not a planet!



who knew?! i guess all these years diminutive little Pluto has been relying on its cuteness to crash the big ol' Solar System Party.

speaking of gravitational fields......



oh, c'mon! we mean that in the fondest of ways. frankly, there's something quite fascinating about the bizarre tension created by all of the conflicting elements of the Brit's persona -- artist, girl, sex symbol, drama queen, mother, wife, vixen. maybe she does have it all.

proof of modern-day evolution, perhaps?



FDA approves over-the-counter sales of Plan B "morning after" contraceptive to adults.

(note to self: buy stock in Barr Pharma, Inc.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
so, how would this be for a cool chain of events?:

1) FDA approves over-the-counter sales of Plan B "day after" contraceptive to adults.

2) Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA)and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)drop objections to Senate vote to confirm Dubya's current recommendation for acting FDA Commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach.

3) Your Humble Chronicler purchases undisclosed amount of stock in Barr Pharma, Inc., manufacturer of Plan B contraceptive.

4) Eschenbach confirmed.

6) Conservatives, upset with Dubya's failure to block Plan B approval, move to impeach him.

5) Eschenbach backs review of Schedule 1 and paves way for legalization of substances.

6) Your Humble Chronicler experiences unprecedented windfall in Barr Pharma stock as it soars through the roof.

7) Dubya resigns.

8) America withdraws troops from Iraq.

*wink*

Links for Fearless Minds

The Band, in keeping true to it's curious spirit and Our Mission of providing information that, if nothing else, tells you all about all those things your parents don't want you to know, thought we'd post some links. Just stuff we've collected through the years, the result of our own personal journey through the forest of life.

Have fun.

Alexander and Ann Shulgin, a couple of my personal heroes:

Professor X


A lecture, some writing


A film trailer

• Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies
  
• Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics
  
• Ancient Mystery Schools
  
• Beyond the Illusion
  
• Council on Spiritual Practices
  
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
  
• Frontier Orgs on the Web
  
• Hazardous Media
  
• Heffter Research Institute
  
• HG_Ultra (conspiracies, anyone?)
  
• Institute of Noetic Sciences
  
• Mavericks of the Mind -- profiles and works of really cool people
  
• Prescience - visit a little bit of Aldous Huxley's Island
  
• The Gaian Mind - honor thy Mother!
  
• Ram Dass - he who needs no introduction

Now, don't get lost.

spring

Spring is here, finally, though more according to the calendar than to the weather. Still, no complaints about the winter -- for Ohio, it was lame. Fine with me. Still glad it's almost over.

I'm tired, folks. Tired of my work, the people where I live, the town, Ohio, politics. Tired. Need a break. Thinking about going to Ireland. Or England. Just for a week or so, with my son. But need a break from America and Americans.

Spring. Critter action in the backyard. A groundhog. The coyotes are back. Could be a band name. Mommy deer and little ones wandering about at night.

Listening to:

Mountain Goats -- All Hail West Texas

Cat Power -- The Greatest

Delgados -- Great Eastern

Delgados -- Hate

The Sun -- Did Your Mother Tell You?

And I got the Wilco DVD, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which I heard about a few years ago and have wanted to see ever since. Can't wait to play it.

On that note, we'll leave you today with a little bit of The Sun, from their most recent, Blame it on the Youth.

myspace.com/thesun

damn, I haven't been here for awhile...

so. yeah. i've come to a conclusion. knowing that no one gives a crap about this blog, and that it likely WON'T get me "discovered" and shit, I find it tough to keep up with. like, i'll have thoughts that I think, "hey -- I should blog this....." like, how I spent my MLK day. how i saw interracial couples comfortable in public places and stuff. how it was all cool, and a reminder of how far we've come.

then i remember no one will read it, and so much of everything else in America is a mess, so I forget to post it.

so, i don't know what people care about. i don't know what they're interested in. i'll be 44 tomorrow, and the most solid observation i have to share about life and people is that people become more disappointing by the decade.

like -- dave matthews band fans. why are they such idiots? look -- here's a couple of threads currently popping on the anstmarching fansite. see for yourselves:

