Maureen Dowd On Parade

During this morning's Imus in the Morning show, simulcast on radio and MSNBC America-wide, Mr. Imus and his guest, Newsweek editor Howard Fineman, celebrated columnist Maureen Dowd and her illustrious work at the New York Times. Both men gushed about Ms. Dowd's prowess at titillating her audience, though Mr. Imus did suggest that she was–to put it in Imus' delicate way–"a crazy woman". And both men marveled at Ms. Dowd's ability to so quickly get to the point of a matter, even if in reaching that point she is deliciously blunt.

Imus particularly commended Ms. Dowd's success at being the first to point out that President George W. Bush was "haunting New Orleans" in search of another "bullhorn moment." That Ms. Dowd's remarks surely trivialize President Bush's bullhorn moment atop the rubble at Ground Zero is conspicuous, though any reference to her offense is conspicuously absent from either Imus' or Fineman's adulations. Also conspicuous is Ms. Dowd's equating a natural disaster with a decidedly unnatural one: 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina are somehow related in the incredible mind of Maureen Dowd.

But what is important in that mind of Ms. Dowd's is important in our minds as well, though for entirely different reasons. For Ms. Dowd's perceptions are largely shared as a sort of prostitute's offering, giving her readers exactly what they seek and pay for. She is to literacy what phone sex is to oratory. She is a phone sex fantasy spelled out in lurid letters inked by New York presses. That Ms. Dowd earns her wages dispensing gratuitous favors, working her deft hands so effectively as she massages one giant fallacy after another, is perfectly in keeping with the times. But our minds must be vigilantly occupied with her professions, if for no other reason than to avoid the mentally-transmitted disease her intellectual promiscuity breeds. Ms. Dowd's columns are after all among the most emailed columns published at the New York Times, which even further illustrates the salaciousness of her material. Such material is best read, I am afraid, while wearing latex gloves.

HER CRIPPLING POWER

Please recall that the other night President Bush spoke to the nation from New Orleans during TV's prime time. Those of us who watched any of his speech remember that the President spoke with two distinct objects serving as backdrop: the great St. Louis Cathedral and a statue of Andrew Jackson.

What none of us might have suspected was that Mr. Bush's speech was not merely critiqued on substance or style. It was criticized, particularly by Maureen Dowd, for its backdrop. Hear Ms. Dowd at her Martha Stewart-best:

"[The President's] gladiatorial walk across the darkened greensward, past a St. Louis Cathedral bathed in moon glow from White House klieg lights, just seemed to intensify the sense of an isolated, out-of-touch president clinging to hollow symbols as his disastrous disaster agency continues to flail.

In a ruined city - still largely without power, stinking with piles of garbage and still 40 percent submerged; where people are foraging in the miasma and muck for food, corpses and the sentimental detritus of their lives; and where unbearably sad stories continue to spill out about hordes of evacuees who lost their homes and patients who died in hospitals without either electricity or rescuers - isn't it rather tasteless, not to mention a waste of energy, to haul in White House generators just to give the president a burnished skin tone and a prettified background?

The slick White House TV production team was trying to salvage W.'s "High Noon" snap with some snazzy Hollywood-style lighting ..."

Ah, yes, how terribly gauche.

Let me state the obvious: Ms. Dowd has not spent five percent of her time, or one percent of her literary energy, writing or writhing in pained concern for people who have indeed died, or been severely depressed, in the wake of Katrina. Her energy is directed at aesthetics; about fastidious attention to details that matter to her own urban sensibilities. She's hot not about the dead and dying. She's hot about where the President stands; about how he walks gladiatorally. It's all a big fashion show to her, as she sits and jots down notes to help her winnow winners from losers.

Of course, Dowd and her likeminded colleagues point out the President's floundering attempts at symbolism, decrying his efforts with ease, since their facility at denigration comes as a result of misunderstanding the symbols in the first place. Bush's critics are ignorant of the fact that he stood against a symbolic backdrop of religious might through charitable service; and secular service through military might.

In the words of one historian celebrating the august St. Louis Cathedral, a Catholic beacon to the bone-weary and sin-laden in the heart of the French Quarter, the symbolic church resonates with grace:

"Every quarter-hour, the thin peal of bells at St. Louis Cathedral calls saints and sinners, mostly the latter. They clang out a slightly off-key sound, as if they well know the offbeat rhythms of the neighborhood below them. The pulse of a circus atmosphere around the church pounds from hour to hour, as if to compete with the timbre of the sounds from the tower. The church stands sentinel, neither judging nor joining." [emphasis added]

Neither judging nor joining. How apt. How lovely. And what a symbol. A propos.

The historian continues:

"Today the church contains the remains of eight New Orleans bishops. Their lives reflect the story of the Church and the city. Renovated, decorated and restored over and again, repainted inside and out, waterproofed, strengthened with steel, buttresses added, foundations fixed, the church stands. Today the St. Louis Cathedral is a symbol of New Orleans and a tribute to the people and clergy who have struggled to preserve it. Most of all it is a haven of serenity from the soul-splitting life of the world outside." [emphasis added with alacrity]

Thus the symbol of the Cathedral transcends the very presidency (or kingship) not only of America, but of any country, in any age. For the faithful, for those who seek greatness and goodness beyond themselves, the role of faith and the fury of God's love pushes man and woman to achieve more than any Pulitzer Prize can contain.

Couple that with the devotion of a man and his ideals, ideals inherent in his country's dreams, and the union of Andrew Jackson with St. Louis–the fusion of secular and sacred–reduces the prating of Ms. Dowd and others of her ilk to so much nothing. Their very pride blinds them to the humility that is rightly theirs. They are chatterers; gossips. They cannot see the symbols from the sleaze.

For the symbols of Bush's New Orleans moment point to one thing: the need is greater than what any president can meet. Where lies the fault in that? Does not the fault lie with those who choose to be blind to the symbols that speak so elegantly?

But they are not blind to the symbols. They ignore them in disdain. They despise them.

What would the blind have preferred? Bush standing in front of dying men? Bush stepping over rotting corpses, or standing before destruction and defeat? How about him slitting his throat at the altar of their gods? Or would all of these have been dismissed as gratuitous, empty, self-aggrandizing, or mere distractions?

President Bush is a plain man, immoral, mortal, broken. He is like every person I've ever met. One wonders then what people expect from a president, particularly one they've never supported. What do they expect from a man they revile as dense, out-of-touch, stupid and traitorous?

Moreover, what are they looking for? Do they want someone before whom they may bow in worship and adoration? Do they want a savior, a god, to spare them the difficulties of living? Are they so many braying sheep lost without a shepherd? Is that what they are looking for in a president? Are they hoping for a Nelson Mandela who, in the words of U2's Bono, is the "world's president"?

This is the danger of Maureen Dowd. She implies that there is something greater, some one beyond Bush, some one that will quell her vicious prose, overwhelming her with great force of word and deed. She KNOWS what a bad president looks like because she knows what a great one should look like.

But Dowd's greatest danger is that she has succeeded in elevating her own mediocrity to great heights (perhaps she sees herself in Mr. Bush). To her, the symbols of St. Louis and Andrew Jackson are "hollow", which proves my point. That she has managed to draft a successful career on identifying her perceptions of reality as reality itself is more magic than anything Karl Rove could manage for George W. Bush. I believe Ms. Dowd has misunderstood everything she has ever written about, sort of like the way a prostitute misunderstands her body, irrespective of how deftly used.

Ms. Dowd is pretending. Her clients need her to do that.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Maureen Dowd, Bush, Katrina, New Orleans, St. Louis Cathedral

Ms. Dowd's comments are culled from her essay, Disney on Parade, September 17, 2005, New York Times. A related Contratimes essay can be read here.

Victim Overload

Yesterday, September 17, I heard Ira Glass of "This American Life" interview a victim/survivor of the New Orleans disaster. As many of you already know, Glass is a popular Chicago radio personality broadcast on National Public Radio.

This personal interview left me with only one reaction: I cannot trust what a single survivor says.

Now why this scepticism? Why this seeming indifference to the traumatic experiences of others?

Let me begin to answer these questions by first stating that I've no problem with people sharing how they felt during and after the hurricane. I am certain the grief and worry expressed are all quite real. In "Help Me Understand", I in fact trust the feelings of a woman who has no interest in returning to a place once befouled by crime, and was documented as such long before Katrina hit. My sceptism kicks in when I hear victims' eyewitness accounts about gun-toting National Guard members ignoring pleas for help (though aiming guns at the supplicants); or accounts of water trucks indifferently passing thirsting souls.

