Ostalgie

The Germans have a nicely coined portmanteau term for the recent emergence of nostalgia for the sights and sounds of (former) East Germany: they call it "Ostalgie"... Our feelings for the East Coast in general, and New York in particular, are stirred up by this great photo blog: Forgotten New York. Drill down a few levels, it rewards you with surprising vistas of a past you never knew existed, and traces of a future that never quite materialized.

My scariest moment in Academia

occurred during a meeting with outside reviewers of our department at my previous institution of employment. As the well-mannered, contained evaluators asked for our comments about our own department, one of my colleagues launched into a garbled and not very convincing spiel about how our graduate program is really unique because we allow our students to be themselves, and they don't imitate our models, not like at other programs where there is a lot of imitation and self-reproduction.

I cringed while I listened, think "What is so weird about this and its pseudo-therapeutic language against imitation and mimesis?" Then it occurred to me: six years earlier, when I had just joined the department and we were trying to build the program and hire new colleagues, I had made an impassioned and impossibly naive speech during one of our planning meetings about what we could become as a graduate program -- we should not be a place that churns out clones of ourselves, reproducing ourselves in attitudes and postures. But rather, we could become a department that taught methodologies, debates, forms of dissent and historiographical problems in cultural and critical theory. We would never be able to compete with the private universities' budgets and star rosters, but we could create a rigorous, progressive program that respected progressive values in pedagogy as well as ideology. Rather than encouraging master/disciple relations -- we would really work to help our graduate students discover what counted for them. I had no understanding of institutionality, and I didn't realize how underprepared some graduate students would be to do research on their own and how one would want to reproduce oneself in them for lack of any better ideas of how to teach them!

The institutionalization of competiton rather than disagreement and dissent is reproduced on and in the bodies of graduate students. I thought of some sort of Socratic teaching -- with a bit of John Dewey thrown in, -- boy was I out of it -- believing in the very forms of humanist education long debunked -- and devalued by bureaucratic rationalism and corporate monopolization of the powers of representation.

So when my former colleague painted this rosy picture of our so-called uniqueness, it had absolutely nothing to do with what the department had actually become. Competing forms of thought and methodology had created an acrimonious, Hobbesian atmosphere of resentment and suspicion.

And in appropriating my language of idealism, he reproduced the conversational terms of an internal discussion of possibility into the reified language of false advertising.

So here is what I have got to say to him now: imitate this!

putting the "O" in the OC

If you are looking for small breasts, do not bother coming to the OC. Every woman here sports bubblicious C cups (at the very least), prompting me to believe that breast augmentation is the favorite form of plastic surgery in these here parts. Even the Asian-American women, who in Asia sport discreet B cups at most, boldly display a gravity-deyfing, perky curvaceousness worthy of if not Mae West, then definitely of Britney Spears.

Why are dangerously round, voluptuous mammaries so important to female and male residents of our prosperous county? Because perhaps the luxuriousness of the pillow-like breasts signify inexhaustible wealth and well-being. Every woman in Orange County looks as if she could breast feed an entire weary World War I battalion.

Breasts as round and heavy as the oranges once grown in the dusty fields of the OC are now cupped by the latest push up bras. O is for Orange, but also for the literal shape of the letter itself.

The O is like a totem -- fending off the specter of deprivation and poverty -- which after lurks around the corner from us. This morning taking the garbage to the dumpster, I found a family sorting through Club Ed's "dreck." Averting my eyes from their embarrassment, I could only appreciate that the "O" also stands for emptiness, the hollow ring of over planned communities that seek righteously to extirpate all signs of privation from sight and circulation. For the Mexican women, stooped over from heavy labor, child-bearing and rearing also have large breasts, but theirs are heavy with the weight of the world.

private schools, expensive utopias

I've had to accept that we are going to be debt-addled middle class parents because we've decided that we are going to pay a great deal of our income so that Leo can go to a fantastic two room school house school on campus -- whose grounds take us back in time to a rougher around the edges Orange County (dusty orange groves and my own photoshopped in tumbleweeds abound). The Farm School consists of green barns, the only ones left on Irvine campus. Everything else is earth-tone.

The teacher-student ratio is like one to ten instead of one to thirty six. Leo can learn at his own pace, become a genius or fall behind his peers without creating a huge scandal.

Proposition 209 or whatever it was destroyed public education in California I'm told.