• something called Positive or Negative?
• something called Gotta love my Girlfriend!
• something called What Are You Watching Right Now?

seriously. those are merely three examples of exactly the worst of the web, a testament to how people -- given the freedom to be abslutely themselves -- will either fake it entirely, or sink to the lowest imaginable level.

and, once they get way down there, they find kindred spirits. by the truckload. gobs and gobs of other superficial people who have never quite risen beyond the 2nd level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. though they act like it. then again, if i think about it while looking at the hierarchy, this particular breed of nitwits seems, from their conversations (used loosely), to suffer more from shattered personalities than any type of clearly defined retardation or developmental paralysis.

maybe they're just too stupid to even be charted. who knows.

what may be more interesting is how they are drawn in such huge numbers to the music of an otherwise innocent jam band. that may be the bigger question: what is it, specifically, about the music of the dave matthews band that seems to appeal so heavily to emotionally immature, superficial ADHD stoners??

really -- read the stuff. I'm serious. really not joking. this borders on being an epidemic. the site is huge, and is hugely active. yet, just try to find any real content. go ahead. try. if you find any, you can expect also to find whoever posted it to be roundly criticized for "harshing everyone's gig" or some other such bullshit. it's a mutual admiration society of the dumb and dumber, and if you don't fit in, you're about as welcome as gay bigfoot with leprosy at a monthly meeting of the middle aged republican housewives of Ohio.

i'm serious. if i were dave matthews, i'd look into this, 'cuz it's downright yucky.

seems a lot of them also love cats. draw your own conclusions.

you're far better off having a beer here.

but, hell -- what do you think? y'all never write me.

in the meantime, i'm watching the Olympics. yes, until they're over.

the holidays deyz done upon us

yup, yup, yup. just about a week ago, i was standing in my driveway around midnight, looking at the stars and enjoying a near 70-degree breeze. by the following afternoon, the temperature had dropped 50 (count 'em) degrees, and yesterday afternoon, the flurries came in.

i am so not enthralled by the winter. there was a time in my life when i looked forward to it simply because i'd be able to pull out the wool sweaters. that penchant too has waned. these days in my life, i spend most of my hopeful energy during the winter looking forward to spring. if i'm lucky, maybe i'll do some sledding with my son, or ice skating. i did purchase a pair of snowshoes to give me one less excuse to not go outside this season. you see, there are things about the winter that i do like, love even. i love how the woods look during and after a heavy snow. pristine. crystalline. i love how the woods sound when it's snowing, millions of ice crystals pelting what the ground, the frozen branches, the creeks. i love how it smells.

but i don't like the cold much. and i hate the early darkening of the afternoons. the growing piles of sludgy, black frozen snow that begin to line sidewalks and curbs with gray-black lumps of rood soot and gravel encrusted ice. i hate the way drivers become absolute idiots, their road behavior being the only trivial matter that nonetheless makes me wish harm on my fellow man. i hate having to consider how many layers i will need to wrap around me before leaving the house for any reason, and i hate having to devote mental energy to coordinating said layers. and i hate the familiar harsh blast of cold air in my face at every turn. i especially hate it when it happens on the street or in open spaces between buildings, when the icy blasts feel capable of penetrating every inch of your clothing and you truly do understand how the weather can kill a person.

the holidays are upon us. most people in america have already started. it's odd -- so many people, such huge numbers of people, all doing similar things, moving in similar ways, repeating similar tasks. sure, your stuffing may have almonds in it while your neighbor's has water chestnuts, yours cooked in the bird with store-bought bread crumbs, theirs in a separate pan with homemade croutons; through the years, your family may have upgraded to cheesecake over pumpkin pie, while your best friend's family continues to swear by apple pie; maybe you have baked beans instead of corn; or macaroni and cheese instead of yams -- whatever the case, families, friends and i'd imagine a good collection of strange individuals are already, as you are reading this, defrosting 30-lb headless headless farm-raised birds, if not stalking their wild cousins in the aforementioned woods with hearts set on murder.

