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Staring Down Rita: Beaumont's Editor Blogs

I have a friend I've met once and conversed with many times, who is the Managing Editor of the Beaumont Enterprise's news division. As everyone came to understand, Port Arthur on the Gulf and Beaumont just a bit inland behind it were the central focus of Hurricane Rita. The winds that caused Houston to bug out like the 4077th MASH turned northeastward and slammed right into Brian Pearson's lap. Family sent out of the area, Brian and a skeleton team of newspeople manned the Enterprise's building to cover the storm.

While less powerful than Katrina at full landfall, the forces of Rita were dangerously intense. Now that the craziness has abated somewhat Brian has begun posting blog entries, starting with the preamble to the storm's  arrival over the newspaper building. Trash Palace holds a fascinating, first-hand account of the development of a storm, the peak force of natural phenomena, and the slow and often mundane return to a sense of normalcy:

There was a brief lull in the entertainment, and we thought we'd seen the worst of it. But suddenly, at around 3:15 a.m., there it was, as if it were the greatest, loudest rock 'n' band in the world coming out to play its most popular song at the encore. The wind intensity suddenly face-slapped the city, grinding and mauling, screaming and whirling.
Damn, now THIS was really impressive.
How long did it last? Fifteen minutes? Thirty minutes?
I don't remember.

to

With the papers finally gone and the presses stopped, we regrouped outside the main entrance and had one more beer. I went to bed at 3 a.m.
At 9 a.m., I emerged from my closet to find more Enterprise employees returning to work. I packed up my stuff in the closet and put it in the car. I put the couch cushions back where they belonged.
After getting my coffee, I settled into my desk in the makeshift newsroom. Reporters and photographers got their marching orders. I checked my e-mail.
I checked my office phone messages and got this from a cranky old lady:

"Yes, I'm a subscriber to your newspaper. I'm wondering if you're out of business. You don't deliver anymore. If you don't, would you at least have the common courtesy to tell people that you no longer deliver a newspaper? Thank you."

Click.

You know business is returning to normal when the disgruntled subscribers circumnavigate the circulation department and start barking at the managers whose phone numbers are listed in the newspaper and online.

Great stuff. Warning: start at the bottom for the full effect, from pre-storm to current. Also as a funny aside, I thought the name "Trash Palace" was a fairly clever title concoction, certainly original. Alas, facile thought! Google says otherwise. By mere URL name, Trash Palace.com refers to the mailing house of bad horror and (bad) porn films in Frederick, MD. But it's also an inorganic recycling/salvage house in Wellington, New Zealand. Relatedly there's a White Trash Palace existing to sell T-shirts around a poorly defined theme. But my personal favorite has to be Trash Palace UK, one of London's hotter gay men's clubs, where you can go should you find Tuesdays to be completely naff.

Rita will probably be forever the footnote to Katrina, but for the people who lived in the path of the storm it was no joke whatsoever. Without Katrina, Rita likely had the potential to be far worse in terms of residents staying in the storm's path.

Happy weekend,
--TJ

Report: Gov. Blanco Did Her Job

At least in the context of asking for federal assistance in a timely and legalistically sufficient manner, there is now independent evidence that shifting the blame to Lousiana Goobernor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco is a faulty prospect:

• The Governor must make a timely request for such assistance, which meets the requirements of federal law. The report states that "[e]xcept to the extent that an emergency involves primarily Federal interests, both declarations of major disaster and declarations of emergency must be triggered by a request to the President from the Governor of the affected state";

• The Governor did indeed make such a request, which was both timely and in compliance with federal law. The report finds that "Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco requested by letter dated August 27, 2005...that the President declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period from August 26, 2005 and continuing pursuant to [applicable Federal statute]" and "Governor Blanco's August 27,2005 request for an emergency declaration also included her determination...that 'the incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of disaster."

