A strange (IMO) reading on Hurricane Katrina

[jesed]

Sorry... wrong messenge

I wanted to post: Great statement. Best wishes to America in this painful time

 

[ellenj]

Val,

Good for you for signing up to provide housing! And good for GE - thanks for posting that. (I'm such a disorganized piece of work, I'm ashamed to say, that house guests of any kind are out of the question

).

Apparently FEMA is a royal mess, which I didn't even know. Here's a couple links to articles that explain it. One is from a publication I've never heard of, and the other is from the Washington Post.

Disaster in the Making (Independent Weekly)
Destroying FEMA (Washington Post)

And here's an editorial by David Brooks of the New York Times that was mentioned more than once today by other news people. He talks about how natural disasters like this, especially when ineptitude or inequality is involved, expose the 'fault lines' in a society and often lead to political upheaval:

The Storm After the Storm (NYT editorial)

He (David Brooks) was also on the MacNeil NewsHour tonight (PBS), and he was pissed. What makes that remarkable is that he's the conservative pundit on the show! Tonight you'd never guess that. And, there's apparently more than one Republican in Congress who is not happy with the Bush Administration's handling of this crisis.

The other thing I heard today that I think is notable, is that the reports of violence may have been significantly exaggerated. An NBC photojournalist was persuaded, by a man stranded at the N.O. Convention Center who took it upon himself to take charge of something at that location, to get a story on the air about their dire need for assistance. The NBC guy said conditions at the convention center were absolutely dreadful and NO ONE of an official nature was there, supposedly because nobody wanted to walk into a riot. However, the NBC guy's point was that there WAS no riot. People were dying there, not from violence, but from lack of medicine. He was really pissed, too - said, Hey, if the news media can get there and file stories what the heck is stopping the rescue personnel??

 

[hester]

yea, how compassionate. and im so so glad haliburton got the contract to clean up new orleans up, uh,yeah, once they get the dead and sick out of there. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3335685 love that.

 

[ellenj]

Oh my god. The BBC World News is on, and what they're broadcasting to the planet is how all these people over here have no water, and how the police over there, down the street, are stalking one looter in a grocery store with guns drawn.

SHEESH.

I mean, if they'd quit worrying so much about the looters, and just deliver the assistance and get people out of the city already - there wouldn't be a looting problem to worry about!

 

[jte]

"Which, of course, implies that it's in charge of the weather. Or, at the very least, that it COULD be in charge of the weather if it WANTED to be, if that makes any sense at all... "

Yes, that makes sense to me...

"Another thing is - and this is just me - if my house was in smithereens and so forth I'm quite sure I wouldn't give a hoot about the depth of my immortal soul. I might eventually, but right now I'd just want stuff FIXED."

I look at it this way, a lot of the "higher" stuff (like spirituality, connection to a higher power, etc.) has to be built on a solid foundation of "lower" stuff (like food, shelter, rest, safety, etc). If that foundation is in need of repair one pretty much has to attend to it first. Some people don't or won't but I personally think that's unwise.

"I mean, if they'd quit worrying so much about the looters, and just deliver the assistance and get people out of the city already - there wouldn't be a looting problem to worry about!"

I agree with you mostly but not completely, definitely attending to the human need first would have improved the situation *greatly* and prevented *a lot* of the behavioral problems. On the other hand, I suspect there was *a small percent* of "really nasty" people among the refugees who would have started trouble even if the rescue busses and food had started showing up the next morning. I've seen enough Americans to know that there are some real bad apples sprinkled in with the vast majority of decent people.

One thing that disgusted me and my sweetie was seeing Bush on TV saying there should be "zero tolerance" for looting after a disaster. I mean, duh! What exactly are people without food, water, medicine, electicity, and transportation supposed to do?!? It just shows how totally out of touch he is with what these people were going through.

It was really disgusting - I mean, plunk Bush in the middle of New Orleans and see how long *he* survives in all that. Oh yeah, and he can't "loot" any food or water, either! Yeah, right...

Anyhow, enough said.

- Jeff

 

[hilary]

Much less depressing:
http://www.interaction.org/katrina

 

[ellenj]

Jeff,

Thank you!

The more I see & hear on TV and read in news reports the more disturbing and ridiculous this all gets.

Like, for what good reason have the news media been the first people on the scene there?? Campbell Brown on the NBC 'Today' show just said that the line we hear that 'the city is impassable; we can't get in' is just not true - you just have to be creative, persistent, and find the circuitous routes.

David Brooks this morning (God love him for having the integrity to dump the conservative party line in favor of good sense) said the federal government's problem isn't lack of money so much as how they're spending it. Apparently domestic spending at the gross level is right up there with historical precedent, but it's going into stuff like that oft-mentioned boondoggle of a bridge in Alaska that'll serve an island of, like, 50 people or something. This is your Highway Bill, America.

The consensus seems to be, with much less argument than you'd expect (as far as I've heard), that the government has been abdicating its basic functions - systematically and on purpose - and we're getting a real good look at the results.

"a lot of the "higher" stuff (like spirituality, connection to a higher power, etc.) has to be built on a solid foundation of "lower" stuff (like food, shelter, rest, safety, etc)."

Yes. As I might ever-so-tactlessly put it, New Age 'political correctness' runs amok quite a lot and I ran out of patience with it a long time ago. A happy medium surely exists. Let's find it and stay there.

If I'm not mistaken, I even think the I Ching agrees - I don't know the hexagram(s), but I remember a reading I got once, where I was asking about spending some money in some more-or-less altruistic way, and Yi basically said, Be ye not delusional - right now you need your money for your own life.

"I've seen enough Americans to know that there are some real bad apples sprinkled in with the vast majority of decent people."