the luckiest of us among them will retreat to various homesteads, to either our mother's homes, or our grandmother's homes. sometimes an aunt picks up the duty of hosting the family's traditional feast, sometimes the eldest daughter, or the first-born son's wife, or the youngest daughter, or a coalition of the unmarried daughters of the family, yielding to the demands of their society and a culture that offers them some small level of redemption for not contributing to the gene pool, let alone the future tax base, through the act of reproduction......instead, they work off their unpaid tithes through the labor of cooking and baking and basting and carmelizing and frosting and slicing and kneading.........

the less lucky will attempt to capture the spirit of the homestead celebrations, but in some faraway place. like hawaii, if you're from the midwest, or somewhere in europe, if you're an american. or in the middle east, if you're a soldier, a sailor or a marine. displaced fellow ohioans will say annoying things like, "it's just not thanksgiving without snow" to people like me who would sacrifice something of great value without much hesitation to be living in a place where snow in november is no more than the basis of a silly joke.

the unluckiest of us will not celebrate at all. and there's no justice or fairness in that, because we live in a nation that can afford -- maybe not easily, maybe not all on the same day -- but we can afford to feed the world. why don't we?

oh yeah. i forgot. gotta start getting ready for christmas......

happy thanksgiving, everyone.

feeling neglected

yes, i am. it is true. there are a lot of blogs out there, and many of them, if not most, are worse than mine. i'm not claiming to be any kind of master of the medium -- god knows, technological advances so quickly outstripped my own feeble html skills, rendering them obsolete nearly the same week i went online.

nonetheless, i HAVE been blogging here since November of *2000* ! since then, i've brought you humor, and insight, personal and otherwise. commentary and anecdote. links and pictures. sex and heartbreak, joy and ennui. the news and the not-so-news. and yet, shit -- no one gives a flying rat's ass.

i mean, damn! -- don't i at least get street cred for staying power?

or props for prescience, maybe -- recognizing in my own little corner of the world that this funky little application would explode exponentially? in short time? do i get NO credit for being down with blogs before, what? -- 95% of humanity???

or for permitting a view into Everyman's life, pre 9-11.

for something, for crying out loud! no one visits, no one comments, no one seeks me out.

fuck.

have you forgotten? have all of you FORGOTTEN???? the whole PURPOSE of this fucking thing was so that you could DISCOVER me, damn it!!!!!!! and get me the fuck OUT of this boring 9-5 existence.

so, in that spirit, enjoy some keywords, you thankless masses.

adults have sex and take pictures and videos of their sins despite religion and politics. barbara bush fed jenna to george and he ate her straight up. meanwhile, tim leary sold drugs to al quaeda, but no one knows because of the coverup. ask the usual suspects -- ron reagan, dick cheney, ollie north -- they won't tell you that osama bin laden ate them raw, without protection. terrorists still suck, and sometimes even run with scissors from exposed breasts, like janet jackson's. the election was fixed, and so is donkey kong. pac man begs to differ, but remember -- he couldn't munch his way out of a bag, let alone skirt impending doom. or upskirt it, as the case may be. nonetheless, the end of the world is only a rumor, and if wishes were trees, trees would be fallen -- ask any advisor you happen to see, psychic or otherwise, what's the best tuna? chicken of the sea, but, again -- remember: you can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish. where has rock 'n roll gotten us, anyways? someone reported that ozzy osbourne has aids, and this too is not good. you can't find a needle in a haystack when it's stuck in a pundits armpit. choose stilettos over sensible shoes, if you will, but I would love to date a woman who makes great martinis. afterwards, coffee can be a nice pick-me-up. pick you up? what time? say, seven-ish? yes, she said, yes yes oh yes. you won't see this on the news, because the revolution will not be televised.

there. take that, search engines.

and bring on the royalties, 'cuz i'm getting tired of the game.

cheating a little death

Had a little fun last weekend.....headed down to West-by-god-Virginia.....little did I know......