The reason for my scepticism is simple. Since the entire event in the Gulf Coast was INSTANTLY politicized (mostly by the leftists in the media) I can not trust what these people are saying. Had pundits and politicians not fouled the waters with claims of racism, incompetence, belligerence and and a variety of other horrible ills, then perhaps we could trust what people are saying about the aftermath of Katrina. But for all I know, the person claiming to be overlooked by white rescuers has already been influenced by Jesse Jackson; the person claiming FEMA indifference has already been influenced by Maureen Dowd. Moreover, I can't trust Ira Glass to actively seek out those victims who contradict his personal views about federal bungling, since he claimed last week at the top of his show in a rare preamble that the laws of the land permitted and even obligated President Bush to immediately take control of the Gulf Coast as Katrina hit.

Lastly, since nearly everyone for miles and miles was a victim, there is a sort of odd problem of victim overload. If everyone is a victim, and therefore everyone a witness, can there really be a reliable account offered when the destruction is so complete? What I am saying is that there were no witnesses to the witnesses, if that makes sense, since everyone apparently was victimized. It's sort of like every person in the city being robbed and assaulted by the same man all at once. Who witnessed what without also being blinded by injury, rage, grief, sorrow or a thirst for vengeance? Who can be objective when everyone is defining everything in terms of how it affected them?

But mostly the problem has to do with politicization. I know there were and are photojournalists at New Orleans who are doing everything possible to get the "money shot", that shot fraught with irony, injustice, and one that depicts a preconceived political, social and/or economic reality. There are journalists doing the same thing everywhere, particularly Iraq. But as with all things we see but through a glass darkly, with the glass this time being the camera lenses of countless photographers and the recollections of countless now-politically polluted survivors.

It is a shame that politics can and do have such a corrupting influence on our perceptions of the real.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Mea Culpa

You can toss aside any scientific aptitude you may think lurks in the hearts of critics of conservatives, particularly the sort of conservatives President Bush generally rallies around him. Forget the idea that you–should you show the slightest openness to Intelligent Design theory–need be embarrassed for your outrageous speculations. For those who would embarrass you are not so thoroughly above the speculative that they are immune to embarrassment themselves. Critics of conservatives are awash with fantastic ideas about reality. And none so wild as the idea that President Bush, with the aid of the US military, actually caused the Katrina hurricane. That this is countenanced by some, let alone any one, is proof that the flag should be flown at half-staff for the rest of this country's history. The idea has even made its way into my own hometown newspapers, where one letter writer, concerned that there were more contrails before Katrina than there were after, urges readers to go outside and look at the deep blue sky, suddenly free of contrails (you know, those cloud trails left by jets at high altitude) once Katrina passed.

The idea of "weather weapons", I should think, has an ancient history, rooted perhaps in the prophets of old, who called forth rain and shut up the heavens with fervent prayer. But here is a serious look at the idea, called "The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction." I hang my head in sorrow, not because such speculations are true, but because there are real people who believe such things are true.

Religiously, conservatives may believe in the Virgin Mary or the Book of Mormon. But liberals may believe that Shirley MacLaine "channels" an ancient spirit; or that Tarot Cards are more than a parlor game gone awry; or that crystals and pot and patchouli move the soul toward the transcendent; or that Christian Science is right when it teaches that the material world does not exist at all other than as an illusion of "Mortal Mind". No one is exempt, it seems, from the wildly speculative, and no political party is exempt from embracing the foolish.

But I must say that the wild speculations regarding President Bush's culpability in everything bad confronting humanity is enough to make me seek citizenship on some other planet. I believe in the Virgin Mary. I do not believe George Bush is the source of my sorrow, my woe, my plight.

***

Who To Blame

This is no gross slip into narcissism. But I have found someone to blame not only for the Katrina disaster, but also for the Iraq War and even September 11. And that someone is right here: I am to blame.

You see, I voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. I put him in office (and he never stole my vote). I put a Bush sign at the end of my driveway; I wrote letters in support of his candidacy to various newspapers. I wanted him to be president.

Hence, I am to blame for 9/11, Iraq and Katrina. Had I not expended effort to secure George W. Bush's election, he would not be in the position he is now, or has been in for the last 5 years. Hence, the nearly 3,ooo victims of 9/11 would be alive today had I placed Al Gore in office. Hence, the nearly 2,000 dead American soldiers would be alive today had Mr. Gore, and perhaps his successor, John Kerry, maintained control of the executive branch of America's government. Hence, no or very few people would have died in Katrina had a Democratic president been in power; the levees would not have broken, and the FEMA response would have been swift and total, unhindered by the Department of Homeland Security, which would not have existed at all because Democrats would have prevented 9/11 from occurring in the first place.

Mea culpa! Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. It is indeed all my fault.

As a Republican (I only joined the party a few months ago, by the way), I have brought great despair on this nation. I am indeed a Repugnant (as one loving Democrat refers to me), and I am the cause of the "Two Nations"-syndrome separating Americans one from another.

I bid you all, please, blame me.

And now, my apology.

Please, my dear, sad Democratic brothers and sisters, please know that had I only believed in the competence in just one of your candidates, just one, I would have not voted for George W. Bush. Please know that had you produced one, just one, dynamic candidate, and not the insipid, stilted and posturing Al Gores or John Kerrys of your party, I would have gladly voted for that candidate. But, you see, how colossal must your party's failings be if George W. Bush, by ALL accounts a mediocre candidate, could beat your party's very best? And please, spare me the idea that Bush stole an election in 2000 when YOUR PARTY controlled the entire executive branch of government at the time. Bush trounced Kerry in 2004, not in numbers but in outcome, since it was clear Republicans were voting for a President they did not love. Can you imagine what will happen to your party when the Republicans put forth a candidate they adore?

So, you see, I was almost entirely bound by your party's utter incompetence in getting leadership to the forefront of the national discussion. Even now, as Joe Biden wows us with his intellectual tepidity at the John Roberts Supreme Court nomination hearings, there is not a single member of your party that knows what SHOULD happen in America. Your entire party seems only to know what SHOULD NOT happen. But such knowledge is not leadership. It is complaining.

Of course, I can posit for you the names of at least a dozen local men and women, all prolific letter writers to local newspapers; folks who can barely organize their personal lives who nonetheless know exactly HOW to be President of the United States. These people (and there must be dozens in every town) know how to manage tax cuts "for the wealthy", surpluses and deficits, war and its insurgents, and natural and man-made disasters without–and this is capital–the good sense of knowing how to take care of their own lives. You know them: they are the copy-editor who could be a better publisher than his paper's owner; the accountant who could be a better CEO than the man currently in place; the parent who could be a better school principal than the buffoon in the front office. Please, I beg of you, let me nominate any of these for president, if you surely believe that these represent your very best.

Truly, it warms my heart to think that people like Michael Moore, Bill Maher, Harry Reid and local letter-writer George Duncan not only will be happier without Republicans in office, they will be nicer, less snide, and thoroughly more affable souls with anyone but Bush at the helm. Now if each of these Democrats could find one leader among them who was not as flaccid as John Kerry, then we might all find the world just oozing with peace and joy.

But it truly warms my heart too, to realize that, if the Democrats believe none of this tragedy and war and terrorism would have occurred had they held power, then I am not to blame at all. They are.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved

The New Times

A friend of mine once complained that the Wall Street Journal, a largely conservative, perennially pro-capitalism periodical, charged for all its online services. To my friend, this smacked of opportunism and capitalist gain-mongering. For that reason alone he refused to read the Journal. He would read the Boston Globe and the New York Times, who give away nearly everything online.

I wonder how my friend now feels knowing that the New York Times is going to charge online readers $49.95 per year ($39.95 if you sign up now!) just to read the paper's op-eds and guest columnists. Regular editorials will still be free, but if you want to read Dowd, Krugman, Friedman, Kristof, Rich, well, you'll have to pay.

That this is a disappointment to me is worth noting, particularly since the genesis for this website was born in my disgust of the NYT's columnists: Contratimes means "against the times", and damnit, I am against the New York Times with all my soul. (A truly great read, by the way, is Bob Kohn's Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted .) My disappointment derives in realizing that I will soon not be able to cite or access the NYT's columnists for purposes of ripping into their insipid prose; and their largely inane and always partisan analysis.

How is it, I ask, that a progressive paper like the NYT needs to profit off of its columnists? Or is this just a fund-raising project, with the extra cash collected from the new fees going to the poor, perhaps helping ease Krugman and Kristof's guilty consciences? Surely the NYT is not thinking of personally profiting from this membership fee; surely the columnists are not expecting any personal financial gain?

I suspect that part of the problem is that web-access to NYT opinion threatens the NYT's stronghold on ideas. As things stand now, columnists' opinions are instantly exposed to criticism from a whole host of writers, many such as myself: unpaid, active, and fed-up, grinding axes in weblogs day and night. I should think that limiting access will curtail this somewhat, though if it doesn't, at least the NYT will make some money trying to stanch the bloodflow.

