Saturday, September 03, 2005
More on the hurricane.
John from 'My Ghosts!' had some things to say about the hurricane,
I note that my reply was absent, either I hit the wrong button or something.
John you're right some of it pissed me off. I also didn't comment annonymously, because especially if I'm discussing something with someone who visits my blog, I show the courtesy of not being annonymous. Pusi Kurac went beyond the proper means of reply and further hasn't really got a working blog. He could have said all that and been annonymous for all I damn well care.
I don't think you are heartless John, nor do I think you should pusi kurac.
I do think though that you are not the only one who doesn't understand that refugees are made by lots of circumstances besides war. Economic circumstance can make refugees and so can natural disasters. Many oppressive political circumstances short of war make refugees.
Frankly to say that people should have gotten out ahead is all well and good, but a lot of these people could not get out. I would have been in a real jam myself if here there were a similar disaster, because I can't drive. I do not see well enough to drive. There was no concerted effort to get people out who can't drive. The whole way the U.S. is run makes getting from point A to point B difficult if you don't drive. Rural areas simply don't have the level of private and public transit that is taken for granted in BiH,it's one of the ways most of Europe is ahead of us. Barring remote places like the Scottish Highlands and the Fior Gaeltacht regions of Ireland,Siberia, it's pretty easy to get around Europe without haveing a car. Then there's the matter of other than motorized transport, hardly used anymore in the States. Personally I don't feel safe rideing a bike, bikeing is more dangerous than driveing even if you see well because of the maniacs in cars.
I could legally own a horse on my property, BUT I could not use a horse to get around in town. I saw people useing horses and donkeys for transport in BiH and in Croatia, not LOTS mind, but it's not gone away. When you are as car centric as the U.S. has gotten it's bad. People could have been gotten out of town by first notifying them 1 backpack per family member, take the meds, the glasses, the documentation and get on the train, the bus, whatever the state could have handled that and got them the hell out. The National Guard should have been called out right away, and there should have been an immediate declaration of Martial Law. The National Guard could have secured any stores, and used the food and stuff in them as relief supplies. They could then have gone ahead and shot looters. Any stores with firearms should have been secured FIRST.
You mentioned places which live without certain ameneties, like air conditioning, flush toilets, clean drinking water etc on a daily basis. OK the lady who was so rude over MREs was stupid! We can agree on that one! We can agree that when people are so self destructive and ungrateful it makes it harder to rescue them. MREs really aren't that bad, they are hella better than school lunches I've eatten in fairly recent years! I am a damn good cook, and my kids both are good cooks too, and none of us have a problem with MREs !
Speaking of MREs I remember an incident that occured in the Bosnian war over that. Remember about the food drops? I remember hearing on the news that some of the MREs dropped into Muslim areas had pork, which of course Muslims don't eat. You might have a Muslim person who gets drunk, screws around, never prays but By God he's not gonna eat pork! I remember people in this country being really angry with the Bosniaks about that. I realize this is in a totally different catagory and context from the woman in the Superdome whineing about MREs, but the reactions are similar.
How I see it is that the American people just aren't used to these massive bitch slaps from the Almighty. People say and do wierd shit when they are in shock.
There also in this country has in the past been a big thing of not letting people see anyone who is dead until the morticians pretty up the dead folks. The situation IS gross. There are people who really didn't expect that dead bodies are going to lie around for damn near a week, that bodies will float on the water until the alligators eat them, etc.
Part of that sense of entitlement for help that you saw is in my opinion the result of things like media. TV in particular. I blame a certain attitude that almost comes from some people's religion for some of this, that God has showered so much material blessing on this country that when it goes away they feel really pissed about it. The other part is that a LOT of American people do have an exagerated sense of what is done by Americans for other countries in the way of foreign aid. They figure, our taxes go to pay for haveing basically two shooting wars, umpteen 'peace-keeping missions' and humanitarian aid that gets extended to friend and foe alike, Hell yeah folks here rightly or wrongly feel entitled. The lowest drug dealing pimp feels entitled. I think to a point you and I may even agree that that is messed up, but the very people that govern us, and the people who influence the popular mind-set have fostered this view of things. Everything from TV to music to newspapers, to the internet tends to get people thinking like that. Most of these folks haven't even gone to Mexico, let alone lived elsewhere, hell yeah they think this is as bad as it gets.