"The Upper Gauley is highly technical, requiring great skill to negotiate its narrow chutes and machine-gun rapids. It ranks in the top five in the world for whitewater adventure. The Upper Gauley offers tremendous Class III to V+ drops in steep, turbulent chutes such as Pillow Rock, Iron Ring and Sweet's Falls, and rocky routes that demand constant maneuvering such as Lost Paddle and Shipwreck. This section of the river requires experience, concentration and teamwork - plus maybe just a touch of craziness, too!"

Basically, it was about a 360-ft descent over roughly 12 miles through 75 distinct rapids.

Here's our boat.

These aren't videos of our boat, but here are some snips of where we were -- gives a pretty good sense of the entire day -- pretty much exact conditions. First one is Pillow Rock, mentioned above. Here's Lost Paddle, and here's Sweet's Falls.

Excellent fun! I gotta do much more of this -- guess I really HAVE to learn how to swim.......nonetheless, I stayed in the boat until the last rapid -- and I'm alive to tell the tale.

go-o-o-o-o-d plan....

"Shortly after Brown was recalled to Washington last week, officials close to the FEMA director said he would probably resign. They said that even before Katrina, Brown had been planning on leaving the administration late this fall to go into the private sector."

um, yeah -- i'm sure lots of you folks out there are feeling this: "GREAT! Now this guy can come and work for us!!"

excellent

more

from space imaging

one citizen's voice

a post from Joshua Mann Pailet, owner of A Gallery for Fine Photography on Chartrest Street in the French Quarter, New Orleans:

Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Dear Friends

TRUTH and BEAUTY and LOVE are UNIVERSAL.

CHILDREN FIRST

Immediate and very direct help, go to
http://www.braf.org
http://www.habitat.org
http://www.girlscoutsaudubon.org
http://maps.google.com - Type in New Orleans address and click Katrina link

New Orleans is my home and birthplace. I remained in downtown New Orleans
during the difficult first five days. In the French Quarter, downtown, and
along the Mississippi River, I witnessed the SURVIVORS of this powerful
storm struggle to maintain dignity and life.

Along this narrow unique corridor of the original city boundaries, there
was NO FLOODING. All around us, the waters rose and the struggle roared
louder than the hurricane winds of that historic storm.

During this time, communication was non-existent. Rumors ruled the
street. The outlaws were bad, but a tiny percentage.

The community worked together to have the stamina to remain calm and
alive. NO water or food was delivered into these historic quarters until
late Friday afternoon.

NO evidence was seen of Authority or control.

We were not destroyed through looting or shooting.
In fact, I witnessed a far more remarkable scene than TV or radio was able
to report.

The other less famous, but EQUALLY IMPORTANT neighborhoods of this
remarkable City, were deluged with water, fear, anger, bullies, and HEROES.

Our policeman, fireman, and individual citizens used their wits and
struggled to rescue many thousands of stranded friends and families while
their own lives had been shattered.

The historic French Quarter and Riverfront community up St. Charles Avenue
and along the Mississippi River survived intact and can be ready for your
return soon after the electricity and running water is restored.

We are eager to see the misery calmed and life and vitality restored.
Despite the visual images you are seeing, you will be surprised in the
upcoming weeks. As we unite, together we can move forward to bring us
together again.

The Daily Challenges are being addressed in a manner that requires
everyone to remain flexible, cooperative, resourceful, inventive and
respectful. ALL displaced CITIZENS must have the Opportunity to return to
their original neighborhoods. These unique neighborhoods must be rebuilt.

The complex and multi-dimensional problems of this event are going to be
solved, step-by-step, day by day, brick by brick. THE PEOPLE who are the
heart and soul of this great city will be back. It is essential to bring
ALL home to let the magic that you love about New Orleans blossom in the
SPRING.

The great gumbo of New Orleans requires that ALL our friends and families
have a chance to return to their roots. The unique qualities that we love
will shine if we continue to act with true dignity and bring back to EVERY
NEIGHBORHOOD the artists, cooks, workers, musicians, professionals,
carpenters, and more. This is TRUTH for NEW ORLEANS and EVERY community
that surrounds it for miles and miles and miles.

Tonight, we are scattered and battered.