It all perplexes me, though. For the NYT's columnists, if they are anything, they are idealists. As such, I should think that they believe what they are doing is part of changing the world into something better; about contributing ideas of meaning and import that will guarantee equity, justice and purpose for all. But if indeed this is the case, that these writers believe their opinions actually improve the world, or will lead to such improvement, then would they not want to dispense their antidotes and salvific ideas and observations for free, particularly ensuring that the underprivileged and poorest among us have access to truth? What if Jesus Christ's message is indeed the salvation of humanity? Imagine if he charged money before he spoke a word. What does the NYT's fees suggest about its writers' idealism? Does it not make readers suspect that it is not strictly offered as sage advice to a desperate planet in need of guidance, but rather presented as entertainment or so much ear-tickling chatter to satisfy partisan convictions, and that for profit?

Alas, I am afraid the motives for such fees are hardly as noble as the NYT's perceived elegance in such matters.

***

In other news: The death toll in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast may not be nearly as dire as I thought. Of course my thoughts were influenced entirely upon media reports coming out of the region, reports which now may be deemed gross over-reactions to the problems post-Katrina. Could it be that the "abysmal" evacuation and relief efforts were not as abominable as they were first perceived? Could it be that the realities were exaggerated and distorted for political gain, or as a shield behind which were hidden all sorts of pre-existing, underlying problems in the region, particularly in New Orleans?

Also, it is important to note that the NYTs (and other papers) found former First Lady Barbara Bush's remarks about Katrina's survivors reprehensible enough to file a report about her apparent miscue. Mrs. Bush observed that many of the survivors were in better situations after Katrina than before. That I have provided for Contratimes readers a transcript from a National Public Radio interview essentially proving the accuracy of Mrs. Bush's observation is telling. And Mrs. Bush did not state her positions in terms of Katrina being a good thing. In fact, she said the idea that people were better off afterwards was "sort of scary". But whenever the media can exploit a situation to highlight the upper-classes' alleged insensitivities towards the poor, they will, without compunction or fairness.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

This Morning, Four Years Later, Still Lovely

[Those of you with a formal education in poetry should, I hope, understand the structure of the following poem. But even if you dislike poetry, or have no training in poetic forms at all, I don't think you'll feel you've wasted your time in reading what follows. Peace to you, on this important date in history.]

The List Is Long

The list is long of lovely things:
the rhythmic pulse in baby’s cry
lift of air on butterfly wings
glint of sun in a lover’s eye.

The list is long of lovely things:
the beat of heart in human ears
trumpet of geese on autumn wings,
whispers soft, soothing sleepy fears.

What man is this who finds no solace there
no refuge in the parade of sunsets
in the verse of poets, or potter’s ware,
no delight in composer’s minuets?

What man is this who cannot dance
at the trinkling song of silver stream
or praise the lure of blossomed plants
or laughter merrier than a comic’s dream?

Who can reject the smell of newborn skin
dewy grass cooling naked feet
absolution from staining sin,
or songs of minstrels on evening street?

There is the call of coyotes on a windy night
the yelp of lonely fox and hoot of distant owl
there is the mood of waning moonlight,
and the smell of clean in softness of towel.

There is the charm of little girls
starlight strands of milky pearls
the love of dirt on little boys
rooms cluttered with belovéd toys.

There’s roaring sea in frothy surf
or the froth of a pint in a Yorkshire pub
September light on newly-mown turf
and the warmth of bath in a claw-foot tub.

There’s curve of breast beneath gossamer thread
the taste and smell of grandmother’s bread
the length of limb and strength of stride
of bridles and horses and riders allied.

These things remain, you came to destroy
even the poetry with your prosaic ploy,
you’ve shattered rhythm and scattered rhyme
but mysteries prevail over this shock of time:

The monarch still emerges, eager for flight,
birds gather on eastern coast, migrating over Manhattan
dogs still fetch sticks and cats rub whiskers on morning legs
fish leap through liquid ceilings gaping for water-logged bugs.

Snow still falls, and rain, and autumn leaves
the moon still pulls oceans towards its arid plains
and the plains host waves of grain and meadowlarks
while desert winds sweep earth’s furnaced floors.

The rose still shares improbable bloom
and roses still bloom on maiden cheeks
when roses come by hand of gentle man,
like the sky blushing at the evening sun.

The list is long of lovely things:
which of these was not enough
to keep you aloft, to set you flying?

Which sunset made you hate
the sound of your beating heart
always willing, optimistic, in your breast?

Which sunrise cloud,
or glass of wine
which mountain lake
or desert bloom
which taste of apple or peach
which word of poet or prayer of priest
which low of calf or coo of dove
which light of star, which square of infinite
space,
which scent of woman
which laughing child
which symphony
or saint
or touch of water on skin

which was it,
that made you steer

your anger and fear and
loathing

which of these made you jettison
the long list of lovely things
into the side of a building?

The list is long of lovely things:
the pale of sun in dawning sky,
the clearing of smoke
and the touch of a loved one lost,
touched through love’s perennial hope.

©Bill Gnade 28 Sept 2001/Contratimes
The list of 2,752.

It Was A Beautiful Day

Boston to Los Angeles via New York

‘Let’s do what the man says’
mom says taking my hand,
my feet not touching the floor
so I slide from my seat,
hard to walk to the back of the
plane.

Mom picks me up, carries me;
a little strong.

Before today mom talked
about Los Angeles
of Grandma and Grandpa,
that the city
was named for the angels
that we would see them
if we looked carefully.
This morning she talked of
angels at the airport and
when we left the ground,
my first time in the sky.
We laughed when mom said there
was one on the wing,
and I said that I saw it blow off
and climb back on again.

Mom sets me down, I stand on a seat
arms around her neck,
and we wait. ‘We are getting lower,’
someone says.
Why so worried?
There is pressure on my ears
my skin feels tight
the plane is jumpy, rough
there are turns
and an old man helps
mom and
me, so that we won’t fall
and get hurt.

Someone says something
about smoke outside.
It looks far away.
I ask, are we going there to see
what’s burning?

‘No, honey, no.’

There is noise, confusion.

Mom says,
‘Look at me, sweety! Look at me!
Don’t take your eyes off me!’

I look,
(Daddy says I have those eyes)
her eyes are wet
but she looks happy,
almost

The ground seems too close
to the sky.

She smiles.
Quietly she says,

‘Look at me, honey. Look.
Look right at me.
We’re OK.
It’s OK.”

Where are we going, mom?

‘Nowhere, honey.
We’re just taking a shortcut,
a shortcut
to the angels.’

(Suddenly far below,
on city streets
panicked people
see only
demons)

[In honor of the loving, 9/11/01]

©Bill Gnade/Sept 12, 2001

When Spiders Bite

I am losing my faith. This is not a confession that I've lost faith in humanity, or the future, or tomorrow morning. This is a confession of a crisis of spirit: My very religion is crumbling around me. Atheism almost seems comforting.

What, pray tell, do Derrick Z. Jackson, Ellen Goodman, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman have in common? They have in common the grand prize of making me reconsider my belief in God. For I ask myself how is it that God–and the readers of the New York Times and Boston Globe, and the Pulitzer Prize committee–can countenance, with any seriousness other than serious alarm, the writings of these essayists? I am at a loss.

Perhaps I am a victim of ennui, the existentialist's boredom, a boredom induced in large part by overindulgence. For I have been a glutton, a foolish glutton, of the writings of myriad "critics" of Bush, Iraq, New Orleans. I have entered their nests, drawn close by blind curiosity, ignorant of their danger. I've been bitten. I am nearly paralyzed by their venom. I await the deflation of my skin, the result of my liquified innards having been sucked out through mendacious mandibles.

It is impossible to overcome, this all-out assault on reality by the opinion-shapers perched atop their righteousness. There are simply too many of them. Their webs are sticky.

Here's one statement from a rebuttal of a recent Christopher Hitchens essay. The rebuttal, written by University of Michigan professor Juan Cole and laced with pedantic and errant lessons on Hitchens' alleged fallacies, has this truly mind-boggling passage:

In essence, Hitchens is arguing for the legitimacy of a sort of hyperpower vigilantism, in which the sitting president of the United States decides which regimes may continue to exist, virtually by himself. The U.S. Congress did not even have the moral fortitude to declare war. The U.N. charter forbids wars of aggression, and, indeed, forbids all wars not clearly defensive that are not explicitly authorized by the Security Council. The Security Council may be, as Hitchens implies, corrupt and yellow-bellied, but it represents most of humankind, while Bush did not even represent a majority of Americans. [emphasis added]

It is tempting to think that the problem with modern American letters is that such letters are being drafted by members of the marijuana generation (and there really is such a generation). Cole's remark might very well have been drafted in a pot-induced haze, for its very imbecility invokes images of Cheech and Chong. One hardly thinks of Sir Bertrand Russell in the face of such polemics (other than Russell's atheism).