New Orleans had it's rougher areas. I was there for a short visit in the 1970s, with my ex-husband. I remember that it smelled real bad crossing Lake Ponchartrain. If before the hurricane, Lake Ponchartrain smelled as bad as I remember it, and people could not take the smell of the overflowing toilets in the Superdome, then it must have been an unholy reek.
On leaveing areas of imminant disaster, war is often pretty well advertised in advance. Everyone knew the Balkans was going to be a very BAD neighborhood soon. There was probably almost too much notice, I mean I noticed, and other people who knew a LOT more than me noticed. I like to say I would have gotten out, but then I don't know that. Maybe going someplace else would not have even been possible. Then too people tried to leave and it was prevented either by the enemies in their immediate vicinity or the immigration laws and policies of other places.
While within the U.S. this isn't a problem, some other things are, like being away from one's job for people who have jobs, and then there's the people who are on like welfare, SSI, Social Security, etc. They have to wait for checks. Being two or three states away causes these folks a problem. There were old people who didn't get moved because of Medicare regulations on transfering people to different hosptals, someone had to do an executive order on that one.
I need to say that I do have a personal concern here, my son-in-law's aunt, his father's sister in law and her kids got out alive, but they lost everything. They are someplace in Texas at this point. My daughter wants to offer them a place here in the gulag. I hope that can be done.
Incidentally 53 nations have offered foreign aid to the U.S., even Cuba has offered help! Just heard that on Northwest Cable News. So Sean Hanity, Mike Savage and Rush, just sit down and shut up ok? I get real tired of hearing how other nations don't care about our troubles, I for one am grateful that this is not so. There's people out there who appreciate the United States and the American people.
hvala.
There was a touching, Balkans related moment related on NPR, Louisianna is home to many many Croatian -Americans. There was a meeting hall used by these folks reduced to rubble. The janitor came and ran up the American and the Croatian flags and spoke with a reporter from NPR.
He kissed both flags before running them up the flag pole, as apparently he did every day.
I note that my reply was absent, either I hit the wrong button or something.
John you're right some of it pissed me off. I also didn't comment annonymously, because especially if I'm discussing something with someone who visits my blog, I show the courtesy of not being annonymous. Pusi Kurac went beyond the proper means of reply and further hasn't really got a working blog. He could have said all that and been annonymous for all I damn well care.
I don't think you are heartless John, nor do I think you should pusi kurac.
I do think though that you are not the only one who doesn't understand that refugees are made by lots of circumstances besides war. Economic circumstance can make refugees and so can natural disasters. Many oppressive political circumstances short of war make refugees.
Frankly to say that people should have gotten out ahead is all well and good, but a lot of these people could not get out. I would have been in a real jam myself if here there were a similar disaster, because I can't drive. I do not see well enough to drive. There was no concerted effort to get people out who can't drive. The whole way the U.S. is run makes getting from point A to point B difficult if you don't drive. Rural areas simply don't have the level of private and public transit that is taken for granted in BiH,it's one of the ways most of Europe is ahead of us. Barring remote places like the Scottish Highlands and the Fior Gaeltacht regions of Ireland,Siberia, it's pretty easy to get around Europe without haveing a car. Then there's the matter of other than motorized transport, hardly used anymore in the States. Personally I don't feel safe rideing a bike, bikeing is more dangerous than driveing even if you see well because of the maniacs in cars.
I could legally own a horse on my property, BUT I could not use a horse to get around in town. I saw people useing horses and donkeys for transport in BiH and in Croatia, not LOTS mind, but it's not gone away. When you are as car centric as the U.S. has gotten it's bad. People could have been gotten out of town by first notifying them 1 backpack per family member, take the meds, the glasses, the documentation and get on the train, the bus, whatever the state could have handled that and got them the hell out. The National Guard should have been called out right away, and there should have been an immediate declaration of Martial Law. The National Guard could have secured any stores, and used the food and stuff in them as relief supplies. They could then have gone ahead and shot looters. Any stores with firearms should have been secured FIRST.