Each day, the outpouring of concern has kept us going forward. We will
clean it up and want everyone back to their neighborhoods and homes.
For some of us, this will be soon.

For the vast majority, it will be much longer.

WE NEED YOUR HELP and the fantastic response from around the world and
especially across the USA must continue.

THE LOVE for New Orleans is evident.
WE sincerely THANK YOU.
We know the stress is spreading and touching all of you.

EVERYONE in the entire region has been affected. I am presently in Baton
Rouge organizing and helping people find a place to live, work, and send
their children to schools. Baton Rouge has taken in over 350,00 people
and nearly doubled in size.

Some of us are in hotels, friends' homes, strangers' homes, shelters,
churches, temples, arenas, gymnasiums, vehicles, tents, and every
available resource you can imagine.

The generosity and kindness of the great people of Baton Rouge, Houston,
and every town and state for hundreds of miles is remarkable to witness.
They are nurturing my fellow CITIZENS of New Orleans, Mississippi, and
Alabama. It will continue.

Many of you have asked to HELP.
We need your resources and immediate attention to a multitude of tasks.

We must continue rescuing, protecting, housing, and restoring health all
at once. This test and challenge will require stamina and willpower,
infrastructure, money, and planning. Timing is truly critical.
Everywhere I look, the efforts and overtime are phenomenal. Imagine.

My fellow survivors continue to inspire others. No doubt major mistakes
have been made. This can be debated at a later date.

I ask all of you to continue focusing on NEW ORLEANS and the entire GULF
COAST and pushing this effort forward. Each of you have a role to play as
this situation stabilizes.

Tonight, I feel that the children need our most immediate attention. In
Baton Rouge alone, there are over 35,000 new children of kindergarten to
high school age who are in dire need of stability and EDUCATION.

This TRUTH is repeated in numerous communities all over Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Arizona, New Mexico, and many more.

Tomorrow should be a school day for these beautiful children. We must
begin to provide and prepare them for the future. NOW!

Schools, teachers, personnel, and supplies need to come together quickly.
An Education Relief Task Force is organizing this effort. I strongly urge
you to continue supporting ALL charitable efforts with your donations.

I believe that the Baton Rouge Area Foundation (www.braf.org) is the
proper place to direct your financial contributions at this very moment.
The EDUCATIONAL CRISIS is critical. The New Orleans School System is
wiped out and bankrupt.

As you think about this, if we can get our children on a positive track,
then parents will begin to rest easier and thus able to solve all the
problems we need to address. From this will spring forth all the other
great projects needed.

At times this emotional roller coaster we are all on, causes us to briefly
stop. It is paramount that we work together diligently for a very long
time to achieve this GOAL for our CHILDREN.

It can and must be done. With this will follow the jobs and the dignity we
all need to rebuild.

CHILDREN FIRST.
Send your donations to BRAC.ORG
My dear friend Marc Sternberg, a Baton Rouge native,
(marc@bronxlabschool.org) is a vital part of this effort.
Bring your energy, ideas, and donations NOW.

Throughout all of this, I have heard my mother's words echo in my sky.
"Pick up the pieces and get on with it."

Thank you for your prayers, positive thoughts, and energy. You keep me and
many others moving forward on this path to recovery. Every moment of
everyday we encounter a changing reality.

FOCUS on the FUTURE by immediately providing the resources needed to get
these NEW SCHOOLS up and running. The CHILDREN need you more than ever.
It will take more than 150 million dollars for this effort in Baton Rouge
alone. All the communities of the great Gulf Coast and Deep South region
have the same challenge.

I will continue to be here to help.

WE ARE ONE.

CHILDREN FIRST

[You may have read my] eyewitness account sent earlier to many of you.

I know it only applies to this tiny historic piece of land I was blessed
to be in at the moment this storm arrived.

I am keenly aware that other neighborhoods in New Orleans and all around
the GULF COAST experienced a nightmare of biblical proportions that seems
to grow daily.

