Katrina Stuff

[nancylebov]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/wicked_wish/582898.html has quite a good discussion--there are a fair number of entries from people who've lived in the area and/or are familiar with how disaster relief is done. It's a relief to see a fact or three--I think everything that can be said about looting vs. salvaging has probably been said unless there are further developments. There are a number of political comments, but the signal to noise is still much better than average.

Some other good sources are Making Light, twistedchick, and bradhicks. I especially like bradhicks's suggestion that refugees should be set up in cities (with appropriate aid) rather than in refugee camps.

I'm impressed with a society which is prosperous enough that 80% of a city in one of the poorer parts of the country could evacuate with their own resources. This is not as good as it should be, but I'm still giving credit where it's due.

The car thing: I've been hearing for years about America's love affair with cars and addiction to cheap gas--but what looks like waste in one context is excess capacity for emergencies in another. If all that had been available to move people was mass transit, there would (by definition, because mass transit involves moving more people with fewer vehicles) have been less ability to move them.

This may be a libertarian knee-jerk, but if the Feds were running low on money from the war in Iraq and homeland security, couldn't they have cut back on the war on drugs instead of cutting back on maintaining the levees?

Comments

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

Maintaining the levees is right up there with keeping guards on a building; depends on how much you value the contents.

I'd have thought that getting out the extra people in boxcars or something rail-like would have been more effective.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I probably should have taken notes on where the good stuff was in the wicked_wish discussion, but there was somewhat about the rail lines out of N.O being mostly east-west and rail cars being very vulnerable to wind. In other words, it might have helped some, but less than you might think, and would have had to have been shut down relatively early.

And the thing I forgot to mention about cars is that if you use mass transit to move people (unless you can get them to some major interchange), they're stranded. Cars preserve people's flexibility of movement.

I've also thought a little about how you'd subsidize an evacuation (help people with gas, lodging, etc.) but haven't gotten anywhere with how it would be structured.

[redbird]

The alternative plan of "let's take everyone to the Superdome" also stranded everyone, and in unpleasant conditions.

[madfilkentist]

You have to understand how these things work. One starts from the premise that Bush is to blame for everything. Since he's to blame, it follows that funds were transferred directly from levee maintenance to Iraq. It's very easy for progressives to manufacture such arguments once they know what conclusion they're trying to reach.

Except that FEMA funds *were* taken from NOLA

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

and used for the War on Terra.

Unless you believe in some grand Liberal Media Conspiracy working hand in hand with the Freemasons and the Trilateralists and the Girl Scouts and the UN and the Elders of Zion - which I know conservatives who do - to fabricate this information, by going back in time and getting Louisiana emergency workers and the Army Corps of Engineers to lie about this, perhaps by hijacking a Tardis.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Maintaining the levees? But... but who does that punish??

Excess capacity for emergencies as long as they're not poor

[mouseworks.livejournal.com]

The real thing demonstrated here is that poor carless people weren't given rides by non-poor people with cars. There's almost no social connection between those with cars and those without. This doesn't mean that the car people are wrong (other than it does look like our love affair with cars is at least partially responsible for more and better hurricanes). It does illustrate that the poor aren't factored into social decisions. You may see this as Darwin in action.

Cutting back on the war on drugs would mean less bribes for the people making the price of drugs stay high. Don't be silly. After gasoline goes away, drugs will still be with us.

Given that the two messes (Iraq and the Gulf Coast) are going to raise the price of gasoline (and already have), those without cars or without adequate means to run them will increase.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed with a society which is prosperous enough that 80% of a city in one of the poorer parts of the country could evacuate with their own resources. This is not as good as it should be, but I'm still giving credit where it's due.

You're running a grave risk of making sense. Someone will have to come along and bitch-slap you about it soon.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I've been trying to imagine what a society which was prosperous enough that having a percent relocating and starting over wouldn't be a huge deal. Could something short of anything boxes be enough?

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

But-but-but---Drugs are sexy. drugs are cool, Drugs get attention. Being against drugs is moral, and an important thing for any politician who wants to stay in office. Terrorists are cool, too. people get excited about terrorists. The movies where the Seals or Delta Force go after terrorists always make more money and are more fun to watch than movies about natural disasters, even if those have sexy girls who lose most of their clothes and a cute dog. People always want to hear about what you're doing to fight terrorists and drugs--they don't want you to tell them their homes could be toast if Bad Stuff happens. Planning for Bad Stuff? Spending money on infrastructure? That's no fun! /snark.

To be serious, planning for things, either on a personal level or a governmental one, means we have to think about things we'd rather not think about, because they're unpleasant. This goes all the way from estate and funeral planning to disaster and relief planning. It's not fun, it involves stuff we'd rather not think about, and yet it must be done. It calls for that important conservative value of discipline, as well as those other conservative values, forethought and prudence. It means accepting that we aren't powerful enough to change things to the way we'd like them to be, and must deal with them the way they are. Which calls for reality-based thinking as well as humility. Planning on the large scale involves making concessions to various interest groups, which means admitting that different points of view may have as much validity as your own, which calls for both humility, tact, and insight. None of these are strengths for too many of our current leaders.
Regular gas here in Nashville is now $2.73/gallon. I'm glad I filled up my tank Monday, when it was only $2.51. I suppose it would be prudent to learn to ride a bicycle about now, wouldn't it?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

It's not just the public wanting the politicians to control drugs--the public at least wants medical marijuana to be legal and the Feds overrode them. There's something else going on, and I don't know whether it's a mere habit of cruelty or organized crime protecting its monopoly (is organized crime really that organized?) or what.