You mentioned places which live without certain ameneties, like air conditioning, flush toilets, clean drinking water etc on a daily basis. OK the lady who was so rude over MREs was stupid! We can agree on that one! We can agree that when people are so self destructive and ungrateful it makes it harder to rescue them. MREs really aren't that bad, they are hella better than school lunches I've eatten in fairly recent years! I am a damn good cook, and my kids both are good cooks too, and none of us have a problem with MREs !
Speaking of MREs I remember an incident that occured in the Bosnian war over that. Remember about the food drops? I remember hearing on the news that some of the MREs dropped into Muslim areas had pork, which of course Muslims don't eat. You might have a Muslim person who gets drunk, screws around, never prays but By God he's not gonna eat pork! I remember people in this country being really angry with the Bosniaks about that. I realize this is in a totally different catagory and context from the woman in the Superdome whineing about MREs, but the reactions are similar.
How I see it is that the American people just aren't used to these massive bitch slaps from the Almighty. People say and do wierd shit when they are in shock.
There also in this country has in the past been a big thing of not letting people see anyone who is dead until the morticians pretty up the dead folks. The situation IS gross. There are people who really didn't expect that dead bodies are going to lie around for damn near a week, that bodies will float on the water until the alligators eat them, etc.
Part of that sense of entitlement for help that you saw is in my opinion the result of things like media. TV in particular. I blame a certain attitude that almost comes from some people's religion for some of this, that God has showered so much material blessing on this country that when it goes away they feel really pissed about it. The other part is that a LOT of American people do have an exagerated sense of what is done by Americans for other countries in the way of foreign aid. They figure, our taxes go to pay for haveing basically two shooting wars, umpteen 'peace-keeping missions' and humanitarian aid that gets extended to friend and foe alike, Hell yeah folks here rightly or wrongly feel entitled. The lowest drug dealing pimp feels entitled. I think to a point you and I may even agree that that is messed up, but the very people that govern us, and the people who influence the popular mind-set have fostered this view of things. Everything from TV to music to newspapers, to the internet tends to get people thinking like that. Most of these folks haven't even gone to Mexico, let alone lived elsewhere, hell yeah they think this is as bad as it gets.
New Orleans had it's rougher areas. I was there for a short visit in the 1970s, with my ex-husband. I remember that it smelled real bad crossing Lake Ponchartrain. If before the hurricane, Lake Ponchartrain smelled as bad as I remember it, and people could not take the smell of the overflowing toilets in the Superdome, then it must have been an unholy reek.
On leaveing areas of imminant disaster, war is often pretty well advertised in advance. Everyone knew the Balkans was going to be a very BAD neighborhood soon. There was probably almost too much notice, I mean I noticed, and other people who knew a LOT more than me noticed. I like to say I would have gotten out, but then I don't know that. Maybe going someplace else would not have even been possible. Then too people tried to leave and it was prevented either by the enemies in their immediate vicinity or the immigration laws and policies of other places.
While within the U.S. this isn't a problem, some other things are, like being away from one's job for people who have jobs, and then there's the people who are on like welfare, SSI, Social Security, etc. They have to wait for checks. Being two or three states away causes these folks a problem. There were old people who didn't get moved because of Medicare regulations on transfering people to different hosptals, someone had to do an executive order on that one.
I need to say that I do have a personal concern here, my son-in-law's aunt, his father's sister in law and her kids got out alive, but they lost everything. They are someplace in Texas at this point. My daughter wants to offer them a place here in the gulag. I hope that can be done.
Incidentally 53 nations have offered foreign aid to the U.S., even Cuba has offered help! Just heard that on Northwest Cable News. So Sean Hanity, Mike Savage and Rush, just sit down and shut up ok? I get real tired of hearing how other nations don't care about our troubles, I for one am grateful that this is not so. There's people out there who appreciate the United States and the American people.
hvala.
There was a touching, Balkans related moment related on NPR, Louisianna is home to many many Croatian -Americans. There was a meeting hall used by these folks reduced to rubble. The janitor came and ran up the American and the Croatian flags and spoke with a reporter from NPR.
