"I shouted at the page "CERN is a particle accelerator! You can't miss the thing, it's only several kilometers across!"
Oh. My. God. I must find that part of the book so I can laugh at it even more.
And I second the question about the Mona Lisa - although I, personally, do feel a bit stupid asking since I minored in art history and have actually seen it in person.
CHip
Young voters did turn out it record numbers, but I'm not sure about voting rates (remember that the current 18-24 year olds are a part of the baby boom echo). I do know that many papers erroneously reported the opposite, that young voters did not have a good turn out (which isn't true if you take recent history into account).
I also know that if 18-29 year olds had their way in the 2004 general election that Kerry would be president, and that they are the only age group for which this is true. Despite this, there were many blog posts and news articles proclaiming that young voters once again let the Democrats down. I also know that much of the hype about Arnold appealing to young voters was wrong - 18-29 year olds were the least likely to vote yes on the CA recall and for Arnold. It's possible that his running increased turnout, even among younger voters, but he certainly didn't win because of the support of younger voters.
I also know that it's not strictly true that younger voters tend to vote for democrats and older voters tend to vote for republicans. It's more accurate to say that younger voters tend to vote anti-establishment and older voters don't, and that there are observable generational trends. Baby boomers and the current 18-29 year olds tend to lean left, the 60+ crowd and the current 30-45 year olds tend to lean right. Which is (part of) why in '92 and '96, when today's 30-45's made up most of the 18-29's, the third party candidate was Ross Perot, but in '00 and '04 it was Nader.
Lin, not saying it wouldn't have helped (a lot) just saying it wouldn't have solved the problem by itself. After all, even if the buses had been used to get 10,000 people out, there is still the fact that the National Guard only supplied the Superdome with two days worth of food, but took much longer to resupply and start getting people out.
I think it was a waste myself. I'm just getting annoyed with the people who act like it would have been easy to do so on short notice, or a complete solution.
It's not just a matter of getting the buses out, but collecting people and getting the buses out. Within two days. Or less.
(I also wonder how many of these buses were being used on Sunday to get people to the Superdome. Does anyone know what buses were used to do that?)
And every person you get out isn't one less person to feed later (or even move). You would have had to feed and shelter the people you did get out (and quite likely move them elsewhere later), it just would have been much easier because transportation to and from whatever shelter(s) you set up would have been much more accessible.
I think that a lot of people dropped the ball, that's why I want an investigation. It just seems obvious to me that some of the blame being put on NO and LA in terms of immediate response (as opposed to long term planning) is as much wishful thinking as anything else. If we can't expect the feds to supply tens of thousands people with food and water within two days, how can we expect local governments to evacuate ten thousand in even less time?
hamletta, what CHip said
If anything our constitution was designed as if parties did not exist, not in order to create two opposing monolithic parties. Washington in particular was violently opposed the idea of political parties in general.
re: Nader
I was one of those new voters who also happened to be mad at the Democrats at the time and was considering voting for Nader, knowing that the state I was in would almost certainly got to Gore no matter what I did. I didn't because I decided to simply vote for the best candidate rather than trying to play politics with my vote, and because I realized that if I was that upset with the Democrats, then there were other things I ought to be doing instead.
Personally, I also think there's a lot more Democrats could do about Nader voters besides dumping all the blame on them. Part of the problem seems to be that most Nader voters were young voters, and neither party cares about young voters. Supposedly the parties don't care because younger voters don't vote in large numers, but I also think that those those in charge make so little effort to change that (and the abysmal voting habits of Americans in general) because they don't want to share the power or have to negotiate with another group. If young voters did come out in numbers large enough to "make a difference" that would force their elders to make room for them at the table.
Lori,
The superdome had enough water and MREs for 15,000 people for two days (provided by the National Guard). They had about 10,000 more people than that and they didn't start getting people out of the Superdome until Wednesday (evening, I think). Since the storm hit Sunday night, that means people were there for a minimum of four days, not two. It wasn't that they didn't have food, but that their estimates were waaay off, both in terms of number of people, and how long it would take the feds to resupply them and get people out.
Yes, thoses buses could have been used to get some people out, but 26,000? Before the storm hit? It would have been a better use of resources to use them to stock up on more supplies, or go around and pick people up and take them to higher ground (they did have buses running from collection points to the Superdome).