Here we have Cole, an opponent of the Iraq War and defender of the UN Security Council's leadership in the months leading up to the war, conceding that the Security Council may indeed be corrupt and pusillanimous, but it at least represents "MOST OF MANKIND." Bush, in contrast, "did not even represent a majority of Americans."

Excuse me while I pause at this moment so I may gouge out my eyes (but I can't, since I'm paralyzed).

Imagine, really imagine, that this statement was drafted by a PhD-holding professor, printed on Salon.com, and is meant to be an academic rebuttal of Hitchen's fallacies. Sadly, I can't imagine it. For me, it is beyond the fantastic; it is beyond the promises of even a serious acid trip. And I can't for the life of me believe that the universe in which this sort of statement is published is one governed by a God.

If a "corrupt and yellow-bellied" UN Security Council represents "most of mankind", does this mean that most of mankind is corrupt? If so, do we not want Mr. Bush to act contrary to that corruption? Moreover, doesn't the statement that Bush "did not even represent a majority of Americans" imply that the majority of Americans, who are part of "most of mankind", are also corrupt and yellow-bellied? Does not Cole's statement mean that Bush and his minority are actually NOT corrupt, but noble and courageous? Indeed it does.

Idiocy abounds, collecting paychecks and laurels.

***

Katrina Note

Now that the race card has been played in the Katrina-Bush slamfest, America is left with this truly dire fact: It can never respond more swiftly or efficiently to a natural or similar disaster than it did in New Orleans. For if it does, it will prove that the government does in fact prefer rushing to the aid of other people than the New Orleans victims. Woe to those all-white states that may face catastrophe. For if the federal government rescues them one second faster than the Katrina victims, it proves the essential racist heart of America.

Hence, we are stuck, damned for doing and not doing, because people with hard hearts have played the race card.

Nice job.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

"Help Me Understand": A Powerful Moment In Radio

On September 7, NPR reporter Michele Norris of All Things Considered filed the stunning "Katrina Survivors Contemplate Whether to Go Home." (To hear the report, go here.)

In her story, Norris interviewed several people from New Orleans who found safe haven in a Baton Rouge shelter in the wake of the hurricane. One interview with Belinda Bruce, a nursing assistant who fled her Elysian Fields neighborhood with her boyfriend and six daughters before Katrina hit, is worth noting. [Since the report is a recorded conversation, I have done my best to transcribe the exact wording of the interview shown below.]

As a lead into her interview with Bruce, Norris says that Bruce "is trying to figure out how to explain the disaster" to her daughters:

Bruce: I really can't explain to them than just to say that maybe it was for the best.

Reporter: For the best?

Bruce: Yes. Because I am more happier, what I can say, homeless.

Reporter: Help me understand that. You, you're sitting here at a shelter, your house is most likely underwater, and you're–you're happier here than you were back home?

Bruce: Because there was so much going on in my neighborhood. Even though I was comfortable in my house, in my house, the blocks up where the kids went to school it was horrible, they always had shootouts, they just didn't respect the kids, they was selling drugs. The good thing is that I am away from that with my kids. So, and maybe they'll get into a better school, a better neighborhood. So ...

Reporter: So when you, you think about this, how, how do you make sense of it now as you're sitting here and as you realize that even after the disaster, after you had to leave everyone, every thing you loved and, and a lot of people you loved behind, that you're somehow happier sitting here outside of a shelter?

Bruce: Hmm. I felt that [pause] God sent that there because of all the nonsense that was going on in that neighborhood, and just, in that, in New Orleans period, there was too much violence going on and just, just a cleansing, just to clean up that city.

Reporter: So will you go back to New Orleans?

Bruce: I am not going back, it's my intention, I am not going back to New Orleans, not where I was living at.

Reporter: It's just that easy, you'll leave everything behind, your family, your house?

Bruce: It was hard at first, but I'm just looking at it as a new beginning for myself and my kids, so.

I am tempted to leave Bruce's comments to stand for themselves, alone, without my analysis attached. I am humbled by her convictions: She thinks New Orleans was so corrupted that it merited a washing, a cleansing, a purging. A purgatory. Who am I to disagree? Granted I've already opined about blaming God for Katrina, as if it was all due to His wrath at New Orleans' notorious carnality. And I readily admit that I do not disbelieve in either God or His wrath. I merely claim ignorance as to how God thinks and behaves in such matters. Did New Orleans and by extension the rest of us deserve God's judgment? I'll let God be the final judge of others. I know my sins. They are legion. And I know my deserts.

But what in heaven's name could have been so abhorrent, so abominable in New Orleans if a now homeless woman is happier in a Baton Rouge shelter? What poverty, what destitution of life and heart could find solace on a cot, preferring the possession of nothing to the possession of a home, a neighborhood, a city? (One or two commentators have suggested that much of New Orleans was less like America and more like Haiti, which has been a nasty, grief-stricken place for decades.) To where do we turn to understand how losing everything is "for the best"?

And how is it that America could have in its midst a place so dreadful that people who lived there are relieved to see that dread washed away in a cataclysm? How is it that a mother of six daughters greets a "new beginning" with joy when that new beginning means the destruction of everything her children have ever known?

Sobering, sobering stuff, to say the least.

Peace to you, Miss Bruce.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

The Left's Subtle Contradiction

You've heard the jingoists chant, "My country, right or wrong." You've heard the hawkish, "America is worth dying for!" or some such bromide: "God, guts and guns make America great." Of course in most cases such chants and slogans are exaggerations or oversimplifications of patriotic sentiment. If necessary, one could easily whittle down any patriotic statement to its nub, its core: "America (in this case) is the greatest nation on earth."

Such patriotic zeal and fervor is greeted by leftists with, at best, a tittering behind cupped hands, with whispered quips about the silliness, quaintness or provincialism of such American civil piety. But typically leftists are not so casual about such jingoism, as they see it, particularly in difficult political times. At peacetime, yes, leftists seem less appalled by love of country. But when times turn tough, leftists often strike a counterblow to the belly of American pride, often pointing out America's shortcomings; its failings, blemishes and imperfections. Red-state patriots are deemed unpatriotically blind to America's torrid past in nefarious world affairs; perceived as victims of faulty discernment before waves of propaganda. Blue-state progressives do all they can to point out this alleged blindness.

In short it could all be summed up something like this: To those on the right, America is great even when wrong; to the left, America is only great when it is always right.

But I have discovered a subtle contradiction in the left's view of America, and it can only be seen in its condemnation of the War on Terror and its criticisms of the Katrina disaster. For everyone knows, at least those of us paying attention, that the patriotic zeal that runs strong through many military personnel and families in support of the Iraq War (for example), is rebuffed by leftists who like to point out that America is immorally participating in an illegal war; that America is not perfect, but tyrannical; that George W. Bush is the world's greatest terrorist; that the CIA created Osama bin Laden (it didn't, by the way); that America's foreign policy is replete with allegiances to dictators who cater to American Big Business interests–all of these are deployed by leftists in their assault at perceived American nobility, superiority or decency. Leftists live to tell of America's faults, deeming themselves patriotic for pointing out those faults, expecting that doing so shall make America "the great nation it should be."

But here's the contradiction, found hidden in this rhetorical question: How is it that the greatest nation on earth can have failed its citizens so miserably in New Orleans? It is also hidden in the plaintive, "How is it that the greatest nation on earth can have people starving to death on rooftops?"

Now, I am not suggesting that people on the right are not asking these same questions. I am suggesting that perhaps only the people on the right are entitled to ask such questions. For you see, the left has already distanced itself from taking the high-road here, as it historically has never believed America to be great in actuality but only in potentiality. The right, despite all its alleged jingoism and fervor, has really always believed America to be faulty. But the right has loved America despite its faults, recognizing its worth in its imperfections: My country, right or wrong.

Sadly, as I said above, the leftist mantra has pretty much only been, "My country too–but only when right."

Hence, the left, because it has never perceived America as great, is disingenuous when it cries from the rooftops that the greatest nation in the history of the world should not have left citizens suffering in the Superdome in New Orleans. For if the left means what it is saying–that America is the greatest nation on earth–then it opens itself to criticism about its views on America in general. Is America worth defending in Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia or North Korea? Is America really the world's greatest terrorist? Is there any "noble" reason for which an American soldier might die? Is America really all about oil? (And if so, how is it that it could have failed to protect the Gulf Coast's oil-processing infrastructure if oil is all that America cares about?)

