Stuff

A million things happening, despite my lack of activity here. Life isn't on hold or anything, it's just been manic lately. As time allows I may even post the more outrageous events.

For today, the theme being paranoia and crackpot theories, I leave you with a few one gems proving that people are willing to believe anything, no matter how bizarre:

Hitherto referenced conspiracy buffs removed by request*.

Louis Farrakhan suggesting somebody blew up the levees.

And it all goes back to this new-fangled notion that we are entitled to receive something (the exact nature changes, and is often hazy) from the government or other people just because we think we should have it. And when people don't receive it, then it has to be some conspiracy against them or the group they're affiliated with through race, religion, politics, origin or a myriad other classifications.

*Upon careful consideration I have decided the website priorly referenced and since struck out is a paragon of lucidity and should be supported fully. Please give them money.

Numero Uno

Jorge Hernando Vidales

You son of a bitch. You had no frigging right to do what you did, you idiot. Especially since it would have been your turn to buy lunch next time around.

Rest in peace, buddy... You'll be sorely missed, and the world will be a slightly less amusing place without you. I'll write something longer later, covering the more amusing things I saw you do, as well as one favor I did for you which you neither asked for nor noticed, and probably would have resented. Which is why I never told you about it.

Your manner of death was as interesting and amusing as many things you did in life, buddy, so definitely, you went out in style. It's not everyone who jumps off a cliff with a piece of cloth for support. Hell, I'd never do it. Then again, you would have probably said that you'd have to be shot before going into a raging fire voluntarily. We each have our quirks, don't we?

Still, I'll leave paragliding for those more courageous (and foolhardy) than me. I'll continue, slightly ashamed by my cowardice, to practice my own sport of rushing into burning houses and putting out the flames, or as the rest of the crew call it, Firefighting.

I wish you'd picked a more cowardly sport, man, but then you wouldn't have been you. I wonder what went through your mind when that crosswind tangled your glider up... Bitch of a fall. I'm sure you didn't scream. That's for lesser men.

Requiescat in pace, old friend...

Welfare State and Self-Loathing

I've read two articles recently, which I'll link to here for reference. Each was sent by a different friend who is as concerned as I am by the rapidly accelerating decline of our society in general. We are each, in our own particular way, trying to understand this decline and figure out a way to delay what may be the inevitable. I mean, let's face it, all empires fall at some point, and usually due to internal decay. Then again, nightfall can often be stayed for a generation or ten if the right minds get together and are willing to make the sacrifices required. Time will tell, in our case.

Anyway...

One article puts forth a very convincing argument, and one that I've mentioned here and there in the past, only this time it's applied to the recent events in New Orleans. To wit, the author states that the major disaster was not the hurricane, but rather people's reaction to it. He then covers what he sees as the main cause. In most disasters people band together for the common good, even before State and/or Federal disaster recovery agencies get involved. A very American thing, too, to take care of as much of a problem as we can without waiting for someone else to bail us out. Or it used to be a very American thing. Here's that article, well worth the time spent reading.

The other interesting article is actually an ongoing series, with 2 out of 3 parts published so far. You may access it via this link. I have to say I was surprised not at the content, but at the fact that it would be published in today's insane Politically Correct atmosphere, and so prominently on the front page of a mainstream newspaper. It makes a very good case on how dire the Islamic threat is to our society, specifically as regards Europe, and why. It also notes the self-loathing common to Europeans (and as I noted to the friend who sent it to me, also clearly visible on our shores) which is allowing dangerous philosophies and memes to hold sway at the detriment of our normal way of life. It boggles my mind when someone tells me that a group can hold a festival in honor of Mumbo Jumbo, God of the Congo, and that allowing that festival to take place is demonstrating how enlightened and politically correct we all are, but at the same time God forbid we have a nativity scene featured anywhere on Christmas because it would offend those that don't believe in Christianity. I don't believe in Christianity, myself, and I'm not offended by nativity scenes. Nor am I offended by Mumbo Jumbo's festival. I'm probably equally amused by both of them. I just find it hard to believe why Mumbo Jumbo is okay, but the Christ child isn't. Self-loathing, anyone?

