidne, Pam, and Rana. To see where Rana is coming from, you have to read this older post of hers first.

Good New (to me) Blogs of the Week

This is a wonderful New Orleans blogger - highly recommended. He just went back to assess the damage on his house and to save his (and friend's) pets.

I also discovered this blog recently - a woman who has just evacuated from Rita's path in Texas and intends not to go back.

Finally, this is an interesting blog by a person who teaches a blogging class.

Blogarithmicly!

Blogarithmicly #2, the carnival of linkfests is up!

International Blog Lurker's Day!

Hey, I had no idea today is a Blog Lurker Day!!!

So if you are a lurker, i.e., a relatively regular reader of my blog but you have never (OK, almost never works, too, which disqualifies what...four people: Eric M, Eric G, Archy and jonnybutter?) posted a comment here, on this day you are encouraged to take a deep breath, sign in on Blogger and post your first comment on my blog.

Say Hi. Tell me who you are. Do you have a blog? When and how did you find my blog? Where do you live? What posts here do you like the most and keep coming back for more of the same? What posts you just hated?! Tell me more. Thanks.


Update: Hey, some other blogs are doing this - go check out their lurkers' response (as well as those I linked originally above).

Why is my new razor not lathering?

This, about a year ago, was meant to be a parody. However, today the harsh reality intrudes.

Tangled Bank

Sweet Tooth Tangled Bank is now up on Milkriver blog. Go check it out and salivate!

Astrology Academy in Serbia

This I learned from Eric:

How to become an astrologer

For those few remaining stubborn hold-outs who still cannot read Serbo-Croatian, here's a quick translation:

Institute for Astrological Research and Education "Johannes Kepler" recently opened in Belgrade. The goals of the Institute are to support the research in astrology, academic approach to astrology, and to aid astrologers and astrology in gaining social status.

The Institute is not a part of the University system, as officially confirmed by the Ministry of Education, but although astrology is still not accepted as a science, there are international standards in this discipline drawn by the International Astrology Organization, and the Institute's syllabus was written according to these standards.

The graduates of the Institute will receive a Certificate in Natal Astrology, Diploma of Astrology-Consulting and Diploma of Astrology-Lecturer, after which the students may choose specialization abroad. Annual tuition fee is 500 Euros.

Some contend that the large popularity of astrology in Serbia is mainly the result of the economic crisis and poor education and that there is nothing there to teach, but graduated astrologers may find jobs in Serbia more easily than some other kinds of experts.

What is really interesting are the reader's comments. There are, so far, only 21 comments. Of those, one is by an astrologer pretending it is a science, and one is a feeble attempt at a defense of astrology. The rest are either outrage or mockery. Many lament the (ab)use of Kepler's name for it.

One writes: "It's not that is is not yet accepted as science - it will never be accepted. Popularity of astrology and similiar pseudoscience is due to the tolerance towards various frauds of this kind."

Another: "Ah, everything in the country is functioning so perfectly, only this academy was missing...".

Another: "Next step is the Medical School of Charms".

One, after an outrage, seriously wonders "Can graduates apply to the National Bureau for Employment?".

Several point out that astrology and other pseudoscience are much more popular in the West, e.g., "Fine, Europe is slowly coming to us....".

One asks "I'd like to know who opened this kind of institution and who approved of its founding?"

Another suggests opening schools for tin-rolling and cauldron-making as those crafts are more honest and useful.

"Why is some "graduated individual" going to tell me how Pluto on the other side of the Sun at the moment of my birth, THROUGH THE SUN, affected me so much that this has to be studied at an academy, while nobody is studying the effects of the lightbulb above the table when I emerged into the light of day?"

One writes a satire and ends:"But now I am starting to believe my horoscope. Just yesterday it said that 'nothing important is going to happen today' and, really, nothing important happened, so this means they are starting to guess correctly..."

One describes the phenomenon of "online" Universities, aka diploma-mills in the West and concludes that compared to that, a little fun horoscope with morning coffee is not nearly as harmful. He is hoping that the academy will at least teach the frauds to write their horoscopes with less vulgarity.

One is insulted they used Kepler's name and compares astrology to card games (not Tarot, but poker!) and cooking, i.e, something that cannot ever be defined as science. Then he asserts that the building of the academy is fraudulent and asks if the inspectors will intervene (interesting that it is assumed reasonable that the state has the power to intervene against anti-social fraud!).

Another commenter mocks the current Serbian climate: "If we can't help ourselves, perhaps stars will!"

I understand that the educational system in Serbia has made a nose-dive during a decade of wars, sanctions and Milosevic. The good teachers are gone. Kids are on drugs and bring guns to school. The school system I remember was one of the best in the world. Now it is nowhere near, though it is still way ahead of the US public schools. Even with bad teachers and discipline problems, Serbian kids still get eight years of biology, eight years of physics and eight years of chemistry before they graduate from high school, as compared to one year of each here. And there is still much educational capital retained in people older than eighteen. After all, the popular outcry defended Darwin from being challenged in Serban schools last year:

I Take This Personally
Saga Continues
Serbs Like Darwin After All
Darwin In Serbia, He Said, She Said
More On Darwin In Serbia

Update: A reader sent me a link to this marvellous webpage: Teorija Evolucije. It is in Serbo-Croatian and it is an excellent resource. It contains an explanation of what evolution is and how it works with numerous nifty examples, a point-by-point debunking of creationist talking points, and excellent links to English-language pages, e.g., Talkorigins, Tree of Life, etc. Go take a look even if you do not speak the language as it is well organized and pretty.

Grand Rounds

Grand Rounds #52 is up.

Academic Blog Survey

Overview: The following survey is for bloggers who are actual or aspiring academics (thus including students). It takes the form of a go-meme to provide bloggers a strong incentive to join in: the 'Link List' means that you will receive links from all those who pick up the survey 'downstream' from you. The aim is to create open-source data about academic blogs that is publicly available for further analysis. Analysts can find the data by searching for the tracking identifier-code: "acb109m3m3". Further details, and eventual updates with results, can be found on the original posting:http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/09/academic-blog-survey.html

Instructions: Simply copy and paste this post to your own blog, replacing my survey answers with your own, as appropriate, and adding your blog to the Link List.

Important (1) Your post must include the four sections: Overview, Instructions, Link List, and Survey. (2) Remember to link to every blog in the Link List. (3) For tracking purposes, your post must include the following code: acb109m3m3

Link List (or 'extended hat-tip'):
1. Philosophy, et cetera
2. Science And Politics and Circadiana
3. Add a link to your blog here

Survey:

Demographics
Age - 39
Gender - Male
Location – Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
Religion – Nada, Zero, Zilch
Began blogging - August 2004
Academic field – Biology (chronobiology)
Academic position [tenured?] – PhD candidate - ABD

Approximate blog stats
Rate of posting –
daily or more

Average no. hits –
Science And Politics: slowly and steadily rising to the current 280/day
Circadiana: varies wildly – as little as 80/day on lazy summer weekends and as many a few thousand/day when it gets hit by a big blogger (e.g., Boing Boing, Daily Dish, Instapundit, Pharyngula) or someone places a link to a post on stumbleupon, deli.cio.us, or Blogger Dashboard “Blogs of Note”.

Average no. comments –
3-4/day

Blog content –
Science And Politics: a very varied mix: mostly political, but also science, bashing pseudoscience and religion, meta-blogging (blog carnivals), reviewing books and movies, humor, and even a little bit of personal stuff (not too personal – some childhood recollections and being proud of my kids’ accomplishments). While I word my opinions strongly and with aggressive confidence, I mostly remain within the realm of polite language and decent grammar.
Circadiana: this blog is designed to cover ONLY science – the posts include coverage of recent research in chronobiology as well as media coverage of the field. However, the most important aspect of the blog is a series of instructional essays that I intend to use as a teaching tool one day, once I get hired to teach about biological rhythms.

Other Questions

1) Do you blog under your real name? Why / why not?
- Yes. I started out anonymously and placed my name about 6 months later (once I started Circadiana). While ranting about politics may better be done anonymously, I felt that running Circadiana required me to place my name (and thus credentials) so that the readers can trust my credentials to write about a narrowly specialized topic. I am still not sure if I did the right thing.

2) Do colleagues or others in your department know that you blog? If so, has anyone reacted positively or negatively?
- Yes. A couple of my colleagues know but do not appear to understand what it is and I doubt they read it at all. My advisor discovered Circadiana by googling a topic I covered in a post. I think he liked it in general, though he thinks that blogging is taking too much time away from Dissertation-writing (which is correct). I do not think he knows about Science And Politics.

3) Are you on the job market?
- Not right now but will be soon

4) Do you mention your blog on your CV or other job application material?
- I am considering placing Circadiana on my CV as it is most directly relevant to my research and teaching. Anyone blog-savvy can easily discover, while browsing Circadiana, my other blog (as well as group blogs I participate on).

5) Has your blog been mentioned at all in interviews, tenure reviews, etc.? If so, provide details.
- Not applicable yet. Does Circadiana being mentioned in Make Magazine count?

6) Why do you blog?
- I think I was waiting all my life for the technology that would let me write my thoughts for everyone to read. I always think as if I am constructing an essay (or a speech) and felt that it is a pity most of that never got written down and shared. I never bothered keeping a hand-written diary because I crave the audience. On the other hand, Circadiana is designed as a primarily teaching tool and my personality rarely shines through.

Tag: I hope that De Rerum Natura, She Flies With Her Own Wings and Sleepdoctor respond to this survey.

Science study: Some Americans haven't a clue

SCIENTIST AT WORK -- Jon Miller; Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much
August 30, 2005, Tuesday
By CORNELIA DEAN

(Cape Cod Online has a short excerpt.
Brian Leiter posted a somewhat different excerpt. Here are the two excerpts combined:...)

UPDATE: Here's the whole thing, thanks to an anonymous NYT subscriber:

When Jon D. Miller looks out across America, which he can almost do from his 18th-floor office at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, he sees a landscape of haves and have-nots -- in terms not of money, but of knowledge. Dr. Miller, 63, a political scientist who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at the medical school, studies how much Americans know about science and what they think about it. His findings are not encouraging.

While scientific literacy has doubled over the past two decades, only 20 to 25 percent of Americans are ''scientifically savvy and alert,'' he said in an interview. Most of the rest ''don't have a clue.'' At a time when science permeates debates on everything from global warming to stem cell research, he said, people's inability to understand basic scientific concepts undermines their ability to take part in the democratic process.

Over the last three decades, Dr. Miller has regularly surveyed his fellow citizens for clients as diverse as the National Science Foundation, European government agencies and the Lance Armstrong Foundation. People who track Americans' attitudes toward science routinely cite his deep knowledge and long track record.

''I think we should pay attention to him,'' said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, who cites Dr. Miller's work in her efforts to advance the cause of evolution in the classroom. ''We ignore public understanding of science at our peril.''

Rolf F. Lehming, who directs the science foundation's surveys on understanding of science, calls him ''absolutely authoritative.''

Dr. Miller's data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.

At one time, this kind of ignorance may not have meant much for the nation's public life. Dr. Miller, who has delved into 18th-century records of New England town meetings, said that back then, it was enough ''if you knew where the bridge should be built, if you knew where the fence should be built.''

''Even if you could not read and write, and most New England residents could not read or write,'' he went on, ''you could still be a pretty effective citizen.''

No more. ''Acid rain, nuclear power, infectious diseases -- the world is a little different,'' he said.

It was the nuclear power issue that first got him interested in public knowledge of science, when he was a graduate student in the 1960's. ''The issue then was nuclear power,'' he said. ''I used to play tennis with some engineers who were very pro-nuclear, and I was dating a person who was very anti-nuclear. I started doing some reading and discovered that if you don't know a little science it was hard to follow these debates. A lot of journalism would not make sense to you.''

Devising good tests to measure scientific knowledge is not simple. Questions about values and attitudes can be asked again and again over the years because they will be understood the same way by everyone who hears them; for example, Dr. Miller's surveys regularly ask people whether they agree that science and technology make life change too fast (for years, about half of Americans have answered yes) or whether Americans depend too much on science and not enough on faith (ditto).

But assessing actual knowledge, over time, ''is something of an art,'' he said. He varies his questions, as topics come and go in the news, but devises the surveys so overall results can be compared from survey to survey, just as SAT scores can be compared even though questions on the test change.

For example, he said, in the era of nuclear tests he asked people whether they knew about strontium 90, a component of fallout. Today, he asks about topics like the workings of DNA in the cell because ''if you don't know what a cell is, you can't make sense of stem cell research.''

Dr. Miller, who was raised in Portsmouth, Ohio, when it was a dying steel town, attributes much of the nation's collective scientific ignorance to poor education, particularly in high schools. Many colleges require every student to take some science, but most Americans do not graduate from college. And science education in high school can be spotty, he said.