He kissed both flags before running them up the flag pole, as apparently he did every day.
# posted by Katja R. @ 6:33 PM 
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I liked this post. I guess what my problem is, my entire life, just about, has been living like what the people of this huricane are living now. After seeing all the destruction, death and despair of war and the way I've grown to rationalize it all I guess I have a hard time relating to most people when things like this happen.
I am constantly pissing off my mom and other family members by my seemingly "cold-heartless" attitude. That's not the case at all. I've just seen so much shit that I find my hear hardened to a point of finding it impossible to care for the entire world. God knows I'm dried of tears.
Some may think of me from the looney toon world after reading this next part but, my entire life I've always known that soemthing like what has happened in America and Asia a few months ago will happen to the entire world before I die. I can remember as a young child, as young as eight, praying in my bed to survive what ever "it" might be.
I can't explain this or why a child of this age could pray something like this. All I know is since a very young age I've prepared for something like this on a global scale.
I'm not a survival nut or paranoid separatest. I've simply had this terrible feeling since early child hood that something was comming.
There were times when I worked as "protection-specialist" body-guard, traveling America city to city on different jobs. Ther were times like in Seattle, Chicago, New York and LA that I would be up high somewhere looking down at the city and all of a sudden I could see the entire city in destruction. I could actually see it in my head.
I've got a family member who is still active in the Native American "world". I have discussed these "visions" with him and he has given advice. But that's all it is, advice.
When I see these things I simply shake my head and blow it off as me being me, but I've always known that something is going to happen.
I've always been good at things I shouldn't be without proper traning for some reason. It's been difficult for me but that's the honest to God's truth.
If you were to know me you wouldn't know this about me for I have never shared this with anybody except my Native American friend, not even my mother.
I don't know why I'm sharing this now. I guess I find it frustrating and taxing.
On my four days off this past week I spent it out in the woods with a few local nationals. During the night time hours I sat around the fire with the rest of the adults as they spoke their native language and watched their kids play in the background.
I love these moments like no other. I feel a sene of peace and being that relax and calm my over active mind.
When I'm with people of this nature I feel at home and like it's meant to be. I'm comfortable.
I do realize I should have come off as more sympathetic to the situation in America but, when it's all I've lived most of my life it's hard to feel sympathy when you know there are millions of people across this globe worse off or living just the same year in and year out.
I hope I'm not comming off as some "freak" or "wierdo". This is simply my life.
Thanks,
John
I am constantly pissing off my mom and other family members by my seemingly "cold-heartless" attitude. That's not the case at all. I've just seen so much shit that I find my hear hardened to a point of finding it impossible to care for the entire world. God knows I'm dried of tears.
Some may think of me from the looney toon world after reading this next part but, my entire life I've always known that soemthing like what has happened in America and Asia a few months ago will happen to the entire world before I die. I can remember as a young child, as young as eight, praying in my bed to survive what ever "it" might be.
I can't explain this or why a child of this age could pray something like this. All I know is since a very young age I've prepared for something like this on a global scale.
I'm not a survival nut or paranoid separatest. I've simply had this terrible feeling since early child hood that something was comming.
There were times when I worked as "protection-specialist" body-guard, traveling America city to city on different jobs. Ther were times like in Seattle, Chicago, New York and LA that I would be up high somewhere looking down at the city and all of a sudden I could see the entire city in destruction. I could actually see it in my head.
I've got a family member who is still active in the Native American "world". I have discussed these "visions" with him and he has given advice. But that's all it is, advice.
When I see these things I simply shake my head and blow it off as me being me, but I've always known that something is going to happen.
I've always been good at things I shouldn't be without proper traning for some reason. It's been difficult for me but that's the honest to God's truth.
If you were to know me you wouldn't know this about me for I have never shared this with anybody except my Native American friend, not even my mother.
I don't know why I'm sharing this now. I guess I find it frustrating and taxing.
On my four days off this past week I spent it out in the woods with a few local nationals. During the night time hours I sat around the fire with the rest of the adults as they spoke their native language and watched their kids play in the background.
I love these moments like no other. I feel a sene of peace and being that relax and calm my over active mind.