All feel free to discuss both topics with me, either privately via email, or publicly by judicious use of the comment feature here. I'm eager to be enlightened.

Disastrous

Still reviewing the Katrina thing, and how it was/is being handled by the different groups that must work on recovering from an event like this, and tending to the victims, I have, as usual, a few more comments. I bring these to table based on my experience, which I'm not touting as anything special, just noting it so you can see where I'm coming from. I am a volunteer fireman, and as such have some training by FEMA on something called ICS (Incident Command System). ICS teaches you how to lead the efforts needed to deal with a disaster. I'm a person who has spent significant amounts of his life in 3rd world countries, where disasters of large magnitude are a lot more common than they are here, and whose effects are usually huge and spread through time. Minor disasters in such places don't even make the 1st page of local newspapers, since they're so common. And resources to deal with them are pitiable. Last but not least, the Gods saw fit to give me more than the usual share of common sense, which probably explains why so many people utterly lack it. My theory is that there was only so much to go around.

So, putting on my 3rd world denizen hat, I've seen a lot of disasters in my time, and most people in those countries are very used to them. That's why Fatalism as a philosophy is so common outside the industrialized West, they are literally used to dying in droves if anything goes even slightly wrong. Bad crop, extreme weather, nasty geological processes, war, you name it. Part of the outrage that a lot of Americans are pouring out right now against FEMA, the President and other organizations stems from not being used to large-scale disasters, for one, and more importantly, being completely unable to grasp the magnitude of what happened in Louisiana. People think the TV gives a good idea of how things are. People, it doesn't come even close. I'm not even going to try and explain it here, since I can't come close, either. You just have to be in one. I will provide a linked map that brings up photos of the areas affected. Browse through them, if you will, and come back here, so we can continue my monologue. If you get a chance, look through these, too.

Hopefully, you'll have looked at a few pics. And I'm sure there are easily worse pics available, from earlier in the tragedy. I've a feeling those show areas after waters receded a bit. I went through 2 floods in the town I live in within the past year. Nothing big as disasters go, just the main street flooded up to chest height, prompting us to close down that section of town and evacuate the residents to our Fire Station. Check the archives here for September of '04 if you want the story, and a pic or two. Still, that was huge for the residents affected, who lost a lot of their property. Twice, mind you. But throughout we had power, we had open roads (except for the one we closed), we had communications, and we had order. You lose all that when a large area is flattened and/or isolated in such a way that bringing in people, supplies and equipment from outside the affected area is well nigh impossible. It's so easy from a place of comfort to write that the government should have predicted it (they did) and should have prevented it (they can't). Sure, errors were made, again, mainly because we as a people haven't a clue what a real disaster is. We should train in places where disasters are an everyday occurrence. Tsunamis look very different when one's coming straight at you than they do on CNN.

Should people have been evacuated? Hell, yeah! Problem is logistics, and democracy. Let's start with that last one. It's damned if you do, and damned if you don't. If Bush, or the Governor, or the Mayor had ordered an evacuation before the fact, everybody would have been up in arms about the government's attempt at abrogating more power than it should have and pointing out what a dictatorship we live in. Since that didn't happen, the complaints center around why we didn't take everybody out, by force if necessary. As for logistics, let's suppose you did start to force people out. You'd need a hell of a lot more resources than you have in order to carry that out if people aren't willing. The first time our town flooded, back in September, folks didn't evacuate despite our going door to door requesting they get out. Second time around, in April, they didn't need any prodding. We said evacuate and they left a vapor trail getting out. People do learn. Unfortunately, they often learn the hard way. And to top it off, they'll forget too quickly.

Yet another camp is bitching about all the planes we have in Iraq, and why those aren't available for operations in New Orleans. Well, folks, those plains aren't made to land on waterlogged houses and brief islands amid the swamp. They're good at bombing, though. Is that what you want them used for in New Orleans?

