UNDERNEWS / 9-8-05
UNDERNEWS
SEP 8, 2005
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source
E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com
1312 18th St. NW #502 Washington DC 20036
202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779
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WORD
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The Internet interprets the US Congress as system damage and routes
around it - Jeanne DeVoto
Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire
hydrant. - Mitchell Kapor
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to
use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks - Anonymous
While you are destroying your mind watching the worthless, brain-rotting
drivel on TV, we on the Internet are exchanging, freely and openly, the
most uninhibited, intimate and, yes, shocking details about our
"CONFIG.SYS" settings. - Dave Barry
There's a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys
typewriters and set them to work, they'd eventually come up with the
complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this
isn't true. - Ian Hart
It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important.
It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you
know, the dark dungeons of the Internet. - George W. Bush
The largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had. - Eric Schmidt
quotes
Hooked on Internet? Help Is a Just a Click Away - Unknown
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THE REVIEW'S TENTH YEAR IN CYBERSPACE
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Sam Smith
This fall marks the Review's tenth year on the web - and our 11th year
of sending out email updates. In the last quarter of 1995 we got all of
388 page views, and in 1996, we got 27,000. This year we are approaching
three million.
Since we began, nearly 60 times as many people have started using the
Internet as were online in 1995. The number of websites has increased
from about 60,000 worldwide in late 1995 to around 72 million today.
How early was 1995? Well, the number of Americans using the Internet was
still less than the number who were watching TV in the mid 1950s. And
the Washington Post hadn't yet found a way to stay on line and be happy
with the results. Some other papers, however, had gotten into the act.
Fredric A. Emmert writes that, "In 1992, the Chicago Sun-Times began
offering articles via modem over the America On Line computer network,
and in 1993, the San Jose Mercury News began distributing most of its
complete daily text, minus photos and illustrations, to subscribers of
America On Line. The first multi-media news service in the U.S., News in
Motion, made its debut in the summer of 1993 with a weekly edition
specializing in international coverage, with color photos, graphics and
sound. In 1994, the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service began
distributing news to its newspaper customers via computer before their
morning editions arrived, and The Washington Post has created a Digital
Ink subsidiary, providing an electronic newspaper research service for
clients, who can buy custom-made reports on subjects of their choice."
The Post dropped the fee-based Digital Ink in favor of its current site
in 1996.
Although shorter items from our first year remain online, only one
feature story does: America's Extremist Center. From 1996, only the
still popular Mission Creep: The Militarizing Of America remains online.
Our earliest email update included with this September 1994 story:
"Strip away the hyperbole and you're left with yet another American
occupation of a small Latin American country for time and purpose
uncertain. This occupation, however, can be presumed to have as much to
do with restoring democracy in Haiti as the Panama invasion had to do
with eliminating the drug trade there -- that is to say, practically
nothing. Everyone from the 82nd Airborne to CNN went on full alert, but
bear in mind that the Haitian military is about the size of the DC
Metropolitan Police plus the Executive Protective Service and the
National Zoo Police."
Your editor's interest in the internet was not all that surprising,
since he had long ago discovered that keeping up with advances in
technology helped compensate for his own deterioration. The Review began
as a hot type magazine, The Idler, in 1964 and over the years used such
novel technology as Press Type, IBM Selectrics, Radio Shack's TRS-80 (or
Trash 80 as it was fondly known), the Model 100 - an amazing battery
operated laptop with a six line screen, and Exxon's Qyx, among many
others.
Before all that, however, were other influences, starting with Alice
Darnell, my high school math teacher who went to Harvard in the summer
of 1954 to learn about this new thing, the computer. She returned
reporting that she had almost been locked up in a computer overnight, as
it needed an entire building to do the work of a present day Mac, and
she introduced us to the basics of Boolean algebra.
It would be twenty years, however, before I actually touched a computer:
an 8K Atari purchased for my sons. As I fleeted up to 16 and then 32 K
it occurred to me that these things might have some journalistic use. In
fact, if you wasted a whole Saturday you could already program them to
do little things like write messages and keep addresses.
It was a time when an earnest father such as I sent his son to computer
camp where he learned to write programs that in just a year or so he
could buy at the local computer store. It was a time when a computer
expert came to speak at that same son's school and, at the end, the
headmaster arose and said, "This is all very well and good, but I'm not
running a goddamned secretarial school." Within a year he had purchased
an impressive array of computers.
It was also a time short on computer expertise. The Review was blessed
with two high school students who came by to empty our floor's office
trash who were also seminal cyber whizzes. They shall remain nameless to
preserve the security clearance of the one who now works for a major
defense contractor, but the latter still provides occasional assistance
such as his suggestion that I repair a computer suffering from too much
atmospheric moisture by putting it in an oven at 150 degrees for an
hour. That was a year ago. It worked and the computer still helps
produce the Progressive Review.
Some years back I went to a Shaker village in Maine. While on the tour
of this vanishing sect I noted a TV antenna atop the dorm. I mentioned
this jarring departure from my image of Shakers to our guide, who
explained that the Shakers saw no conflict between technology and their
faith. After all, she said, their furniture was technologically advanced
for the time.
It was not unlike the Quakers who do not shun change but merely apply
their faith to it. About a year and a half after launching our website I
tried to give a sense of this approach in a book I was writing, The
Great American Political Repair Manual:
"The first rule of media survival is use it; don't let it use you. We
must ignore the role the media has prescribed for us -- audience,
consumer, addict -- and treat it much as the trout treats a stream, a
medium in which to swim and not to drown. The trick is to stop the media
from happening to you and to treat it literally as a medium -- an
environment, a carrier. Then you can cease being a consumer or a victim
and become a hunter and a gatherer, foraging for signs that are good and
messages that are important and data you can use. Then the zapper and
the mouse become tools and weapons and not addictions. Then you turn the
TV off not because it is evil but because you have gotten whatever it
has to offer and now must look somewhere else."
GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL REPAIR MANUAL
http://prorev.com/order3.htm#repair
THE EXTREMIST CENTER
http://prorev.com/center.htm
MISSION CREEP
http://prorev.com/mil.htm
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WEB WATCH COLUMN, APRIL 17, 1995 - An "ecology of information" is how we
need to view the Internet, according to Apple fellow Alan Kay. In his
keynote address at the Third International World Wide Web Conference, he
said that the old "clockwork" model of systems thinking was obsolete.
The complexity of systems today is so great that we can no longer
manufacture them. Rather, we need to grow them organically. . .
Alan Kay said that it is the author, not the technologist, which
innovates in the new medium. For example, it took 65 years after the
invention of the printing press for an author to think of numbering the
pages in a book, so that he could cross reference the pages.
Public access to the web will increase dramatically. Microsoft
demonstrated their Internet Explorer product, which will be integrated
into their forthcoming Windows 95 desktop. Users will be able to access
web pages very simply, and drag or drop them onto the desktop,
documents, or folders. . .
A new language called Java was introduced. Java safely allows programs,
not just data to be exchanged. These small applications, or "applets"
allow a new generation of client/server sophistication. One simply
clicks on something of interest. The network would install any necessary
software automatically, as well as the billing chores.
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A REPORT FOUND THAT BETWEEN 1995 and 1996 there was a dramatic shift:
"The biggest and perhaps most significant change since 1995 is the
increased use of the World Wide Web. Nearly three out of four (73%)
report having used the Web, compared to only 21% then. Web use also
appears to be more frequent: 51% said they used the Web either yesterday
or sometime in the past week, compared to 12% last year. . .
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1995 ALSO saw the introduction of search engines.
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JON KATZ, WIRED, 1995 - So far, at least, online papers don't work
commercially or conceptually. With few exceptions, they seem to be just
what they are, expensive hedges against on rushing technology with
little rationale of their own. They take away what's best about reading
a paper and don't offer what's best about being online. That's the point
of a newspaper. . .to filter the worthwhile information, then print it.
. . . The newspaper needs to reinvent itself. . . . The object is not to
replace, or put into a different format, but to gain a toehold in
cyberspace and even absorb some of its values.
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KATRINA
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LETTER TO THE REVIEW
The blame doesn't belong with the people who couldn't leave,
it belongs with the people who wouldn't care. - Ohio Guy
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FUNDS UNFAIRLY DISTRIBUTED IN WAKE OF FRANCES
PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT - As the federal government gears up to
pour billions of dollars (some estimate up to $200 billion) into New
Orleans, Mississippi and other areas decimated by Hurricane Katrina, it
would be an understatement to say that the potential for waste, fraud
and abuse is great. In the wake of last year's Hurricane Frances, which
hit South Florida 100 miles north of Miami-Dade county, the Fort
Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel found that the Federal Emergency Management
Agency was handing tens of millions of dollars to residents and
businesses in Miami-Dade. The problem is that Miami-Dade county only
felt the equivalent of "a bad thunderstorm." TVs, new cars and a
funeral (although no deaths were caused by Frances) are examples of
items purchased with FEMA funds. . .