I don't get the portapotties thing either though, it's not like it was a surprise to anyone that the sewer system backed up and the pumps stopped working.
re: Hurricane Pam: DHS apparently never got the funding to write up their report and analysis of the exercise, so rather than anything actually learning or improving anything, the government just spent a bunch of money practising.
Greg: but, if you were "black rich, etc." would the police of the City of Gretna sent you packing or not?
This isn't just about Bush. This is about America as well.
I'm sure you all will anyway, but everyone should make sure you read the article Patrick links to.
The police cheif knows what he did was beyond shitty because he tried to cover his ass by saying that they cared for the people who made it into Gretna before the bridge was closed down.
Only problem is they "took care" of them and got them out and to "higher and safer ground" by dumping them off at the juncture of the I-10 and Causeway Blvd. (also noted in the article) This was one of the many places where people were waiting for days for decent water, food, and transportation. The place where thousands at one point were gathered. The place that was so chaotic that rescue workers found six year old Deamonte Love caring for six other toddlers by himself.
How many of the 4,000 people the City of Gretna police "helped' were children?
People who were at this location talked about buses dropping people off, but no one picking people up to take them to water, food, and shelter. How many of these buses were from Gretna?
Patrick Weekes,
I think you still may be missing the point. The issue is not so much that Bush is deliberately trying to screw the poor, but that America in general, and people like the Bush's in particular, have been so indifferent to the suffering around us that we have though nothing of letting it get to this point.
I cheered when Kayne West said what he did not so much because I think that Bush doesn't care enough about black people in particular but that America, through its actions, demonstrates that it cares very little about so many people. And until people are brave enough to point that out, despite whomever it may anger, we will not be able to do anything about it.
Nailing the administration on incompetence is important, and easier, and needs to happen. But if that's all we do, then all that will happen is the suburbs will be safer, and most of America will still be left behind.
Patrick Weekes,
Yeah there are better sources for outrage than this. Last I checked this website in particular has been all over several of them.
But one of the big questions as to why this all happened is the extent to which indifference and prejudice played a part in leaving the poorest and least able bodied behind to suffer and often die.
This is a question that needs to be answered, not to place blame (although I have plenty I want to spread around) but because if it did play a part (and it seems pretty obvious to me that it played some part at least in terms of lack of preparation) than we need to know so that we can begin to address the problem.
Mrs. Bush's quote speaks directly to this question.
btw - If you haven't heard the quote yet, I suggest you do so. IMHO, the way she said it says as much as what she said. I was shocked when first read the quote, then shocked a second time when I heard it on TV.
Jean, Great Britain isn't alone in that, trust me. We do it too.
In fact, during my year abroad in England, I even had several fellow students make fun of us Americans for really only paying attention to our own athletes in the Olympic games. I pointed out that, well, we had a whole lot more of them to watch.
"ANY middle-class (and up) American would know the cultural cues and stay the heck away from any government organized evacuation"
I second kate's response.
I'm very upset that there weren't more evacuation options available to people who did not have access to private cars, but this oversight itself does not excuse what happened afterward. (It also doesn't excuse the federal government because this became a joint responsibility the moment Bush declared a state of emergency for LA - on Sunday.)
I live in southern California and this, when I haven't been paralyzed with grief, has scared the shit out of me. We don't get warnings for earthquakes, so the whole, "we didn't get much warning" excuse doesn't work for me. FEMA had better well be whipped into shape before we have another major earthquake (and trust me, we will) because I expect emergency response to do what its supposed to do at all levels, not just my local government.
I won't have the option to evacuate my grandmother or great aunt or younger cousins before the earthquake hits, and once it does, we may not have the option to leave, despite having the normal number of cars per driving age residents. Even if we do what we are supposed to do and stockpile water and canned food, there is no garuntee that it won't be spoiled or that we can get to it. FEMA, DHS, and the National Guard had better well be on their way.
"Another addition to California and various other parts of the west would be wildfires."
And of course the subsequent flash floods and mudslides.
But...I kinda like it here anyway.
Of course, having lived though earthquakes, they don't scare me nearly as much as stuff I've only read about, like tornados.
Until all this happened I don't think I had completely realized how many people still agree with crap like "The Bell Curve." Or maybe, Ivan, our president, and all the other idiotic people talking about the tens of thousands of people who "chose" to stay behind have yet to actually watch any of the TV coverage and so have failed to notice that the vast majority of those who "chose" to stay behind are black. Or maybe they think it's just a coincidence. Or maybe they just don't think.
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