Blogging The Disaster
While many MSM outlets did good work in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, and many have been trying to keep it on the agenda, bloggers have done some great work.
After Katrina, Anntichrist S. Coulter of Blondesense took up a collection for relief supplies and went into the area to help people that were missed by the organizations that everyone expects to do this work.
All Things Considered has been down in the Big Easy all week and had some good reporting, but Scout Prime of First Draft has been producing New Orleans Blog with donations and local volunteer help.
Scout is producing podcasts and putting up video of the city, as well as conversations with local people.
Unlike the media, Scout is providing raw information and allowing you to be your own editor.
Some might argue that this isn’t objective reporting. Well, neither was the best of the reporting from the MSM after the talking heads figured out how bad things were and no one in the government was listening. Some things are just wrong and there’s no point trying to provide “balance”.
March 2, 2006 Comments Off on Blogging The Disaster
Got A Free Month?
I don’t guess Van is into kayaking or he would have mentioned the little race that starts this Saturday in St. Petersburg: “Around The Coast In 30 Days”.
Run under the auspices of Water Tribe, the goal is to circle the Florida Peninsula by human or wind power in less than 30 days and show up back in St. Petersburg.
The course is down the Gulf Coast then up the Atlantic Coast to the Suwanee River and back to the Gulf. The 40-mile portage takes the advantage away from the sailors and gives it to the kayak and canoe people.
One of the participants has a trailer that he will be using to tow his kayak behind his wheelchair during the portage.
I don’t think I can clear my schedule for this one.
March 2, 2006 Comments Off on Got A Free Month?
No One Could Have Imagined
Steve Bates called his post: Caught On Tape. A lot of people have noted the video released on the pre-Katrina briefing.
In my Katrina post on August 28, 2005 I wrote:
At the moment, I’m reminded of Hurricane Camille in August of 1969. My Dad was in Biloxi, Mississippi when it hit and I drove through a month or so later. It looked like carpet bombing with destruction continuing well inland.
Katrina is now a Category Five with sustained winds at 175 miles per hour. There will be massive waves and a storm surge. New Orleans is six feet below sea level on average and needs levees and pumps to keep from flooding in normal times. If this storm comes anywhere close it will flood.
The flood wall failure made it worse, but even without that failure, when the power failed, the pumps would fail, and the city would fill with water.
As the disaster of Iraq becomes plain, everyone who supported the war says that no one could have imagined this mess.
Except that annoyed people like Professor Cole are posting Golden Oldies, from February 27, 2003, outlining what was going to happen.
Of course, we should ignore the warnings in A World Transformed by George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, explaining why they didn’t invade Iraq during the first Gulf War.
That garbage put out by Condoleezza Rice about no one could imagine using airliners as guided missiles was buried under reports about Pentagon war games, Congressional Research Service reports, and several spy novelists who all used this specific action.
What we really see is the country being ruled by a group of unimaginative, incurious, lazy, shiftless, ignorant people who have been carried through life by others.
March 2, 2006 Comments Off on No One Could Have Imagined