Meanwhile, counties that were much closer to the eye of Frances--such as
Indian River, St. Lucie and Broward counties--and were harder hit, but,
relative to Miami-Dade and the damage caused, received much less
assistance. Clearly, as the Sun-Sentinel notes, "Miami-Dade has
received a disproportionate share of the aid for Hurricane Frances
relief."
Disproportionate allocation of disaster relief may be in the works now,
thanks to the political power of Mississippi's Congressional delegation,
according to an AP article. . .
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SO IT WASN'T THE GAY'S FAULT AFTER ALL
HAARETZ, ISRAEL - Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi and the
spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement, said that
Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for U.S. President George W.
Bush's support for Israel's Gaza pullout. "It was God's retribution. God
does not shortchange anyone," Yosef said during his weekly sermon. His
comments were broadcast on Channel 10 TV on Wednesday. Yosef also said
recent natural disasters were the result of a lack of Torah study and
that Katrina's victims suffered "because they have no God," singling out
black people.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/622278.html
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LOCAL RESPONSE IS WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
JESSE WALKER, REASON, - "In the more modern, developed countries,
looting is not a problem after disasters," says the sociologist E. L.
Quarantelli, a co-founder of the Disaster Research Center at the
University of Delaware and one of the pioneers of disaster research.
There are "some exceptions," he adds, but they're "very rare." More than
a half-century of investigation has established a fairly firm pattern:
After the cataclysm, social bonds will strengthen, volunteerism will
explode, violence will be rare, looting will appear only under
exceptional circumstances, and the vast majority of the rescues will be
accomplished by the real first responders -- the victims themselves.
- When an earthquake hit Tanghsan, China, in 1976, it was "probably the
worst peacetime disaster of the century," Dr. Erik Auf der Heide, a
medical officer with the Centers for Disease Control, writes in his
contribution to the 2004 book The First 72 Hours: A Community Approach
to Disaster Preparedness. About 250,000 people were killed, and almost
every building in the city was destroyed -- but "200,000 to 300,000
victims rescued themselves and then carried out 80% of the rescue of
others." Such proportions were neither an aberration nor peculiar to
earthquakes: Auf der Heide cites similar patterns following flash
floods, tornadoes, and a deadly gas explosion.
- The Kobe quake of 1995, which killed 6,279 people, produced a reaction
that was -- to quote "Emergency Response: Lessons Learned from the Kobe
Earthquake," a 1997 paper by Kathleen Tierney and James D. Goltz --
"without precedent in Japanese society." Although volunteerism isn't
nearly as widespread in Japan as it is in the United States, "most
search and rescue was undertaken by community residents;
officially-designated rescue agencies such as fire departments and the
Self Defense Forces were responsible for recovering at most one quarter
of those trapped in collapsed structures. Spontaneous volunteering and
emergent group activity were very widespread throughout the emergency
period; community residents provided a wide range of goods and services
to their fellow earthquake victims, and large numbers of people traveled
from other parts of the country to offer aid." Quarantelli says there
wasn't a single authenticated case of looting.
- After the San Francisco quake of 1989, Stewart Brand wrote in Whole
Earth Review that "Volunteer rescuers in San Francisco's Marina
District...outnumbered professionals three-to-one during the critical
first few hours." (Although, he added, "it still wasn't enough.")
According to Auf der Heide, most of the tremor's fatalities followed the
collapse of the Cypress Expressway -- and the rescue operation that
followed was led by self-organizing volunteers. "These volunteers,
coming from residences and businesses in the neighborhood or passing by
on the street and freeway, performed some of the first rescues of
trapped motorists," the Oakland Fire Department acknowledged in its
earthquake report. "Using makeshift ladders, ropes, and even the trees
planted beside the freeway, these volunteers scrambled up onto the
broken structure to render first aid and help the injured and dazed to
safety."
When looting does occur, most of it is done covertly by individuals or
small groups snatching something when they think no one's looking, not
by mobs acting openly.
http://www.reason.com/links/links090705.shtml
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BUSH USES KATRINA AS EXCUSE TO ATTACK SOCIAL SECURITY
KEITH KOFFLER, NATIONAL JOURNAL - Top Republicans Monday indicated that
a key rationale for continuing to press for items such as overhauling
Social Security and making tax cuts passed during Bush's first
administration permanent is that these initiatives are good for the
economy, and that what is good for the national economy is also good for
New Orleans. "A large part of the response to the hurricane's impact is
to jump-start the region's economy, which requires a vibrant national
economy," said White House Deputy Press Secretary Trent Duffy. Duffy
asserted that the vast spending that would be required to address the
hurricane's impact adds to the need to change Social Security, which
threatens to strain the budget in coming years.
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BURNING MAN VS. FLOODING NEW ORLEANS
MARK MORFORD, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Some readers wrote me e-mails
when I was out scorching my nether parts in the remote Nevada desert at
Burning Man 2005, half naked and beglittered and intensely hung over and
posting daily blog entries that read more like postcards from my moaning
id than rational, semi-coherent slivers of Burning Man reality.
And these e-mails, with more than a little bitter condescension or
holier-than-thou snicker, asked me this: How the hell could you be out
there dancing and reveling and drinking badly mixed margaritas and
eating camp-stove-cooked gourmet food and imbibing all those unholy joys
when the worst natural disaster in recent U.S. history just hammered
Louisiana the way a Republican hammers welfare?
This is what they argued. Doesn't it make Burning Man seem completely
trite and superfluous and overindulgent? Don't you feel more than a
little, you know, silly, trying to write about your childish little
otherworldly sexed-up art-rave survivalist-camping thing with even the
slightest hint of seriousness in the aftermath of this horrible tragedy
and loss of life and the fact that we have a grossly inept president who
sits around the ranch smoking stogies with his oil cronies and chuckling
while the corpses of thousands of poor, black Americans bobble around
Louisiana?
And of course my reply is, well, hell yes, of course Burning Man is
utterly gratuitous, and excessive, and more than a little ridiculous,
especially in the wake of Katrina -- just as, say, NFL football has
become suddenly pointless, and also the auto industry, and celebrity,
and organic dog food and ornithology and Destiny's Child or the fact
that the ultraviolent cheese of "Transporter 2" took in $20 mil over
this past tragedy-thick weekend, enough to repair at least a few schools
and roadways in Biloxi. You have a point?
These are, after all, the weird swipes of the universe, the jarring
simultaneous juxtapositions we cannot control, a wild sybaritic
celebration contrasted with an epic heartbreaking disaster and you
cannot, as a participant, escape the painful and weirdly fascinating
irony of it all. We all feel small and heartbroken.
But here's the thing: While the circumstances and the remoteness of the
event meant that most Burning Man participants had little or no idea of
the extent of Katrina's wrath, as soon as news did begin to trickle in,
the call went out and Burners immediately rallied and funds were
immediately raised across the camp, and word has it that the money
gathered reached into the tens of thousands within two or three days,
with zero PR or advertising or formal pleas from Angelina Jolie or the
Red Cross and sans any blank-eyed stares from our useless president. . .
There's another angle, too. Let us argue the obvious but necessary
flip-side notion that, in the wake of any national disaster or mounting
death toll, it is exactly those things that celebrate life that we turn
to offer salve and balm and resurrection of spirit.
In other words, in the aftermath of hurricanes and national tragedies
and in the face of the most ham-fisted and heartless and
freedom-stabbing administration in recent American history, we need this
sort of "trifling" Burning Man fluff more than ever, to act as spark, as
beacon, as counterbalance. I know, it's not a perfect idea. It solves no
ecological woes. It saves no lives from the floodwaters. But it's all
we've got.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/07/DDG24EHPCV1.DTL
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RON FOURNIER, AP - No strangers to bureaucratic bungling and turf wars,
the nation's governors watched in horror as government agencies handled
Hurricane Katrina with glaring incompetence - and now worry that the
next disaster could deal their states the same ugly fate.
The fear is bipartisan. Republican and Democratic governors agree that
the response to Katrina was deplorable, and many ordered reviews of
their own state emergency strategies to root out problems they're
witnessing in the Gulf Coast.
Their top priority: Avoid the bureaucratic red tape that tripped up
state, local and federal authorities at every step of the Gulf Coast
crisis. Thousands of lives may be at stake after the next natural
disaster or terrorist strike.
http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/65663.asp
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PROGRESS REPORT - Before joining FEMA, Brown "spent 11 years as the
commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse
Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado."