I wanted him to go to public schools -- but I would be sending him to the test -- the very forms of aptitude evaluation that I have blogged about here that I found totally bogus in the course of my research on the Progressive Era and American education reform.

So de facto, we are opting for the private route to Utopia. I remember my fantastic Nixon-hating, ecologically-minded, brilliant, liberal public school teachers in Mt. Vernon with regret and chagrin. They taught me everything good I know about learning and the world they taught me to hope for is simply not going to come to be, not in California at any rate.

The Professor's Pitch

reminds me why I really enjoyed teaching in Taiwan: the office of the university instructor, the professor still has enough dignity there that I did not have to "pitch" myself to undergraduates.

Instead of having to live by the advertising jingo, "We are here for you," professors can still tell students in Taiwan "You are here to learn." Learning may or may not take place there, but for the teacher, from the point of view of work conditions, one had to suffer less the humiliations of the popularity contest. At Bard, professors and instructors underwent the ritual humiliation of holding forth during a shopping around period when students could circulate freely between departmental displays, held in different classrooms and sign up for classes while grilling a particular teacher about requirements, topics covered, etc. It all seemed innocent and ad hoc enough: the friendly exchanges, the handwritten sign up sheets. Then the untenured faculty discovered that the Dean was actually evaluating them by course enrollments -- so they learned to pitch, pitch and pitch. The tenured faculty, worried about inadequate enrollments pitched as well.

We all have to display the high spirits of the salesman as we remembered the ABC's of American academia -- "always be closing."

No one seems to mind: we accept this as our fate. We have no choice but to be constantly "selling." It's the inescapable logic of measurement, rationality and evaluation.

Jesus Satisfies

was the banner for one of the many Christian Students' Associations here at UC Irvine. I never knew that satisfaction was what Christianity was all about, but I suppose that was because I was not tuned in. There are a surprising number of sororities and fraternities here -- so in a sense, coming to work today, walking past the booths recruitings Christians and Greeks, I had the sense that I had gone back in time to some great struggle between pagans and the converted. But I should add that almost 70% of the student body appears Asian-American. The few older Caucasians that braved the gauntlet seemed to be professors.

Feminist Bloggers Say No to John Roberts

C u l t u r e k i t c h e n has posted an open letter to the Senate and Judiciary Committee. I haven't signed it, but everyone who feels strongly about this probably should.

I am very pessimistic about this whole petition against Roberts nomination. Roberts is probably a right-wing toady. His record has all the makings of one....Rehnquist was no free thinker either. The Supreme Court basically shoehorned W. into power. And Roberts is bad, really bad, but we need a much bigger show of public opinion than feminist bloggers to turn this tide.

And maybe I'm just a little bit uncomfortable with going on the rampage as a "feminist blogger" creating "communities of hope." I'm much too grouchy for that. And in the aftermath of Katrina, I'm grouchier and sadder.

Dr. Littenberg in New Orleans: Part II

In this installment of Dr. Littenberg's report, which describes incredible resourcefulness and generosity while testifying in a very balanced manner to Red Cross and FEMA disarray and confusion. I am refraining from condemnation of the "higher ups" because Littenberg focuses on what the local people, volunteers, and the medical community both in and outside of New Orleans have been able to do in dire conditions.

Since my last e-mail, things have quieted down a bit. We admitted many hundreds of "special needs" refugees (those with medical or nursing needs beyond basic sheltering) to the field hospital in the abandoned K-Mart building. This unit started with nothing but 4 walls and a roof. Within 48 hours, we had 250 beds, nursing, doctors, electricity, hot food, bedside glucose monitoring, oxygen and a full-service pharmacy. We had Physical Therapists doing range of motion on the bed-bound patients and getting the ambulatory elderly out of their beds to prevent deconditioning. We never had reliable running water though. Three days later, we had placed all the patients in permanenet hospitals, nursing homes, or other more stable facilities. Nursing homes from all over the region literally sent buses and took as many as 15 patients at a time, no questions asked, no paperwork. Because of the inadequate plumbing, the unit was decomissioned as soon as possible.