Curiously enough, the effects of a Class 4 on New Orleans had been predicted some time back. Check out the predictions here. Uncanny, huh? You'll find similar predictions, though, on most any conceivable disaster. There's people paid exclusively to come up with these scenarios. The downside is you can't protect for every possible scenario, ever. Not enough resources in the world to do that for every place inhabited by humans. Shit happens in our Universe, it's just the way it is. You protect what's feasible, and hope for the best, even while knowing the worst will happen, every now and then.

A good friend forwarded me an article today, or yesterday, regarding some of the looters being firemen and policemen. Big surprise. I have news for all of you. A lot of arsonists are firemen. They start fires and then have fun putting them out. And a lot of cops are crooked. I'll wait till you come out of the faint you're in by now, since this must come as a huge surprise.

Sad thing is that most police and fire departments know full well which of their members would be better off being policed rather than policing. But political correctness, anti-discriminatory laws gone amok and union action bordering on the other side of insane keep them at work. Try firing a cop or a fireman short of having a newspaper slap a picture of them committing some outrageous act and you'll be dragged into courts, and disciplinary hearings and a ton of other shit because people today are more enamored of the letter of the law rather than its purpose. You'd think a union would be the first to recognize that a bad apple must be discarded, but no, they're just interested in proving that a union's power is great. Also, bear in mind that no matter how good a police or fire department vets its members, even fantasizing that political correctness and its offshoots have taken a flying fuck into the lake, the cops and firemen will still be human, and prone to humanity's issues. You want perfection, you've got a long wait ahead of you.

So what you end up with is the situation we have right now. Huge mess, caused not by the government, nor by FEMA, nor even by a clueless Mayor. It was caused by a hurricane. The aftermath could, arguably, have been handled slightly better, but not by much. It really wouldn't have helped a whole lot if you had a million people ready to rush in as rescuers, and a billion tons of supplies for them to take in, if at the end of the day you had no good way of getting all that inside the affected area.

Disasters happen, and people are going to continue dying in them. Sucks to be on the receiving end of it, I know, since I've been lucky enough to live through several disasters. You pick up, you rebuild, you move on, and hopefully, you learn a bit. For example, there's no way I'd ever consider buying a house on a certain street in my town, since that street has flooded twice in 6 months. A few weeks ago an auction sold two houses there for very low prices. Had I not known what I know, I'd have probably been suckered into buying one of them, either for personal use, or as an investment. Now I know better.

Next time around, I'm sure FEMA and everyone else are going to be better prepared to deal with something like this. That doesn't help the victims of Katrina, but it will undoubtedly help the victims of the next disaster.

For now, go and donate blood or money. Instead of whining about how horrible the response to the disaster has been, go and try to help out.

Aqua Vitae

My beloved New Orleans is a shambles, and probably will never be what it once was. Most of my friends there have reported in, in one form or another, with the one holdout being Akasha. I'm betting that no news is good news, but I'd still like to get an email or a call.

Also, for New Orleans alone, I have broken a lifelong ban. I've given of my own blood. Since I did get some OJ and a cookie in return, as well as a t-shirt, I guess I can say I didn't do it for free, but that still rings hollow. Yet tarnishing my reputation to help The Big Easy is a small cross to bear.

My only beef is, as usual, with the media, and with my deluded countrymen. I saw,a few days ago, a live broadcast showing the chaos in New Orleans, and highlighting the fact that little aid was being given to those still there. The media should have offered commentary to that. And folks should not be so used to comfort and order. I know it's tough to be in the middle of a large scale disaster, but still, common sense folks, please...

There's no insulin available cause it spoiled. It spoiled cause there's no power, hence no refrigeration. More can't be trucked in, because the roads are fucked. More can't be flown in because the airport's fucked. People can't be taken out en masse, because, as noted, roads/airports are fucked. Repeat ad infinitum for just about every basic and non-basic need you can imagine, and multiply by a factor of a million. Then you still wouldn't have an exact idea of what it means to be on the receiving end of a disaster, but at least, you'd be close.

R.I.P. my beautiful New Orleans....