(Brown was forced out "after a spate of lawsuits over alleged
supervision failures.") Brown's top deputies, however, make him look
qualified. The number two at FEMA, Chief of Staff Patrick Rhode, was an
event planner ("advance man") for Bush's presidential campaign. He had
absolutely no emergency management experience before joining FEMA. The
number three at FEMA, Deputy Chief of Staff Scott Morris, was a press
flak at the Bush campaign. He previously worked for Maverick Media, the
firm that produced TV spots for Bush's campaigns. Morris also has no
emergency management experience. In contrast, the top deputies of
Clinton-era FEMA Director James Lee Witt ran regional FEMA offices for
at least three years before assuming senior positions in Washington."
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ROGER MORRIS, GLOBE & MAIL, CA - The calamity was enormous, the toll in
lives and ruin like nothing the country knew. Yet the ultimate disaster
was in the staggering negligence of the government and its oblivious
leader. Despite years of warnings and then the stark sight of suffering,
help was disgracefully slow, too late for so many. "People must realize
now," one witness wrote in her diary, "how rotten the structure has
become." Long afterward, historians would think it a breaking point in
trust, the moment when the future began.
No, not the great New Orleans flood of 2005. The great Russian drought
and famine of 1891. Not George W. Bush. But a similarly fey Nicholas II.
Not a breaking point in America perhaps, though there are intriguing
parallels.
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HOLLY MARTINS' HAT TRICK
[Three straight today from Holly Martin at Wonkette]
HOLLY MARTIN, WONKETTE - One enduring lesson of the devastation that was
Katrina: When you want to take stock of a soul-testing national crisis,
New York media is pretty much the last place you want to turn. Here is
the New York Sun's Pia Catton, on the eve of the Big Apple's Fashion
Week, mulling the pesky fashion dilemmas posed by thousands upon
thousands of homeless and dead poor people:
"After the chaos on the Gulf Coast, it's time for order in the world:
modesty, linear shapes, and direct, womanly style. Up until last week,
this fall could have been dominated by any number of the looks featured
in the fall fashion magazines. But something has to guide your hand when
you put together outfits or shop for new pieces. Something in the
zeitgeist leads us to certain styles and away from others. After a
second look through the magazines this weekend, I found that what seems
right for the moment are the black suits, classic silhouettes, and
buttoned-up style. If not for the news, this look might have seemed too
severe or too much of a contrast from summer's flowing skirts and bright
colors. But now, out of all the various looks that designers produced
and editors selected, sobriety feels right.". . .
HOLLY MARTIN, WONKETTE - Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff
announced today a singificant influx of disaster relief for FEMA head
Michael Brown. Chertoff has designated Vice Admiral Thad W. Allen, the
U.S. Coast Guard's chief of staff, as Chertoff's special deputy for
Katrina relief, writes the WaPo's Josh White; Allen will "take over
operational control of the search-and-rescue and recovery efforts along
the Gulf Coast. The unprecedented task of coordinating the massive
effort was handed off to a leader and expert who was described by
colleagues as unflappable, engaging and intensely organized."
So it appears that Allen will be Brown's "deputy" in the same sense that
same sense that, say, the surrogate who Ted Kennedy hired to take his
Harvard Spanish final for him was "Ted Kennedy": i.e., someone to do the
hard work, while the privileged, well-connected sinecure-holder tries to
steer clear of his next Bertie-Wooster style scrape. Except, you know,
that no one died when Kennedy blew off Spanish class.
HOLLY MARTIN, WONKETTE - You know, it's become so fashionable to beat up
on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the lack of
accountability therein. In reality, the agency has acted swiftly on some
occasions to quell bad actors in its ranks. Why, just look at how
promptly it addressed the conduct of Nicole Rank, a Corpus Christi-based
FEMA administrator who was dispatched to the Charleston, West Virginia
site of a flood last year. It so happened the president turned up in
town at the same time, for a Fourth of July speech, and Rank turned up
at the event with her husband Jeff. Both were wearing a T-shirt that
read "Love America, Hate Bush" and "Regime Change Starts at Home"; the
Charleston police told them to "cover [the shirts] up, take them off, or
leave completely." When the Ranks refused they were forcibly removed
from the premises and briefly imprisoned, so that the president could
proceed with his speech declaring the Fourth an occasion to celebrate
"the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to
worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that's what
we believe"
And within two days, FEMA informed Ms. Rank that because of the
incident, she was being released from the Charleston assignment. That's
some rapid action to protect the security of the homeland. A heck of
job, you might even say.
http://wonkette.com/
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WHAT TWO PARAMEDICS SAW
[Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics frorm California that were
attending the EMS conference in New Orleans]
LARRY BRADSAHW AND LORRIE BETH SLONSKY, EMS NETWORK NEWS - We suspect
the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National
Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the
Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed, were the real
heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of
New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the
sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the
generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension
cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in
order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over
for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing
air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen
who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into
boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their
roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could
be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers
who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for
hundreds of those stranded.
Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from
members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only
infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.
On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the
French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees
like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and
shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and
friends outside of
New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources
including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the
City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because
none of us had seen them.
We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up
with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those
who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by
those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses,
spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water,
food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the
sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the
"imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later
learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were
commandeered by the military. . .
The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to
settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came
across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we
should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New
Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the
City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and
explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation
and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for
us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear
to you that the buses are there."
We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with
great excitement and hope. . . It now began to pour down rain, but it
did not dampen our enthusiasm. . . As we approached the bridge, armed
Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we
were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our
heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd
scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to
engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our
conversation with the police commander and of the commander's
assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The
commander had lied to us to get us to move.
http://www.emsnetwork.org
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THE REVOLVING ROOF COLLAPSE AT FEMA
THOMAS B. EDSALL WASHINGTON POST - During his two years as director of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency during President Bush's first
term, Joe M. Allbaugh traveled to Louisiana for a series of disasters,
from tropical storms Allison and Isidore to Hurricane Lili. Yesterday,
Allbaugh, now head of his own Washington lobbying and consulting firm,
was in Baton Rouge, La., helping his clients get business from perhaps
the worst natural disaster in the nation's history. . .
Allbaugh said he was there "just trying to lend my shoulder to the
wheel, trying to coordinate some private-sector support that the
government always asks for." In the case of one client, UltraStrip
Systems Inc., a Florida company, Allbaugh said he persuaded "them down
here" to present the case for a water filtration system. "I'll tell
them, 'Here are the list of entities [that might buy the system] that
are in town, here is where they are -- go to it.' ". . .
After leaving FEMA in March 2003, Allbaugh, who managed the 2000
Bush-Cheney campaign, founded Allbaugh Co., a lobbying-consulting firm
with many clients in the disaster-relief business.
Among those clients are: the KBR division of Haliburton; TruePosition, a
manufacturer of wireless location products, services and devices; the
Shaw Group, a provider of engineering, design, construction, and
maintenance services to government and the private sector; and
UltraStrip, which is marketing the first water filtration system
approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The firm's Web site quotes Allbaugh: "I carry pictures of close friends
who died in the September 11th terrorist attacks as a constant reminder
of what we lost that day. It's my personal commitment to always honor
their memory by working to protect this nation. I'm dedicated to helping
private industry meet the homeland security challenge."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702385.html
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MUSICIANS WONDER WHETHER THEY'LL SURVIVE
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/arts/music/08jazz.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1126186705-v08tZH/3/rgfnu7hL4+l2g
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THE MEDIACRACY
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ELITE ETHNOGRAPHY: THE CARLYLE GROUP GETS TOGETHER
[Thanks to journalist Suzan Mazur, here is the agenda for the
forthcoming Carlyle Group Investors Program. We won't bore you with
huffs and puffs over insider trading, especially between big media and
the Carlyle crowd, but it would help the credibility of journalism if
people like elite sweetheart Fareed Zakaria revealed just how much they
got paid for their sweetheart appearances]
THE CARLYLE GROUP
2005 WASHINGTON DC INVESTOR CONFERENCE
You are cordially invited to attend the 2005 Washington DC Investor
Conference,
September 11-13, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC This year
we have developed a comprehensive program that will include updates on
Carlyle's current and planned investment activities, panel discussions
on a number of business and economic topics, as well as ample time
during the Conference to meet with Carlyle investment professionals,
CEOs from Carlyle portfolio companies, and guests attending from nearly
50 countries.
Sunday, September 11, 2005 -
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel
1150 22nd Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
USA
Business Attire
Sunday, September 11, 2005. . .