''Our best university graduates are world-class by any definition,'' he said. ''But the second half of our high school population -- it's an embarrassment. We have left behind a lot of people.''

He had firsthand experience with local school issues in the 1980's, when he was a young father living in DeKalb, Ill., and teaching at Northern Illinois University. The local school board was considering closing his children's school, and he attended some board meetings to get an idea of members' reasoning. It turned out they were spending far more time on issues like the cost of football tickets than they were on the budget and other classroom matters. ''It was shocking,'' he said.

So he and some like-minded people ran successfully for the board and, once in office, tried to raise taxes to provide more money for the classroom. They initiated three referendums; all failed. Eventually, he gave up, and his family moved away.

''This country cannot finance good school systems on property taxes,'' he said. ''We don't get the best people for teaching because we pay so little. For people in the sciences particularly, if you have some skill, the job market is so good that teaching is not competitive.''

Dr. Miller was recruited to Northwestern Medical School in 1999 by administrators who knew of his work and wanted him to study attitudes and knowledge of science in light of the huge changes expected from the genomic revolution.

He also has financing -- and wears a yellow plastic bracelet -- from the Lance Armstrong Foundation, for a project to research people's knowledge of clinical trials. Many research organizations want to know what encourages people to participate in a trial and what discourages them. But Dr. Miller said, ''It's more interesting to ask if they know what a clinical trial is, do they know what a placebo is.''

The National Science Foundation is recasting its survey operations, so Dr. Miller is continuing surveys for other clients. One involves following people over time, tracing their knowledge and beliefs about science from childhood to adulthood, to track the way advantages and disadvantages in education are compounded over time and to test his theory that people don't wait until they are adults to start forming opinions about the world.

Lately, people who advocate the teaching of evolution have been citing Dr. Miller's ideas on what factors are correlated with adherence to creationism and rejection of Darwinian theories. In general, he says, these fundamentalist views are most common among people who are not well educated and who ''work in jobs that are evaporating fast with competition around the world.''

But not everyone is happy when he says things like that. Every time he goes on the radio to talk about his findings, he said, ''I get people sending me cards saying they will pray for me a lot.''

How can people understand evolution, and why Intelligent Design Creationism is bogus, or even why Young-Earth Creationism is bonkers, or what is science and how it works, and why human impact on global warming is NOT in doubt, and how Republicans screw up science, empiricism, reason and rationality, if so many people have no clue that Earth revolves around the Sun (and not vice versa), or what the term "empirical" means!

Daou Report

Peter Daou has an excellent article about the role and power of political blogs.

Update:
Echidne wrote much better what I thought.

Edwards on Katrina

Here is the text of his today's speech. Compare to Kerry's speech (previous post). No comment!

Kerry on Katrina

Here is the text of the speech he is about to give at Brown University.

Who Would Jesus Do?

The Penguin Wars:

From multiple mates to gay tolerance to untraditional marriage roles, these birds are not at all the role models the Christian Right would make them out to be.

Have you not learned yet: Never Underestimate John Edwards

You know, people are already starting to talk about 2008 Presidential prospects.

John Kerry's only "strength" last year was so-called "electability" which was demonstrated to be wrong. He better not try to run next time around (and I actually like the guy).

Joe Biden is about as exciting as Bob Graham and Dick Gephardt were last year - zero.

In a country with a medieval mind, no woman can win. Hillary's exciting only to the DC press.

Wesley Clark is a war criminal. Thank Chthulu he's a lousy campaigner.

I am assuming ...hoping, that Joementum learned his embarassing lesson and will not run.

Warner and Bayh are only interesting to the DLC crowd.

This leaves Russ Feingold and John Edwards.

And you KNOW that response to Katrina and the exposure of the folly of conservatism will be at the forefront of the campaign. War on poverty will be the main theme.

Now, you may say that Edwards is out because he's not on TV much right now. Well, he is not in DC. While the others are preening to the cameras, he is busy working.

He has never dismantled his grassroots organization which is actually growing (check out his blog and the JREGrassroots.org).

He is light-years ahead of others in the understanding and use of new technology (blogging, book-blogging, podcasting, video-blogging, etc).

He has another book coming out soon - again, just like "Four Trials" it is an untypical candidate's book - no policy, but a great read.

He is co-chairing some high-level foreign-policy committee.

He is running the Center for Poverty and Work.

He is travelling around the country, giving talks and shaking hands.

He is waaay ahead of others in the game of running for 2008 Presidency.

And Katrina just fell on his lap like a Christmas present. The tragedy exposed the existence of poverty and the callousness of the rich.

I have yet to find a commentator who had NOT used the phrase "Two Americas" sometime during the past two weeks. And when you say "Two Americas", you automatically think of John Edwards.

Every other candidate who starts talking about poverty now will be asked: Where were you when Edwards was talking about it? It is as if only Edwards has the genuine ownership of the topic (of course not, but politics is about perceptions).

And this will be the central topic in 2008. And he, not being a senator right now, but having the "inside experience" is even betetr positioned than last year.

See how much the concept of "Two Americas" is back on the front burner and how much it is automatically connected to Edwards' name:

Technorati search comes up with 254 posts on "Two Americas" and "Katrina".

Google Blog search reveals 2,422 posts on "Two Americas".

Check some of those recent blog posts out:

America's Committment To It's Poor

Two Americas

Two Americas

Dem/GOP Division on Poverty

Sometimes it's just not there

ARE THERE REALLY TWO AMERICAS: THE UGLY SIDE OF THE HURRICANE KATRINA RESCUE

About the poor and the rich in our midst

Malibu vs. The Gulf: No Two Americas You Say

John Edwards 2008

Two Americas

Cream of the Crop Column of the Day

The Other America

West not backing down, takes issue with Bush on DeGeneres show

Muhaha

The Two Americas

Contrasting visions

Contrasting visions II

Tina's Brown's Washington Post Column - New York's New Mood

Race and Prejudice

Katrina's Two Americas

The War on Poverty Has Been Lost

To God or to God Not, that's the question.

Carnival of the Godless #23 is up on Uncredible Hallq.

In related news, there is a new carnival starting: GOD or NOT:

GOD or NOT exists to bring theist and atheist thought on a variety of religious issues together in one place on a regular basis. The goal is threefold. First, neither side can hope to make any progress without fully understanding the opposing viewpoint. Second, understanding defuses animosity and eliminates misconceptions. Third, there are plenty of people out there who are "on the fence" when it comes to god. We hope that this Carnival can help them make up their minds one way or the other.

Tar Heel Tavern

The Tar Heel Tavern XXX is up on Poetic Acceptance (and it is not XXX-rated!). Looks beautiful!

Sometimes You Just Don't Know

Intolerance to ambiguity, cognitive rigidity, decreased cognitive complexity, authoritarianism, negative attitudes towards help seeking, low self-esteem and dogmatism are just a few of the attributes that this study (follow-up here) finds correlated with a particular ideological mindset, which, if Lakoff is correct is due to a particular style of childrearing and, if Ducat is correct, gets primarily expressed as femiphobia.

Does this also make a person more likely to assume s/he knows everything? An expert on everything? Someone with no awareness of one's own lack of knowledge and training? Perhaps. See these examples of know-it-alls, ranging from science and math, through journalism to politics:

Outside the Box or Around The Bend:

Many of the more sincere pseudoscience and "alternative" medicine supporters continually exhort those of us who are more skeptical to be "more open-minded", saying that we need to "think outside the box". I submit that there is a fine line between "thinking outside the box" and "going around the bend".

------snip---------

Too often, people coming into a field that is new to them will see rules and procedures that appear clumsy or overly restrictive and want to eliminate them. They feel that their newcomer status allows them to "think outside the box" and are usually frustrated when people who have been in the field longer insist that they adhere to the same clunky, burdensome rules and procedures. If they stay in the field long enough, they almost always come to discover why those rules and procedures are the way they are.

One of the more burdensome and clunky rules that science has had to put up with for the past two centuries or more is the rule that hypotheses are not "fact" (or theory) until they have been successfully tested. This rule has stymied thousands (if not millions) of would-be scientists who are so convinced of their ideas that they feel that testing them is a pointless waste of time and effort.

For these expansive thinkers, this is especially irksome because their new ideas are so obviously correct that anyone who understands them should see their truth immediately. The demands for data and testing seem, to them, merely a distraction - a way for the entrenched old fossils in science to mask their inability to understand. If people would only be more "open-minded" - if they would only "think outside the box" - they would immediately comprehend the beauty and truth of it all.

------snip-----------

So, all you mavericks out there who feel that your lack of education and experience in a field gives you a unique ability to see what those who have labored long and hard cannot, remember these two "cautionary tales". And try to keep an open mind about why the people who have been in the field for years and years may not be receptive to your startling insights. When they brush you off or ignore your input, try to think outside the box of "conspiracy and stubborness" and consider a truly novel idea:

You might be wrong.

I Don't Know

Of course, the Lake Wobegon Effect is no surprise to anyone who has taught freshmen or non-majors, dealt with incompetent (but invariably "experienced") teachers or administrators, argued with intelligent design "experts", or read a newspaper in the last five years. The hardest thing for many people to learn, especially in a subject that they've never seriously encountered before, is that they don't know what's going on, that their opinions are not facts, that their intuition is not proof. This is especially frustrating in math and CS theory classes, where the students have the tools to check whether their answers are correct, if only they'd think to try them. It's almost impossible to actually learn anything if you don't realize that you have something to learn. The first step, as they say, is to admit that you have a problem.

The (Educated) Reader

I’ve learned a great deal, but not what I expected to learn. It should have been the perfect place to begin a discussion of the tradeoffs made between quality and profits, but what was put forward as a forum to hold the newspaper accountable became something else. All the editors really wanted, I’m convinced, was a feel-good focus group with an important-sounding title. Particularly when there’s only one newspaper in town, readers have little clout.

While I am not a journalist, I am a consumer of journalism and I care deeply about newspapers. Good newspapers help create open and constructive dialogue, and this is integral to the democratic process. Perhaps because of that, I find it incredible that the press won’t discuss what is arguably the central journalistic issue of our time with those who have the most at stake — we, the people.

The Net Knows More Than You: An Open Letter to the People of CBS News

People of CBS News, the Net knows more than you. The chances are fairly high that a given producer at CBS would not know enough southern history to grasp what Senator Trent Lott was actually saying when he praised Strom Thurmond’s 1948 campaign for president. The chances of the blogosphere not knowing this background are zero.

How Bush Blew It

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

---------snip--------------

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.

President George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine. He has boasted that he doesn't read the papers. His doggedness is often admirable. It is easy for presidents to overreact to the noise around them.

But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil's advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn't wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

Living Too Much in the Bubble

In addition, former aides say there has always been enormous pressure on White House officials to take only the most vital decisions to Bush and let the bureaucracy deal with everything else. Bush does not appear to tap sources deep inside his government for information, the way his father or Bill Clinton did, preferring to get reports through channels. A highly screened information chain is fine when everything is going well, but in a crisis it can hinder. Louisiana officials say it took hours for Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to reach Bush (although when she did, he talked to her soothingly, according to White House officials). "His inner circle takes pride in being able to tell him 'everything is under control,' when in this case it was not," said a former aide. "The whole idea that you have to only burden him with things 'that rise to his level' bit them this time."

A related factor, aides and outside allies concede, is what many of them see as the President's increasing isolation. Bush's bubble has grown more hermetic in the second term, they say, with fewer people willing or able to bring him bad news--or tell him when he's wrong. Bush has never been adroit about this. A youngish aide who is a Bush favorite described the perils of correcting the boss. "The first time I told him he was wrong, he started yelling at me," the aide recalled about a session during the first term. "Then I showed him where he was wrong, and he said, 'All right. I understand. Good job.' He patted me on the shoulder. I went and had dry heaves in the bathroom."

------snip-------

The result is a kind of echo chamber in which good news can prevail over bad--even when there is a surfeit of evidence to the contrary. For example, a source tells TIME that four days after Katrina struck, Bush himself briefed his father and former President Clinton in a way that left too rosy an impression of the progress made. "It bore no resemblance to what was actually happening," said someone familiar with the presentation.

Group-think, emotional insecurity, lack of societal feedback (please click through the links above and read the whole articles, so you understand what, for instance, the "lack of societal feedback" means). Put them all together and you get crackpots everywhere: in the classroom, in the boardroom, in the Oval Office. And nobody tells them they are wrong. So how can they know?

And even if someone tells them, is their emotional insecurity going to allow them to accept it? See, for instance this Creationist's inability to accept he does not know even one little bit of biology (yet he published an article on it - how arrogant, on top of ignorant). Many Right-wing bloggers behave the same way (see Powerline for the best examples).

Katrina: good local perspective

The New Orleans Rag is an excellent NOLA blog. See the two most recent posts about Katrina and the political aftermath here and here (Hat-tip: Poetic acceptance).