After we closed the K-Mart, I was unable to get any clear information on where I was needed. All the official agencies wanted us to sit around the closed building and wait for a plan to be approved by higher-ups. I joined up with another Internist, a medical student, 5 nurses and a Pharmacist (all spontaneous volunteers). We found a bus and driver that FEMA had chartered but had not assignment to any task. We had a call from an Orthopaedist in Terrbonne parish who said they needed help, so we "borrowed" the bus and took it down to Houma, LA which is a major refugee center about 60 miles southwest of New Orleans. This town of about 100,000 had relatively little storm damage, but received many thousands of evacuees from New Orleans and the gulf coast. The civic center gymnasium has been housing up to 1,000 evacuees on cots and air mattresses. By this time, most of the acute event-related injuries and illnesses have been managed. I've seen little in the way of rash even among those walking in the water for days. We've had a handful of diarrhea cases that we placed in an isolation area and treated with antibiotics and anti-diarrheal agents. Most have resolved very promptly and appear not to represent an outbreak. We have been very busy with chronic conditions out of control: diabetes, hypertension, COPD, depression, etc. My little group also went down along the gulf copast to provide vaccines and deliver supplies. They have since returned to their homes around the country.

The mental illness situation has been interesting. We've had a modest number of acutely decompensated patients with acute traumatic stress reactions. We saw more than a few methadone maintenance patients who had lost their clinics and were truly suffering the tortures of the damned. And, lots and lots of lost and confused folks who were struggling hard to get oriented. Last night, we vaccinated a number of Red Cross volunteers who had not gotten their shots before leaving. This created a major storm as the Red Cross seems to have vaccination policies that are in conflict with CDC recomendations. Red Cross managers at the district level were all upset about this and threatened to "fire" the local Red Cross lead volunteer. The Red Cross volunteers here are supremely upset by this, especially since the Red Cross has supplied virtually no supplies, cash or staff, and seem to be busy polishing the organizational image while obstructing delivery of services. I can't tell if this is just a local political brou-ha-ha in this Red Cross district or evidence of more serious issues. The Public Health Service came through yesterday on an inspection, but they have provided no services or supplies. A local Navy Reserve unit assigned their medical corpsmen to us for their weekend drill so we have an NP and three excellent nurses. They also helped set up our syndromic surveillance system. Four medical students from the University of the Carribean have been very helpful. Yesterday and today they have been creating a vaccine registry for kids under 7 years so we can make sure they don't miss their shots. A local pediatrician will obtain the vaccines for us, (although the Red Cross wants us to withhold them). The locals continue to come through. The church groups are housing and feeding most of us (I'm staying at the local surgical center. At first, I was in the recovery room, but now I have a single patient room.) The local pharmacies have dispensed lots of stuff with no charge. We call in the presciption and send out a volunteer runner twice a day to get the meds and deliver them to the patient. Our in-house pharmacy is amazingly well-stocked with donations of everything from aspirin to Pro-graf (which we actually used!). Bon Secours hospital, an indigent-care hospital in Baltimore, sent down 50,000 doses of medications (antibiotics, insulin, blood pressure meds, inhalers, OTC, etc.) in unit of use vials and two pharmacy technicians to set it all up. Similar large acts of generosity are daily here. Local providers have been rounding with us once or twice a day after their regular hours or by phone to conult on pediatrics, psychiatry, surgery, neurology, infectious disease, etc. Some displaced mental health counselors have been providing services. All free of charge.

As we evolve away from acute crisis management to chronic needs management and Primary Care, the local systems will be increasingly stressed. I suspect the need for volunteer health professionals of all types will continue for months and months. However, the patients are wonderful, entertaining, grateful, and inspiring. They are appreciative, intelligent, and very rewarding to deal with. I plan to be home Monday evening.

Doctor on the ground in New Orleans: Part I

On Thursday, September 15, 2005, I received this email by way of a friend. It is written by Benjamin Littenberg, MD who, as you will see, was on the ground in New Orleans last week. It painted a remarkably vivid picture of what was going on there, and what continues to go on there during the rescue effort that I have asked permission to republish parts I and II of his report to his wife. The "K-Mart" hospital has made into other news reports. In Part II, you'll see why my reservations about donating to Red Cross were confirmed. (Thank you Liza!)