I said I was done blaming officials, but I'm happy to point out where blame doesn't deserve to be applied. It would appear that this is one instance.

update 12AM Wednesday--
The full text of the Congressional Research Service's report is pdfed here. Note in particular pages three and four, that lay out clearly what the President is authorized to do once the request comes in and is confirmed.

-TJ

Katrina: More (PDX) Heroes

Continuing the theme of what's right with America, since there's plenty enough being said (albeit correctly) about what's wrong:

--Out of the boredom kids are surely experiencing after two weeks without any kind of stability in their lives, comes "Katrina's Kids," a project whose mission only begins with giving kids stuck in the Astrodome something to do.  The artwork being created is also being stitched into quilts and other items by evacuees, in hopes of raising money to defray relief costs. And by letting kids express what's on their minds via art, some good therapy is taking place.

--from Blue Oregon comes a piece written by Commissioner Randy Leonard, detailing the efforts of Portland firegfighter Rene' Pizzo, someone I know and work with professionally. How Rene' got into New Orleans when so many of our firefighters are stuck handing out fliers, I don't know. But bless her for getting there. Randy is right on in his assessment of her character, IMO.

--Finally, I'll reprint in entirely the message on Friday from Mayor Potter. It turns out that most of Portland's efforts to receive evacuees won't be needed, but the preparatory response was overwhelming and heartwarming:

Office of Mayor Tom Potter
City of Portland
Sept. 9, 2005

Dear Portlanders,

I had just finished a tour of the airport hangar where volunteers were busily preparing to greet as many as 500 citizens displaced by Hurricane Katrina on Friday afternoon when word came that it was unlikely they would be coming at all.

Being inside the hangar made me so proud to be a Portlander.  Boxes of warm clothes were set out in anticipation, and a brightly-colored play area to entertain children was being readied. There were warm showers and a dining area, and over in one corner a small army of wheelchairs stood ready if needed – a stark reminder of how many special needs some of our guests would bring with them.

All of this reminded me once again of the remarkable generosity I have seen pour out of our community in the days since it was announced that Oregon had agreed to welcome Katrina’s survivors.

Over the past week, folks in our community have stepped forward to ask how they could welcome our guests. Others wanted to know what they could donate. Churches organized fundraisers. Portland’s business community gave free computers, phone service, clothing and school supplies. Others allowed employees to donate their time as volunteers. Trimet was ready to alter bus schedules and give out free passes. Some simply called with an offer to open up their homes to total strangers.

To each of you who gave your time, who made a donation, who offered to help in some way no matter how small, I want to say thank you.  Thank you on behalf of the survivors of this tragedy, who will still need the support of each of us to regain their footing.  Thank you on behalf of all Portlanders – your generosity is what makes our city so special.  And thank you from me and my family.

While our immediate help may not be needed now, there have been important lessons we have learned from all the preparation done this week that will make our city better prepared for any emergency we may someday face.

First, and most important, is the reminder that anything we do is made stronger by involving our whole community at the beginning of the process. No one knows our neighborhoods better than the people who live in them.  Their voices must always be heard.

Second, state, county and city officials have been reminded how much more we can accomplish when we collaborate and cooperate with each other.  Over a few harried days, we have had a chance to see the incredible resources and dedicated staff available to keep our region secure, as well as the shortcomings and work that still remains to be done.  In the weeks ahead, all of us involved in keeping our community safe will study what worked and what didn’t, and make new efforts to improve.

Last, I want us to see how we can take the energy and collaboration that orchestrated this remarkable effort, and turn it toward solving some of the pressing needs in our own community.  Imagine what we can accomplish toward ending homelessness, for instance, with the same drive and determination we have shown this week.

But that work lies ahead of us. Today, I just want to give thanks for living in a city filled with people with such warm hearts and generosity.

Again, thank you.