When I'm with people of this nature I feel at home and like it's meant to be. I'm comfortable.
I do realize I should have come off as more sympathetic to the situation in America but, when it's all I've lived most of my life it's hard to feel sympathy when you know there are millions of people across this globe worse off or living just the same year in and year out.
I hope I'm not comming off as some "freak" or "wierdo". This is simply my life.
Thanks,
John
John, no you don't come off as heartless to me, hardened yes, heartless no.
I think it's worth remembering that when people don't have what they are used to, it's bad for them. You or I would survive not haveing a flush toilet, or a place to buy food, or not haveing TV, a computer, or a radio, because we've both lived that way before. It's not new and it's not even all that uncomfortable if you organize yourself properly. People in other parts of the world who live in hard conditions haven't known any other situation. So things have to get very bad before it becomes uncomfortable, let alone disasterous.
I think some of this sense of impending doom that you describe is from once again the type of religion we get exposed to in America which is so top heavy on stuff about Armageddon and the Day of Judgement and so weak on how to live daily life. One reason I'm glad to be Catholic is that Protestantism is far heavier that way.
I'm not saying ALL Protestants are of that mindset, but the ones who make money off it like Pat Robertson sure as Hell are! And they affect the culture in a powerful negative way.
Liveing through the 'Cold War' and the whole thing of haveing to consider nuclear anihilation had a profound impact on people older than you are, people of like your mom's generation or my generation. for a lot of people,it made all that Apocalyptic shit feel too real. People tried to fit those things in the Bible to present daily life. It's had a big effect on people like President Bush. Certain belief systems in my mind are toxic.
I think people all over the world with unhealthy, toxic systems of belief are in power, in positions of cultural influence and negatively affecting events.
I am partly of Native background, on my mom's side, I'm 1/8th Anishanabe. (Chippewa for those of you in Rio Del) There is a strong tendancy in the Native culture to glom onto that part of Protestant Christianity too, because frankly the Native peoples experienced that doom, their whole way of life was destroyed and no one in the general American culture even seems to feel bad about it! In fact there's that bastard Paul Harvey who had a whole long thing he said on national radio about it being ok that the Native people were ethnically cleansed. jebiga!
We have a lot of other potential disasters in the U.S.
I have an earlier post on bubonic plague in California, it's in August, it's titled 'Kugu u Kaliforniu' Plage in California.
There has been plague in tiny pockets of the American West since the Spanish arrived. Probably some poor saps among the Conquistadores had it and it got loose in part of New Mexico,an area of the mountains near Albuquerque, and there was a pocket of it in Marin county in California. No other areas to my knowlege.
Earlier in August, four house cats were found to have plague, and they were in areas quite a ways from Marin county. Marin county is just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. The plague cats were in areas closer to Sacramento, that is a considerable distance.
Did you know that the Muslim religion forbids people to flee the plague? If you are in a plague area that's just your tough shit! It's a wise rule because of the virulence of that disease and other people can die from it. If someone leaves and they spread it even more people are going to die. Better to reduce the casualties so to speak.
I think as a very small child too, you were aware of the end that the way of life we have here can lead, especially the mental attitude.
After the Sept 11th attacks, I thanked God for a few things, 1. my mother didn't live to see this. She would have given me no sleep if she had.
2. the fact none of my family were in the areas these attacks happened.
3. I thanked God I'd been to BiH and had the perspective being with people there gave me. Every time someone started talking about it, I reminded them that in Srebenica, 7,000 to 8,000 were killed one by one by hand, with no mercy and that these people hadn't necesarily done anything.
People die all the time for no reason that we the liveing can fathom. In a way trying to search for a meaning in it almost insults God. We can't and shouldn't. All we can do is recognize that we are NOT in control and make the best of it.
Like you, I enjoy going someplace in the woods. As a kid, my family spent a whole summer going to different national parks and auto-camping. I used to go in the woods and get watercress from the river. All by myself, I was about four years old. My little sister wasn't even supposed to go, just me. She was too little. I'd bring enough for all of us to have water-cress and butter sandwiches, water cress and bacon sandwiches.