I've heard that the resistance to doing maintenance is an especially American trait--I don't know whether this is true. Certainly, people a little more local than Bush did want the maintenance taken care of.

I suppose doing things well takes both liberal virtues and conservative virtues--the liberal ones include inclusiveness (seeing if you're leaving out people you'd do better to include) and neophilia.

Speaking of conservative virtues: Did you notice that the plague in Stephen king's _The Stand_ wouldn't have gotten out if that one fellow had obeyed orders?

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

It's not the public's opinions about drugs--it's the Received Wisdom. Think of it as What We Know (cue portentous music) versus what people actually know, understand, and are aware of. They often don't match. Often, What We Know is genuine BS, packaged for our protection. Like, building more fuel-efficient cars would unfairly tax the American automotive industry, vs. what people really thought, which was that when gas hit $1/gallon, a Japanese car getting >20 miles/gallon looked pretty good, so that the American automobile industry suffered for NOT building fuel-efficient cars.
One of the things included in What We Know is that if you value conservative virtues, you can't also value liberal ones, and vice versa. Yet people all over America value both, because they understand both are important.
You see this on television when the talking heads on the news start gassing about looting grocery stores, and local officials and newsies on the ground start saying "They're desperate, I can't blame them;" What We Know is at war with what's the truth.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The point I was trying to make was that politicians aren't merely maintaining the war on drugs because they're trying to please the electorate--there's something else going on.

I agree with you that a lot of what people believe which goes beyond their actual experience is nonsense.

Getting back to the war on drugs--has the American public become noticably saner as a result?

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

We learn from experience. The politicians do, too, but at a slower rate--and they learn different things.
For the War on Drugs: Most people aren't all that hot on recreational drug use--at least, they aren't willing to support the habits of addicts, and they recognize that addiction carries a high price for society. They have good sense about things like medical marijuana use and the need for painkillers. Everyone knows someone with chronic pain, it seems like. The public has very mixed feelings and opinions on how to deal with problem drug use, though.
What politicians have learned: scare tactics in campaigns/political maneuvering in the off-season involving drug use will get them votes from people with serious issues about the social costs of drug abuse/moral squints over anyone "having fun" they don't approve of (for various values of "fun", from Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to the neighbor who deals with his cancer treatment complications with a joint). Getting War on Drugs money for your district gets votes, whether the money was for generally needed basic police equipment or a Federal supermax prison. People can be stampeded and buffaloed with scare tactics over drug-related issues like "gangs", "AIDS" and "moral collapse"--I use quotes because the real problems with these issues aren't always much like the pictures the Karl Roves of this world are painting.

The lesson you learn: "This isn't really helping, do we still need to do it?", is not always going to be the same your elected officials learn: "By supporting this initiative of Sen. X's, even though it won't address the real problem, I will have a favor owed me by Senator X".

Walking the walk

[nwl.livejournal.com]

I've heard that the resistance to doing maintenance is an especially American trait

Well, maintenance is certainly not something people like to do for computer programs, which is what I thought reading the above. Maintenance is boring and repetitive and considered none creative. In my view, this is why there was such a panic in 2000 and 2001, because people hadn't been maintaining programs. Suddenly, they had to actually think about the various programs they used for years, that only had patches when absolutely necessary.

I don't think this is unique to the U.S. I tend to think of this as a human trait, sort of a "if something isn't broken, don't fix it" idea. Which would most people rather do - start something new or clean house (i.e., maintenance)?

Re: Walking the walk

[(Anonymous)]

The 17th Street levee - the one that collapsed so spectacularly - was recently renovated and upgraded. It was literally the one levee that nobody expected to fail first (some have suggested that it failed because of the recent work, since the grass that protected the berm on the back side hadn't grown back in and let the dirt wash out when it topped).

The "budget failure" with NO levees has been ongoing for about 40 years now, with major cuts in the requested levee budget coming in every administration - including the Clinton years, when they tried to cut the budget to fund wildlife preservation efforts (among other things). The biggest opponents to levee work have been the environmentalists, by the way, for obvious reasons.

The reductions in the requested budget from the last couple of years would have kicked in starting in 2006 to 2008.

The only way to "fix" the levee system around New Orleans would have taken, literally, billions of dollars, and I'd like to see a record of any major politician from either party requesting that...

Re: Walking the walk

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the alternate point of view. Could you give a url or two?

Re: Walking the walk

[solri.livejournal.com]

I don't think this is unique to the U.S. I tend to think of this as a human trait

You're certainly right there. I can't imagine people getting all excited over a War on Entropy.