Reality Show for the Sheeple

Eric of East Ethnia found this on From The Heart Of Europe LiveJournal:

Sheep star in Croatia online reality show:

ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croatia has launched a new reality show on the Internet, starring sheep instead of people.

The winner of the 10-day Stado (herd) show, which closes on September 17, will receive poetry in its honour instead of money.

Those voted out of the seven-member herd might be eaten, the Vecernji List daily reported on Wednesday.

The show can be followed 24 hours a day on website www.stado.org, where visitors can see how the sheep feed and interact with each other.

They can then choose which sheep to vote out.

The show drew anger from human rights groups who reported animal abuse to local veterinary inspectors.

"I am not an insensitive bastard who abuses animals. We've called a vet for those sheep that were in poorer shape," organiser Sinisa Labrovic told the daily.

He said the aim of the project was to show that "more and more people, especially those who take part in reality shows, are made to look like sheep in every situation".

From the official webpage, we learn that the show just ended. A ram named Josip (Joseph) won with a total of 3293 votes. Proserpina was the last one to be voted off. Lots of mutton for organizers.

Form Before Function - FEMA prevented doctors from helping Katrina victims

Read this and weep.

Easy blog search

Forget Technorati - it's always two days out-of-date anyway. Google Blog Search is much faster and more accurate. You also have the option to search by relevance or by date (plus the Google's regular "preferences" e.g., language, etc.).

Try searching "femiphobia" or "Lakoffian"...

A Pictorial Guide to the last Two Weeks

Katrina hits the Coast. Bush hits a wrong chord. Nobody has the guts to tell him he's gotta cut his vacation short:


The city is flooded. People are dying. Still, nobody has the guts to tell the ill-tempered Emperor:


Brownie screws up. Still, nobody has the guts to tell the angry guy anything about it. Helluva job, guys:


In the meantime, the horror continues. Some really hungry looters move in:

Finally, someone suggests he should go down and see for himself. Only the bravest are allowed in the vicinity of the vengeful Emperor:

Then, they erect Disneyland for the backdrop of his litany of codewords that some may recall from his old "ownership society" speeches:


It's hard work! And it's awfully hot down there with no air-conditioning:


Not it is just hard work, but it is also borng and the sessions last too long:


In the meantime, it appears we are about to get a new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Why? Because he has such big, beautiful blue eyes:






Perhaps the behavior of Brownie, Bush and others can be explained by the Wobegon Effect!

Skeptic's Circle

An amazing edition of the Skeptic's Circle up on Decorabilia.

The New Orleans catastrophe is inexplicable, or is it?

Another e-mail from the Yale list. I report, you decide (again, not blockquoted due to length - not a single word is mine):

This is the clearest summary I've seen about why New Orleans was left
to suffer.

Lawlessness provides the cover for profiteering via the Kelo ruling
(with John Roberts as Chief Justice, of course) and for military rule.

It starts out with nothing new, but keep reading. It's a concocted
militarization of civil society.

p.s. Not mentioned below, but remember that the same private mercenary
company (a.k.a. Blackwater) that's in Iraq is now also in New Orleans.
**************************************************

From Federal Failure Arises More Federal Power

The response of federal emergency management was delayed until
survivors desperate for food and water (and some for a drug fix) began
looting. The lawlessness provided cover for the federal government to
violate the Posse Comitatus Act and send in regular military troops to
police civilian populations. Lawlessness, the eruption of which was
guaranteed by delayed relief, provides cover both for martial law,
which suspends constitutional protections, and for the confiscation of
legally owned private firearms in violation of the Second Amendment to
the US Constitution. Many readers see a concocted militarization of
civil society. They insist that these new precedents, together with
the recent federal appeals court ruling that the White House has the
power to seize American citizens and to hold them indefinitely on mere
suspicion or accusation without charges or presentation of evidence
against them, mean the overthrow of liberty and accountable government
in the United States.

The New Orleans power elite sees in the recent US Supreme Court Kelo
decision, which permits the use of eminent domain to serve private
interests, a chance to rebuild New Orleans in their own image. In the
September 8 Wall Street Journal, Christopher Cooper ("Old Line
Families Plot the Future") quotes members of the power elite, who
admit they are mapping out a new city that will not restore the old
order: "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in
a completely different way: demographically, geographically and
politically," says James Reiss. The Journal's report brings to light
that the "teeming (black) underclass," which guarantees Democratic
control of New Orleans, is one part of the old order that is not
slated for renewal. In other words, federal failure in New Orleans
plus Kelo equals ethnic cleansing of a large historic American city.

by Paul Craig Roberts

The New Orleans catastrophe is inexplicable


FEMA's slow response is a mystery.

Never before has federal funding for work by the US Corps of Engineers
on the New Orleans levees and for the congressionally authorized
Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (SELA) been curtailed
in the face of dire expert warnings of the consequence.

The Department of Homeland Security and FEMA knew days in advance that
Hurricane Katrina was threatening the Gulf coast of the US. Yet, the
normal advance preparations were not undertaken.

At the request of the Louisiana governor, President Bush declared a
federal emergency for Louisiana on Saturday August 27 prior to
Katrina's arrival in New Orleans on the following Monday. The
declaration specifically authorized FEMA "to identify, mobilize, and
provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to
alleviate the impacts of the emergency." However, FEMA took no action
until 3 days after the hurricane, delaying the arrival of effective
help until 5 days after 80% of New Orleans was under water.

Compare this inexplicable delay with the rapid response to the Florida
hurricanes last year.

Cynics note that Florida's governor is President Bush's brother, a
Republican being groomed for a run for president, while the Louisiana
governor and New Orleans mayor are expendable Democrats. However, the
New Orleans disaster is too great to be attributed solely to crass
party politics.

Funding for the New Orleans levees and for SELA were drastically
curtailed despite experts' protests and warnings, including the
hurricane simulation project (Hurricane Pam) conducted in July 2004
when 270 experts spent eight days assessing the impact of a major
hurricane hitting New Orleans. The simulation predicted that state and
local officials would be overwhelmed, that flood waters would overcome
the levees and cover most of the city, that more than one million
people would be uprooted for a year or longer, and that deaths would
number in the tens of thousands.

The report reads: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and
the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness (LOEP) believe that the
gravity of the situation calls for an extraordinary level of advance
planning to improve government readiness to respond effectively to
such an event.

Despite these expert warnings, the Bush administration made the
decision to redirect the funding for hurricane protection to the "war
against terrorism." As Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for
Jefferson Parish, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune (June 8, 2004):
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to
handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."

As the decisions to deny funding for the Corps of Engineers' levee
projects and SELA and the delayed federal response to Katrina are
inexplicable, the Bush administration, realizing its criminal
negligence, quickly took steps to blame state and local officials.

A senior Bush administration official planted on the Washington Post
the disinformation that FEMA could not act because the Louisiana
governor had not declared a state of emergency. Hours after printing
this disinformation, a red-faced Washington Post issued a retraction,
which reads: "A Sept. 4 article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
incorrectly said that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) had
not declared a state of emergency. She declared an emergency on Aug.
26."

Nevertheless, the disinformation was widely spread by Brit Hume and
other Bush shills who operate out of Fox News (sic), and it continues
to be spread via rightwing talk radio and pro-Bush Internet sites. Fox
News (sic) host Bill O'Reilly spread similar disinformation. Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff added to the disinformation
against Gov. Blanco. Most Republicans cling tightly to the
orchestrated disinformation as it coddles their state of denial about
the failure of leadership in the White House.

One cause of the Bush administrations' catastrophic failure is
obvious: its single-minded focus on its "war on terror." In order to
justify its invasion of Iraq (which has gone badly both for the US and
Iraqis) and the nullification of our essential civil liberties, such
as habeas corpus, that are the foundation of our political and social
order, the Bush administration has made terrorists into a greater
threat than cold warriors were able to make the Soviet Union. The
over-hyped threat of terrorism has become a greater threat than
terrorists themselves.

Readers have insisted to me that Bush administration incompetence,
even at the level of criminal negligence, cannot explain the New
Orleans disaster. They insist there must have been willful intent as
the disaster is too large and was too predictable to be the result of
mere incompetence.

Readers cite the following circumstantial evidence in behalf of their views:

The response of federal emergency management was delayed until
survivors desperate for food and water (and some for a drug fix) began
looting. In keeping with James Q. Wilson's "broken window" analogy,
looting for survival quickly spread into general lawlessness on the
part of some elements.

The lawlessness provided cover for the federal government to violate
the Posse Comitatus Act and send in regular military troops to police
civilian populations. (Both the New York Times on September 8 and the
Washington Post on September 4 and September 11 report that federal or
active duty troops are being used along with National Guard and
police.)

Lawlessness, the eruption of which was guaranteed by delayed relief,
provides cover both for martial law, which suspends constitutional
protections, and for the confiscation of legally owned private
firearms in violation of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.
Everyone has by now seen the images of troops and police breaking into
New Orleans homes and pointing weapons in the faces of residents. US
military even described survivors as "insurgents." (At time of writing
news reports are confused whether martial law exists in New Orleans.
Some reports have the mayor declaring martial law; others report that
the state has declared its version of martial law. Most constitutional
experts believe martial law requires an act of Congress or a
presidential order or both.)

Many readers see a concocted militarization of civil society. They
insist that these new precedents, together with the recent federal
appeals court ruling that the White House has the power to seize
American citizens and to hold them indefinitely on mere suspicion or
accusation without charges or presentation of evidence against them,
mean the overthrow of liberty and accountable government in the United
States.

These suspicions are widely held. They demand careful investigation
both by Congress and the news media. If there are valid grounds for
the suspicions, our remaining liberties are at risk. Even if the
suspicions are groundless, they are highly corrosive of many
Americans' belief in their system of government.

All Americans should be distressed that federal judges increasingly
defer to powers, asserted by the executive branch, which nullify
constitutional rights in the interest of some "higher" cause, such as
the "war on terror." This is a certain path to tyranny. Once gained,
unaccountable powers become permanent and can be used against whomever
by future administrations. Are Republicans content for such powers to
be in the hands of a President Hillary Clinton?

Whether or not there are grounds for suspicion of the extraordinary
federal failure in New Orleans, it is certain that federal
bureaucracies will take advantage of the situation to grab more powers
in behalf of their own agendas.

Private parties already are doing so. The New Orleans power elite sees
in the recent US Supreme Court Kelo decision, which permits the use of
eminent domain to serve private interests, a chance to rebuild New
Orleans in their own image.


In the September 8 Wall Street Journal, Christopher Cooper ("Old Line
Families Plot the Future") quotes members of the power elite, who
admit they are mapping out a new city that will not restore the old
order: "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in
a completely different way: demographically, geographically and
politically," says James Reiss. "I'm not just speaking for myself
here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again."

The Journal's report brings to light that the "teeming (black)
underclass," which guarantees Democratic control of New Orleans, is
one part of the old order that is not slated for renewal. In other
words, federal failure in New Orleans plus Kelo equals ethnic
cleansing of a large historic American city.

With 40 members of the New Orleans power elite having seized the
opportunity to meet in Dallas on September 9 "to begin mapping out a
future for the city," you can bet federal agencies will use the same
opportunity to grab heightened powers. The rights that protect US
citizens from government power are rapidly disappearing if not already
lost. This is the real crisis faced by the vast majority of Americans
who are not a part of the power elite.

In the end not even the power elite will be safe. Hitler exterminated
his own Brownshirts before he went to work on the Jews, and Stalin
exterminated the Bolshevik heros of the Russian Revolution. Once power
is unaccountable, it becomes the possession of the most ruthless.
Loyal party membership protected neither the Brownshirts nor the
Bolsheviks. And it will not protect Bush's Republican apologists.

September 12, 2005

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute
for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent
Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal,
former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant
secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of
Good Intentions.


Copyright (c) 2005 Creators Syndicate

Conservative bio, huh?

History Channel is educational

History Carnival
and
Carnival of Education
are up and are both excellent.

Blogging in Virginia

Virginia Blog Carnival #2 is up. Another new one to be included in the next edition of the Meta-Carnival.

Roberts Hearings

If you want to understand the code-words and hidden meanings of the Roberts hearings, Legal Fiction is not a place to miss.

Birders and Birdwatchers!

Early I And The Early Bird get the Early Worm.

Another Survivor Story

This is from a Yale listserv (not blockquoted due to length - none of the words are mine):

Subject: a survivor's story: Katrina in New Orleans

I heard from my aunt last night that my cousin Denise made it out of
New Orleans; she's at her brother's in Baton Rouge. From what she told
me:

Her mother, a licensed practical nurse, was called in to work on
Sunday night at Memorial Hospital (historically known as Baptist
Hospital to those of us from N.O.). Denise decided to stay with her
mother, her niece and grandniece (who is 2 years old); she figured
they'd be safe at the hospital. They went to Baptist, and had to wait
hours to be assigned a room to sleep in; after they were finally
assigned a room, two white nurses suddenly arrived after the cut-off
time (time to be assigned a room), and Denise and her family were
booted out; their room was given up to the new nurses. Denise was
furious, and rather than stay at Baptist, decided to walk home
(several blocks away) to ride out the storm at her mother's apartment.
Her mother stayed at the hospital.