And since the left has never perceived America as the greatest nation on earth, we must hear its cries of indignation concerning New Orleans and the Gulf Coast as so much gnashing of teeth, so much anti-patriotic manipulation. For if the leftists do not really believe America is the greatest country, why are they saying it? Perhaps they mean it this way, with a slap to the face of the American right: "If America is so 'great', why are people dead in New Orleans?" If that is the way they mean it, then one might conclude that they are exploiters par excellence; looters of storehouses of patriotic love and spirit.

In other words, the left is either taking advantage of the tragedy unfolding before us, or it is renouncing its earlier positions about America's failures the world over. Either America IS the greatest nation on earth, or it is not. Which is it going to be?

In closing, those of us on the right have never expected America to be perfect in anything it does. Whether it be dealing with civil or international problems, America has not been held by the right to some sort of moral perfection (maybe the religious right has so held it, to some degree, but I mostly doubt that, since the religious right believes that humans are sinners.) It is the leftists who are doing so, particularly in the War on Terror and the war on natural and manmade disasters. And that sets right and left apart, eternally, really.

This is what I believe finally separates the left from the right, and you can take it as you will: the left cannot accept paradox, whereas the right can. But the left accepts contradictions, whereas the right cannot.

(Or maybe, if I feel generous today, the left and right merely disagree on what are acceptable paradoxes. But I tend to doubt it.)

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Hell In A Wet Place

Even if what is reported in the following link is 50 percent incorrect, the 50 percent that is correct is enough to make Madonna blush. That the event as reported in this link only serves to perpetuate the stereotype that homosexuality and narcissism go hand-in-hand is unarguable. Check out the story here. It is worth a glance.

And then there is this story (click here). I know many of us men would prefer not to admit that we know that New Orleans was/is the breast-flashing capital of the world. We've seen the whole licentious display, the Mardi Gras beads collected for successful breast-baring on Bourbon Street, all to the cheers of randy males surging with lust. Hence, this story makes sense, whether true or false. If true, then we would expect such truly sick behavior. If false, New Orleans' reputation as a place of carnival carnality has led to this sort of criticism and rumor.

Finally, the following story puts things in healthy perspective, in a twisted sort of way. Click here for a delicious religious take on how people should talk, think and feel after calamity.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[I know I said I'd be away today, but I couldn't resist.]

It Is A Labor To Love

I have decided to distance Contratimes somewhat from the Katrina disaster in the Gulf Coast. The disaster is a horrific event, requiring our attention, support and sacrifice. But this website shall only serve to occasionally remind us of the issues there. I will not engage in the sort of psychological and political warfare that it has provoked or uncovered. The bombast tossed around the storm's aftermath is hurtful and inhumane, not just to Americans but to people everywhere. It is injudicious, unkind, and thoroughly wrong. It is the sort of thing best left to commissions and graduate seminars. It is not the sort of rhetoric or analysis that moves the nation towards actually solving a dynamic problem in the present moment.

I want to point out my own failings, my own stumblings in the dark. It has been really difficult to get good information out of the Gulf as to the scale of the disaster. What we have seen are only pockets of difficulty–presented visually in video and print images–but we have not seen the difficulty as a whole. And we never will. As a result, I have been remiss for not being more circumspect about my role and my commentary on this disaster.

One boneheaded thing I stated was that the comparison between 9/11 and New Orleans showed one difference: The media in New York (indeed the capital of media in America) were more actively attentive to the disaster in New York because the media lost so many of their own, or at least their own kind. That may or may not be true. I am not saying that the media lost journalists in Ground Zero, for surprisingly few were lost that day. I am saying that for much of the media elites–the New York Times, ABC, CBS, and NBC–they lost friends and neighbors they understood, could relate to, had known at dinners in various clubhouses and fund-raisers.

But I failed to understand how many of the superstars of the media and our culture in general have lost homes, families and/or businesses in the Gulf Coast. From summer homes to shanties on stilts, and from TV stations to daily newspapers, the Gulf Coast has lost, and the country has lost, lives and jobs and memories and dreams incalculable. Nonetheless, I still struggle to understand how this event has not quite pulled the media into that sort of funereal quiet that was the salient feature of the post 9/11 TV coverage. There is something intrinsically odd about the media response to all this, and I can't put my finger on it. But I will not suggest that the media, personally, have been effected differently from this disaster than 9/11. In fact, many of the journalists who live and work in the Gulf Coast, if they are still alive, have lost everything they've ever owned.

But here has been my real failure, and it has been a failure of conception, and thus of action. I have commented that when a social group, like those who dwell in cities, becomes somewhat blind to its vulnerability because there is always some sort of safety net deployed to catch that group, to catch them as quickly as possible so that their fall will not be too great, that social group becomes less capable of helping itself when the safety net itself is compromised or destroyed. In short, as creatures, we can become helpless in the face of problems larger than the safety net can handle.

With this in mind, I have pointed to the heroics of at least one man who realized that until the safety net is repaired or until it comes anew, he had to become, along with his neighbors, a safety net unto themselves. They had to take action. They had to even build temporary governments (as at least one hospital staff did). They had to move. Whatever, they had to act. This noble response is inspiring and powerful.

But my failure is that I too have relied too heavily on the social safety net. I have called for patience, or the giving of money, each of which suggest that I have called for people to await a well-financed safety net to come rescue them. But as I have watched this thing unfold from afar, I have indeed expected something OTHER THAN MYSELF to take care of those people "down there." I have indeed expected an all out Rambo-like squad of relief workers, engineers and directors to descend on the area and bring restorative peace to the Gulf Coast.

What I am saying is that as I watch this thing unfold, there has been a faintly-heard cry by thousands of people, nay, tens of thousands of people, to "send everybody!" That the cry is heard dimly is in part due to the inability for us to communicate with the region, and for the region to communicate with itself. But it is also due to my hearing the cries through my trust in the safety net, and that trust has muffled those cries. I admit with shame that most of my being has responded with pity, but not a pity that has moved me to action. It has moved me–in practice–to expect someone else to deal with the problems in Katrina's wake. In fact, I have been made helpless by my dependence on the safety net, but not a safety net that protects me from falling, but a safety net that protects me from having to catch someone myself.

Yes, I know that had I zoomed my car toward the New Orleans coast I would have possibly added to the problem. But I never tried, I never trusted in God or stepped out in faith, to see if in fact my help would have indeed been more help than harm.

This is, in a sense, a problem with the safety net mentality: it may make us no longer love ourselves or even our neighbors. What do I mean? Well, let me put it this way. I have a loved one who believes that she MUST be a Democrat because, and I'll use her words, "I am my brother's keeper." To her, this means paying higher taxes to fund the safety net. But her funding the net actually removes her from "keeping" her "brother." Her money goes to someone else and THEY "keep" her "brother."

Hence, some curious problems arise. Suppose there exists in my world three things–myself, my neighbor and a government to which I pay to provide a safety net for my neighbor. Suppose there is a fire across the way at my neighbor's house. If I am truly my brother's keeper, I will run over and fight that housefire with all my strength. If the house burns to the ground, I will cloth and feed my neighbor, and rebuild his house. But instead of such action, I await the government to come and put out my neighbor's fire, which is not very loving. After all, or so I say to myself, there is a safety net. Curiously, my neighbor is making no attempt to extinguish the fire either, for he has for far too long believed that someone else will come and fix his problems for him. In short, he does not love himself. He's a neighbor who has been "kept."

Alas, distraught at my neighbor's helplessness, I send extra money to the government. And then I get angry at the government's slow response.

This scenario is the result of losing sight of what it REALLY means to be a neighbor. Building safety nets creates a mentality that destroys both self-love and neighborly love. I do not mean to denigrate the idea of a safety net. We do need them. I am merely pointing out the dangers of socializing the safety net to the degree we now see in our culture. Need I point out the obvious? Well, let me say it loud and clear: Millions of Americans barely know their neighbors. (There are many other factors for this as well.)

I don't know what else to say than this: I have not been moved to action, paralyzed not merely by indifference or lack of capability, but because I do not really believe I have any thing to give, or that I am needed. If I did, I'd be in my car right now, heading south, helping rebuild my brothers' houses. Yes, yes, of course, I recognize that if we ALL went south we'd have a different disaster on our hands.

Wouldn't it be great if we could be like the Amish at a neighbor's barnraising, all gathered together in peace and harmony, bringing our tools and gifts to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in an organized weekend, rebuilding it all in a few short days? Oh, if only it could be that simple.

Contratimes

PS. I'll be off tomorrow and maybe even Wednesday. I've been writing poorly lately, I think, and I need to regroup. But I might be back if something important comes to mind.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

The Union Leader Follows The Lead To Disunion

There is really no end in sight. The lines are long; the queues are full; the complaints infinite. I am not talking about refugees or evacuees or the hungry assembled at care centers throughout the Gulf Coast. I am talking about bloggers, pundits, and sundry other communicators who show no restraint in blaming George W. Bush for the calamity which is, was, and has been New Orleans. These plaintiffs seem unable to grasp, either by a deficiency of mind or will, the scope of the problems facing the United States. Again, for perspective, I remind Contratimes readers that the area of destruction in the Gulf is over 100,000 square miles, an area larger than all of Great Britain. The size of the problem is part of the severity; it is the both the quality and the quantity of destruction that have thwarted relief efforts.

