Thanks for the advice about smoke detectors. I've recently moved into a new place, and every time I've baked bread, the detector has gone off. Since I have a tetchy, nosy landlady two floors down, I was focused more on getting the damn thing to stop screaming, but you've given me reason to take it more seriously.
As a renter--worse, a subletter--I would be a little nervous about inviting the fire department in. Is there any way of asking them in for advice without its being all kinds of official and, well, becoming the kind of thing that my landlady would hold against me when the lease came up for renewal?
Man, I am such a sucker for Infernokrushing. Congratulations! You've just made some money off me.
Accordin' to Jim's first link--complete with personality quiz!--I am Mad Mary Flint, sa-ha!
The second dubs me Cap'n Calla Fancypants! an' the third, The Blood-Letter. Belay these scurvy linkses!
ES wrote: Who's twisted mind would have thought that a nutcase would fly a full gassed airliner into a building? One can't plan for everything.
My father had thought of this possibility before 9-11. He was a fuel engineer with a major oil company.
The real problem is that we can think of so many more disasters than we can adequately prepare against. So we try to protect the many--or the wealthy and loud. Unfortunately, protecting the many isn't as politically popular as protecting the loud, as, whaddya know, the loud and wealthy have a way of commendeering the airwaves.
And then there are the sometime lurkers like myself who've come back to Making Light many times a day and recommended it as a Katrina linkfarm to everyone they know. Although the Spiegel readers are certainly more numerous than my refreshes and recommendations could account for--but the aggregate of lurkers? (Oh, and wilkommen und hallo!
It sounds like the idiots have already arrived. According to this bOingbOing post, a very enterprising someone has set up websites to accept "donations." To date, the following sites are veddy veddy suspect: katrinahelp.com katrinarelief.com katrinacleanup.com.
New York City's office of Emergency Preparedness (link) suggested packing a local map into go bags. That sounds sensible to me.
On the other hand, their site also advocates calling 311 not only to prepare but also to get instructions in case of emergency. That sounds rather less sensible in the event of a major disaster.
American Public Media has a terrifying projection of what could happen to New Orleans if hit by a category 5 here. One of the scientists interviewed mentions that because of wetlands destruction, the coast has lost some of its buffering against hurricanes--but this storm seems big enough that that protection might not have counted for much anyway.
Yes, that is certainly a manifesto, and so much more manifest than that almost polite Mundane manifesto! The krushing makes me so happy.
Thanks for the link! *blushes*
There are probably a few writers for me who've been retrieved--maybe Dostoyevsky--but not many.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 2 |
| 2005 | 9 |
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