She described it as the scariest time in her life. Three of the rooms
in the apartment (there are only four) caved in. Ceilings caved in,
walls caved in. She huddled under a mattress in the hall. She thought
she would die from either the storm or a heart attack. After the storm
passed, she went back to Baptist to seek shelter (this was Monday). It
was also scary at Baptist; the electricity was out, they were running
on generators, there was no air conditioning. Tuesday the levees
broke, and water began rising. They moved patients upstairs, saw boats
pass by on what used to be streets. They were told that they would be
evacuated, that buses were coming. Then they were told they would have
to walk to the nearest intersection, Napoleon and S. Claiborne, to
await the buses.

They waded out in hip-deep water, only to stand at the intersection,
on the neutral ground (what y'all call the median) for 3 1/2 hours.
The buses came and took them to the Ernest Morial Convention Center.
(Yes, the convention center you've all seen on TV.)

Denise said she thought she was in hell. They were there for two
days, with no water, no food. No shelter. Denise, her mother (63 years
old), her niece (21 years old), and 2-year-old grandniece. When they
arrived, there were already thousands of people there. They were told
that buses were coming. Police drove by, windows rolled up, thumbs up
signs. National guard trucks rolled by, completely empty, soldiers
with guns cocked and aimed at them. Nobody stopped to drop off water.
A helicopter dropped a load of water, but all the bottles exploded on impact due to the height of the helicopter.

The first day (Wednesday) four people died next to her. The second
day (Thursday) six people died next to her.

Denise told me the people around her all thought they had been sent
there to die. Aagain, nobody stopped. The only buses that came were
full; they dropped off more and more people, but nobody was being
picked up and taken away. They found out that those being dropped off had
beenrescued from rooftops and attics; they got off the buses delirious
from lack of water and food. Completely dehydrated. The crowd tried to
keep them all in one area; Denise said the new arrivals had mostly
lost their minds. They had gone crazy.

Inside the convention center, the place was one huge bathroom. In
order to shit, you had to stand in other people's shit. The floors
were black and slick with shit. Most people stayed outside because the
smell was so bad. But outside wasn't much better: between the heat,
the humidity, the lack of water, the old and very young dying from
dehydration... and there was no place to lie down, not even room on
the sidewalk. They slept outside Wednesday night, under an overpass.

Denise said yes, there were young men with guns there. But they
organized the crowd. They went to Canal Street and "looted," and
brought back food and water for the old people and the babies, because
nobody had eaten in days. Then the police rolled down windows and
yelled out "the buses are coming," the young men with guns organized
the crowd in order: old people in front, women and children next, men
in the back. Just so that when the buses came, there would be
priorities of who got out first.

Denise said the fights she saw between the young men with guns were
fist fights. She saw them put their guns down and fight rather than
shoot up the crowd. But she said that there were a handful of people
shot in the convention center; their bodies were left inside, along
with other dead babies and old people.

Denise said the people thought they were being sent there to die.
Lots of people being dropped off, nobody being picked up. Cops passing
by, speeding off. National guard rolling by with guns aimed at them.
And yes, a few men shot at the police, because at a certain point all
the people thought the cops were coming to hurt them, to kill them
all. She saw a young man who had stolen a car speed past, cops in
pursuit; he crashed the car, got out and ran, and the cops shot him in
the back. In front of the whole crowd. She saw many groups of people
decide that they were going to walk across the bridge to the west
bank, and those same groups would return, saying that they were met at the top of the bridge by armed police ordering them to turn around, that they weren't allowed to
leave.

So they all believed they were sent there to die.

Denise's niece found a pay phone, and kept trying to call her
mother's boyfriend in Baton Rouge, and finally got through and told
him where they were. The boyfriend, and Denise's brother, drove down
from Baton Rouge and came and got them. They had to bribe a few cops,
and talk a few into letting them into the city ("Come on, man, my
two-year-old niece is at the Convention Center!"), then they took back
roads to get to them.

After arriving at my other cousin's apartment in Baton Rouge, they
saw the images on TV, and couldn't believe how the media was
portraying the people of New Orleans. She kept repeating to me on the
phone last night: Make sure you tell everybody that they left us there
to die. Nobody came. Those young men with guns were protecting us. If
it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have had the little water and food
they had found.

That's Denise Moore's story.

Me, too, but not when he's at home....

From Patrick via Melinama, found this place where you can buy this bumper sticker:

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

I hate to say "I told you so", ....but I told you so, in 1999, when the GOPmafia picked their string-puppet to run for Presidency:

TIME

Newsweek

Publius

We The People?

There is a libertarian meme going around that the debacle of FEMA and DHS response shows that the government is too big, thus has to be slashed further.

But, it is not the size of the government that matters, no matter what kind of metric you use to measure it. It is what you understand the government to be.

What matters is:

a) purpose - something that FEMA lost under Bush;

b) efficiency - something that FEMA lost under Brownie;

c) relationship between Federal and local governments - it is understandable that Republican Feds and Democratic locals (e.g., LA governor, senator and mayor) mistrusted each other, questioned each other's motives and faught for control;

d) relationship between the government employees and the local citizens:

In NYC on 9/11 local cops, firefighters, EMTs, spontaneously organized citizen's groups and the victims (perhaps due to all being liberal) trusted each other and synchronized activities with each other, resulting in a very efficient response to the disaster.

In NOLA, by contrast, local government employees (e.g., cops, Guard, etc.) and local citizens eyed each other with suspicion (due to past experiences with each other). The cops, many of them white Republican bigots, saw dangerous unwashed masses. The people, at the same time knew not to trust the local cops.

As a result, and unlike in NYC, the spontaneously organized citizen's groups were seen by fearful cops as mobs. As a result, cops thwarted the activities of self-organized citizens, thus making things worse for the victims, as well as making the job more difficult for themselves.

It is the Us-versus-Them libertarain mindset not seeing government as being of, from and by the people, that got a big hit from the aftermath of Katrina. This has nothing to do with SIZE of the government.

Update: More on libertarianism here

Update 2: Wow! I must be brilliant! David Brin wrote about this in almost exactly the same terms, except he has developed it further here and here.

Update 3: Perhaps it is all due to The Lake Wobegon Effect!

Sin of Pride

Why America can't cope

There are deeper explanations for the New Orleans catastrophe than anyone has dared suggest, writes Andrew Stephen. The roots lie in America's deluded self-image.

First head to fall....

Brownie resigns

WASHINGTON - Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown said Monday he has resigned "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president," three days after losing his onsite command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

Brown, under fire for FEMA's performance in the Gulf Coast, said he feared he had become a distraction.

"The focus has got to be on FEMA, what the people are trying to do down there," Brown told The Associated Press.

His decision was not a surprise. Brown was abruptly recalled to Washington on Friday, a clear vote of no confidence from his superiors at the White House and the
Homeland Security Department. Brown had been roundly criticized for FEMA's sluggish response to the hurricane, which has caused political problems for Bush and fellow Republicans. He also was accused of padding his resume, which Brown denied Friday.

The president ducked questions about Brown's resignation. "Maybe you know something I don't know. I've been working," the president said to reporters on an inspection tour of damage in Gulfport, Miss. Bush said he planned to talk with Brown's boss, Homeland Security Director
Michael Chertoff, from Air Force One on the flight back to Washington.

"There will be plenty of time to figure out what went right and what went wrong," Bush said.

Polls show most Americans believe Bush could have done more to help Katrina's victims, though they also blame leaders of Louisiana and New Orleans. Bush's overall job approval rating is at the lowest point of his presidency.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called Brown's departure long overdue.

"His resignation is the right thing for the country and for the people of the Gulf Coast states," she said in a statement.

Brown, who said he last talked to Bush five or six days ago, said the resignation was his idea. He spoke Saturday to White House chief of staff Andy Card, who did not request his departure, according to Brown.

"I'm turning in my resignation today," Brown said. "I think it's in the best interest of the agency and the best interest of the president to do that and get the media focused on the good things that are going on, instead of me."

Shortly after Brown was recalled to Washington last week, officials close to the FEMA director said he would probably resign. They said that even before Katrina, Brown had been planning on leaving the administration late this fall to go into the private sector.

I Heart Bruce Lee

I guess there was nothing else uniting the three factions....

Bruce Lee a symbol of unity in divided town

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The ethnically divided Bosnian city of Mostar has agreed to erect a new symbol of unity -- a statue of kung fu legend Bruce Lee, worshipped by Muslims, Serbs and Croats.

A group of enthusiasts came up with the idea of honoring the childhood hero of the city's ethnic groups in 2003, on the 30th anniversary of his death. They launched the project, found donors and waited a year for the city's approval.

"We plan to erect the statue in November in the center of the city," Veselin Gatalo, a member of the Urban Movement organization, told Reuters by telephone Monday.

"This will be a monument to universal justice that Mostar needs more than any other city I know."

He said Mostar, scene of fighting between Muslims and Croats in 1993-1994, needed a symbol of justice, mastery and honesty -- virtues upheld by the late Chinese-American actor.

Born in San Francisco, Lee starred in several kung fu movies, including 1973's "Enter the Dragon." He died at the age of 32 from swelling on the brain.

A German organization agreed last year to sponsor the project with a 5,000 euro grant.

The statue, cast in bronze and showing the martial arts master in a typical fighting pose, will be designed by a local sculptor and put up in central Mostar.

Lee's widow Linda will be invited to attend the ceremony.

For years, reconciliation in post-war Mostar was slower than anywhere else in Bosnia. But the reconstruction of the city's Old Bridge last year has helped reunite Muslim and Croat communities separated by the river.

What is the American equivalent of Bruce Lee?

Tar Heel Tavern

Welcome to the Tar Heel Tavern. Today - no big overarching theme or topic. Many are Katrina-blogging (as am I) which can get downright nasty when it looks at the political side. Still, there is some non-Katrina stuff out there, and here is a nice sampling of the bext NC blogging of the past week (the submitted entries are on top, Editor's Choices are towards the bottom).

From Alex Wilson Studios a photoblog of the Looking Glass Falls, NC.

Iddybud writes about the The Tragedy of 9/11

Erin of Poetic Acceptance wrote about Katrina, focusing on Ecology.

From 2sides2ron, an obituary for Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown.

Melinama of Pratie Place is Weedwhacking Again.

Ogre, in a rare post in which we do not 100% disagree, writes about Forced Evacuations from New Orleans.

Laurie of Slowly She Turned gives us the wise words of a local minister on the dominion over the earth.

Pirate's Cove compares the aftermaths of Katrina and Floyd.

Captivated By Mandie photoblogs some goats and pigs.

Anonymoses on New Orleans, Somalia and guns.

Snort A Sprocket needs the soothing agents found in ketchup (as told by the Ketchup Advisory Board): Anger is an energy.

Billy the Blogging Poet wrote another in a series of fables: George And The Frogs.

Scrutiny Hooligans look at the Democrats Plan to Help Katrina Survivors.

Anton of MisterSugar is advertising his father's book, Step to Freedom, an account of life with Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s.

A Sort of Notebook is starting a new school year.

Pam of the eponymous House Blend, looks at the Katrina-damage in Ocean Springs, MS with excellent photos.

Lenslinger of Viewfinder Blues, after a series of excellent Katrina-related posts, revisits the memory of 911.

Chewie has no fear of flying.

Dirty Greek on spiders and metaphorical lessons of New Orleans.

Our local free newspaper, The Independent now has a blog.

Our World, Our View is an online magazine/blog for young adults. Amidst the numerous (good) posts about romance and relationships, here's one about real heroism.

Words of this yovo on Copperheads.

Swamp Things on the other ones, the Cottonmouths.

Stinging Nettle announces the retirement of Scott Stevens.

Super G is traveling and unraveling.

Josh at Too Clever By Half suggests a low-tech way to bring blogs to the masses.

Leimodnu of Reason and Radical watched all the Katrina telethons.

Lex on Blog on the Run comments on photos of the dead.

Arse Poetica on compassionate government.

Russlings has been following the fate of animals in Gulf Coast zoos and aquaria.

The Point of Babette wants to cross-pollinate.

Please, check the archives of the Tar Heel Tavern and let me know if you'd like to host an edition in the near future.

