"Do you remember the forgotten America: Justice, Equality..."

From Lonelyplanet.com's article on The United States.

Factoid Number One

In America, the rich are getting much, much richer. 25% of Americans earn 55% of the nation's annual income. The top 1% earns around 17% of all income and controls 35% of the nation's wealth.

(Lonely Planet)

Now You Listen To Me: No Moon Until You Finish Your Dinner!

NASA to unveil moon plan

"Agency plans to send 4 astronauts to the moon in 2018"

"NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion and the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018."(CNN.com - 'NASA to unveil moon plan')

$100 Billion Dollars? 2018? The Moon?

"U.S. President George W. Bush called in January 2004 for the United States to return to the Moon by 2020 as the first major step in a broader space exploration vision aimed at extending the human presence throughout the solar system."

Now, I like Star Trek as much as the next guy. And yes, it'll be totally awesome to say things like, 'Oh yeah, I went to highschool with a guy who's working on the Venus Oribital Waystation.' And sooner or later, we're gonna run out of things to do here, and need to amuse ourselves with living on chunks of space rock other than our original chunk of space rock. Maybe finding new and interesting kinds of metal. Encountering new colors of air.

But for Christ fucking sake, as long as people are hungry or sick and have no way to pay for it, we shouldn't, "be spending $7 billion a year on [NASA's] exploration efforts, a figure projected to grow to more than $15 billion a year by 2018," on the, "first human lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972." I don't see how or why 'extending the human presence throughout the solar system' is any kind of priority.

Look, we're back on that other space rock again! Look Mom, look! It's fucking fascinating!

CNN.com - 'NASA to unveil moon plan'

So, I'd Like To Say I Usually Don't...

...and that it's silly. But I'm trying not to criticize myself.

I was on MySpace, like the kids are these days, and this fellow Flamer appeared in the Cool New People section. I clicked on his face because his name was Flamer, and his face was what it was. (Though on further inspection, we learn that his full name is Flamer 4:20, and his backwards-cap-ass is apparently unaware that Flamer might imply he's gay. Which it doesn't look like he'd like.)

In any case, his page is backed by a primarily black image that includes evil looking zombie monsters, so I took as authority the Evil test he thought fit to post the results of on his profile. He was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Evil.

I, however, received an unexpected compliment from the Internet:


How evil are you?

I had trouble deciding whether to click Actor or Politician.

I chose Actor, though I can't say I'm not up in the air.

Psychology 101 (A Little Bit Of Nonesense)

Now, I'm not saying I'm an expert on human psychology, but I know a thing or two.

Within every person are four Inner Turtles. These Turtles represent different aspects of the greater personality, or "Team," each with different ways of taking in and reacting to the world. Each Turtle has its own strengths and weaknessess, as well as their own unique and potentially valuable perspective to give.

When these Turtles work in perfect harmony, there is little that can stop them. But that sort of synchronicity is not easy to obtain, and even harder to maintain. And while it can be brought on by times of extreme stress, such stress is just as likely to inspire dangerous internal conflict.

I hurt my foot kicking a wall recently. More than I thought I would.

Sometimes there's just no talking to your Inner Raphael.

****

Excuse me. At some point forthcoming is my exclusive interview with Andrew F., witness to New Orleans.

And other things?

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Now, my resume may be full of gross exagerations, but I'm not applying to lead any Federal Agencies in charge of saving lives in desperate times.

Seemingly, though, I could.

"Brown's biography on the Federal Emergency Management Agency Web site says he had once served as an 'assistant city manager with emergency services oversight,' and a White House news release in 2001 said Brown had worked for the city of Edmond, Oklahoma in the 1970s 'overseeing the emergency-services division.'

However, a city spokeswoman told the magazine Brown had actually worked as 'an assistant to the city manager.'

'The assistant is more like an intern,' Claudia Deakins told the magazine. 'Department heads did not report to him.' "(FEMA director's qualifications questioned)

Let's pretend like he WASN'T "like an intern"; his prior experience (Which perenial dissapointment to the party, Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut called, " 'particularly useful for FEMA' during a hearing in 2002."['']) in "overseeing emergency services" was in fucking Edmond, Oklahoma, which, right now, has a population of 70,000.(Edmond, Oklahoma City Website)

And, of course, there's his comically infuriating last job (Besides working the 2000 Bush campaign): Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.