Absolutely. And people's tempers will be right at the boiling point. And, sad to say, there's going to be drug addicts without a fix, mental patients without medication, and so forth.

There's maybe 3 tiers here:

(1) Violence like rape, mugging, murder etc. THAT'S unconscionable. THAT'S a good place for the zero tolerance and the police.

(2) Looting of stuff like TIVOs and diamond necklaces. Not cool, people! But hardly the end of the friggin' world, either.

This is the kind of thing wouldn't happen if there'd been a comprehensive evacuation plan in the first place, or if people had been gotten out more quickly after the fact.

And I think it'd probably have a self-limited lifespan, anyway. For one thing, stuff to loot and places to loot it from did not magically escape the destruction. Beyond that, sure, people might feel like kids in a candy store - for about half a millisecond. Then they'll realize they have more important things to worry about, like eating. Also they have no place to put stuff, so whatever they take has to be carried around in their two hands. Etc.

And if people who were poor to start with and have lost what they did have come out of this with jewelry or such that doesn't belong to them - I'm hardly condoning it but I'm also not very worked up. The 'cost of theft' is probably an infinitesimal part of the total in a disaster like this.

(3) Looting of food, water, clothes, suitcases, batteries, radios, prescription medicines etc. etc. - this is not even theft, it's a no-brainer. People would be idiots NOT to do it where they can.

 

[ellenj]

Hilary,

Thanks for the link. Looks like pretty much all the information one could want, in one place.

And yeah...we could depress ourselves and get our knickers in a twist here endlessly, for no particular good purpose.

At the very least, since discussion of the reading has probably run its course, further debate (ranting

) should probably be moved to the 'Open Space' area.

I'm not going to do it, though - I'd be much better off to STOP ranting. (As usual. Not one of my prettier sides...sorry...)

Ellen

 

[cal val]

Well I'm sure you've all heard by now that Michael Brown, head of FEMA, has been sent back to Washington, and Chertoff is appointing a new leader in the Katrina-ravaged area (http://www.cnn.com/) Something about his resume being spotty *rolls eyes* Needless to say I'm extremely happy. But it appears Robert Wexler of Florida asked for his resignation in January of this year for fraudulent dispersal of FEMA funds to non-victims of Hurricane Frances.

http://wexler.house.gov/news.php?ID=26

Wexler must be happy as well.

And another happy note: It seems our emails to the White House (well *I* sent one anyway) asking Bush to return to the storm ravaged area the 7,000 National Guardsmen from Louisiana and Mississippi that were sent to Iraq have been heard and are being answered...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/09/katrina.iraq.ap/index.html

100 down... 6,900 to go.

I'll be back later with some thoughts on the Yi.

Love,

Val

 

[hilary]

A small opinion article on Katrina, starting out from the idea of change, and making it sound a lot like Hexagram 59.

 

[peace]

Hilary:
How does this relate to I Ching. It mentions it in the first sentence and that's it.

Thanks,
Rosalie

 

[hilary]

Um, not so much directly (but nor does a lot of this thread, so I thought I might as well post the link as not). It reminds me of what I've read about the definition of Yi, Change: not only the predictable, cyclic kind, but also the unpredictable wrench, the kind of change we are afraid of and do not want.

It also reminded me a lot of 59, Dispersing, which is itself associated with flooding, with solid boundaries (literal and metaphorical) being overwhelmed.

 

[bruce]

The fault of the dismal response to this emergency is spread across the board, from local government to federal. But it seems one just points the finger at the other, neither fessing up to their failure to secure a hurricane prone coastal city living below sea level. One would think such a city?s law enforcement/search and rescue teams would at least own a few flat bottomed rescue boats, or provide sufficient highways and bridges to allow its citizens an adequate escape route. Local mass transit evacuation plans wouldn?t have hurt, either. Shame that this has become just another political opportunity, all around.

 

[peace]

Wanted to let you all know that my kids are fine. They went through hell, but are better off than most people. They don't know about their house but it seems that the neighborhood was probably mostly dry. They are now in Florida trying to figure things out. They have lots of options and are recovering well. I flew down there last weekend to meet them as they got off the plane. What a reunion!

As far as the politics - the kids have alot to say and they know alot first hand - from their own connections as well as in the direct discussions they participated in with the CEO of the hospital who was getting messages continuously from the National Guard as things were unfolding last week.

In a word - no one had a clue what to do, no one was prepared and it was even more disorganized than we hear on TV - and the race card is bull...they weren't organized enough to favor anyone if they wanted to!

Rosalie

 

[bruce]

Great news, Rosalie!

 

[jte]

Yes, glad to hear that they're doing okay.

- Jeff

 

[peace]

Thank you.
At this point they have lots of options - and of course their life is/was in New Orleans and they're not able to move forward and not look back!

Rosalie

 

[davidl]

Hi all,

Just passing and was wondering if there was any discussion re: 'katrina'. And here it is. I liked the answer the yi gave to your question, Ellenj. Couldn't be clearer as far as Im concerned. I would also like to add another angle on this. Years ago I read a fascinating book by Immanual Velikovsky, called 'Mankind in Amnesia', I won't go into too much detail, but my understanding is that through some kind of collective amnesia, we chose to forget, over time, past catastrophes, and rebuild lives and cities in places that are certainly going to be dangerous to a whole new set of people and assets in the future. In other words, New Orleans will be rebuilt, katrina will be purposely forgotten and in the future the whole thing will happen again. We are definitely a civilization in denial, or can we 'deliver' ourselves from this condition, and look for a safer and smarter place to rebuild.

 

[i2k7]

Hello everyone

I've just been reading this thread, and was interested in the Yi's response.

We now have the benefit of considerable hindsight.... I wondered what people made of the Yi's answer, from the perspective we have now. Would anyone care to share their view? I don't have one, I'm still mulling it over!