Walking Out Of New Orleans

Just a few minutes ago I was driving from Raleigh to Chapel Hill and listening to our local NPR station, WUNC.org. Today's This American Life on NPR was titled "After The Flood". In the first half, they had the blow-by-blow interview with the EMTs who were shot at by the racist, elitist "West Bank" police from Gretna who were preventing tourists and locals from evacuating, even passing through their pretty little all-White Republican gated neighborhood - the story I commented on here.

The radio interview brings out even more details. It made me seeth with anger. At the half-hour point, when the story ended, they put on Fats Domino's version of "Walking to New Orleans" - I almost cried. I always loved that song. I wore out the Fats Domino Greatest Hits LP when I was a kid by playing it too many millions of times. But what could a kiddo in Belgrade know about New Orleans? It was just a really cool song to me. But this week, the song also acquired an added meaning.

The next segment was perhaps even more moving. An 18-year old, so mature, so eloquent, told her story. She hallucinated about water-bottles. She said [paraphrase] "is it a crime being poor, with the punishment being death?". She said:"When 9/11 happened it was bad. Terrorists hit us. It is no surprise that the whole world was with us. But this is much worse than 9/11. It was not the terrorists - it was our own givernment who betrayed its own people".

In some areas, This American Life gets repeated on Sunday so try to catch it tomorrow. Or just splurge $13 on the CD. It is the most poignant document of what happened last week that I have heard or seen anywhere.

Update:
Here is a response of the authors to the Wingnut criticisms they got since their article was published, circulated by bloggers (including me), and aired on NPR.

Tar Heel Tavern - call for submissions

I'll host the next Tar Heel Tavern myself, right here (unless someone e-mails me within the next couple of hours with a great wish to host). Send your entries to:
Coturnix1 AT aol DOT com

Stop Beating on Bush!

Whoa! You did not expect this title from a liberal blogger, did ya?

Everyone is beating on Bush. Everyone is targeting the anger at Bush. I understand the emotion - I feel the same. But, I think this is misplaced - even counter-productive as it takes our gaze off the ball. Why?

Bush is a lame duck. Not just in the normal sense of the term "lame duck President" - someone who can do whatever he wants because he does not face re-election. No, Bush is a lame duck WITHIN the Republican Party. And it is the Republican Party that DOES face re-election.

Yes, Bush is a heartless, brainless sociopath. But that is besides the point. He is, most importantly, a TOOL, in every dictionary sense of the word. He was picked by the ruling GOP mafia specifically because he is stupid. He is easy to manipulate. He is a mannequin, a string-puppet. He does not matter in the grand vision of the neocon criminal leadership.

The GOP mafia will milk Bush, as a symbol and an image, as long as there are enough people on the ground idolizing Bush-the-person. Sooner or later, Bush's PERSONAL approval ratings will hit rock-bottom and the creeps will get rid of him - put the tool back in the tool-shed.

The process has started last week when Rove and Cheney deliberately let Bush look like an idiot. They want Bush to go down, but the party to remain unscathed.

Rove will save his own (and Cheney's) skin at the Plame hearings by implicating Bush and ONLY Bush. Bush will step down or get impeached.

Cheney will step up and take the Presidency with a new atmosphere. He'll be sold as a no-nonsense, experienced, take-charge kind of person (already dubbed so yesterday by drooling Chris Matthews on Hardball).

Come 2008 Cheney runs as an incumbent, with no opposition from the moderates, and even without any GOP primaries that may deepen and expose the faultlines within the party. The victory for the money-grabbing elites will be complete. Martial law. Destruction of the Democratic party, Constitution, freedom of the press, and everything else.

Instead of screaming at Bush, we need to point out what Katrina really means - the exposure of the complete debacle and bancrupcy of the conservative ideology. We need to draw a big straight bold line (so everyone can understand) between the dangerous Nordquistian small-government-drowned-in-a-tub ideology and what happened in New Orleans last week.

We need to expose the fact that conservative ideology is based on greed - moving the money from security (and everything else that may be useful) into the pockets of the Republican buddies.

We need to expose the fact that conservative ideology is based on racism, sexism, femiphobia, homophobia, xenophobia and militant nationalism - fomenting fear and excusing despicable actions by invoking fear.

We need to expose the fact that conservative ideology is based on denial of reality - listening to experts and paying attention to empirical data could have saved thousands of inhabitants of NOLA and surrounding areas (and Iraqis, too).

We need to expose that the fact conservative ideology is based on disdain for everyone who is not on the Republican bandwagon, especially liberals, poor, blacks, gays, women and foreigners.

Instead of the shrill, and counterproductive slogan "Impeach Bush" (that's what they want, after all), we need to cut to the heart of it. Deep inside one very long post by Steve Gilliard, I saw this gem the other day, a succint summary of what is going on. I responded to it emotionally. Do you think it can be effective with others?

Tax Cuts Kill!

Brownie No More

FEMA Chief Relieved of Katrina Duties (hat tip: Shakespeare's Sister)

Round numbers look nice - Part 2

Science and Politics Site Summary
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	Total	70,000
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	Last Hour	14
	Today	122
	This Week	1,743

A book you should download

Step To Freedom, a memoir of Anton's father’s Peace Corps service in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s.

Dangerous Republican Politicians

Republican Nemesis is an excellent article on framing. The only error in it is the common misunderstanding of Lakoff, i.e., thinking that it is about language and associations. The article itself is an excellent example of exactly what Lakoffian framing is about - invoking emotional responses.

There are already some excellent responses to the article:
What Others are saying

Lakoff on Katrina and beyond

This is pretty much what I wanted to write in wake of Katrina, but Lakoff put it better:

The Post-Katrina Era

Publius nails it (again)

Zero-Sum Nation

But winning big was never part of the Rove strategy. Rove decided early on to go for the 51% strategy. And again, it worked. But it came with a big cost – it pissed off just under half of the United States population. And the problem with utterly alienating 45+% of the population is that they will not only never support you for any reason, but that they will be seething for revenge. It’s straight-up Newton – every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Rove created an army of revenge-seekers waiting for their moment. And that moment has arrived.

Now go read the whole thing!

Round numbers look nice

Circadiana Site Summary
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	Total	60,000
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	Average Visit Length	1:11
	Last Hour	12
	Today	68
	This Week	2,184

Looting Mob. What Mob?

I don't normally do this, but I was unable to pick a paragraph more important than other paragraphs, so I will just paste the whole thing here because I think it is very important (you'll still have to click on the link in order to follow the internal links). From Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon:

Mob rule

Two narratives appear to be emerging about what happened in the aftermath of Katrina when a state of virtual anarchy reigned and mob rule essentially took over where there was a leadership vaccum. I think that basic background is universally agreed on, but what's interesting is that two competing ideas of what "mob rule" really means are out there. Or, the word "mob" is needlessly inflammatory, so it would be better to say crowd rule.

Mad Max fantasies aside, I think it's safe to say that in times of emergency, people really do group together. Nothing creates a group identity faster than being in the same struggle for survival as thousands of other people. But there are two narratives out there about what happens when people group together, and setting aside race and class prejudice for a moment, I think one reason the media went immediately to "angry, violent mob" to describe New Orleans and particularly the crowds at the Superdome and the Convention Center was that people are predisposed to think of crowd rule as something that is inherently violent.

These questions came up on Morning Sedition today because they were interviewing James Surowiecki, who was arguing that contrary to popular belief, crowd-think can be a very good thing and that groups often are more thoughtful than individuals. His arguments were quite convincing, particularly if you are a person who finds themselves in crowded situations frequently, like most urban dwellers do. The critical elements for good crowd think were in abundance--diversity amongst the individuals in the crowd and a desire to achieve a common good--so it follows, from what I could tell of Surowiecki's ideas that the crowd rule in New Orleans was geared up to be generally positive, and not the scenes of criminal debauchery the media dwelled on.

Well, yesterday we talked about how the media exaggerated and spread unsubstantiated rumors that made it sound like a riot in New Orleans. And now that survivors are getting out and getting comfortable and telling their stories, it's looking like what could be predicted by the theory that good crowds produce good thinking is shaping up to be true. I point everyone to this Kos diary by two survivors that Steve Gilliard has highlighted. The people who wrote it tell a compelling story of good crowd rule--people leaning on each other, bouncing ideas off each other, protecting each other. But there's another side of it, which is that the predominant, negative view of crowds--that they are automatically prone to violence--caused the police and military routinely to overreact and disperse crowds, which was counterproductive.

The critical issue in the aftermath is to spread the word as best we can that most people banded together and saved each other. The vast majority of people. We've got a "Heroes of Katrina" sidebar to highlight certain individuals, but the most important thing to remember is these individuals should be the representatives of New Orleans to the nation, not the random looter or often aprocryphal stories of crime in the Convention Center. There are so many heroes of Katrina that one could never document them all, even if you did nothing but collect stories all day and night. From the Kos diary:

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Think of this when you hear the situation described as an "insurgency" or "anarchy" or "mob rule". Especially when it comes from someone who is trying to mislead you into believing that New Orleanians are particularly violent or hateful people.

Update: Here is the full account:
Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences By Paramedics Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Vultures!

I have seen PeTA blogads around (e.g., on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. Before you waste your precious dollars, get informed what those dollars will be used for. I have linked, in a recent post, to legitimate organizations that actually do go down there and save animals.

Katrina timelines

So far, I have seen three Katrina timelines:

Talking Points Memo

Think Progress

Rightwing Nuthouse

As far as I know, all three are welcoming new information. It is interesting to compare the three - what is in and what is not on the list, as well as editorializing and word-choices.

Also, I have decided to end the huge Katrina linkfest today, as it was getting unwieldy. Big thank you goes to all who have linked to it over the past few days. It was a big job (~3 hours per day). Instead, I will link to this-or-that interesting blog post every now and then and try to find some time to write my own Katrina-inspired musings in the nearest future.

Update: Here's another one:

Radical Russ

Damning

So, what's new?

At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials."

She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.

"He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.

'"I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

"Oblivious, in denial, dangerous," she added.

Tangled Bank

Tangled Bank is UP!!!!

CogBlog - Tomasello: Chapter 2

I have commented on Tomasello’s Chapter 1 before. Second chapter is much longer and somewhat disjointed, but I would like to write some of my own first impressions now (also long and disjointed), before I read what other members of the reading group have written. As usual, I will make the post contrarian and critical, in the good tradition of blog-writing, but that does not mean I dismiss Tomasello’s hypothesis altogether or do not look forward to reading the rest of the book. Read reviews by other group members for other angles and perspectives. Finally, let me point out that this post is aimed mainly at the first half of Chapter 2 (roughly up to p.36), as I feel my expertise is lacking to evaluate properly the second part (from p.37 on).

Methodology

Possibly the most influential and cited paper in the history of behavioral biology is the 1963 paper by Niko Tinbergen (Tinbergen, N. (1963). On aims and methods of ethology. Zeitschrift fur Tierpsychologie, 20: 410-433. Reprinted in L. D. Houck and L. C. Drickamer (Eds.) Foundations of Animal Behavior: Classic papers with commentaries (pp. 114-137). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.), which, surprisingly, is not available online, though the Journal is a relatively small and obscure one and the paper is pretty ancient.

The main gist of the paper (it is a long paper with lots of “gists”) is that a proper understanding of behavior requires answering four big questions: mechanism, ontogeny, history and function. The four angles of inquiry inform each other, inspire each other, and place checks on each other. Thus, answers to all four are needed before a problem can be deemed “solved”.

By mechanism, Tinbergen means the underlying physiology – how the sensory structures, brain, hormones and muscles work together to produce behavior. Today, one would definitely include molecular and cellular aspects of mechanism.

Ontogeny includes both prenatal and postnatal development of the behavior and the development of its underlying anatomy and physiology. Most importantly, it also focuses on the ways environmental influences affect the development of the behavior. This is probably the line of questioning most readily associated with ‘classical ethology’ as much work was done in this vein before modern techniques allowed one to study details of molecular and neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying behavior.

History refers to the study of phylogeny of the behavior. What is usually meant by this is correlating variations in behavior between related species to their ecological demands. This line of study provides the answer to the question what aspects of behavior are present due to evolutionary history (ancestors had it, too) and which aspects are due to selective pressures of the immediate environment on a particular species (novel traits). This methodology is often called Comparative Biology.

Function is adaptive function. Insights into the adaptiveness of a behavior can provide clues into details of evolutionary mechanisms that produced the behavior, i.e., was it straightforward natural selection, or sexual selection, niche-construction, perhaps selection on multiple levels, etc.

The first two questions are also called Proximate Causes and the latter two Ultimate Causes of behavior. Combining all four approaches in one’s research is called Integrative Biology and has spread from ethology to many other areas of biology, e.g, physiology, anatomy, embryology, etc.

How does Tomasello’s account so far stack up against the four big questions?