I arrived in Baton Rouge on Sunday, found the Dept of Health and Hospitals, was vaccinated for tetanus and Hep A and driven to an abandoned K-Mart where we set up a 250-bed field hospital. Although we had capcity for acute dialysis, ventilators, IVs, minor surgery and OB, most of the patients were not very acute. A few had acute Katrina-induced issues such as cellulitis, pneumonia, enteritis or rash. More commonly, they had chronic conditions that were badly exacerbated by the evacuation before the storm or the trauma of 3 to 6 days in New Orleans. Many had been hours or days in the water to their chests or exposed to very high temperatures in attics or roof tops. ? The more acutely ill were generally seen at local permanent hospitals.? We treated lots of blood pressure (220/125 was my personal high), diabetes, COPD, etc. We saw patients with renal and liver transplants,paraplegia, sleep apnea, stroke, HIV and plenty of acute stress reactions. Many had no meds, no idea of what they were usually taking, and no place to go.

Amazingly we discahrged literally hundreds of patients in 72 hours. As of tonight they had all been placed with shelters, nursing homes (several sent buses for 10 to 15 patients without inquiring about insurance), and relatives.

Today, as this wave of patients tapered off, we decomissioned the K-Mart Hospital and aseembled a team of me, an Internist from Telluride CO, a Tulane med student, 4 nurses from Mountain Home, AK, a nurse from South Haven IL, and a pharmacist from Baton Rouge. We were asked to go into Algiers (across the river from the French Quarter) by helicopter to relieve a crew that was exhausted. Later, we learned that there were no living patients left in Algiers. So, we have now been asked to prepare the team to go to Hauma, a town on the Bayou. We added a bus driver from Columbus OH and prepared enough food, water, medications and supplies to keep us going for 3 days. If this assignment sticks, we will leave tomorrow. If not, I suspect we will turn the bus into a travelling clinic to deliver care at the many improvised shelters in southern LA.

The volunteers have been brilliant, cooperative, energetic, caring and effective. The locals have opened their homes to us and fed us with gracious hospitality. The Red Cross is invisible. The state is confused and disorganized, but struggling mightily. The feds are arrogant, misleading and mostly obstructionist. The patients are needy, sad, grateful, inspiring and getting some of the best care I have ever seen in twenty years of doctoring.? It is a great pleasure to be here.

from the LA Weekly: Why the News Looks the Same Again

This editorial explains why media consolidation has been very, very good for the Republicans. Yes, journalists recently went off script and showed us some authentic emotion, behaved as if they were really reporting rather than merely moving their jaws to collect their paychecks...By way of Kos...

what was up with heteronormativity?

Queer theory of the last decade provided many scholars with the opportunity to explore their homosexual side and to oppose heternormativity. Unfortunately, enforced heterosexuality just does not seem to be the most compelling political issue these days. Convince me I'm misguided when I persist in believing that consolidation and extension of corporate powers, opportunistic religiosity, maximization or profit and the undermining of the public sphere, greenhouse gases, rampant exploitation of scarce natural resources, suppression of dissent, incompetent and carpet-bagging imperialism, hatred and contempt for the poor are more pressing issues.

I'm listening....

intelligence tests

have been one of my research topics for the past few months and I have been convinced to give up my idea that the "smart" deserve some kind of institutionalized recognition. Measurement of intelligence and aptitude testing have done too much damage to American education. One of its side-effects has been the fueling of a uniquely American anti-intellectualism: the ordinary American is rightfully suspicious that the attempts since the early part of this century to put a number to one's "aptitudes" is both bad science that leads to bad policies. Testing created an entire industry that works to justify the unequal distribution of both wealth and opportunity that distinguishes this country from all others.

I think, after spending some time in Asia, that the deference towards intellectuals and writers that we saw on a global scale in yesterday's BBC poll has nothing to do with respect for "intelligence", but rather there is a widespread recognition that what government needs is independence of mind that is represented by the material privations of this class.

In the United States, popular resentment of intellectuals or intelligence cannot simply be blamed upon reactionary politics, corporate ideology and the small business owner resentments. (This was Richard Hofstadter's view.) There is actually grounds for real discontent with what Steven Jay Gould has called the mismeasure of minds and the recruitment of an industrial managerial and technocratic elite. That this suspicion of the prerogative of intelligence is exploited by conservatives is certainly no surprise, but it seems logical since liberals have not been able to come up with a truly radical notion of egalitarianism. What Nicholas Lemann proposes at the end of the book The Big Test is that only free high quality public universities and free public post-secondary education can produce broad democratization and a revitalization of political culture and life in the US. Not affirmative action, not better SAT's, not quotas, not false meritocracy -- not generous scholarships to Ivy League universities for smart underprivileged hardworking types, not the promotion of the model minority, not fighting "sterotypes."