Can you see it? I'm laughing with rage.

"Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt." Former Edmond city manager Bill Dashner, on Administrative Assistant Michael Brown, who worked for him while attending Central State University, Stanford of Central Oklahoma.

""Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." President George W. Bush, talking publically to a fellow government official, one idiot to another.

FEMA director's qualifications questioned

And don't think I don't realize...

...a military can drive an economy.

Buying weapons and their parts from your domestic dealers, that are domestic employers. Running the bases that fund towns. Paying soldiers. World War 2 vs The Great Depression.

But I believe that national debt capital could employ producers instead of destroyers. And they could be taxed just the same to keep the system going.

And seeing as government investment, and the economic stimulus it creates, need not generate profit, (Hence, "The National Priorities Project estimates the total cost for the war in Iraq, thus far, as 204.6 billion dollars. "[East Stroudsburg University, The Weekly Professor, June 23rd, 2005]), perhaps we could turn our economy towards fighting this:

Mauritania's deadly daily poverty

"Sitting in a feeding centre in Mauritania, one-year-old Mohamed Nour's stomach is swollen but not with food. His bony wrists are thicker than his arms.

Yet his proud mother Selka is adamant that she has enough to feed her son. He eats as she does, once a day.

'We had porridge yesterday and the day before and three days ago we had couscous,' she says."(BBC News.com)

I mean, if we (As in We the People, not we, the corporations within our state) are not making a buck either way, maybe we could drop bread and vitamins instead of bombs.

And when our bases close, we could give those towns something else to make besides soldiers.

Capitalism and Communism, in the functional history sense, aren't that much different. The government still decides spending priorities for a large part of the economy.

Here's ours: Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes

What if more of that money was spent fighting abject suffering, instead of people.

It would still employ us.

(And on a personal side note, yes, I totally cited an East Stroudsburg University professor, rather than what he cited. A little shout out to the Poconos.)

Current TV Video

From a civillian who struck out with his boat for New Orleans.

Citizen Rescue - Current.tv

Thanks to Andrew F.

What's Wrong With FEMA?

Well, maybe it just happened this way. It's unfortunate, true, but...

No. There are real reasons why the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina has been the sort of failure that costs hundreds, if not thousands, of additional lives. There were governing and budget decisions made by this administration that left us in this state of "readiness."

We're not talking the third world here, folks. I could have driven a truck of food there by now.

Even while learning stick on the way.

"CHRONOLOGY.... Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration. Read it and weep:

January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."

2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."

December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster management.

March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.

2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.

Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."

June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.

August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.

A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell." (Henry Breitrose, Professor of Communication, Stanford University; +650-723-4700)

I wonder where the money's going.

Oh, that's right, to chasing windmills and killing civillians.

****

Appendix - 1:02 PM, September 2, 2005

CNN Transcripts of events...It's insane. Brown (Bush Appointed head of FEMA) has aparantly not been watching the news all fucking week. I knew about these specific events/issues as of Tuesday:

Uncollected corpses

"Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate."

Hospital evacuations

"Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well."

Conditions in the Convention Center

"FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need."

Violence and civil unrest

"Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that.

Security

"Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face.

"The federal response:

Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well."

Now read what the Mayor, Citizens interviewed in the publicly available media, CNN Producers, basically anyone actually there has to say about what's going on. And wonder...where does FEMA get its news?

The big disconnect on New Orleans

"Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late."

"But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man."(New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin)

President G.W. Bush ran his campaign on the idea that he would make us safer. That he would prepare us for the threats of the future. Which is now. Or some sort of 'Are you scared? Vote for me!' bullshit.

Hurricanes give more warning than terrorists. And the Federal readiness and response to Katrina should make even his supporters question the credentials of our National Security President. If this is a test run for Federal Emergency Management and Homeland Security, we're fucked.

Fellow Los Angeles residents, I hope you've got sweet earthquake kits...because when the big one hits, it looks like we're on our own.