There is, so far, not a word about mechanism, i.e., the brain, and there is no hint that there will be more in the latter part of the book. Ontogeny is taken very narrowly – only the post-natal cognitive capabilities and environmental influences on them, and there is nothing about the pre-natal or post-natal development of the underlying neural architecture. Thus, no Proximate Causes seem likely to be discussed in the book. Without the study of proximate causes, hypotheses about ultimate causes are speculative – Just So Stories.

On the front of History, Tomasello in this chapter looks at differences in cognitive capabilities of humans in comparison to non-human primates, as well as comparing non-human primates to non-primate mammals. A for Function, the hypothesis is that Theory Of Mind is what separates humans from non-humans and that that the rest of the differences we see today are a result of cultural evolution.

Anthropocentrism

Reading Chapter 2, especially the first few pages of it, reminded me that I have read something by the author before: a chapter in a book called Evolution of Cognition. What I remember from it is how narrowly anthropocentric his chapter appeared right next to chapters by Big-Picture people like Sara Shettleworth, Nikki Clayton, David Sloan Wilson or Dan McShea.

Although I have read a little bit about primate cognition, e.g., Wild Minds by Marc Hauser (and a wonderfully astute critique: If A Lion Could Talk by Stephen Budiansky), this is not my area of expertise and I am not sure how much to believe Tomasello’s assertions.

However, I am inclined to distrust him after I have read his first couple of “lists” of differences between mammals and other animals, and between primates and other mammals. Every cognitive capability on the first list, assumed by Tomasello to be a privilege of only mammals, has been found and studied in a number of other animals, including non-mammalian vertebrates and, in some cases, even in invertebrates. Studies of animal cognition in a variety of species of birds, e.g., Clark’s Nutcrackers, Mexican Jays, Pinyon Jays, Scrub Jays, pigeons, quail, chickens, hummingbirds, parrots, crows and ravens have described examples of either fully-developed or incipient instances of all the items on the list. Some of the “mammal-only” (according to Tomasello) capabilities can be found even in honeybees and jumping spiders. I wish students of primate/human cognition would familiarize themselves with the latest research in animal cognition (read, for instance Cognition, Evolution, and Behavior by Sara Shettleworth, Animal Cognition in Nature, Animal Minds by Donald Griffin and Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich). Just look at what Alex is capable of.

The second list, itemizing “primate-only” cognitive capabilities also does not make me happy. Decades of research on dogs, whales and dolphins has uncovered either fully-developed or incipient instances of all of the items on the list (Check these for instance: Domestication of Social Cognition in Dogs(PDF) and Did domestication make dogs smarter?).

So, when we get to the list of “human-only” cognitive abilities, I mistrust Tomasello. He describes studies in which primates exhibited certain human-only capabilities, but dismisses them due to the need for thousands of repetitions before the task is learned. But, nobody is expecting a chimp to perform like Einstein. They are chimps, after all. But, they CAN DO IT, which means that they possess the capability even if it is not as well developed as in humans. It is therefore not honest to place such capabilities on a “human-only” list. The anthropocentrism is the one of the most important mistakes of Evolutionary Psychology (capitalized), so why does Tomasello persist in this error?

Imitation vs. Emulation

Tomasello also makes big deal about the difference between imitation and emulation. The former incorporates the understanding of the intentions of the individual you are learning from, and the latter only contains the obvious utility of the result of the action for the learner who is observing. He argues that only humans imitate and all the others only emulate. Is that true? Even if it is, is it important?

Have you ever heard of ‘cribbing’? This is something horses do and it is deemed a vice, as it diminishes the appetite and thus prevents building of muscle mass needed for optimal performance (in sports, for instance). A horse places his teeth on a fence or gate, leans on it somewhat with half-open mouth and, with a burping sound, swallows air.

Now, horses do all sorts of idiosyncratic things, from head-waving and tossing, to assuming funny poses or making strange sounds. Yet, those remain idiosyncratic – no other horse picks up on the habit.

Occasionally a horse becomes a master of opening complicated latches on doors and gates, yet 60 other horses watching this happen several times a day, every day, for years, NEVER learn by imitation how to undo the locks.

But, if one horse discovers cribbing, within a couple of weeks the WHOLE barn will be cribbing. The owners fight it really hard. You put tight leather strap around the throat to make swallowing air difficult, you cover the tops of gates and fences with metal which does not feel as comfortable on teeth as wood does, you apply a thick coat of used motor oil (or jalapeno sauce) on top of all edges and surfaces that are conducive to cribbing in order to make them unpalatable, you exercise the hell out of the horse every day, you let him stay outside in the field as long as possible, but most importantly, you isolate the horse from other horses, both visually and auditory (blaring music has been heard in some stables) because cribbing spreads through barns like wildfire.

Now, imagine that you are a horse (Horse A) who has never cribbed and never seen or heard cribbing before. One day, a new horse moves into a nearby stall (Horse B) and soon starts cribbing. You see him and hear him. Why on Earth would you try to do it yourself? There is no obvious utility to it (unlike unlocking latches which lets you free to run outside or get into the food bin). Well, cribbing is apparently pleasurable to horses (endorphins are released in the brain, producing a ‘high’). But how do you know that cribbing is pleasurable? A bunch of your stable-buddies do all sorts of crazy things and you never even bother trying to imitate them, yet you immediately start cribbing yourself. How do you know that cribbing is pleasure? Do horses have a Theory of Mind? They certainly appear to be able to discern the emotional state of other horses in connection to their actions and then try to imitate those actions IN ORDER to achieve the same emotional state. Is there any other explanation?

Hey, even insects can imitate (or is it emulate?).

But, is recognition of intentionality really that important? I used an ‘elephant-with-an-axe’ example last time. Why is recognition of intentionality necessary for cumulative culture? Primatologists have observed chimp cultures for only a couple of generations. The civilization we see around us is the result of at leas 100,000 human generations, and most of the recognizible culture developed only within the last 10,000 generations. The modern civilization developed during the past 100 generations and the Enlightement (what most of us think of when we think of human civilization) is the product of the past 10 generations or so. Perhaps chimp culture would develop in a cumulative fashion in the future, in a million years or so. Perhaps not due to minor differences in cognition. I don't think Tomasello has a case for a big cognitive difference between the two species.

Well, what is it?

Chapter One and the second half of Chapter Two push for a single small difference in "biology" and the rest being dependent on cultural evolution. But the first half of Chapter Two appears to argue for several large differences between humans and the closests relatives to humans. Why the discrepancy? Where does the turth lie? Why is Tomasello undermining his own hypothesis?

With all this Katrina blogging plus Dissertation writing, I never made it to Chapter 3. I am looking forward to it.

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Best Katrina Blogging (so far)

I will update this post daily and keep it on top (or close to it) for the next few days.

Of course, millions of bloggers are covering Katrina. I decided not to - there is nothing I can add to the cacophony of voices that would be new, original, or even useful. Instead, I have gathered links, all in one place, of the best blogging about Katrina out there. Some focus on the science, others on science policy, on medical aspects, on political dimensions, or even bigger questions about the role of government. Most of these posts also have excellent discussions in the comments. They also link to relevant media articles, photos and videos, to sites where one can donate money, adopt a refugee or get official information. They also link to other bloggers so your reading choices are infinite, but these may be the best starting points for your searches:

Chris Mooney on The Intersection:
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
...and on ScienceGate:
here
Stefan Rahmstorf, Michael Mann, Rasmus Benestad, Gavin Schmidt, and William Connolley on RealClimate:
here
David Appell on Quark Soup:
here
Brian Leiter on Leiter Reports:
here
here
here
here
here
Kevin Drum on Political Animal:
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
Publius on Legal Fiction:
here
here
here
here
Eric Martin on Total Information Awareness:
here
Sen. John Edwards on TPM Cafe (as well as in an e-mail to his supporters):
here
(There's tons more on the TPM Cafe)
Lindsay Berenstein on Majikthise:
here
here
PZ Myers on Pharyngula:
here
here
Michael Berube:
here
here
R.Pielke Jr. on Prometheus:
here
here
here
here
here
Eric Gordy on East Ethnia:
here
Shakespeare's Sister and guest-bloggers on Shakespeare's Sister:
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
Orac on Respectful Insolence (medical):
here
Kim McAllister on Emergiblog (medical):
here
Ed Cone on EdCone.com:
here
here
here
Pam Spaulding and Radical Russ on Pam's House Blend:
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
The Cunning Realist:
here
Angry Bear:
here
here
Economist's View:
here
Digby on Hullabaloo:
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
Two Glasses:
here
here
here
here
Rob Salkowitz at Emphasis Added:
here
here
August J.Pollak:
here
here
here
here
here
here
Dr.C:
here
here
here
Dr.B at Bitch, PhD:
here
here
here
here
Revere of Effect Measure (public health):
here
here
here
Lance Mannion:
here
here
here
Stranger Fruit:
here
Mike the Mad Biologist (public health/medicine):
here
Chris Clarke at Creek Running North:
here
here
Chris at Mixing Memory (on media):
here
Crooked Timber:
here
here
here
here
here
CNTodd on Freiheit und Wissen:
here
here
here
John McKay on Archy:
here
here
here
Russ Williams (Director of the NCZoo) on Russlings (the damage to zoos):
here
here
here

Update 9/3/05:

Shakespeare's Sister:
Let Them Go
Fatal Flaw
Let Them Eat Cake
Fuzzy Pictures of What Went Wrong
Read-Ems: Accountability Now, You Bastards
Citizen Flotilla of Rescuers Turned Away by FEMA
Hero
Driftglass:
As Operation Drown the Negroes falters
I shot an Oliphant in my pajamas
Why did tweaking the Ted Stevens Airport matter more than protecting this American City from ruin
The Green Knight:
Heartwarming, Isn't It
Hitch
Looting
You Have GOT to Be Kidding
Blaming Americans First
Benefits Coming Up
It's About Oil
What August Said
What Jack Cafferty Said
Voices from Katrina's Wake
Brooks
Anderson Cooper Rips Landreiu a New One
Lake George
Only Answer
Let 'Em Eat Cake
The Mayor of New Orleans Speaks
Mission Accomplished
More Wingnuttery
Go CNN
Tony Zumbado
What Newt Gingrich Said
Questions of the Day
What Joe Scarborough Said
Holy Crap
Mean People Suck
Red Cross Banned from New Orleans
Pharyngula:
Republican failure, Republican blame
The Questionable Authority:
Science, misuse of science, Katrina, and responsibility
Pam's House Blend:
Red Cross not allowed into NO
Race and class matter
Donald Rumsfeld going to MS, LA
Teen hero drives survivors to TX - could face charges
The Intersection:
More Pielke Nonsense
As Heard in Brazil
The Viscount LaCarte:
Why Didn't They Just Take A Golf Vacation
Lance Mannion:
It's not political; it's moral
Mahablog:
What Now
Do Some Good
Whoa
Tipping
Accountability
Dharma Bums:
Bush Goes for the Photo-Op
Upon Further Review:
America needs a Leader
Liberty Street:
Them That's Got Shall Get; Them That's Not Shall Lose
Political Animal:
TARGETS AND TIMELINES
THOSE DUDES GOT THE MESSAGE
CRONYISM
Blue Girl in a Red State:
I Have A Dream
Just Tryin' To Find The Silver Linings
Body And Soul:
Two Americas
The Rude Pundit:
Washed Away
The Hurricane Exit Strategy
The Empty Vessel as President
Totally Black in New Orleans
Leiter Reports:
The Right is not Coping with Bush's Failure on the Hurricane Disaster...and Why Now is the Perfect Time to Assign Blame and Responsibility
An Insider's Report on the Evacuation of New Orleans
Echidne of the Snakes:
Read This
Why Is Red Cross Not in New Orleans
The Unrescue Effort
Archy:
Fox News vs. reality
Crooked Timber:
Katrina and Higher Ed
Horses
Red Cross not Allowed into New Orleans
This is all the perspective you need
Pandagon:
Too bad those buses don't stop in Crawford
More unmakeable-up shit
Big Government, Small Government
Prayer! Stat!
A New American Hero
I Just Want To Die Young, Pretty And Judeo-Christian
This Goddamn Press Conference
Move, We've Got Football
Texas Readers: Here's how to help
Even more unmakeable-up shit
Dear racist fucks who complained about looting
It's Not Hatred...It's Just Total Callousness
Don't Need No Satisfaction
Science And Politics:
Kanye West
Castro and the Hurricanes
How the Free Market Killed New Orleans
Respectful Insolence:
One bright spot in the hurricane
Michael Berube Online:
Lift every voice and scream
Legal Fiction:
WHY RACE MATTERS
TWO AMERICAS
BROOKS ON NEWSHOUR
Whiskey Bar:
When the Levee Breaks
The More Things Change
Round Up the Usual Suspects
Where There's a Will
Drunken Lagomorph:
This is getting even more out of control
Rhosgobel: Radagast's home:
A national disgrace
A historical comparison
More outrage in the aftermath of Katrina
War and Peace (lots of posts!):
ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event
Siris:
Emergency Ethics
For The Record:
Crescent City, RIP
The end of conservatism as we know it
Clean, dry well-dressed white people first

Needlenose has too many posts to link them all here!