Why was it so easy for us to give up the fight for affordable if not free higher education for all American youth? Everyone seems to have accepted the higher and higher tuition bills, the crippling student and credit card debts that burden our twenty-two year olds as inevitable...An aggressive program for free public higher education could have been the only successful counterpunch to the conservative assault on affirmative action. which as Lemann showed was a jury-rigged progressive solution to intractable problems of racism and test cultures.

Most people in the world believe that

States 'not run by people's will'. But interestingly. a third of those asked in this global poll said that they thought writers and academics should have more power while only a quarter believed that religious leaders should have more power. That percentage was higher of course in the US and Africa (excluding South Africa).

Rampant anti-intellectualsim is not so rampant after all! I have been struggling with the idea that anti-intellectualism is a purely bourgeois phenomenon (its call to action has the aura of triumphalism, and this class, as I have blogged about earlier, has forged through branding a successful form of commodified international solidarity in protecting its interests that has been stunningly successful) and that the working class and poor were free of this prejudice, but I haven't known how to make my case conceptually or statistically for this. The anti-intellectualism of the Left, about which I blogged briefly would be interesting to consider from this point of view.

9/11: New Orleans Occupied and the Geeks Get In Anyway

Boing Boing on Katrina has links to photographs and stories about two guys Jacob Appelbaum and Jole Johnson who are in New Orleans, on the ground. They are blogging and sending out photographs with a solar powered backpack and "connectivity." Again, we get an idea of why there are people who don't want to leave the devastated city. In addition, we get the idea that corpse collection is a low priority affair for FEMA and other agencies.

Hurricane prediction

on Nova broadcast January 25, 2005, predicting the catastrophic effects of a Hurricane like Katrina on the city of New Orleans. (thanks to Jost for the tip). Give the streaming video a minute to load. It's worth watching. Nova believes that better scientific measurements and predictors of hurricanes will allow for more accurate weather prediction and speedier and more efficient evacuation. While it's chilling in its accuracy, the televisual documentary is incredibly glib: social issues are not addressed. New Orleans seems to be populated exclusively by hurricane experts and party-goers on Bourbon St. More importatnly, there is not a mention among the many genial experts and local officials interviewed about the question of poverty and race added to the mix of a natural catastrophe.

Why is this important? Because not all citizens of the US have access to private transport. When the mayor of New Orleans issued the call to evacuate, he assumed that everyone owned or had access to private transportation. In addition, I think being marginal and poor in this culture tends to make you very skeptical about all forms of authority since the system does not work for you to begin with -- so you would have a tendency to ignore official order. This refusal to heed the order to evacuate turns out to be a kind of last stand of sovereignty: and "I'm not going to listen to you."

So in a sense, even though the science of NOVA is probably much sounder than say the science of Animal Planet predicting a plague of killer bees in American suburbia, its style and format encourage cynicism and half belief on the part of the non-specialist, the average person like me. How many times have we seen middle class Americans shudder in the media about some disaster or the other, alien invasion, Armageddon....all of it seems like superstition. But it masks the disaster that has already happened, - the political disaster in Washington, the social disaster for the poor and especially for the millions of disenfranchised poor African Americans who depend more than anyone on social infrastructure and public services. In light of Katrina, we see how malicious neglect of public institutions punishes the most vulnerable among us, but also how the anti-government forces that have taken over government have dismantled the federal agencies upon which we all depend in times of crisis.

Connected

This post by Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber raises the question of "social networks," Barbara Ehrenreich's new book Bait and Switch and the cronyism that got Michael Brown a job and the directorship of FEMA. His powerful "network" is even now saving his ass (since he has not been dismissed, but merely sent back to a "desk job in Washington DC." I hope he keeps better watch over his desk than he did over the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina).

Brown had few qualifications to land him ANY kind of position, much less one that entailed responsibility for a Federal Agency. He was barely a lawyer, failed at jobs he did hold, but had strong "social networks," so strong in fact that his personal relationships have protected him from ever having to cold call employers or present credible credentials to anyone.

I feel that it is now my time give you my two cents on long term on the job cronyism that occurred between men at my last place of employment. I am sure it happens between women too, but if you look at the statistics of tenured female profs vs tenured male profs, you'll see why this is a male-dominated field.