But there is really no need to argue anymore. To do so is as futile as building a levee around a city mired below sea level. For the plaintiffs have made up their minds, have hardened their hearts to the political realities involved here, which reach back decades, with blame cascading in every direction. I am no George Bush fan, though I do flinch to his defense when I see him mocked, chided, and berated. There is something frightfully unjust the way he is treated. Of course, he at times tempts me to scoff at him; and scoff (only lightly) I did when he spoke outside the White House just before he flew to Louisiana. It was perhaps the most unpresidential speech ever delivered.

Here is a sample of the idiocy offered as helpful analysis:

Late last night I saw a brief excerpt of a report filed by George Stephanopolous as he and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco flew over New Orleans in a helicopter. Ms. Blanco pointed to a levee that was under repair. She commented about there being only "one crane" at the site, and that to see only one crane was "pathetic." Of course, Ms. Blanco was blaming everyone but herself, for she, apparently knows what should be done.

Of course, Ms. Blanco apparently knows nothing about machinery: what was shown by the in-flight cameras was an excavator at work. To my simple understanding of the situation, formed in part by my training in a sandbox as a child, the excavator is the perfect tool for the repairs I saw underway. Moreover, the excavator itself, perhaps with a bulldozer, needed to slowly build a stable platform for itself on the very edges of a collapsed levee. A "crane" would not be able to crawl out and dump and compact fill into a collapsed dam. Moreover, the US Army Corps of engineers' goals included merely slowing down the flow of water into the city for a time, and not completely close the breaks, as the collapsed areas might be useful in DRAINING New Orleans.

Louisiana is clearly under the leadership of a woman who complains about what she does not understand, and yet it is EXACTLY the kind of thing her position requires her to understand. And for all of Bush's faults, he has not started crying as this governor did during a press conference last week as the reality of Louisiana and New Orleans "preparedness" procedures proved to be utterly incompetent. As one firefighting friend asked me last night: How is it that every little town in New Hampshire–the Granite State–has a rescue boat in the fire station, and yet New Orleans had not one?

If rumors and reports are true, Tuesday night, as Katrina passed New Orleans, the New Orleans mayor told FEMA officials that the New Orleans levees were OK. Also, I saw one report that indicated President Bush urged New Orleans and state officials to declare a mandatory evacuation of the city before the storm struck. Does the president have power over states and cities in these cases?

New Hampshire's only statewide daily, the long conservative Union Leader, yesterday editorialized about President Bush's grand deficiencies. The paper wrote that

"A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease," the editorial declared. "The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.

"Wherever the old George W. Bush went, we sure wish we had him back."

More idiocy.

Trust me when I say this: Whenever the President of the United States, whether it be Bill Clinton or George Bush I, moves around the country, it becomes a colossal event unto itself. In 1992, I had the odd opportunity to be the only photographer to ride in the motorcade with then Vice-President Dan Quayle, during a 45-minute ride through New Hampshire. That simple visit from the VP was a massive Secret Service and State Police undertaking. Traffic was detoured, intersections blocked–and the whole motorcade did not budge until two military helicopters were aloft, in view, and traveling alongside. If any newspaper should know how a presidential or even vice-presidential visit effects a region, it is the Union Leader, which covers the nation's first primary every four years. During a brief visit when Vice-President Al Gore traveled through Keene, NH, in which I was the only car in front of the VP's motorcade (I was one of a team covering the event), the whole of Keene was at a standstill, with my car inside the barriers zipping unimpeded through the cordoned off route. Gore was only in town for two hours, but the impact on traffic was tremendous. And all this in a town where there was no catastrophe!

Bringing the President down to an unstable, severely compromised disaster zone so he can look like a grand figurehead of inspiration, solace and leadership would be to turn an emergency event into an event that was all about the President. Much needed resources and time would have gone into getting him in, around and out of the region. As it is, going down on Friday, as he did, was no doubt a huge production from start to finish. All this explains why presidents generally do not go to funerals of fallen soldiers, or show up at birthday parties: the very production necessary to get them any place makes presidents the focal point. And Bush did not need to be the focal point in New Orleans. The victims and their recovery needed to be.

Shame, really, on the truncated logic and the apparently intentional myopia of the Union Leader, and of Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, and other conservative media forces covering this event who have reproached the President for his failures, for they might not be failures at all.

Look, I am going to at this moment declare complete ignorance here. I do not know all or even most of the problems, variables, and obstacles associated with this catastrophe. What I do know is this: This complaining is a different sort of levee break that will lead to a different sort of destruction.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Katrina, Castro, And A Man Who Blames Himself

[Update: This is the most amazing statement in the political morass that has emerged in the midst of the Gulf crisis, and the statement comes from Fidel Castro. Check out this excerpt from a CNN report:

Castro -- an enemy of U.S. President George W. Bush and frequent subject of condemnation from the White House -- said he would not comment on the U.S. government's response to the tragedy because "this is not the time to kick an adversary -- while he's down."

Castro has also offered aid.

If an enemy of the United States is capable of this sort of compassion and restraint, how is that there are citizens of the United States who demonstrate their "patriotism" without such compassion and restraint?

Also: It was just reported that the area of destruction in the Gulf is as large as the country of Great Britain. And I've heard one expert say that as far as hospital care, the Asian tsunami victims had better care opportunities: The destruction there was confined to the coastline and hospitals were on higher ground. Plus, the tsunami was ONLY WATER, and only hit for a short time. This storm was lengthy, with wind, rain, and wreckage pushing together at 140 mph; leaving behind standing water for maybe 90 to 100 days.]

Katrina, 9/11, And The Blame Game [the following was written 2 Sept 05]

Immediately after 9/11 American TV executives suspended all TV commerical advertising. Remember? At the time, the death toll was considered to be at least 10,000 victims, and the expectation of finding victims buried alive beneath the collapsed World Trade Center ran high. But as we now know, the death toll was much lower; the expectation unfulfilled. The commercials returned.

Permit me to pose a couple of questions. How many deaths are required for TV networks to suspend advertising? What is the number, the magic number, that stops the often gratuitous marketing of goods? 10,000? 6,000? 1000? 50? 1? Who decides what the number should be? Can you imagine making the decision to suspend advertisements based on 1000 deaths, and then deciding, before the suspension takes effect, to lift the order based on updated data showing that only 990 people died? And if it is bad taste to advertise when 8,000 people are dead, how is it in good taste to advertise when 600 are dead?

It's impossible to ignore the glaring fact that the Katrina disaster has not caught the same sort of national attention as 9/11. Advertising continues at break-neck speed. Consider that some advance estimates place the death toll in the Gulf at over 10,000. Even if that is too high, the actual tragedy unfolding before us is still far larger than 9/11. What makes these two events so different, at least to the media?

First, 9/11 came without fair warning. It was a shock, leaving most of us with mouths agape, heads shaking in incredulity. But it was an attack; a blow to our tranquility. And it was in the control of our fellow humans: It was an event made possible by the decision of humans who could have chosen a different path, a path of peace, or a path of diplomacy.

But Katrina was beyond our control, and yet it was not a surprise. Fair warning was given. Even dire warnings had been issued years ago about New Orleans' vulnerability; and the inadequacy of its levees should a Category V storm hit. Nonetheless, warnings notwithstanding, people have died and are dying. Most or perhaps even all those now struggling to survive would be struggling far less had they left the city when forewarned. In the light of such natural disasters, when warning is given, there is a tendency to blame the victims for the decisions they've made not to heed the warnings. Of course, often the blame is unjustified.

Second, 9/11 made for good TV: it happened during the day, and it happened, as an event, over a relatively short period of time. Katrina, however, was and remains a slow event, and its wrath was impossible to show in anything approaching real time.

Third, 9/11 happened in the media capital of the world (perhaps), and it struck at many of the wealthiest people on the planet. Media groups were quick to assemble around the event; photographers and videographers familiar with the cityscape knew where to go for great angles, great shots, of the live action. And the media could relate to the victims, many of whom were middle to upper class (mostly, the poor don't fly in planes or work out careers in skyscrapers). In fact, the media lost some of their own.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans disaster is not in the media center of the world, nor is it in the presumed cosmopolitan hub that is New York. New Orleans, cool and hip as it is in a unique way, is nonetheless more working class than New York. It is the South, after all, which has never struck the imagination of northerners as an axis of sophistication. Dubbing New Orleans the "Big Easy" connotes something far different than the "Big Apple". I am not suggesting that New Orleans is not sophisticated. It is just not perceived to be.