THANK YOU
I am the luckiest man in New Orleans and this planet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

thanks to Chuck Taggart for the link.

before and after

chilling

as the crow flies

aerial photos

will we change??

will we finally get it? will we ever get it?? what is the fucking deal, people?? was responding to an email from one of my staff and realized that she is the ONLY person in my office who even mentioned the hurricane, and the sadness she felt over the aftermath. what the fuck is with people? "outta sight, outta mind"???

i hope your lives, and homes, and loved ones are never stricken by a tragedy like this one.

how come i care?

I think I expect way too much from humans.

everything is wonderful

more coverage

pics from Sigmund at directNIC.com.

"This is Sigmund Solares, I am the CEO of Intercosmos Media Group, Inc., the operators of directNIC.com in Downtown New Orleans. For the past week we have continued to operate our data center while just about everyone else has left."

more pics

blogs:

this rant from Steve at The News Blog. the dude's over the top, and, yet, right on. go ahead and splurge and read the comments, too -- they have a life of their own:

"Steve: I understand your anger, but this is not the time for finger pointing. It's the time for calm, moderate, actions like putting the entire Bush administration on a chain gang and sentencing them to clean the streets of NOLO on their hands and knees for the rest of the their miserable, ugly, wasteful lives."

"Citizen K, the only suggestion I would make to your proposal is that none of those incompetent fucks should be given brushes."

"DJ: You must be some bleeding heart liberal. The idea of giving those slimeballs brushes never crossed my mind."

"blamed everything but herpes on Bill Clinton

And they would have done that, too, had it not been for Neil Bush pretty well having the herpes franchise locked up."

Ray in Austin is covering the goings on.

The Interdictor, news straight from the ground.

mourning music

"During the disaster 700,000 people were displaced, including 330,000 African-Americans who were moved to 154 relief camps. Over 13,000 refugees near Greenville, Mississippi were gathered from area farms and evacuated to the crest of an unbroken levee, and stranded there for days without food or clean water, while boats arrived to evacuate white women and children. Many African-Americans were detained and forced to labor at gunpoint during flood relief efforts." -- Wikipedia entry on the floods of 1926-1927

Robert Russa Moton's report on the Treatment of Black Americans after the 1927 floods

Louisiana 1927

What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it starts to rain.
Rained real hard, it rained for a real long time,
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

The river rose all day, the river rose all night.
Some people got lost in the flood,
Some people got away alright.
The river have busted through, clear down to Plaquemines --
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangelne.

Louisiana, Louisiana --
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away.
Louisiana, Louisiana --
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away.

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a notepad in his hand.
The President say, "Little fat man, isn't it a shame? -
what the river has done to this poor crackers land."

Louisiana, Louisiana --
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away.
Louisiana, Louisiana --
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away,
They're tryin' to wash us away.

-- Randy Newman

I Wish I Was in New Orleans

Well, I wish I was in New Orleans
I can see it in my dreams.
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy,
a bottle and my friends and me.

Hoist up a few tall cold ones
play some pool and listen to that
tenor saxophone calling me home.
And I can hear the band begin
"When the Saints Go Marching In."
By the whiskers on my chin
New Orleans, I'll be there.

I'll drink you under the table
be red nose, go for walks,
the old haunts, what I wants
is red beans and rice.
And wear the dress I like so well
and meet me at the old saloon.
Make sure there's a Dixie moon
New Orleans, I'll be there.

And deal the cards, roll the dice,
if it ain't that ol' Chuck E. Weiss
and Clayborn Avenue, me and you,
Sam Jones and all --
And I wish I was in New Orleans
I can see it in my dreams.
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy,
a bottle and my friends and me,
New Orleans, I'll be there.

-- Tom Waits

bring it



here we go. cleveland's dennis kucinich:

“The President said an hour ago that the Gulf Coast looks like it has been obliterated by a weapon. It has. Indifference is a weapon of mass destruction."

and, by any chance did you see this??



maybe we're waking up.

heartbreaking, infuriating

heartbreaking.