6:30PM-7:15PM Buses Depart The Ritz-Carlton Hotel to the Smithsonian
National Museum of the American Indian (Buses begin boarding at 6:15pm)
7:00PM-8:30PM Registration National Museum of the American Indian
7:00PM-9:30PM Welcome Reception and Buffet Dinner
7:30PM-8:15PM Optional - Special Performance by Mark Russell, America's
Foremost Political Satirist
Monday, September12, 2005. . .
10:45AM-11:30AM Panel Discussion: World Affairs Overview:
Introduction: David M. Rubenstein
Moderator: Walter Isaacson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aspen
Institute
Panelists:
Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
Tom Ridge, First U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security
R. James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA
Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International, Columnist, and Analyst,
ABC News. . .
1:30PM-2:15PM Keynote Address: Current Global Events: Introduction:
Frank C. Carlucci III, Chairman Emeritus, The Carlyle Group, and Former
US Secretary of Defense (1987-1989)
Guest Speaker: General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.), Secretary of State
(2001-2004)
9:00PM-9:15:PM Seating for Performance in Concert Hall
9:15PM-10:00PM Special Performance by Marvin Hamlisch and the National
Symphony Pops Orchestra
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
7:45AM-8:45AM Panel Discussion: Washington Political Overview
Introduction: Edward J. Mathias, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
Moderator: Chris Matthews, Host, MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews
and NBC's The Chris Matthews Show
Panelists:
Gloria Borger, National Political Correspondent, CBS News and Political
Columnist, U.S. News and World Report
David Gergen, Editor-at-Large, U.S. News & World Report and Former
Advisor to US Presidents
HOW MUCH WILL CARLYLE PLEDGE TO KATRINA RELIEF?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0509/S00014.htm
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REALITY & FACT CORRESPONDENT TO BE NAMED SOON
WASHINGTON TIMES - CNN gets religion Jon Klein, president of CNN,
announced yesterday that the network has hired its first full-time
"faith and values correspondent." New York-based Delia Gallagher will
report "on a wide range of topics involving faith, religion and values
in the lives of Americans" and "represents a major commitment by CNN to
covering the religious revival in the United States, where tens of
millions of people cite faith as a central part of their lives."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050907-114203-6323r_page2.htm
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THE HOLY COMMANDMENTS OF ADVERTISING
BBC - John Camm has drawn up a list of seemingly unwritten rules which,
he concludes, might as well be the Advertising Bible.
1. Men are obsessed with sex but will forego sex in order to watch
football or drink beer.
2. Women are locked in a constant battle with their weight/body
shape/hairstyle.
3. Career success is entirely based on your ability to impress your
boss.
4. Mums are often harassed but NEVER depressed/unable to cope.
5. Any act of male stupidity (e.g. walking across a clean floor in muddy
boots, putting the dog in the dishwasher, etc.) will be met with a wry
smile, not genuine annoyance/anger.
6. Married men will flirt with other, younger women but never act upon
it.
7. Anyone with a scientific career will have a bad haircut and dreadful
clothes.
8. If you work for the emergency services, you are a better person than
the general population.
9. Elderly relatives never suffer from senile dementia.
10. Scandinavians are, without exception, blonde and beautiful.
11. Women have jobs they never do in real life, e.g. dockworker (who
looks like a model).
12. Children will not eat fruit or vegetables. Ever.
13. Both men and women find driving deeply pleasurable, never boring or
stressful.
14. Men are inherently lazy/slobbish; women are the reverse.
15. Chocolate, however, will cause women to immediately fall into the
languor of the opium eater. . .
20. All women (except stay-at-home housewives) have interesting and
enjoyable careers.
21. Any over-the-counter medical product will work instantly and 100%
effectively.
22. Children know more than adults. . .
23. Women never merely hop in and out of the shower, instead preferring
to act out some sort of soapy Dance of the Seven Veils.
24. School is a happy experience for all children.
25. Tortilla chips are the most exciting experience any group of young
people can experience.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4204412.stm
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RECOVERED HISTORY
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45th ANNIVERSARY OF THE GLEN ECHO PROTESTS
Sam Smith
THANKS TO energetic National Park Service Ranger, Sam Swersky, the 45th
anniversary of the civil rights protest at Glen Echo Park is being
celebrated on September 10. Glen Echo was once an amusement park near
Washington DC and from its inception in 1911 until 1961 it was
off-limits to African-American citizens.
In the summer of 1960, a local movement formed to end the policy of
segregation at Glen Echo Amusement Park. Howard University students,
members of the Bannockburn community, the local NAACP, Cedar Lane
Unitarian Church and the Wheaton-Kensington Democratic Club, all
picketed the park on a daily basis, as well as petitioned the Montgomery
County Council, (because public school buses were bringing white kids to
Glen Echo to swim and taking black Montgomery County kids to the D.C.'s
Francis Pool for swimming lessons.) There was a legal battle as well,
which went all the way to the Supreme Court.
Your editor was a reporter for WWDC and Deadline Washington News Service
at the time. In August 1960 I wrote in a letter:
"Have been covering some of the anti-segregation demonstrations around
the Washington area. The results here have been hopeful. Good police
work has kept violence to a minimum although the presence of neo-Nazi
Lincoln Rockwell and his "troopers" doesn't make the situation any
simpler. Quite a few lunch counters have been desegregated. Glen Echo
Amusement Park is resisting despite a month of picketing and a Bethesda
theater is also refusing to back down."
In February 1960, four black college students had sat down at a
white-only Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Within two weeks,
there were sit-ins in fifteen cities in five southern states and within
two months they had spread to fifty four cities in nine states. In April
the leaders of these protests had come together, heard a moving sermon
by Martin Luther King Jr. and formed the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee.
The summer I had first worked for WWDC I had covered the passage of the
first civil rights legislation in Congress since 1875. Now it was
getting serious. By the end of June, I was covering the desegregation of
lunch counters in Northern Virginia after sit-ins by groups led a Howard
Divinity School student, Lawrence Harvey. Harvey then took his troops to
Glen Echo.
Although I saved few recordings from that period -- tape was expensive
and usually recycled -- I still have the raw sounds I made that day. On
it a guard and Harvey confront each other:
Are you white or colored?
Am I white or colored?
That's correct. That's what I want to know. Can I ask your race?
My race. I belong to the human race.
All right. This park is segregated.
I don't understand what you mean.
It's strictly for white people
It's strictly for white persons?
Uh-hum. It has been for years. . .
You're telling me that because my skin is black I can not come into your
park?
Not because your skin is black. I asked you what your race was.
I would like to know why I can not come into your park.
Because the park is segregated. It is private property.
Just what class of people do you allow to come in here.
White people
So you're saying you exclude the American Negro.
That's right.
Who is a citizen of the United States.
That's right.
I see.
As a biracial group marched outside with picket signs, Harvey led a
group inside to sit-in at the restaurant and mount the carousel horses.
The case ended up in court and less than a year later, the park opened
for all.
http://www.glenechopark.org/contact.htm
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OTHER NEWS
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SONNY ROLLINS AT 75
DAVID MARCHESE, POP MATTERS - "I'm always in danger of sounding too
different than I did on my last record, but it's what I have to do. I
don't have any choice about it. I'm not gonna copy my past
performances." Over the course of his career, Rollins has seen jazz
music's position in society shift from a place as the hippest of hip to
its current status, where its most popular manifestation comes in the
form of sexy piano players and any claims to "cool" status are framed by
the soft focus of hindsight. The changes that Rollins has witnessed in
the way jazz is viewed have caused him to reassess his attitude toward
the music he's given his life to. . .
"It was a naïve concept I had, a long time ago, that jazz was able to
change the world. I think it's a great music and it can have some
effects, but I think today it's very difficult, unfortunately there's
much less people crossing lines. People are hardened into their
positions and it's difficult for a jazz musician to reach these people,
even if they might like what they hear, it's difficult for them to be in
a position where they would be open to hearing it."
http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/rollins-sonny-050826.shtml
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FURTHERMORE. . .
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SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Sixty-one union members and sympathizers
staged a sit-down at the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Union Square in San
Francisco to call attention to a yearlong dispute with 14 hotels over
new labor contracts. They were arrested, charged with misdemeanors for
interfering with a place of business, and released. As police fitted
them with plastic handcuffs, several hundred pickets marched on Stockton
Street, chanting union songs and slogans. Mike Casey, the president of
Local Two of UNITE HERE!, the union representing Bay Area service
employees in the conflict, was one of those arrested.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/06/BAG1OEISI71.DTL
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ALMOST HALF OF CANADIANS WANT OIL NATIONALIZED
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050905.wgasss0905/
EmailBNStory/National/
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SEP 8, 2005
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source
E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com
1312 18th St. NW #502 Washington DC 20036
202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779
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WORD
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The Internet interprets the US Congress as system damage and routes
around it - Jeanne DeVoto
Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire
hydrant. - Mitchell Kapor
Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to
use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks - Anonymous
While you are destroying your mind watching the worthless, brain-rotting
drivel on TV, we on the Internet are exchanging, freely and openly, the
most uninhibited, intimate and, yes, shocking details about our
"CONFIG.SYS" settings. - Dave Barry
There's a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys
typewriters and set them to work, they'd eventually come up with the
complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this
isn't true. - Ian Hart
It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important.