But in a hard comparison of the two events, it would not be amiss to say that in September 2001 the Big Apple was merely bitten; while in September 2005 the Big Easy is now the Big Difficult.

I recognize that there are other differences between the two events and that other comparisons and parallels can and should be drawn. And I know that the race card has been pulled out of the deck and thrown on the table. Only moments ago, I heard Rev. Al Sharpton say that President Bush has fostered an attitude of racism in America, and that racist attitude has adversely affected relief efforts (this Sharpton said while conversing with MSNBC's Tucker Carlson). Sharpton posited that had the catastrophe occurred in Palm Beach, the Bush administration would have hurried to the rescue. Shockingly, Carlson agreed.

Sharpton and his colleague in race provocation, Jesse Jackson, are even suggesting that the reason blacks are not receiving instant aid is because New Orleans blacks might not have voted for President Bush, thus earning the president's ire. Can you believe this? Is this not sedition? Is it not the sowing of paranoia and fear, as Carlson said? Of course it is. And of course Sharpton and Jackson are the ones being racists: they are suggesting that only blacks should be addressing the needs of blacks. We are not men and women in Jackson's world, we are white men and women, and black men and women. To him and Sharpton, the color of skin is the most important thing of all. For shame that Jackson today went on a rant about Bush not having a sufficient number of blacks in positions of leadership to organize relief efforts. It is sickness. It is delusion. It is treason, not against America, but against humanity.

I am a mere mortal, a mere man, sitting in a tiny house in New Hampshire. There is nothing complex or transcendent about my skills as a thinker, writer, critic. I have the same access to information as Mr. Jackson, though he apparently visited New Orleans today, so I concede to him his direct impressions. But I am not an idiot: I can smell crap 1,500 miles away, and he is speaking it.

Curiously the American media have continued advertising through this monumental struggle. Indeed, I think a civil war has even begun, with the first shots fired in New Orleans. Fueling this war are the ridiculous, irresponsible and utterly unhelpful remarks of Messrs. Jackson and Sharpton. Their opinions somehow matter to the media, who prop them up before the camera, giving them opportunities to market their hate and divisiveness; to advertise twisted theories of racism. But there are all kinds of opinion-makers out there, some radical and many sane, who are not featured by the press. Why put the microphone in front of Jackson's spouting face? Who the hell IS he, any way? Why do his opinions matter, and yet Colin Powell's or Bill Cosby's or Clarence Thomas' do not? What, pray tell, do those men think?

Tucker Carlson is at least right about one thing, and it is this: The rich have the power, and the poor do not; and the poor do suffer more than the rich. This sorrow in the South is about poverty, white and black poverty. That Mr. Jackson seems only to voice concern over the blacks in New Orleans who've been slow to receive aid and not the whites in Mississippi who also await aid, indicates who the racist is.

If God should damn anything right now, it is the incendiary remarks oozing with hate directed at our president who is demonstrably trying to serve his country. He is not perfect. Nor are the countless other men and women serving in this campaign against death and chaos, many of whom, no doubt, would prefer to be doing something–anything–else.

This should not be a newsflash to anyone: No president of the United States is elected to be the Messiah of the people.

Let me conclude with the remarks I heard offered by a man from Mississippi who evacuated his family the night of the storm. He shared that his home was within two blocks of the shoreline. While sitting on the bunk at an Air Force base shelter, he asked himself, as the storm bore down on his world, who was at fault. How did he answer? He blamed himself, recognizing his responsibility for having his family live where such things can happen. And after the storm passed he did a most incredible thing: he began purchasing and then delivering goods to his neighbors where his house once stood, returning nightly to the relief center. He confessed that he was motivated by reality: he had to act for himself and others while waiting for relief. "After all," he said, "we are the government. The government is not some thing out there, coming to save us. We need to save ourselves, working together until help arrives." That is the grandest statement I've heard uttered thus far in this crisis.

Sadly, this might all come down to those who see the government as something distinct from themselves, and those who see themselves as the government, living under the auspices of the constitution. The former will wait and complain, perhaps not knowing any better, always used to the government's safety net catching them in their many petty falls. But too few realize that the safety net itself has been destroyed, has been torn. Now what?

Meanwhile the latter, like one hospital staff caught in a horrible situation which nonetheless formed its own government to handle the crisis, will make efforts to create the safety net for themselves from the tatters of their lives, using invention and creativity and ingenuity to save themselves and others until support arrives.

I have a rule when it comes to skiing: Always dress warm enough to survive being stranded on the chairlift for two hours. Similarly, Americans need to be ready for that moment in our history, and it will come, when "the government" will not be coming.

What would these people be doing, these complainers and whiners, if coincidental with Katrina, a nuclear bomb had been detonated in Washington, D.C., killing every senator, representative, director, and even the president? What would happen?

What would you do? Blame your plight on racism?

If we are indeed the government, then we are all to blame, we are all involved in the rescue of fellow citizens, and we are all responsible for the solutions.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

The Big Difficult, And The New York Times

Update, 13:28 EST: A Contratimes reader sent me this link to a story about New Orleans. I post it here not because I believe New Orleans deserves punishment for its reputation for lawlessness or orgiastic living. I include it here because it might explain why the National Guard and Louisiana police are dealing with not only looting, but violence, violence directed at rescuers. As if the whole process was not already sufficiently impeded, there are now rumors of armed gangs marauding the byways of the Big Easy, which has truly become the Big Difficult. Here's a quote that should wrack the nervous system of any caring soul:

"Gunfire is so common in New Orleans -- and criminals so fierce -- that when university researchers conducted an experiment last year in which they had cops fire 700 blank rounds in a neighborhood on a random afternoon 'no one called to report the gunfire,' reported AP."

It is clear then, that the thugs in New Orleans (please read the cited article) are now in a desperate place: the lawless are about to lose complete control over their territories, either that which was their's before the storm, or that which they've claimed since. Compassionate as I am, and I try to be to the core, it is difficult to extend mercy and aid to such people. Many of them have already found shelter and succor and solace among the patient folks at the Superdome (and have reportedly tyrannized the vulnerable in that shelter).

Lastly, it is not the sort of environs I want President Bush visiting or touring. My sense is that he's entirely vulnerable right now, and I'm not talking politically. To the lovers of chaos, he's a marked man.

***

Twice now in the past twenty-four hours I have heard the statement that the Gulf Coast disaster area covers more than 100,000 square miles. That's at least an area 200 miles wide by 500 miles long. Think of an area the size of most of New England.

This morning: fire breaks out in New Orleans. There are rumors of rape, abuse, thievery, thuggery, even among refugees in the Superdome. Others report that many victims who died in the hurricane chose not to evacuate their homes for fear of looters.

And there are reports that many of the nation's key airports are perhaps one week away from running out of jet fuel.

OK. Grimace, wince, groan, grieve. There is abundant sorrow afoot, and catastrophic need. There are hard times ahead. We are all in this together. What then shall we do?

First, I am going to heed the President's promptings, even though they are quite different than his post 9/11 speeches. Then we were encouraged to keep spending, to go on living life as we would normally. But yesterday we were told not to buy gas if we did not NEED it. Despite the disparate messages (after all, the events are very different), I will heed his call. I am destined to be a homebody. But my bicycle is at the ready.

Second, I am going to make a donation, maybe two. Of course, this puts me in the company of millions of mindful Americans. The thing is, as relief experts have already pointed out, we will have to be mindful of the need far longer than this newscycle: this is going to take time, patience, attentiveness and sacrifice–for a long while. More than one donation may be needed. Please be mindful that there are numerous fraudulent relief agencies already setup to steal your money, and to steal money from victims. This is utterly demonic. It deserves the stiffest and most unmerciful penalties. If you donate, either give to the Red Cross, or go to the FEMA website for a list of trustworthy relief organizations.

Now, for the really disturbing stuff:

Let me just remind readers what relief workers have been up against. We're are talking about the destruction and compromise of even the relief infrastructure. Police and fire stations, highways and bridges, and all communications systems have been lost. Local relief workers can't connect with other local teams; state workers can't speak to either state or local relief workers; and the federal government can't speak to any of them either. On top of this is the sad reality that victims also can't receive any information, particularly about the scope of destruction. When is help coming? Well, it ain't coming like it does in the movies, that's for certain.

Let me state the obvious, especially for those who look for any opportunity to despise President Bush. This president has now had both the worst terrorist attack and the worst natural disaster in American history occur on his watch. There are no college classes offered at Yale or Harvard or Berkeley to prepare anyone for these sorts of things, considering that this is not merely a person making declarations in a vacuum, but a man dealing with the tremendous cacophony of political voices shouting instructions his way. In times like these, it is only prudent to shut up and lend a hand to the president and our other leaders.

