Host Hurricane Victims in Your Home

I received an email from Moveon.org today about housing hurricane victims. Jacksonville's a bit of a hike from New Orleans, but since we have a spare bedroom available we went ahead and signed up. We'll see if we get any takers.

Here is a comprehensive set of satellite photographs of Katrina's destruction.

A Warning in New Orleans

From Yahoo News:

Not Getting Any Younger

I stopped at the Commissary on my way home from work today and it was absolutely packed with people scurrying about getting their pre-holiday weekend grocery shopping done. The regular checkout line was wrapped around three walls of the inside of the building. As I was collecting dust with all the other unsmiling faces in the express checkout line I heard an elderly gentleman grouse, "I ain't getting any younger here," which led me to ponder a few things:

1) Why was this retired man in such a hurry? Was he late for a golf game, or for his favorite show on TV? I probably shouldn't joke about it because maybe he really did have somewhere else to be. Wait a minute! Come to think of it, I think that could have been said for everyone else in line.

2) Why do I so often see elderly people—typically men—get so grumped out by having to wait in a line from time to time? Is there some sort of male "impatience switch" that gets tripped when you retire? Do they feel that time is passing them by? I do notice that time does go by faster the older I get...did this guy think he was going to croak before he got out of the store? The irony of "checking out" in the express checkout line is not lost on me.

My mother maintains that a lot of it has to do with some of these guys having had "jobs of consequence" (imagine Dr. Evil air-quotation-marks) in which they were accustomed to being the boss-man and having things their way for so long. She may be on to something there, but I wonder if there's more to it than that. Hopefully I'll live long enough to find an answer to this someday.

"A Can't-Do Government"

This article was forwarded to me today:

The New York Times
September 2, 2005
A Can't-Do Government
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

Read more...