It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you
know, the dark dungeons of the Internet. - George W. Bush
The largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had. - Eric Schmidt
quotes
Hooked on Internet? Help Is a Just a Click Away - Unknown
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THE REVIEW'S TENTH YEAR IN CYBERSPACE
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Sam Smith
This fall marks the Review's tenth year on the web - and our 11th year
of sending out email updates. In the last quarter of 1995 we got all of
388 page views, and in 1996, we got 27,000. This year we are approaching
three million.
Since we began, nearly 60 times as many people have started using the
Internet as were online in 1995. The number of websites has increased
from about 60,000 worldwide in late 1995 to around 72 million today.
How early was 1995? Well, the number of Americans using the Internet was
still less than the number who were watching TV in the mid 1950s. And
the Washington Post hadn't yet found a way to stay on line and be happy
with the results. Some other papers, however, had gotten into the act.
Fredric A. Emmert writes that, "In 1992, the Chicago Sun-Times began
offering articles via modem over the America On Line computer network,
and in 1993, the San Jose Mercury News began distributing most of its
complete daily text, minus photos and illustrations, to subscribers of
America On Line. The first multi-media news service in the U.S., News in
Motion, made its debut in the summer of 1993 with a weekly edition
specializing in international coverage, with color photos, graphics and
sound. In 1994, the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service began
distributing news to its newspaper customers via computer before their
morning editions arrived, and The Washington Post has created a Digital
Ink subsidiary, providing an electronic newspaper research service for
clients, who can buy custom-made reports on subjects of their choice."
The Post dropped the fee-based Digital Ink in favor of its current site
in 1996.
Although shorter items from our first year remain online, only one
feature story does: America's Extremist Center. From 1996, only the
still popular Mission Creep: The Militarizing Of America remains online.
Our earliest email update included with this September 1994 story:
"Strip away the hyperbole and you're left with yet another American
occupation of a small Latin American country for time and purpose
uncertain. This occupation, however, can be presumed to have as much to
do with restoring democracy in Haiti as the Panama invasion had to do
with eliminating the drug trade there -- that is to say, practically
nothing. Everyone from the 82nd Airborne to CNN went on full alert, but
bear in mind that the Haitian military is about the size of the DC
Metropolitan Police plus the Executive Protective Service and the
National Zoo Police."
Your editor's interest in the internet was not all that surprising,
since he had long ago discovered that keeping up with advances in
technology helped compensate for his own deterioration. The Review began
as a hot type magazine, The Idler, in 1964 and over the years used such
novel technology as Press Type, IBM Selectrics, Radio Shack's TRS-80 (or
Trash 80 as it was fondly known), the Model 100 - an amazing battery
operated laptop with a six line screen, and Exxon's Qyx, among many
others.
Before all that, however, were other influences, starting with Alice
Darnell, my high school math teacher who went to Harvard in the summer
of 1954 to learn about this new thing, the computer. She returned
reporting that she had almost been locked up in a computer overnight, as
it needed an entire building to do the work of a present day Mac, and
she introduced us to the basics of Boolean algebra.
It would be twenty years, however, before I actually touched a computer:
an 8K Atari purchased for my sons. As I fleeted up to 16 and then 32 K
it occurred to me that these things might have some journalistic use. In
fact, if you wasted a whole Saturday you could already program them to
do little things like write messages and keep addresses.
It was a time when an earnest father such as I sent his son to computer
camp where he learned to write programs that in just a year or so he
could buy at the local computer store. It was a time when a computer
expert came to speak at that same son's school and, at the end, the
headmaster arose and said, "This is all very well and good, but I'm not
running a goddamned secretarial school." Within a year he had purchased
an impressive array of computers.
It was also a time short on computer expertise. The Review was blessed
with two high school students who came by to empty our floor's office
trash who were also seminal cyber whizzes. They shall remain nameless to
preserve the security clearance of the one who now works for a major
defense contractor, but the latter still provides occasional assistance
such as his suggestion that I repair a computer suffering from too much
atmospheric moisture by putting it in an oven at 150 degrees for an
hour. That was a year ago. It worked and the computer still helps
produce the Progressive Review.
Some years back I went to a Shaker village in Maine. While on the tour
of this vanishing sect I noted a TV antenna atop the dorm. I mentioned
this jarring departure from my image of Shakers to our guide, who
explained that the Shakers saw no conflict between technology and their
faith. After all, she said, their furniture was technologically advanced
for the time.
It was not unlike the Quakers who do not shun change but merely apply
their faith to it. About a year and a half after launching our website I
tried to give a sense of this approach in a book I was writing, The
Great American Political Repair Manual:
"The first rule of media survival is use it; don't let it use you. We
must ignore the role the media has prescribed for us -- audience,
consumer, addict -- and treat it much as the trout treats a stream, a
medium in which to swim and not to drown. The trick is to stop the media
from happening to you and to treat it literally as a medium -- an
environment, a carrier. Then you can cease being a consumer or a victim
and become a hunter and a gatherer, foraging for signs that are good and
messages that are important and data you can use. Then the zapper and
the mouse become tools and weapons and not addictions. Then you turn the
TV off not because it is evil but because you have gotten whatever it
has to offer and now must look somewhere else."
GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL REPAIR MANUAL
http://prorev.com/order3.htm#repair
THE EXTREMIST CENTER
http://prorev.com/center.htm
MISSION CREEP
http://prorev.com/mil.htm
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WEB WATCH COLUMN, APRIL 17, 1995 - An "ecology of information" is how we
need to view the Internet, according to Apple fellow Alan Kay. In his
keynote address at the Third International World Wide Web Conference, he
said that the old "clockwork" model of systems thinking was obsolete.
The complexity of systems today is so great that we can no longer
manufacture them. Rather, we need to grow them organically. . .
Alan Kay said that it is the author, not the technologist, which
innovates in the new medium. For example, it took 65 years after the
invention of the printing press for an author to think of numbering the
pages in a book, so that he could cross reference the pages.
Public access to the web will increase dramatically. Microsoft
demonstrated their Internet Explorer product, which will be integrated
into their forthcoming Windows 95 desktop. Users will be able to access
web pages very simply, and drag or drop them onto the desktop,
documents, or folders. . .
A new language called Java was introduced. Java safely allows programs,
not just data to be exchanged. These small applications, or "applets"
allow a new generation of client/server sophistication. One simply
clicks on something of interest. The network would install any necessary
software automatically, as well as the billing chores.
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A REPORT FOUND THAT BETWEEN 1995 and 1996 there was a dramatic shift:
"The biggest and perhaps most significant change since 1995 is the
increased use of the World Wide Web. Nearly three out of four (73%)
report having used the Web, compared to only 21% then. Web use also
appears to be more frequent: 51% said they used the Web either yesterday
or sometime in the past week, compared to 12% last year. . .
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1995 ALSO saw the introduction of search engines.
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JON KATZ, WIRED, 1995 - So far, at least, online papers don't work
commercially or conceptually. With few exceptions, they seem to be just
what they are, expensive hedges against on rushing technology with
little rationale of their own. They take away what's best about reading
a paper and don't offer what's best about being online. That's the point
of a newspaper. . .to filter the worthwhile information, then print it.
. . . The newspaper needs to reinvent itself. . . . The object is not to
replace, or put into a different format, but to gain a toehold in
cyberspace and even absorb some of its values.
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KATRINA
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LETTER TO THE REVIEW
The blame doesn't belong with the people who couldn't leave,
it belongs with the people who wouldn't care. - Ohio Guy
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FUNDS UNFAIRLY DISTRIBUTED IN WAKE OF FRANCES
PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT - As the federal government gears up to
pour billions of dollars (some estimate up to $200 billion) into New
Orleans, Mississippi and other areas decimated by Hurricane Katrina, it
would be an understatement to say that the potential for waste, fraud
and abuse is great. In the wake of last year's Hurricane Frances, which
hit South Florida 100 miles north of Miami-Dade county, the Fort
Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel found that the Federal Emergency Management
Agency was handing tens of millions of dollars to residents and
businesses in Miami-Dade. The problem is that Miami-Dade county only
felt the equivalent of "a bad thunderstorm." TVs, new cars and a
funeral (although no deaths were caused by Frances) are examples of
items purchased with FEMA funds. . .