Tom Potter
Mayor

--TJ

The O on Katrina: Some Gets It, Some Don't Gets It

Although story after story of various officials' perfidy continues to seep out of the blogosphere, as far as laying blame and recounting the various horrors of last week goes, I'm done with it. Oh, it's certainly interesting to note that FEMA head Mike Brown fudged pretty much all of his resume' prior to getting the nomination (hat tip Goldy), and the bizarre but by now no longer shocking insults to injury pile on top of each other faster than they can be cleared away.

But I think it's wise to start thinking about the larger pictures. What did the disaster and its response say about us as a nation? What did it tell us about our prevailing views of government, and how did we react as people to the suffering and burgeoning outrage? How should we view other threats to our security and well being, in light of Katrina? What role did our media play, and was it an awakening of conscience or simply a nose for an obvious story? Some of the stories have been good, and obviously many others have not.

In the Oregonian this morning I realized that some folks are beginning to think along those lines, others have been thinking that way even before the hurricane--while still others have seemingly crawled even further into their confining boxes. Category A was represented by columnist Steve Duin, who I confess I tend to discount as one of those hometown feature writers whose very existence defines the word 'parochial.' Not today, although he relies heavily on inspiration provided by a member of Category B:

Because he was at least eight months ahead of the storm, rising on Capitol Hill in January to warn Congress that New Orleans was painfully unprepared for a catastrophic hurricane, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., gets first crack this morning at one of the more important questions floating in the debris:

Will Katrina finally force Americans to reassess our bearings, our expectations of our leaders and our belief in the role of government?

"I think this puts the spotlight on far more than just disaster relief," Blumenauer said Wednesday. "It's about our priorities, how we operate, the role of the federal government and our responsibility to one another. When you see pictures of Americans who you might think were in Bangladesh, I think it gets through to the American public."

It's about time...When you go back and reread the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, it's amazing how many of the words -- "union," "common," "general," "domestic tranquility" -- assume we're all in this together. And that's true. We are. If government is helpless, the rest of us can't be far behind.

Stuck on the back bench of a dispossessed minority team and perhaps caricaturized by his rather archaic dress and mannerisms, Portland's Blumenauer tends to be little noticed as an influential member of the City's political core. But how many other Congressional representatives would spend time worrying about the safety of citizens half a country away, who have no option to vote for him? Aside from highlighting Blumenauer's almost scary prescience, Duin is smart to frame the enduring value of Katrina in terms of how we see our political interrelationships. Good government is merely an institutionalized expression of one citizen's concern for another, and the currently espoused level of concern being expressed at the federal level is akin to the Internet joke about owning cows in a Republican system: You have two cows; your neighbor has none. So?

While I may have developed a newfound respect for Duin, it's same old, same old for David Reinhard. Apparently having received his copy of the GOP talking points by Fed Ex over the weekend, Reinhard masterfully lays out the meme that now is not the time for partisanship--but by the way, make sure you notice that it's the Democrats' fault, not Bush's:

Many of our compatriots, it seems, have jumped to their pre-Katrina battle stations in the storm's wake. You might think a natural disaster of this magnitude might prompt some fresh thinking or a sense of proportionality. You might think all the death and devastation would usher in a truce in our political wars, at least while others are out saving lives, clean up and burying the dead...

Yes, it's important to figure out what Bush's federal government might have done better, but the "Bush-administration-is-to-blame" crew ignores the actions of New Orleans and Louisiana officials with front-line responsibilities. Why did Bush have to urge New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco to order an evacuation early on? Why wasn't busing providing for people who made it to the Superdome, since they learned a year earlier in Hurricane Ivan that this was needed? Why did the city's buses remain parked? Why wasn't the Superdome stocked with supplies in the absence of busing? Why did the locals fail to implement their own emergency plans? Why didn't state officials allow the feds and first responders in sooner?

The failure to even focus on these questions suggests some critics are uninterested in a balanced exploration of the issues. They're only blame-gaming.