And there is no more despicable piece of gratuitous political self-indulgence than alleged political analyst David Sanger's front page "analysis" printed in yesterday's New York Times. Please read the first two paragraphs of this man's "in-depth" commentary:

News Analysis: Hard New Test for President
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 - Not since he sat in a Florida classroom as the World Trade Center burned a thousand miles away has President Bush faced a test quite like the one he returned to Washington to confront this afternoon.

After initially stumbling through that disorienting day almost exactly four years ago, Mr. Bush entered what many of his aides believe were the finest hours of his presidency. But unlike 2001, when Mr. Bush was freshly elected and there was little question that the response would include a military strike, Mr. Bush confronts this disaster with his political capital depleted by the war in Iraq.

That this is replete with the fallacy ad hominem abusive is self-evident. That it is a repackaging of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is also self-evident. But most importantly, it is not a low blow, it's an evil one. It is the sort of rhetoric one might hear hissed by a serpent.

Did George Bush abdicate his duties to the United States by sitting at a children's bookreading for 7 minutes on September 11, 2001? If so, exactly what should he have done that was not already being done on local, state, and federal levels? Is Sanger (and Michael Moore) so thoroughly naive about domestic affairs that he fails to realize that America was already hard at work in both the private and public sectors confronting the grand anomaly which was September 11? Would Mr. Sanger have preferred that Mr. Bush jump up from his chair and run to the nearest phone booth to change into his Superman suit?

That Sanger suggests Bush might not be able to enter another fine hour like he did immediately after September 11 because his "political capital is depleted by the war in Iraq," is the sort of guile voiced by devils. For Sanger ignores the fact that Bush rose to his "finest hours of his presidency" at a period when he had no political capital at all. Forsooth, this was a president (how quickly we forget) who was illegitimately placed in office by the machinations of an allegedly corrupt Supreme Court; a president who allegedly stole an election. What capital, pray tell, did Mr. Bush have in the capital, Mr. Sanger? Or was Bush merely propped up by the nefarious Karl Rove, the real voice behind the stilted, tongue-stumbling, malaprop-driven Bush?

Moreover, who says Bush "stumbled" through the first hours of September 11 other than Mr. Sanger? What does that even mean? Nothing like September 11 had ever happened before to any president, let alone any leader in the modern world, with tragedy unfolding world-wide in real-time. Mr. Sanger, what would a normal response be to such an aberrant moment in world affairs? Please, I beg you, inform us. Perhaps your clarification will bend me in your favor, and I shall deem you worthy to be president. Clearly, sir, at the very least you think you know how to handle such deep and profound matters. Please, show us your hand.

But Mr. Sanger will not show us his hand, because he is all form, devoid of substance. He is a beguiler, a teller of tales, dispensing soporifics. He is not out waking people, but lulling them to sleep. He is Wormtongue (though only one among many). He is on the staff of the New York Times, the opiate of the people.

His remarks are not merely mendacious, they are traitorous, especially considering the time, the hour, the need. He is a different sort of looter, a different sort of thug. He is a thug with a pen and a paper.

We are at war right now, a civil war, a war against nature, time, death, disease, pestilence, a war against tragedy. Pulling down the leadership at this moment is like shooting a hot-air balloon from the basket underneath. Imagine, during the holocaust of 9/11, people stopping firefighters as they ascended the World Trade Center stairs. Imagine these people telling the firefighters that the catastrophe was Bush's fault; that he was still in Florida; that he was mishandling the affair. Imagine them telling rescuers that they were "brainwashed" for thinking that radical Islam was a threat; or that Bush didn't care about them, that he just lived for vacation and Big Oil.

But one need not imagine that now, with this New Orleans catastrophe. For the naysayers are everywhere, rebuking, rebuffing, and ceaselessly complaining. It is all too real. It is all too sad.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Letting Other Levees Break

Quick notes about the Gulf Coast:

1. At least 22,000 people are moving into the Houston Astrodome. They will live there for at least 3 months. I can't imagine. And I can't imagine what that means for Houston. (It's odd hearing "American" and "refugees" used together. But that's what we have.)
2. Health officials have declared the entire Gulf Coast a health crisis.
   
3. 60 percent of America's harvested wheat passes through the port of New Orleans. That's not to mention all the other stuff that passes through there.
4. Gas prices are rising so rapidly that convenience stores, where most gas is sold in the USA, cannot purchase new fuel with the money they made on the previous purchase of fuel. According to financial experts I heard this morning, the wholesalers are able to pass their costs to retailers, but the retailers cannot pass their costs along to the consumer, at least not as effectively. That accounts for the wild prices (in part); and it may account for shortages.

One could consider it a venial sin: to blame somebody for New Orleans' losses. But I am convinced that to blame someone for this catastrophe is a mortal sin, unforgivable really. Well, not really, but nearly so. For New Orleans is the mouth of the Mississippi, and at nearly every river mouth one finds a port: A connecting line for markets, cultures and civilizations. It is entirely natural to inhabit such a waterway.

However, if blame is to be aimed anywhere, let it be aimed at those of us who choose for the silliest reasons to place ourselves in harm's way. One real estate analyst last night opined that building towns and neighborhoods below sea-level or in floodplains or along shorelines is a high-end risk of life, limb and property. Of course, we know this. I live in a floodplain, a 200-year floodplain, or something like that. And I know that my home is at risk. In one sense, it is foolish to build here. But it is my home, and I have taken the risk in part because I cannot afford to do otherwise. Now, if I had the money to build a home in the perfect place, well, I'd soon discover that there is no perfect place. How about on the summit of a nearby mountain? Not bad, though such exposure places me in the path of high winds, brutal snows, and even lightning strikes. How about a little lower, somewhere on the flanks of Bald Mountain? Fine, though now I'll have to deal with mudslides in heavy rains (which do come), or forest fires in the dry season.

But in the final analysis, the people displaced in New Orleans and surrounding environs, at least many of them, did not place themselves in harm's way for silly reasons (though some refused to leave homes fearful they'd be looted in their absence, which is horrible). Through the slow evolution of a city's growth, many people live where they do because there is no other choice. Clearly the people walking through the now septic streets of New Orleans are there because there is no other home for them. Everything they've ever known is lost somewhere in that city's streets.

***

I heard something the other day, and for the life of me I can't recall where this event took place, or how long ago. But there was a flood of horrific proportions in an American city. The flood waters lapped around two apparently fully-occupied passenger trains parked next to each other on adjacent tracks, each stuck, each heading in different directions. Those who left Train A survived, but those who remained in Train A drowned. Conversely, all those who left Train B drowned, while all those who stayed in Train B survived.

Life is a series of decisions pitting risk against risk. Sometimes the person in the car NOT wearing a seatbelt is the sole survivor of a car crash. Sometimes the safest place is the deadliest. Sometimes the cigarette smoker lives to 90-years of age, while the 30-year-old triathlete drops dead of a heart attack. It is what we live with, the caprice and whim of nature, every day. There is no magic pill, no incantation we can speak against these facts. Wisdom, caution, circumspection, preparedness: Yes, these go a long way in keeping life livable. But there is nothing to do when the cosmos reminds us that we are creatures, and not gods.

But we can learn.

There is a passage in one of St. Paul's epistles urging all his readers to "overflow with thanksgiving." It is an utterly beautiful exhortation, and it is utterly difficult to fulfill. I try to gush with gratitude, I really do. But I find myself mired in the self-pitying, missing the deep fact that my life is good. Simple, non-descript, and unenviable. But good nonetheless.

Last night, while walking a small city main street after dinner with my wife, awed by the remnants of Katrina whirling overhead, we spotted a man jogging along the sidewalk with a gorgeous German Shepherd tethered to his wrist, the dog cantoring at a perfect and regal pace. My wife and I noticed the dog, lovers of canines (particularly Shepherds) as we are. A short while later, the man and dog passed by again. My wife shouted, "Beautiful dog!" The man replied, "Thank you!" as he disappeared behind the corner of a new street. Suddenly I was struck with something I had not noticed earlier. I quickly turned around, too late but nonetheless earnest, and shouted "Nice human, too!" For at that moment I realized I had only seen a part of the beauty: I saw only the dog. But I failed to see the whole picture: A bi-pedal man running in a tropical twilight, winds swirling, man and beast together, beneath a glorious church steeple near timeless granite curbs, in a moment on a planet in a solar-system in a universe, all in a mystery.

The scene was worth the price of admission, which is to merely show up, pay attention, and applaud every wondrous second. But my levees are often drawn up, higher and higher. I refuse to let them fall, to let gratitude pour through my every word, my every act, my every tear.

Lord only knows when my time to be grateful shall come to a sudden stop.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All rights reserved.