On the ground and desperate, angry:

Mayor Nagin Interview

8 (okay, 4) Days Later:

President George W. Bush Press Conference

"I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country."(New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin)

More Detail At The Times-Picayune

"One displaced resident at the Louisiana Superdome issued a warning to authorities who may be headed to the stadium, where up to 30,000 people sought refuge after Monday's Hurricane Katrina and now await evacuation to Texas by bus.

"Please don't send the National Guard," Raymond Cooper told CNN by telephone. "Send someone with a bullhorn outside the place that can talk to these people first."

He described scenes of lawlessness and desperation, with people simply dragging corpses into corners.

"They have quite a few people running around here with guns," he said. "You got these young teenage boys running around up here raping these girls."(CNN.com - strodome filled, turns away refugees

Thought My Heart Still Fills With Rage...

...growing up has taught me that in dire of circumstance, compromise may be the only functional hope. And we have long been in dire circumstance.

That does not mean you may abandon the ideals you have learned to achieve halfway. For now.

They must always be the measure by which you measure your compromise, or you've dedicated yourself to failure, and the world to a show finish at best.

These words are intended for humanists at heart, only. I've got nothing to say to the rest.

Stay The Course!

"President Bush, who flew over flood-stricken areas on Wednesday, compared the devastation to the 11 September 2001 attacks.

'It is so devastating that it is hard to describe it. 9/11 was a man made attack. This was a natural disaster,' he said."(BBC News.com - Anarchy disrupts US storm relief)

President Bush then stated again how important it was for the U.S. 'Stay the course' in its War on Environment.

Disaster Struck! And Cragslist Was There (Part 2)

Americans opening spare rooms to evacuees

"Across the nation, people like Rainey are offering up their homes as temporary shelters to the storm's refugees. On the Web site craigslist.org, hundreds of people -- some from as far as Oregon and New Hampshire -- are eagerly offering free or extremely cheap room and board for victims, even knowing those strangers may stay for months."(CNN.com - 'Americans opening spare rooms to evacuees')

Temp Housing for Bi-Sub Female - mw4w - 40

"Professional white couple (40's) willing to help you get your life back together. You are welcome to stay as long as you need to. We have a nice home with pool. We will help you gain employment during your stay.

What we ask in exchange:

You must be white sub bi-female in relitively good shape & D/D free.
You pay utilities and 1/3 of food only.
Help around the house.
You will need to get transportation to here.

No pic, no responce.

this is in or around NH [New Hampshire]"(Craigslist.org - Temp Housing for Bi-Sub Female - mw4w - 40)

A day late, and you don't mention any of the interesting parts, CNN.com.

"The problem is that many of the victims can't see the listings. Most don't have computers or Internet access in the hotels, motels and emergency shelters where they've holed up across the South...

...Federal officials nonetheless applaud the efforts as a way for individual Americans to help in the wake of a disaster.

'That kind of system, individual to individual, is a great way to go,' said David Passey, a spokesman with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "There are a lot of great Americans out there."(CNN.com)

...'A great way to go, if we didn't already have an awesome Federal Emergency Management Agency with a plan and access to resources that can totally, immediately handle this, right guys!? Let's get to work!

What's that? Oh, well, umm...

Well, fuck guys. What do we pay you for?

No, I don't need any dead Iraqis. I don't care how much you paid for them.

What could I possibly want a dead Iraqi for?'

"Are you a "working gal", that is, a professional, self-employed woman who deals in "intimate physical contact," who has been displaced by the hurricane? Are you STD free, and non-smoking, and friendly? Have you lost clothes and a place to stay? Perhaps we can help each other. I am a retired guy, 6' 1', 220 lbs and STD and drug and smoking free in Northern Virginia with a nice big, comfortable town house. If you are around 25, tall, well built and attractive, and need a place to stay for a couple of months to get yourself "together," you could stay with me, rent and cost-free! All I ask in return is some "intimate physical contact" occasionally." If you can respond to this posting, and do not have any money to get to Northern Virginia, I can help with that as well! Hope to hear from you and good luck.

this is in or around Virginia DC suburbs(Craigslist.org - Receptive in Reston - 68)

"'That kind of system, individual to individual, is a great way to go,' said David Passey, a spokesman with the Federal Emergency Management Agency."(CNN.com - 'Americans opening spare rooms to evacuees'

Trickle down Humanitarian Aid.