It took a few paragraphs, but out came the phrase highlighted in green and circled twice on his FedEx-ed copy: "blame game." I wish I had either the stomach or the energy to thoroughly fisk this lazy bit of editorialism; I'll supply only one example: Bush never talked to Nagin about a mandatory evacuation, and his supposed begging of Blanco occurred just minutes before the already-scheduled press conference announcing the evacuation was to begin.

But it's not the horrible fact checking or the narrowly twisted arguments that bug me (for now), it's the immoral equivalency argument: because mistakes may likely have been made at ALL levels of government, the top layer and ultimately the person whereupon the buck stops are somehow exonerated from real criticism. When somebody starts a grill by dousing it in gasoline and lighting it, minimizing responsibility by blaming the person who left the propane on is extraordinarily weak. There's no shortage of blaming in Duin's column, it's true. But notice that he is not trying to distract from highlighting other parties who may share the blame; he's recognizing that in the end, this is less about a poor response to a major disaster, and more about the entire culture of government and how it prioritizes its responsibilities.

As a final aside while you think about what kind of general welfare you'd like to see promoted, semi-famous baseball writer/statistician Rob Neyer had a letter published today, having nothing whatever to do with baseball:

Rebuilding what's been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina will cost upward of $100 billion; perhaps much, much upward. How will we pay for it? Will we forgo more tax cuts for the incredibly wealthy, and more legislative pork for the states and districts of powerful congressmen? Will our elected leaders encourage energy conservation? Or will we instead avoid even the appearance of shared sacrifice, and send the bill for reconstruction to our children and grandchildren in the form of an even larger budget deficit? Based on what we've seen in the last five years, I'm not optimistic.

ROB NEYER
Southeast Portland

Amen, Rob.

--TJ

 

Katrina: Relief From the Liberal Blogosphere

So much has been written, and so much more will be, that I don't see much value in adding significantly to the chorus on Katrina. I certainly have many things on my mind, but I'll probably rely on others to say them for me. I hope to post some of those things here in the immediate future.

First however, the most important thing is not to chat about it, but to help, whichever way you can. As part of the effort, Also Also is pleased to ignore our ad-free precedent and link you to a place where you may contribute what you feel you're able, and if you're like me maybe assuage some of the feeling of helplessness and powerlessnes to actively, directly change some lives for the better.

Peace to you, TJ

Liberal Blogosphere for Hurricane Relief



"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America."  - Bill Clinton.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of lives. Together, we're raising $1 million for the Red Cross and prove that the liberal blogosphere can help our fellow citizens.

Please donate now.

Sunday News Snapshots

I have sprained my left wrist. I jumped off the roof of my house--about eight feet onto a wooden deck at ground level--and in the act of jumping up and forward from a sitting position on the edge, so as not to bring the gutter down with me, I landed two feet but pitched forward. By today, constant shooting pain has given way to dull ache and flexing pain. 

So I'll be brief and do what I hate when bloggers do: repost news from elsewhere that's interesting.

Iraq seems to have taken over as the issue of the day, again.

This is just lovely, if true--ceding Islamic law to the Shiites in order to get a deal done. One guy at NRO is finally passing on another hit of Kool-Aid. On the other hand, later the Sunnis appealed to the US to stop the agreement since they could not. If political expediency creates the Islamic theocracy we all warned Bush zealots about before the invasion, I'm no longer going to support this war either. {cough} But seriously, should any average Iraqi hoping we really were there to help, bother listening to us or believing in us anymore? This is like a preemptive war strike by the US diplomatic corps: set the sides against each other before we even leave. The Kurds smell a rat.