Future Daddy (a former NOLA cop):
Truth About New Orleans

Update 9/4/2005:

Living the Scientific Life:
Disaster Relief for Animals
Pharyngula:
The godless are NOT celebrating
The Intersection:
My Mom in the Post
Book Recommendation
Leiter Reports:
Responding to Hurricanes: Cuba vs. the United States
More on the Man-Made Disaster
Viewfinder Blues (TV cameraman who has reported on many hurricanes in the field):
Top Ten Ways to Improve Hurricane Remotes
Bovine Castaways
Covering Katrina
Misery Through A Tube
Idol Auditions Cancelled
NBC Photog Speaks Out
James Wolcott:
Catastrophe Times Two
New Orleans Died for Bush's Sins
New Orleans Died for Bush's Sins II
New Orleans Died for Bush's Sins III
New Orleans Died for Bush's Sins IV
Quark Soup:
Katrina and the Aftermath
National Geographic
Sea Level Rise and Future New Orleans
Science And Politics:
Ghost Town
Snort a Sprocket:
Sometimes such language is warranted
Billy The Blogging Poet:
I Heard It On NPR Today
How To Remember New Orleans
From Amid The Ruin
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Anonymoses:
Katrina & The Shock and Awe of Global Warming
Chavez & France offer assistance as Flyover Presidency runs out of gas
OVERKILL: Military to take on American Insurgents
Iddybud:
For Too Many Years
Where Was the Planning and Coordination
After Katrina, Worldwide Energy Crisis Possible
Labor Day - A Commitment to
End Poverty
The Pryhills:
Hurricane Katrina
Noah's Wish
Family taking care of Family
Made for this (medical)
No longer the City That Care Forgot
How you can help locally
2sides2Ron:
The Shame of Katrina
The Killing of New Orleans
Waiting in the Dark
Slowly She Turned:
Hurricane Katrina - thoughts from Jim Dollar
The Education Wonks:
Visiting Teachers Trapped In The Big Easy
Hurricane Relief: Wisdom Out Of The Mouths Of Babes
Blogging For The Relief Of Hurricane Katrina's Victims
Hurricane Katrina: Schools Step-Up To Enroll Refugees
Hurricane Katrina Relief: Setting The Example In Texas
Hurricane Katrina: A Teacher Fears For Her Students
Hurricane Katrina Relief: Californians Lend A Helping Hand
Hurricane Katrina Relief: Friendly Competition In Arizona
Chaos In New Orleans: A Student Teacher's Ordeal
Hurricane Katrina: Don't Forget The Mississippians
Hurricane Katrina: Bureaucratic Bungling Continues
Hurricane Katrina: Some Good News
Thoughts from Kansas:
Making sacrifices
What's next
Oh my
Music to remember New Orleans by, part 1
Point-Counterpoint
Oh, my
supervision failures
How the rest of the world sees it
This is not America
Priorities
A helpful comparison
Music to Remember New Orleans By, part 2
Hastert
Nicely put
Contrary Brin:
Louisiana suffers for W's elective surgery
Seeking Distraction From Disaster in Abstraction: The roots of empathy
A pause for ruminations on Prediction
How Horizon theory ties into present tragedies
Lenin's Tomb:
The politics of weather
The politics of weather redux
The politics of weather 3: the shyness of experts
Natural disasters and free market fundamentalism
Letter from Louisiana
Katrina, Katif and Katyusha: are they by any chance related
With this much blood in the water, what else would you expect to start circling (mercenaries in NO)
The Only Reason They Haven't Looted The Wal-Mart Is Because That's Where The Police Sleep
Everything has gone according to plan
Recipe for Lawlessness, Cajun-Style
Idea Consultants:
Houston Astrodome Concert and Job Incubator
Preventing Further Katrinae
Anmal Crackers:
PeTA Exploits Hurricane Katrina
Talking Points Memo:
Here's a question, and not a rhetorical one
Then there's this
Operation Blessing
Annals of egregious
Here are some things to consider
Disaster sociology according to Bill O'Reilly
circling of the wagons around President Bush
common global explanation of what happened last week
Michael Brown
Chertoff
Now at least we have the storyline
It's almost awe-inspiring to see the level of energy and coordination the Bush White House can bring to bear in a genuine crisis. Not hurricane Katrina, of course, but the political crisis they now find rising around them
Lesson learned
For all the horror
Pandagon:
Americans fleeing to.... America
Just when you thought New Orleans couldn't get more hellish
Your Link Roundup Of The Day
Anne Rice sings the praises of New Orleans
Libertarian self-fulfilling prophecies
Klan sees the K in Katrina, think she's one of their own
Majikthise:
Ledeen: NOLA was a death cult anyway
Poseur in Chief
Is That Legal?
You Can't Cross-Examine A Hurricane (Eric used to work for Chertoff)
The Department of Homeland Security Was Preparing for "Two Catastrophes" in New Orleans
The Sideshow:
Conservative compassionism
Political map
Media media
Administrative failure
Waking up to nightmares
Observers of Hell
The lost city
Balkinization:
Disaster Relief and the Constitution: A History of Strict Construction
Hooray for Principled Conservatives
Clueless
Legal Fiction:
KATRINA AND POST-RACISM
Obsidian Wings:
Human Filth Speaks
Post Without A Name
Cause And Effect
Whiskey Bar:
The Potemkin President
The Power of Spin
Shakespeare's Sister:
Everything That Came After Was Because of Race
Pam's House Blend:
Bush team scared: meeting with black leaders over Katrina
You must watch Meet the Press
Bill Frist parachutes in to save the day
Kanye West: George Bush doesn't care about black people!
Another unhinged AmTaliban on the 'cleansing' of New Orleans
Freepers sh*t on Aaron Broussard
Bush owns this one, lock, stock and barrel
There was never a plan for the poor, sick and elderly in New Orleans
New Orleans: copter crashes, cops commit suicide, shootings
FEMA head 'Brownie': he couldn't have come highly recommended
Slaktivist:
The poor are left behind
Blog On The Run:
The professionals
Did it have to be this bad
It's a bit unseemly to talk about cutting off aid to these people while the hurricane is still roaring through Mississippi. But let's give it a try
Yeah, I'm cynical
The socioeconomics of disaster
Chronicle of a disaster foretold
Word from Louisiana

Update 9/5/05:

Nothing New Under The Sun:
Two Storms Breaking
It comes down to physics and chaos theory
in this brave new world of Holy Capitalism the only crimes are against property
How the mighty have fallen
Stockwell Syndrome
Portrait of a looter
NOLA a city besieged: Ethnic Cleansing is the term
Whited Sepulchres
I've told you guys to read de Tocqueville
Hoofbeats to the South: We Are All Southerners Now
Words of Hope
Pharyngula:
Quote Of The Day
In which Steve Sailer makes me ill (not that that is anything new)
Loose lips sink presidencies
Making Light:
Katrina: Not your usual weather disaster story
Katrina
Apocalypse deferred; likely damage merely incredible
Then again
Images
Katrina info
Yahoo News photos
Gulf Coast status report
Why everyone didn't leave
Another check-in site
Emergency preparedness redux
So that's where the spike in traffic was coming from
Another term for it would be lying sack of shit
Just a thought
Tryin' to find out what I didn't know
Did you think we were just making it up
Wheel, Re-invention of
The otters return, and they're on fire
Welcome to your dystopian future
Notes from the former city (#5,271,009)
God Be Praised, The System Works
Survival
Discover America! It's 2700 smiles wide
Curious
In This Hour
An Open Letter to the President
Looking ahead
Mission accomplished
Not An Imaginary Story
Michael Berube Online:
Chertoff: Feds Surprised by Perfect Storm
Thank you, Heathers
Bush: Major Rescue Operations are Over
Pam's House Blend:
Rove rolls up his shirtsleeves to clean up Chimpy's political mess
Three Duke students: 'disgraceful' scene in New Orleans (an amazing story!)
Oops. Skeletor Chertoff and Brownie were briefed on severity of Katrina
Red Cross not allowed in New Orleans
Bush was there
NEVER FORGET
Blender applies for work in Turdblossom's office
Katrina exposes same-sex couples' second-class status
Barbara Bush: she cannot get lower than this
Shakespeare's Sister:
Spinning Out of Control
Quote of the Day
Who’s the Man
Pattern of Depraved Indifference
Inspiratitudinal
Random Stuff (includes the list of FEMA obstructionism)
Respectful Insolence:
One bright spot in the hurricane
More Katrina idiocy
An interesting contrast between hurricane experiences
The Invisible Library:
Fallout
Moral Theology Vs. Hurricane Katrina
Disaster: We Prefer to Think Of It As Radical City Planning
Priorities Worth Impeaching For
Acronym Required:
Levees - Our Blunder
Whatever:
New Orleans
Stupid, Stupid Poor
An Adversarial Media
Being Poor (Brilliant!)
Quick Followups
Majikthise:
Unconventional search and rescue tactics
Times Picayune's open letter to Bush
Live from Baton Rouge
Rescue ticket (stunning)
The Early Days of a Better Nation:
Katrina
Katrina Comments
And Doctor Biobrain's Response Is...:
The End Is Nigh
Conservative Incompetence
Sacrifice and Security
Save the Children
Sisyphus Shrugged:
Vera Smith, RIP
ok, this is just creepy
Lance Mannion:
Finally, they get serious...
For God's sake, shut up and send us somebody
Mark Kleiman:
Katrina and global warming
Defying Mother Nature
GWB, gasoline prices, and demagogy
Dan Froomkin asks some damned good questions
Of small government and big disasters
A non-foolish inconsistency
Foreign aid for Katrina's victims
Distinctions
The levee failure was predictable and predicted
GWB as Baghdad Bob
The operation was successful but the patient died
Thoughts toward an after-action report
Fake sympathy and fake relief efforts
President Potemkin
Paying the price of feckless local government
A tough row to hoe
The New Orleans Museum of Art
Slander on background
Disaster communications
Last best chance
River Access for Relief
Simple choices
Coulda guessed this one
Effect Measure (public health):
Priorities
Public health: no progress in four years
Katrina: out now
Pandagon:
But Condi, they aren't really wanting to meet Jesus quite yet
$2.15, a bag of Doritos, and some race-baiting hatred from Bill O'Reilly
Leiter Reports:
James Taranto: Can He Sink Any Lower - And other hurricane news...
MSNBC Anchor Reveals Telling Facts about the Hurricane and the Rescue Effort
Science And Politics:
Animals in the wake of Katrina
The Recent History of FEMA
Rescuing Horses from New Orleans
A progressive response to the New Orleans Disaster
Archy:
Is refugee derogatory
Firedoglake:
Rome Burns, Nero Fiddles
I'd Like to Publicly Admit I Was Wrong
My Mom Sent Me to Harvard Business School and All I Got Was This Nasty Coke Habit
Life Outside the Superdome
NOLA v. Iraq – Qui es Muy FUBAR
Lake George
The Skippy Challenge
While President Poses With Otherwise Useless Helicopter in Background
For the Love of Cheney
You Really Have to Work At Being That Ignorant
Oh They Owe Him Something, All Right
Met by Despair, Not Violence
Brownie, You're Doing a Heck of a Job
FEMA: The Swing State Project
Bush's FEMA Freaks
Rich Kids With Glass Jaws
More Useless Props for Guitarzan
It's Great to See FEMA Has Finally Gotten Its Act Together
21st Century Marie Antoinette


Update 9/6/05:

Legal Fiction:
A QUESTION FOR THE ORIGINALIST MASSES
Total Information Awareness:
Before Night Falls
Pandagon:
Satan's minions set loose on Townhall to defend his favorite son
When Civility Turns Into...More Civility
What The Fuck
Liberalism Is The Bad Godzilla, Conservatism Is The Good Godzilla
On The Ball
Turns out the thugs weren't so....thuggy
But why should Katrina have all the fun
Lance Mannion:
Chervokas, Nall, and Watson on three kinds of evil in George Bush's America
This is not hard: George Bush did not do his job
Leiter Reports
In Defense of "Bush Haters
America 2005: Deserted Children Roam the Streets Trying to Survive
Glorfindel of Gondolin:
New Orleans: Inevitable
Paperwights Fairshot:
Priorities
Dr.B's Blog:
Katrina
Looting: Watts and Detroit Revisited
The Next Hurrah:
The Aftermath
I Don't Know What to Say
Do People Realize How Bad This Is
The American Refugee Crisis
Louisiana's 9-11 Kiosks
What Do Katrina and Bird Flu Have In Common
Where are the Troops
Brief Medical Follow-Up
Let's Brainstorm The Problems...And Come Up With Some Solutions
It's All Giuliani's Fault
Is Dick Cheney setting Bush up to fail on Katrina
Bush's Debacle
FEMA Used to Help Bush Win Florida in 2004
Katrina's Economic Effects: Much Worse Than 9/11
Has The Media Really Awakened
You Don't Expect Anyone to Have a Plan for Collecting Bodies, Do You
Continuity of Government
A Shining Example for the Whole World – Eco New Orleans
Bitch, PhD:
New Orleans Blues
You're being played
Contrary Brin:
More on Horizons... the trick of satiability
More on Horizons... the roots of sympathy
The Destruction of BOTH Professionalism and Resilience
Mike The Mad Biologist:
The Perfect (Microbiological) Storm
The Levee Broke
Citizenship, Not Partisanship
A Bit More About Infrastructure
A Note on Spin
Health Crisis in New Orleans
And I Was Worried About Hospital Infections
Send in the Royal Canadian Marines
Not a Looter, a 'Righteous Gentile'
FEMA and Cipro
HHS Response to Gulf Coast Catastrophe
1 Dangerfield - 100 Bushes
But At Least Condi Bought Some Cool Kicks
Roberts and FEMA
Thanks, But No Thanks (for the Boats)
At Least Clinton...
The First Microbiological Crisis
An Answer to Kos' Question
The Destruction of the Can-Do Spirit
Is FEMA Planning for 40,000 Dead
More Science Infrastructure Follies
Why Did FEMA Cut Communications in LA
Tom Watson:
After-Action Analysis
Conservatism Fails
Trickster!:
Doing Our Level Worst
Doing Our Level Worst, Pt. 2
Hullabaloo:
Faith Based Disaster Relief
Barbourous Jerk
We Always Worried This Would Happen
Shakespeare's Sister:
Tuesday Morning
Having a Heart
Is it just me
No One Cared
Pam's House Blend:
Up to 40,000 bodies
Is this a joke: Bush to 'investigate' what went wrong
Help house a family from New Orleans
NOLA Official: E. Coli bacteria detected in floodwater
Help from our friends to the North
No t*tty show, no rescue for you
Blanco: Superdome to be demolished
The Intersection:
Big Easy, Hard Truths

Those who forget history are bound to repeat it

For history buffs, not one, but two blog carnivals looking at the past:

History Carnival

Early Modern Carnivalesque

Grand Rounds

Grand Rounds #50 is up on Corpus Callosum.

Karnival of Kidz

New Karnival of Kidz is up.

A progressive response to the New Orleans Disaster

Displaced New Orleans Community Demands Action, Accountability and Initiates A People's Hurricane Fund

Not until the fifth day of the federal government's inept and inadequate emergency response to the New Orleans disaster did George Bush even acknowledge it was "unacceptable." "Unacceptable" doesn't begin to describe the depth of the neglect, racism and classism shown to the people of New Orleans. The government's actions and inactions were criminal. New Orleans, a city whose population is almost 70% percent black, 40% illiterate, and many are poor, was left day after day to drown, to starve and to die of disease and thirst.

The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants and the wealthy white districts of New Orleans like the French Quarter and the Garden District. We will not stand idly by while this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans.

Community Labor United (CLU), a coalition of the progressive organizations throughout New Orleans, has brought community members together for eight years to discuss socio-economic issues. We have been communicating with people from The Quality Education as a Civil Right Campaign, the Algebra Project, the Young People's Project and the Louisiana Research Institute for Community Empowerment. We are preparing a press release and framing document that will be out as a draft later today for comments.

Here is what we are calling for:

• We are calling for all New Orleanians remaining in the city to be evacuated immediately.


• We are calling for information about where every evacuee was taken.


• We are calling for black and progressive leadership to come together to meet in Baton Rouge to initiate the formation of a Community Oversight Committee of evacuees from all the sites. This committee will demand to oversee FEMA, the Red Cross and other organizations collecting resources on behalf of our people.


• We are calling for volunteers to enter the shelters where our people are and to assist parents with housing, food, water, health care and access to aid.


• We are calling for teachers and educators to carve out some time to come to evacuation sites and teach our children.


• We are calling for city schools and universities near evacuation sites to open their doors for our children to go to school.


• We are calling for health care workers and mental health workers to come to evacuation sites to volunteer.


• We are calling for lawyers to investigate the wrongful death of those who died, to protect the land of the displaced, to investigate whether the levees broke due to natural and other related matters.


• We are calling for evacuees from our community to actively participate in the rebuilding of New Orleans.


• We are calling for the addresses of all the relevant list serves and press contacts to send our information.


• We are in the process of setting up a central command post in Jackson, MS, where we will have phone lines, fax, email and a web page to centralize information. We will need volunteers to staff this office.

We have set up a People's Hurricane Fund that will be directed and administered by New Orleanian evacuees. The Young People's Project, a 501(c)3 organization formed by graduates of the Algebra Project, has agreed to accept donations on behalf of this fund. Donations can be mailed to:

The People's Hurricane Fund
c/o The Young People's Project
99 Bishop Allen Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139 *

If you have comments of how to proceed or need more information, please email them to Curtis Muhammad (muhammadcurtis@bellsouth.net) and Becky Belcore (bbelcore@hotmail.com).

Thank you.
...

Van Jones, esq.
National Executive Director
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
344 40th Street
Oakland, California
94609
510.428.3939 x225
510.428.3940 FAX

Rescuing Horses from New Orleans

Equine Rescue: A Group Effort in Louisiana

CNN Airs Clip of Mini Horse Owners Impacted by Hurricane Katrina

Equine Hurricane Evacuation

Notes from the field – Sept. 5, morning

The Recent History of FEMA

This article is about one year old. It is longish, but documents very well what heppened to FEMA under BushCo: Disaster in the making.

Animals in the wake of Katrina

Russlings is a good source of information about the fate of animals in the wake of Katrina:

New Orleans Zoo Hurricane Plan:

Audubon Zoo has a well devised plan to deal with the threat of a hurricane making landfall in the vicinity of New Orleans. In 1993 Audubon Zoo staff met with the General Curator from the Miami Zoo in order to upgrade our hurricane preparedness. In 1992 Hurricane Andrew devastated the greater Miami area, including the zoo, and we incorporated the Miami Zoo's experience and recommendations into our plan.

At Audubon Zoo the Reptile House is the command center for the Hurricane Response Team as it is sturdily constructed and positioned in the highest part of the zoo. Prior to a storm's arrival, animals would be secured in night houses, barns and other buildings, most of which, such as Asian Domain and World of Primates, are well constructed.

High voltage portable generators are positioned at critical places in the zoo and a large freezer and refrigeration truck is used to store a stockpile of perishable animal food. An eight member Hurricane Response Team of zoo staff stays on zoo grounds (even in the event of a Category 5 hurricane). The Reptile House is provisioned with ample quantities of food, water and survival gear.

When the storm passes the team would venture out into the zoo to shore up fences, buildings and to deal with the downed power lines (we have a qualified electrician on the team). When the zoo is secure, the team would direct their attention to the animal collection. The experience at Miami Zoo showed that the animals were so traumatized by the storm that they refused to eat for a couple of days, so primary attention would focus on capturing any escaped animals and securing our fences - especially our perimeter fence. When the staff and the animals have settled down, routine animal feeding and general care would commence. Eventually other zoo staff would manage to make their way to the zoo and more detailed animal procedures could begin.

ZOO hurricane update:

This is what we know about the status of AZA member institutions in the affected area as of 7:30 pm, 3 September 2005.

Audubon Zoo
Audubon Nature Institute executive staff continue to assess the impact of Hurricane Katrina on all Audubon facilities. Audubon staff are working around the clock on recovery efforts. They are in contact daily with AZA staff and are working with the Zoo and Aquarium community to secure the resources required to address the needs of the facilities. The staff of Audubon wishes to express their gratitude for the outpouring of support from the Zoo and Aquarium community.

We are receiving messages from our international colleagues.

BREC's Baton Rouge Zoo
The Zoo has electricity but there are brown outs. There are lots of trees down, but there were no animal losses. They are already working on clean up.

Alexandria Zoo
They are doing fine. They had no animal loss.

Jackson Zoo
The Zoo suffered very slight building damage and has about 35 trees down. There was no injury to any staff or animals. About half of the zoo has power. They will be closed for about a week while they clean up the trees.

Birmingham Zoo
The Zoo was without electricity for one day but power is now restored. Some trees are down, but the zoo suffered no animal losses.

Montgomery Zoo
The Zoo has some electricity, had some trees are down, but they suffered no animal losses.

Tar Heel Tavern #28 - Labor Day Edition

The latest issue of The Tar Heel Tavern is up on Slowly She Turned. It is big and very good.

Carnival of the Godless

New edition of the Carnival of the Godless is up.

Ghost Town

Think for a moment about the future of New Orleans.

Last week, the population was about a million people.

In a couple of days, the population will be zero.

In about three months, the last drop of water will be pumped out. The winter comes, and rains with it. Population - zero.

Add at least another three months for inspections of buildings, massive clean-up of less-damaged parts of town, rebuilding of levees, and razing down the more-damaged parts of town. Population - still zero.

Some of the more well-off people who used to live in less-damaged parts of town move back and start a new life. Population rises to a few thousand.

What next? Hundreds of thousands of refugees, strewn all over the country, are forced by circumstances to wait several months. They naturally get jobs wherever they are, rent appartments to live in, and think deeply about pros and cons of returning to New Orleans.

I bet MOST of them will never return. They will get to like the new place, they will start new lives, they will realize there are no houses to be bought or jobs to be had in New Orleans. They will forever remember the fear and the horror of this week, so they will stay put and never come back.

It may take more than ten years until New Orleans builds up the population of one million again - if ever. The memory of Katrina has to become distant and pale. The new dams and levees need to be built that can sustain Cat 5 hurricanes. The fear of living there has to subside. The city needs to get rebuilt and reinvigorated, with new businesses getting started. This will be a tremendously slow process.

In the meantime, the whole of New Orleans will be the House of Rising Sun.


Update: I guess I was right.

Rehnquist died

Breaking news on CNN.com site (no permalink or article yet)

OK, here's the first available link.

Bush Declares War On Weather!

Bloggers are fast. Three versions already:

Version I

Version II

Version III

How the Free Market Killed New Orleans

A must read for today - Michael Parenti: How the Free Market Killed New Orleans!

This:

The free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands of its residents. Armed with advanced warning that a momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that city and surrounding areas, what did officials do? They played the free market.

They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just as the free market dictates, just like people do when disaster hits free-market Third World countries.

It is a beautiful thing this free market in which every individual pursues his or her own personal interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for the entire society. This is the way the invisible hand works its wonders.
------

...is just the snarky beginning. Read the rest! It's serious.

The only point to add: Parenti is using the phrase Free Market in a conservative, libertarian sense: a dog-eat-dog, might-makes-right world with no rules, that inevitably results in anarchy. A disaster just makes this fact more visible. This is not the way Liberals/Progressives understand this phrase.

Castro and the Hurricanes....

Our good ole' friend Fidel Castro offered aid:

At a nightly roundtable program on state-run television Friday, the Cuban leader said his nation was ready to send 1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medicine and equipment.

"Others have sent money; we are offering to save lives," he said.

Castro -- an enemy of U.S. President George W. Bush and frequent subject of condemnation from the White House -- said he would not comment on the U.S. government's response to the tragedy because "this is not the time to kick an adversary -- while he's down."

Castro said the doctors he was offering have international experience.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Cuba. It remained unclear whether the White House would take Castro up on his offer.
.......

Well, last year when a hurricane was pounding Cuba, Castro evacuated about1.5 million people away from the coast. As a result there were zero casualties from the storm. Apparently the old man has some experience in sucn matters....

Know what? He's been stuck in the same job for decades. Dontcha think he's bored? Perhaps he is ready for a little career move late in his life? Something new and exciting and reinvigorating. When was the last time he actually had to RUN for office - half a century ago? I think he should run for Governorship of Louisiana...or even better - Florida. If he won, there would be no more fear that the Government would be too incompetent to prepare for and respond to disasters!

Kanye West

I was flipping through the channels and happened to see this. Kanye West went off-script during the NBC concert tonight: "George W. Bush doesn't care about black people." Did you see that?

Keep your animals happy

Mental Health and Well-being in Animals published this month
by Blackwell Publishing, is the very first book on animal/veterinary psychiatry. It's expensive as Hell, but the roster of authors is impressive.

Carnival of Bad History #3

Carnival of Bad History is up on Dodecahedron. Excellent collection!

Skeptic's Circle

The 16th Skeptic's Circle is up on Red State Rabble.

Birding Blogs

I And The Bird #5 is up!

How did animals fare in the path of the hurricane?

Director of the NCZoo blogs on the damage to zoos by Katrina here, here and here.