"Loyalty" is the authoritarian male's criterion for rewarding his cronies. Because of the crony's "loyalty," , a different sense of accountability is applied to him than to" neutral" colleagues. Occasionally, the authoritarian male will make a great display of "fairness" and when the crony is not around, criticize him, but there are never any consequences, as when the disloyal others are called to the carpet. It's all very hard to account for, to solidify, to quantify, or even to identify, but the less the crony feels qualified, the more dependent and "loyal" he becomes. This I think would be the case with Michale Brown, who would, I believe, have a very hard time finding a "real" job, outside the Bush/Cheney Truman show in which he has existed until now. Now we know said, "Brownie, you're doing a great job." It didn't have anything to do with Hurricane Katrina: he was referring to the ass-kissing!

"Loyalty" is therefore code for absolute submssion, or obedience. Rewards are doled out in accordance to the amount of obedience extracted. And so some one who is not displaying this kind of attitude is construed as arrogant or insubordinate.

This kind of relationship does a great deal to demoralize faculty, it poisons the atmosphere: where "yes men" prosper a thousand hopes wither......

And in the case of Bush crony and former FEMA Director, we have all seen a deeper shade of "Brown."

looking for something I can't find

Everyday I've been waiting for some piece of news that will make the whole Bushco facade crack, but instead it looks as if the mainstream media is the one buckling under to Karl Rove's spin. (Whatever happened to the Plame story anyway?) I suppose there will be no justice this time around either...and everyone in the blogosphere is working overtime to get out the real story, but it feels as if we are in an echo chamber and that the breach in Bush's defenses have been repaired much more quickly than any levee in New Orleans.

Halliburton Gets Katrina Contract, Hires Former FEMA Director

Halliburton Gets Katrina Contract, Hires Former FEMA Director. Funny how this reads like déjà vu all over again.

I hate to claim clairvoyance, and to say "I told you so," but didn't I predict this here on this blog?

This is why I am going to say that I am right about the following as well: George Bush is an incompetent president, but he and his cronies don't care. They're getting RICHER by the minute.

Allan Bloom and the Conservative Mind

Allan Bloom and the Conservative Mind revisits one of the first and foremost cultural warriors of the 1980s whose Closing of the American Mind was a powerful galvanizing force for conservatives outraged by multiculturalism, affirmative action, cultural studies, curriculum reform, "political correctness." New York Times commentator Jim Sleeper muses, how much less conservative Bloom sounds when compared to David Horowitz, Roger Kimball and Daniel Pipes.

Aduh.

Horowitz, Kimball and Pipes live by conservative money machine: it would be an exaggeration to call them the Republican Party's court philosophers. They are perhaps closer to the court jesters, looking to please and waiting for a hand out at the end of the day from their incendiary accusations of liberal/Left conspiracy on campuses across the country.

Bloom was a thinker, not so original as bold. His readings of Plato and Rousseau are banal, and not to be compared with the interpretations of a De Man or Derrida. BUT, he did defend an ethos of disinterestedness in scholarship that Sleeper emphasizes in what must pass as a "think piece."

Bloom's Cultural Studies adversaries barely played an honorable part in those wars -- they did promote a dumbed down version of the humanities for popular consumption. If Horowitz and Company ass kiss Karl Rove every day, Cult Studs seemed to be trying to do their duty to flatter Hollywood moguls and the record industry with their endless paeans to the inventiveness and pleasures of popular culture.

One of Bloom's predecessors on the Left was surely Dwight Macdonald who also sneered at Rock and Roll's easy rebellion. Macdonald was a Trotskyst. Interesting bedfellows. And there's Christian rock now so Bloom and Macdonald can do synchronized swimming turns in their graves.

How does one defend disinterestedness in an era of government stewardship not of the common good, but corporate profit?

War and Piece:

War and Piece has streaming video of a televised interview with Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish.

photos

Liberation's Blog with photos of New Orleans on Saturday...even if you don't read French.

AP on Katrina

at My Way News.