Other preemptive news: I was glad to see Chuck Hagel futher speak out this week, and again on the Sunday shows. Any voice that stops what we're doing before it gets worse, I'm all for. But cravenly speaking, does anyone else get the feeling Hagel might be stealing the 2008 election this month? If Bush and his policies go down the tubes, but you're not sure you're ready for a Democratic switch, how about Heartland Hagel? He was against the war, too! If you're a Republican seeking office, and you see the writing on the wall, what's your best and safest strategy? Come out NOW on the war, and innoculate yourself early. Every two-bit blogger in the country has figured out we're nearing the tipping point. And what's the Democrat leadership telling their people on Iraq in the wake of Feingold's plan? "Shhhhhh." Idiots.

Ow. Too many Ctl-C/Ctl-V combos. More as the fingers de-swell. I don't think it's broken, but I work surrounded by EMTs so if they say 'x-ray' I'll go get it x-rayed.

Night,
TJ

Discourse Dissolving Into Drool

From the KC Star's Mike Hendricks, a column that almost singlehandedly encapsulates the raison d'etre for Also Also:

Jerkism is rampant, particularly when it comes to politics. We have jerks on both the left and the right, unable to express themselves in a civilized manner.

From TV shoutfests, where shrillness counts for reason, to college campuses, where it's considered cute to assault any speaker you disagree with, the jerks are out in force.

Last month someone threw an ice cream pie at neoconservative commentator William Kristol as he gave a speech at a private college in Indiana.

Also in March, over at KU, hecklers shouted down right-wing columnist Ann Coulter.

Naturally, it wasn't easy feeling sorry for Coulter. She herself is a bomb thrower who demonizes the American left as a gang of “traitors.” It's one of her book titles, in fact.

But to combat jerklike behavior by acting like a jerk yourself is the wrong way to go. It just cranks up the heat and leads to more of the same.

Therefore, it's scary to think where it's all heading.

Scary indeed. But as I hinted at in our very first post , snark and bile are so 2004, and over the last couple of weeks it really seems as if we might be turning a corner. With the help of smarties like Hendricks, 2005 might well be remembered as the year the pendulum began the long swing back. Hope, not cynicism!

--TJ

Add Your Own Caption Dept.

Does this or does this not appear to be President Clinton caught just before some kind of hijinks with the Pope was about to occur? That is a hand-in-mom's-wallet kind of expression he's wearing. And are any of the other principals even looking at the camera? This guy is posing with the papal cadaver. "Oh, and here's me with the Pope's body. The tortellini we had after...mah goodness! Put it on a biscuit and drown it in gravy, and I'da been in heaven!"

PS Condi just looks freaked out by all of it. This never came up on screen in the war room.

--TJ

Celebrate Democracy

Bless this great land, that even the most disputed of contests for power may be undertaken in peace and solemnity.

I have nothing but respect for the office. Not even the turd taking the oath in the picture, can ruin the pride I have for our democratic processes.

--TJ

Deflating the Oil-For-Food Story

Also coming as a tip from Preemptive Karma but more directly Tom Paine's Newsworthy section, this story originally found at Financial Times UK you also could have picked up if you listened carefully enough to Paul Volcker's report on the UN Oil-for-Food investigation:

Overall, the operation involved 14 tankers engaged by a Jordanian entity to load at least 7m barrels of oil for a total of no less than $150m (€113m) of illegal profits. About another $50m went to Mr Hussein's cronies.

In February 2003, when US media first published reports of this smuggling effort, then attributed exclusively to the Iraqis, the US mission to the UN condemned it as “immoral”.

However, FT/Il Sole have evidence that US and UK missions to the UN were informed of the smuggling while it was happening and that they reported it to their respective governments, to no avail.

Oil traders were told informally that the US let the tankers go because Amman needed oil to build up its strategic reserves in expectation of the Iraq war.

Last week Paul Volcker, head of the independent commission created by the UN to investigate failures in the oil-for-food programme, confirmed that Washington allowed violations of the oil sanctions by Jordan in recognition of its national interests.

This is just what FT appears to be able to prove. The winked-at total is in the billions, not millions. Perhaps it's Norm Coleman who should think about resigning in disgrace.

--TJ