Meanwhile, counties that were much closer to the eye of Frances--such as
Indian River, St. Lucie and Broward counties--and were harder hit, but,
relative to Miami-Dade and the damage caused, received much less
assistance. Clearly, as the Sun-Sentinel notes, "Miami-Dade has
received a disproportionate share of the aid for Hurricane Frances
relief."
Disproportionate allocation of disaster relief may be in the works now,
thanks to the political power of Mississippi's Congressional delegation,
according to an AP article. . .
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SO IT WASN'T THE GAY'S FAULT AFTER ALL
HAARETZ, ISRAEL - Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi and the
spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas movement, said that
Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for U.S. President George W.
Bush's support for Israel's Gaza pullout. "It was God's retribution. God
does not shortchange anyone," Yosef said during his weekly sermon. His
comments were broadcast on Channel 10 TV on Wednesday. Yosef also said
recent natural disasters were the result of a lack of Torah study and
that Katrina's victims suffered "because they have no God," singling out
black people.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/622278.html
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LOCAL RESPONSE IS WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
JESSE WALKER, REASON, - "In the more modern, developed countries,
looting is not a problem after disasters," says the sociologist E. L.
Quarantelli, a co-founder of the Disaster Research Center at the
University of Delaware and one of the pioneers of disaster research.
There are "some exceptions," he adds, but they're "very rare." More than
a half-century of investigation has established a fairly firm pattern:
After the cataclysm, social bonds will strengthen, volunteerism will
explode, violence will be rare, looting will appear only under
exceptional circumstances, and the vast majority of the rescues will be
accomplished by the real first responders -- the victims themselves.
- When an earthquake hit Tanghsan, China, in 1976, it was "probably the
worst peacetime disaster of the century," Dr. Erik Auf der Heide, a
medical officer with the Centers for Disease Control, writes in his
contribution to the 2004 book The First 72 Hours: A Community Approach
to Disaster Preparedness. About 250,000 people were killed, and almost
every building in the city was destroyed -- but "200,000 to 300,000
victims rescued themselves and then carried out 80% of the rescue of
others." Such proportions were neither an aberration nor peculiar to
earthquakes: Auf der Heide cites similar patterns following flash
floods, tornadoes, and a deadly gas explosion.
- The Kobe quake of 1995, which killed 6,279 people, produced a reaction
that was -- to quote "Emergency Response: Lessons Learned from the Kobe
Earthquake," a 1997 paper by Kathleen Tierney and James D. Goltz --
"without precedent in Japanese society." Although volunteerism isn't
nearly as widespread in Japan as it is in the United States, "most
search and rescue was undertaken by community residents;
officially-designated rescue agencies such as fire departments and the
Self Defense Forces were responsible for recovering at most one quarter
of those trapped in collapsed structures. Spontaneous volunteering and
emergent group activity were very widespread throughout the emergency
period; community residents provided a wide range of goods and services
to their fellow earthquake victims, and large numbers of people traveled
from other parts of the country to offer aid." Quarantelli says there
wasn't a single authenticated case of looting.
- After the San Francisco quake of 1989, Stewart Brand wrote in Whole
Earth Review that "Volunteer rescuers in San Francisco's Marina
District...outnumbered professionals three-to-one during the critical
first few hours." (Although, he added, "it still wasn't enough.")
According to Auf der Heide, most of the tremor's fatalities followed the
collapse of the Cypress Expressway -- and the rescue operation that
followed was led by self-organizing volunteers. "These volunteers,
coming from residences and businesses in the neighborhood or passing by
on the street and freeway, performed some of the first rescues of
trapped motorists," the Oakland Fire Department acknowledged in its
earthquake report. "Using makeshift ladders, ropes, and even the trees
planted beside the freeway, these volunteers scrambled up onto the
broken structure to render first aid and help the injured and dazed to
safety."
When looting does occur, most of it is done covertly by individuals or
small groups snatching something when they think no one's looking, not
by mobs acting openly.
http://www.reason.com/links/links090705.shtml
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BUSH USES KATRINA AS EXCUSE TO ATTACK SOCIAL SECURITY
KEITH KOFFLER, NATIONAL JOURNAL - Top Republicans Monday indicated that
a key rationale for continuing to press for items such as overhauling
Social Security and making tax cuts passed during Bush's first
administration permanent is that these initiatives are good for the
economy, and that what is good for the national economy is also good for
New Orleans. "A large part of the response to the hurricane's impact is
to jump-start the region's economy, which requires a vibrant national
economy," said White House Deputy Press Secretary Trent Duffy. Duffy
asserted that the vast spending that would be required to address the
hurricane's impact adds to the need to change Social Security, which
threatens to strain the budget in coming years.
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BURNING MAN VS. FLOODING NEW ORLEANS
MARK MORFORD, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Some readers wrote me e-mails
when I was out scorching my nether parts in the remote Nevada desert at
Burning Man 2005, half naked and beglittered and intensely hung over and
posting daily blog entries that read more like postcards from my moaning
id than rational, semi-coherent slivers of Burning Man reality.
And these e-mails, with more than a little bitter condescension or
holier-than-thou snicker, asked me this: How the hell could you be out
there dancing and reveling and drinking badly mixed margaritas and
eating camp-stove-cooked gourmet food and imbibing all those unholy joys
when the worst natural disaster in recent U.S. history just hammered
Louisiana the way a Republican hammers welfare?
This is what they argued. Doesn't it make Burning Man seem completely
trite and superfluous and overindulgent? Don't you feel more than a
little, you know, silly, trying to write about your childish little
otherworldly sexed-up art-rave survivalist-camping thing with even the
slightest hint of seriousness in the aftermath of this horrible tragedy
and loss of life and the fact that we have a grossly inept president who
sits around the ranch smoking stogies with his oil cronies and chuckling
while the corpses of thousands of poor, black Americans bobble around
Louisiana?
And of course my reply is, well, hell yes, of course Burning Man is
utterly gratuitous, and excessive, and more than a little ridiculous,
especially in the wake of Katrina -- just as, say, NFL football has
become suddenly pointless, and also the auto industry, and celebrity,
and organic dog food and ornithology and Destiny's Child or the fact
that the ultraviolent cheese of "Transporter 2" took in $20 mil over
this past tragedy-thick weekend, enough to repair at least a few schools
and roadways in Biloxi. You have a point?
These are, after all, the weird swipes of the universe, the jarring
simultaneous juxtapositions we cannot control, a wild sybaritic
celebration contrasted with an epic heartbreaking disaster and you
cannot, as a participant, escape the painful and weirdly fascinating
irony of it all. We all feel small and heartbroken.
But here's the thing: While the circumstances and the remoteness of the
event meant that most Burning Man participants had little or no idea of
the extent of Katrina's wrath, as soon as news did begin to trickle in,
the call went out and Burners immediately rallied and funds were
immediately raised across the camp, and word has it that the money
gathered reached into the tens of thousands within two or three days,
with zero PR or advertising or formal pleas from Angelina Jolie or the
Red Cross and sans any blank-eyed stares from our useless president. . .
There's another angle, too. Let us argue the obvious but necessary
flip-side notion that, in the wake of any national disaster or mounting
death toll, it is exactly those things that celebrate life that we turn
to offer salve and balm and resurrection of spirit.
In other words, in the aftermath of hurricanes and national tragedies
and in the face of the most ham-fisted and heartless and
freedom-stabbing administration in recent American history, we need this
sort of "trifling" Burning Man fluff more than ever, to act as spark, as
beacon, as counterbalance. I know, it's not a perfect idea. It solves no
ecological woes. It saves no lives from the floodwaters. But it's all
we've got.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/07/DDG24EHPCV1.DTL
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RON FOURNIER, AP - No strangers to bureaucratic bungling and turf wars,
the nation's governors watched in horror as government agencies handled
Hurricane Katrina with glaring incompetence - and now worry that the
next disaster could deal their states the same ugly fate.
The fear is bipartisan. Republican and Democratic governors agree that
the response to Katrina was deplorable, and many ordered reviews of
their own state emergency strategies to root out problems they're
witnessing in the Gulf Coast.
Their top priority: Avoid the bureaucratic red tape that tripped up
state, local and federal authorities at every step of the Gulf Coast
crisis. Thousands of lives may be at stake after the next natural
disaster or terrorist strike.
http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/65663.asp
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PROGRESS REPORT - Before joining FEMA, Brown "spent 11 years as the
commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse
Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado."