Here is one of my hopes for what comes out of this -- no more disaster movies about good looking middle class white people being hit by meteors or kidnapped by aliens. You want to thrill to disaster, look up the news on Hurricane Katrina and you shudder to think what a shrinking government, climate change, oligopoly in our own backyards has wrought. And then you figure out a reasonable plan to talk to your friends and neighbors about what a just and reasonable society might look like.

war on the poor

It started with welfare reform and the welfare queen -- the Right had hijacked the political agenda to suit the worship of wealth and the scapegoating of the weakest and most helpless segment of our population and every one cheered. Yes, make black mothers travel four hours a day to take minimum wage jobs so that they can stop suckling at the teat of the bloated bureaucracy. These women dragging us down and they don't deserve to be treated with any dignity. In fact, conservatives even today are blaming the poor for not being able to get in their non-existent means of transport and leave New Orleans last week. Sadistic glee about their ability to distinguish themselves from bleeding hearts seemed to be the Red Bull in every conservatives morning coffee. The liberal Left couldn't muster up a counterpunch. And bad as Clinton was, at least he named professionals to head his Federal Agencies.

Yes, we're all responsible for this natural disaster's aftermath. The defunding of pulic works, campaign against the poorest and weakest part of our government, the justification for a new plutocracy and our vassalage to corporate overlords, the mental and moral turpitude that overcame us during the past three decades, our pacification with good modernist design, low interest credit cards, fake meritocracy, all of this we accepted. For this we must be responsible. I don't want to linger on being guilty. I want us to think about how to take responsibilty.

And I didn't know that Bush's man at FEMA, Michael Brown's previous job was the chair of an Arabian Horse Breeding Association. I forget the exact name of the organization, you'll forgive me.

Fox News with Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera

Look at the video of Hannity and Colmes at Crooks and Liars: Geraldo's queeny melodrama for once seems appropriate, even though he is once again shamelessly using a baby as a prop. Shepard Smith's outrage is palpable -- he says "you can smell" the suffering and Colmes's authoritarianism isn't going to work.

I don't have TV, so I'm seeing this for the first time. Read more at Digby's about the total inability of Fox News and Bill O'Reilly to use this event as a kick against the most powerless and bereft and to spin it into a big suckup ass kiss to the their chosen masters.

American Gentrifier

After Katrina, as President Bush says, Trent Lott's new house is going to be awesome: "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

Innovative Emergency Management

With Katrina, we have reaped the fruits of privatization. Innovative Emergency Management, a Baton Rouge based Homeland Security consultant company, was brought on to "lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan." It is Republican doctrine that government is by nature wasteful and big and incompetent. That is why we have to call in private companies to do their work... And so the poor reap what the Republicans (and some ignominious Democrats) have sown.

zero tolerance towards looters?

Nola.com confirms reports that Mayor Nagin took 1500 police officers off search and rescue in order to restore order while Governor Kathleen Blanco threatens desperate residents of New Orleans with National Guardsmen with m16s -- ready to shoot. JG Ballard could not have made this shit up.

What are the people looting? Bandaids, toothbrushes, deodorant. I'm sure Rite Aid pharmacis have insurance that will cover those losses. People are dying the streets like dogs, children have been hungry for days, but we've got National Guardsmen with big guns ready shoot.

But the New York Times writes that parts of the city are "ruled by thugs" so I suppose Blanco's trying to frighten the thugs. In the meantime, Dennis Hastert questions whether we should rebuild the city at all, even though, as Kos reminds us, the $25 billiion it would take is what we spend in Iraq in three months. Hastert's not complaining about that Perhaps we could give Halliburton a contract or two to do food service during reconstruction.

Man In The Box

When I discovered this SFChronicle piece (yes, via boingboing) about the nut who had himself sealed in a plexiglass box so he could attend Burning Man without dancing or befriending strangers, the picture reminded me forcefully of the Betelnut Beauty boxes that are such roadside attractions in Taiwan. Only there, the principle is reversed: the sales girls there want to befriend strangers, and I suspect they might prefer dancing to flashing truckers...

Protecting Property or People?

this is the news this morning as New Orleans mayor orders his police force to halt rescue efforts and stop looting. Reuters reports that there are bodies floating in the water in the "swampy ruin" of the city, and that no one has a grip on the death toll. People may still be trapped in their homes, but no matter! Protecting private property has become the priority.

Even our dear President has chimed in on the looting in order of course to express his outrage.

And if you haven't noticed, the looters in the images they are showing in the major media are black -- and poor. Is this really a time to put desperate people in jail? Is this really a time to discipline people about private property when milliions of people are without power, tens of thousands without jobs and homes? Obviously government officials think yes.