New Orleans Mayor Ron Nagin, interviewed on the radio on 9/1/2005 (stream / transcript).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

infuriating.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wake of the Flood
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 02 September 2005

All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin' about my baby and my happy home.
-- Led Zeppelin, "When the Levee Breaks"

This will come as no surprise, but columnist Molly Ivins has again nailed it to the wall. "Government policies have real consequences in people's lives," Ivins wrote in her Thursday column. "This is not 'just politics' or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies."

Try this timeline on for size. In January of 2001, George W. Bush appointed Texas crony Joe Allbaugh to head FEMA, despite the fact that Allbaugh had exactly zero experience in disaster management. By April of 2001, the Bush administration announced that much of FEMA's work would be privatized and downsized. Allbaugh that month described FEMA as, "an oversized entitlement program."

In December 2002, Allbaugh quit as head of FEMA to create a consulting firm whose purpose was to advise and assist companies looking to do business in occupied Iraq. He was replaced by Michael D. Brown, whose experience in disaster management was gathered while working as an estate planning lawyer in Colorado, and while serving as counsel for the International Arabian Horse Association legal department. In other words, Bush chose back-to-back FEMA heads whose collective ability to work that position could fit inside a thimble with room to spare.

By March of 2003, FEMA was no longer a Cabinet-level position, and was folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its primary mission was recast towards fighting acts of terrorism. In June of 2004, the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for levee construction in New Orleans was cut by a record $71.2 million. Jefferson Parish emergency management chief Walter Maestri said at the time, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

And then the storm came, and the sea rose, and the levees failed. Filthy sewage-laced water began to fill the bowl of New Orleans. Tens of thousands of poor people who did not have the resources to flee the storm became trapped in a slowly deteriorating city without food, water or electricity. The entire nation has since been glued to their televisions, watching footage of an apocalyptic human tragedy unfold before their eyes. Anyone who has put gasoline in their car since Tuesday has come to know what happens when the port that handles 40% of our national petroleum distribution becomes unusable.



And the response? "Bush mugs for the cameras," says Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly, "cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden."

Newsweek described it this way: "For all the president's statements ahead of the hurricane, the region seemed woefully unprepared for the flooding of New Orleans - a catastrophe that has long been predicted by experts and politicians alike. [see also here] There seems to have been no contingency planning for a total evacuation of the city, including the final refuges of the city's Superdome and its hospitals. There were no supplies of food and water ready offshore - on Navy ships for instance - in the event of such flooding, even though government officials knew there were thousands of people stranded inside the sweltering and powerless city."

Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert twisted the knife on Thursday by bluntly suggesting that we should not bother rebuilding the city of New Orleans. "It doesn't make sense to me," Hastert said to the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask. We help replace, we help relieve disaster. But I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it ... we ought to take a second look at that." This sentiment was echoed by the Republican-American newspaper out of Waterbury, CT: "If the people of New Orleans and other low-lying areas insist on living in harm's way, they ought to accept responsibility for what happens to them and their property."

This is it, right here, right now. This is the Bush administration in a nutshell.

The decision to invade Iraq based on lies has left the federal government's budget woefully, and I daresay deliberately, unprepared for a disaster of this magnitude, despite the fact that decades worth of warnings have been put forth about what would happen to New Orleans should a storm like this hit. Louisiana National Guard soldiers and equipment, such as high-water Humvees for example, are sitting today in Iraq while hundreds or even thousands die because there are not enough hands to reach out and pull them from the water. FEMA - downsized, redirected, budget-slashed and incompetently led - has thus far failed utterly to cope with the scope of the catastrophe.

Actions have consequences. What you see on your television today is not some wild accident, but is a disaster that could have been averted had the priorities of this government been more in line with the needs of the people it pretends to serve. The city of New Orleans, home to so much of the culture that makes America unique and beautiful, is today drowning underneath an avalanche of polluted, diseased water. This, simply, did not have to happen.



Remember that the next time you hear Bush talk about noble causes, national priorities and responsibility. This has been an administration of death, disaster, fear and woe. The whole pack of them should be run out of Washington on a rail. Better yet, they should be air-dropped into the center of New Orleans and made to see and smell and touch and taste the newest disaster they have helped to create.

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William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally
bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.
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