(Brown was forced out "after a spate of lawsuits over alleged
supervision failures.") Brown's top deputies, however, make him look
qualified. The number two at FEMA, Chief of Staff Patrick Rhode, was an
event planner ("advance man") for Bush's presidential campaign. He had
absolutely no emergency management experience before joining FEMA. The
number three at FEMA, Deputy Chief of Staff Scott Morris, was a press
flak at the Bush campaign. He previously worked for Maverick Media, the
firm that produced TV spots for Bush's campaigns. Morris also has no
emergency management experience. In contrast, the top deputies of
Clinton-era FEMA Director James Lee Witt ran regional FEMA offices for
at least three years before assuming senior positions in Washington."
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ROGER MORRIS, GLOBE & MAIL, CA - The calamity was enormous, the toll in
lives and ruin like nothing the country knew. Yet the ultimate disaster
was in the staggering negligence of the government and its oblivious
leader. Despite years of warnings and then the stark sight of suffering,
help was disgracefully slow, too late for so many. "People must realize
now," one witness wrote in her diary, "how rotten the structure has
become." Long afterward, historians would think it a breaking point in
trust, the moment when the future began.
No, not the great New Orleans flood of 2005. The great Russian drought
and famine of 1891. Not George W. Bush. But a similarly fey Nicholas II.
Not a breaking point in America perhaps, though there are intriguing
parallels.
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HOLLY MARTINS' HAT TRICK
[Three straight today from Holly Martin at Wonkette]
HOLLY MARTIN, WONKETTE - One enduring lesson of the devastation that was
Katrina: When you want to take stock of a soul-testing national crisis,
New York media is pretty much the last place you want to turn. Here is
the New York Sun's Pia Catton, on the eve of the Big Apple's Fashion
Week, mulling the pesky fashion dilemmas posed by thousands upon
thousands of homeless and dead poor people:
"After the chaos on the Gulf Coast, it's time for order in the world:
modesty, linear shapes, and direct, womanly style. Up until last week,
this fall could have been dominated by any number of the looks featured
in the fall fashion magazines. But something has to guide your hand when
you put together outfits or shop for new pieces. Something in the
zeitgeist leads us to certain styles and away from others. After a
second look through the magazines this weekend, I found that what seems
right for the moment are the black suits, classic silhouettes, and
buttoned-up style. If not for the news, this look might have seemed too
severe or too much of a contrast from summer's flowing skirts and bright
colors. But now, out of all the various looks that designers produced
and editors selected, sobriety feels right.". . .
HOLLY MARTIN, WONKETTE - Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff
announced today a singificant influx of disaster relief for FEMA head
Michael Brown. Chertoff has designated Vice Admiral Thad W. Allen, the
U.S. Coast Guard's chief of staff, as Chertoff's special deputy for
Katrina relief, writes the WaPo's Josh White; Allen will "take over
operational control of the search-and-rescue and recovery efforts along
the Gulf Coast. The unprecedented task of coordinating the massive
effort was handed off to a leader and expert who was described by
colleagues as unflappable, engaging and intensely organized."
So it appears that Allen will be Brown's "deputy" in the same sense that
same sense that, say, the surrogate who Ted Kennedy hired to take his
Harvard Spanish final for him was "Ted Kennedy": i.e., someone to do the
hard work, while the privileged, well-connected sinecure-holder tries to
steer clear of his next Bertie-Wooster style scrape. Except, you know,
that no one died when Kennedy blew off Spanish class.
HOLLY MARTIN, WONKETTE - You know, it's become so fashionable to beat up
on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the lack of
accountability therein. In reality, the agency has acted swiftly on some
occasions to quell bad actors in its ranks. Why, just look at how
promptly it addressed the conduct of Nicole Rank, a Corpus Christi-based
FEMA administrator who was dispatched to the Charleston, West Virginia
site of a flood last year. It so happened the president turned up in
town at the same time, for a Fourth of July speech, and Rank turned up
at the event with her husband Jeff. Both were wearing a T-shirt that
read "Love America, Hate Bush" and "Regime Change Starts at Home"; the
Charleston police told them to "cover [the shirts] up, take them off, or
leave completely." When the Ranks refused they were forcibly removed
from the premises and briefly imprisoned, so that the president could
proceed with his speech declaring the Fourth an occasion to celebrate
"the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to
worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that's what
we believe"
And within two days, FEMA informed Ms. Rank that because of the
incident, she was being released from the Charleston assignment. That's
some rapid action to protect the security of the homeland. A heck of
job, you might even say.
http://wonkette.com/
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WHAT TWO PARAMEDICS SAW
[Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics frorm California that were
attending the EMS conference in New Orleans]
LARRY BRADSAHW AND LORRIE BETH SLONSKY, EMS NETWORK NEWS - We suspect
the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National
Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the
Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed, were the real
heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of
New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the
sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the
generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension
cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in
order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over
for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing
air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen
who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into
boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their
roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could
be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers
who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for
hundreds of those stranded.
Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from
members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only
infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.
On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the
French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees
like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and
shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and
friends outside of
New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources
including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the
City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because
none of us had seen them.
We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up
with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those
who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by
those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses,
spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water,
food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the
sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the
"imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later
learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were
commandeered by the military. . .
The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to
settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came
across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we
should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New
Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the
City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and
explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation
and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for
us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear
to you that the buses are there."
We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with
great excitement and hope. . . It now began to pour down rain, but it
did not dampen our enthusiasm. . . As we approached the bridge, armed
Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we
were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our
heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd
scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to
engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our
conversation with the police commander and of the commander's
assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The
commander had lied to us to get us to move.
http://www.emsnetwork.org
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THE REVOLVING ROOF COLLAPSE AT FEMA
THOMAS B. EDSALL WASHINGTON POST - During his two years as director of
the Federal Emergency Management Agency during President Bush's first
term, Joe M. Allbaugh traveled to Louisiana for a series of disasters,
from tropical storms Allison and Isidore to Hurricane Lili. Yesterday,
Allbaugh, now head of his own Washington lobbying and consulting firm,
was in Baton Rouge, La., helping his clients get business from perhaps
the worst natural disaster in the nation's history. . .
Allbaugh said he was there "just trying to lend my shoulder to the
wheel, trying to coordinate some private-sector support that the
government always asks for." In the case of one client, UltraStrip
Systems Inc., a Florida company, Allbaugh said he persuaded "them down
here" to present the case for a water filtration system. "I'll tell
them, 'Here are the list of entities [that might buy the system] that
are in town, here is where they are -- go to it.' ". . .
After leaving FEMA in March 2003, Allbaugh, who managed the 2000
Bush-Cheney campaign, founded Allbaugh Co., a lobbying-consulting firm
with many clients in the disaster-relief business.
Among those clients are: the KBR division of Haliburton; TruePosition, a
manufacturer of wireless location products, services and devices; the
Shaw Group, a provider of engineering, design, construction, and
maintenance services to government and the private sector; and
UltraStrip, which is marketing the first water filtration system
approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The firm's Web site quotes Allbaugh: "I carry pictures of close friends
who died in the September 11th terrorist attacks as a constant reminder
of what we lost that day. It's my personal commitment to always honor
their memory by working to protect this nation. I'm dedicated to helping
private industry meet the homeland security challenge."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702385.html
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MUSICIANS WONDER WHETHER THEY'LL SURVIVE
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/arts/music/08jazz.html?adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1126186705-v08tZH/3/rgfnu7hL4+l2g
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THE MEDIACRACY
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ELITE ETHNOGRAPHY: THE CARLYLE GROUP GETS TOGETHER
[Thanks to journalist Suzan Mazur, here is the agenda for the
forthcoming Carlyle Group Investors Program. We won't bore you with
huffs and puffs over insider trading, especially between big media and
the Carlyle crowd, but it would help the credibility of journalism if
people like elite sweetheart Fareed Zakaria revealed just how much they
got paid for their sweetheart appearances]
THE CARLYLE GROUP
2005 WASHINGTON DC INVESTOR CONFERENCE
You are cordially invited to attend the 2005 Washington DC Investor
Conference,
September 11-13, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC This year
we have developed a comprehensive program that will include updates on
Carlyle's current and planned investment activities, panel discussions
on a number of business and economic topics, as well as ample time
during the Conference to meet with Carlyle investment professionals,
CEOs from Carlyle portfolio companies, and guests attending from nearly
50 countries.
Sunday, September 11, 2005 -
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel
1150 22nd Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
USA
Business Attire
Sunday, September 11, 2005. . .
6:30PM-7:15PM Buses Depart The Ritz-Carlton Hotel to the Smithsonian
National Museum of the American Indian (Buses begin boarding at 6:15pm)
7:00PM-8:30PM Registration National Museum of the American Indian
7:00PM-9:30PM Welcome Reception and Buffet Dinner
7:30PM-8:15PM Optional - Special Performance by Mark Russell, America's
Foremost Political Satirist
Monday, September12, 2005. . .
10:45AM-11:30AM Panel Discussion: World Affairs Overview:
Introduction: David M. Rubenstein
Moderator: Walter Isaacson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aspen
Institute
Panelists:
Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
Tom Ridge, First U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security
R. James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA
Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International, Columnist, and Analyst,
ABC News. . .
1:30PM-2:15PM Keynote Address: Current Global Events: Introduction:
Frank C. Carlucci III, Chairman Emeritus, The Carlyle Group, and Former
US Secretary of Defense (1987-1989)
Guest Speaker: General Colin L. Powell, USA (Ret.), Secretary of State
(2001-2004)
9:00PM-9:15:PM Seating for Performance in Concert Hall
9:15PM-10:00PM Special Performance by Marvin Hamlisch and the National
Symphony Pops Orchestra
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
7:45AM-8:45AM Panel Discussion: Washington Political Overview
Introduction: Edward J. Mathias, Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
Moderator: Chris Matthews, Host, MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews
and NBC's The Chris Matthews Show
Panelists:
Gloria Borger, National Political Correspondent, CBS News and Political
Columnist, U.S. News and World Report
David Gergen, Editor-at-Large, U.S. News & World Report and Former
Advisor to US Presidents
HOW MUCH WILL CARLYLE PLEDGE TO KATRINA RELIEF?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0509/S00014.htm
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REALITY & FACT CORRESPONDENT TO BE NAMED SOON
WASHINGTON TIMES - CNN gets religion Jon Klein, president of CNN,
announced yesterday that the network has hired its first full-time
"faith and values correspondent." New York-based Delia Gallagher will
report "on a wide range of topics involving faith, religion and values
in the lives of Americans" and "represents a major commitment by CNN to
covering the religious revival in the United States, where tens of
millions of people cite faith as a central part of their lives."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050907-114203-6323r_page2.htm
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THE HOLY COMMANDMENTS OF ADVERTISING
BBC - John Camm has drawn up a list of seemingly unwritten rules which,
he concludes, might as well be the Advertising Bible.
1. Men are obsessed with sex but will forego sex in order to watch
football or drink beer.
2. Women are locked in a constant battle with their weight/body
shape/hairstyle.
3. Career success is entirely based on your ability to impress your
boss.
4. Mums are often harassed but NEVER depressed/unable to cope.
5. Any act of male stupidity (e.g. walking across a clean floor in muddy
boots, putting the dog in the dishwasher, etc.) will be met with a wry
smile, not genuine annoyance/anger.
6. Married men will flirt with other, younger women but never act upon
it.
7. Anyone with a scientific career will have a bad haircut and dreadful
clothes.
8. If you work for the emergency services, you are a better person than
the general population.
9. Elderly relatives never suffer from senile dementia.
10. Scandinavians are, without exception, blonde and beautiful.
11. Women have jobs they never do in real life, e.g. dockworker (who
looks like a model).
12. Children will not eat fruit or vegetables. Ever.
13. Both men and women find driving deeply pleasurable, never boring or
stressful.
14. Men are inherently lazy/slobbish; women are the reverse.
15. Chocolate, however, will cause women to immediately fall into the
languor of the opium eater. . .
20. All women (except stay-at-home housewives) have interesting and
enjoyable careers.
21. Any over-the-counter medical product will work instantly and 100%
effectively.
22. Children know more than adults. . .
23. Women never merely hop in and out of the shower, instead preferring
to act out some sort of soapy Dance of the Seven Veils.
24. School is a happy experience for all children.
25. Tortilla chips are the most exciting experience any group of young
people can experience.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4204412.stm
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RECOVERED HISTORY
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45th ANNIVERSARY OF THE GLEN ECHO PROTESTS
Sam Smith
THANKS TO energetic National Park Service Ranger, Sam Swersky, the 45th
anniversary of the civil rights protest at Glen Echo Park is being
celebrated on September 10. Glen Echo was once an amusement park near
Washington DC and from its inception in 1911 until 1961 it was
off-limits to African-American citizens.
In the summer of 1960, a local movement formed to end the policy of
segregation at Glen Echo Amusement Park. Howard University students,
members of the Bannockburn community, the local NAACP, Cedar Lane
Unitarian Church and the Wheaton-Kensington Democratic Club, all
picketed the park on a daily basis, as well as petitioned the Montgomery
County Council, (because public school buses were bringing white kids to
Glen Echo to swim and taking black Montgomery County kids to the D.C.'s
Francis Pool for swimming lessons.) There was a legal battle as well,
which went all the way to the Supreme Court.
Your editor was a reporter for WWDC and Deadline Washington News Service
at the time. In August 1960 I wrote in a letter:
"Have been covering some of the anti-segregation demonstrations around
the Washington area. The results here have been hopeful. Good police
work has kept violence to a minimum although the presence of neo-Nazi
Lincoln Rockwell and his "troopers" doesn't make the situation any
simpler. Quite a few lunch counters have been desegregated. Glen Echo
Amusement Park is resisting despite a month of picketing and a Bethesda
theater is also refusing to back down."
In February 1960, four black college students had sat down at a
white-only Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Within two weeks,
there were sit-ins in fifteen cities in five southern states and within
two months they had spread to fifty four cities in nine states. In April
the leaders of these protests had come together, heard a moving sermon
by Martin Luther King Jr. and formed the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee.
The summer I had first worked for WWDC I had covered the passage of the
first civil rights legislation in Congress since 1875. Now it was
getting serious. By the end of June, I was covering the desegregation of
lunch counters in Northern Virginia after sit-ins by groups led a Howard
Divinity School student, Lawrence Harvey. Harvey then took his troops to
Glen Echo.
Although I saved few recordings from that period -- tape was expensive
and usually recycled -- I still have the raw sounds I made that day. On
it a guard and Harvey confront each other:
Are you white or colored?
Am I white or colored?
That's correct. That's what I want to know. Can I ask your race?
My race. I belong to the human race.
All right. This park is segregated.
I don't understand what you mean.
It's strictly for white people
It's strictly for white persons?
Uh-hum. It has been for years. . .
You're telling me that because my skin is black I can not come into your
park?
Not because your skin is black. I asked you what your race was.
I would like to know why I can not come into your park.
Because the park is segregated. It is private property.
Just what class of people do you allow to come in here.
White people
So you're saying you exclude the American Negro.
That's right.
Who is a citizen of the United States.
That's right.
I see.
As a biracial group marched outside with picket signs, Harvey led a
group inside to sit-in at the restaurant and mount the carousel horses.
The case ended up in court and less than a year later, the park opened
for all.
http://www.glenechopark.org/contact.htm
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OTHER NEWS
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SONNY ROLLINS AT 75
DAVID MARCHESE, POP MATTERS - "I'm always in danger of sounding too
different than I did on my last record, but it's what I have to do. I
don't have any choice about it. I'm not gonna copy my past
performances." Over the course of his career, Rollins has seen jazz
music's position in society shift from a place as the hippest of hip to
its current status, where its most popular manifestation comes in the
form of sexy piano players and any claims to "cool" status are framed by
the soft focus of hindsight. The changes that Rollins has witnessed in
the way jazz is viewed have caused him to reassess his attitude toward
the music he's given his life to. . .
"It was a naïve concept I had, a long time ago, that jazz was able to
change the world. I think it's a great music and it can have some
effects, but I think today it's very difficult, unfortunately there's
much less people crossing lines. People are hardened into their
positions and it's difficult for a jazz musician to reach these people,
even if they might like what they hear, it's difficult for them to be in
a position where they would be open to hearing it."
http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/rollins-sonny-050826.shtml
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FURTHERMORE. . .
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SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Sixty-one union members and sympathizers
staged a sit-down at the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Union Square in San
Francisco to call attention to a yearlong dispute with 14 hotels over
new labor contracts. They were arrested, charged with misdemeanors for
interfering with a place of business, and released. As police fitted
them with plastic handcuffs, several hundred pickets marched on Stockton
Street, chanting union songs and slogans. Mike Casey, the president of
Local Two of UNITE HERE!, the union representing Bay Area service
employees in the conflict, was one of those arrested.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/06/BAG1OEISI71.DTL
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ALMOST HALF OF CANADIANS WANT OIL NATIONALIZED
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050905.wgasss0905/
EmailBNStory/National/
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