We panned for gold, and watched for deer. This was the year my very youngest sister died suddenly in an awful home accident. That same year my family went to live in Mexico, that turned into 2 and a half years. I always said my mom and dad unfitted me for American life! :). It is probably that experience that made it easier for me to feel at ease in BiH or Croatia than in the U.S.
Don't get me wrong, certain facets of American life are wonderful, I appreciate a LOT about this country, but I think some fo the same stuff bothers both of us.
I too have not lived the easiest life here in the States. I have lived in some very bad neighborhoods and I've had some bad experiences with personal betrayal, and haveing to leave everything just about, in order to keep my kids and myself alive. So I'm not comeing from a perspective of a cushy life.
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I think it's worth remembering that when people don't have what they are used to, it's bad for them. You or I would survive not haveing a flush toilet, or a place to buy food, or not haveing TV, a computer, or a radio, because we've both lived that way before. It's not new and it's not even all that uncomfortable if you organize yourself properly. People in other parts of the world who live in hard conditions haven't known any other situation. So things have to get very bad before it becomes uncomfortable, let alone disasterous.
I think some of this sense of impending doom that you describe is from once again the type of religion we get exposed to in America which is so top heavy on stuff about Armageddon and the Day of Judgement and so weak on how to live daily life. One reason I'm glad to be Catholic is that Protestantism is far heavier that way.
I'm not saying ALL Protestants are of that mindset, but the ones who make money off it like Pat Robertson sure as Hell are! And they affect the culture in a powerful negative way.
Liveing through the 'Cold War' and the whole thing of haveing to consider nuclear anihilation had a profound impact on people older than you are, people of like your mom's generation or my generation. for a lot of people,it made all that Apocalyptic shit feel too real. People tried to fit those things in the Bible to present daily life. It's had a big effect on people like President Bush. Certain belief systems in my mind are toxic.
I think people all over the world with unhealthy, toxic systems of belief are in power, in positions of cultural influence and negatively affecting events.
I am partly of Native background, on my mom's side, I'm 1/8th Anishanabe. (Chippewa for those of you in Rio Del) There is a strong tendancy in the Native culture to glom onto that part of Protestant Christianity too, because frankly the Native peoples experienced that doom, their whole way of life was destroyed and no one in the general American culture even seems to feel bad about it! In fact there's that bastard Paul Harvey who had a whole long thing he said on national radio about it being ok that the Native people were ethnically cleansed. jebiga!
We have a lot of other potential disasters in the U.S.
I have an earlier post on bubonic plague in California, it's in August, it's titled 'Kugu u Kaliforniu' Plage in California.
There has been plague in tiny pockets of the American West since the Spanish arrived. Probably some poor saps among the Conquistadores had it and it got loose in part of New Mexico,an area of the mountains near Albuquerque, and there was a pocket of it in Marin county in California. No other areas to my knowlege.
Earlier in August, four house cats were found to have plague, and they were in areas quite a ways from Marin county. Marin county is just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. The plague cats were in areas closer to Sacramento, that is a considerable distance.
Did you know that the Muslim religion forbids people to flee the plague? If you are in a plague area that's just your tough shit! It's a wise rule because of the virulence of that disease and other people can die from it. If someone leaves and they spread it even more people are going to die. Better to reduce the casualties so to speak.
I think as a very small child too, you were aware of the end that the way of life we have here can lead, especially the mental attitude.
After the Sept 11th attacks, I thanked God for a few things, 1. my mother didn't live to see this. She would have given me no sleep if she had.
2. the fact none of my family were in the areas these attacks happened.
3. I thanked God I'd been to BiH and had the perspective being with people there gave me. Every time someone started talking about it, I reminded them that in Srebenica, 7,000 to 8,000 were killed one by one by hand, with no mercy and that these people hadn't necesarily done anything.
People die all the time for no reason that we the liveing can fathom. In a way trying to search for a meaning in it almost insults God. We can't and shouldn't. All we can do is recognize that we are NOT in control and make the best of it.
Like you, I enjoy going someplace in the woods. As a kid, my family spent a whole summer going to different national parks and auto-camping. I used to go in the woods and get watercress from the river. All by myself, I was about four years old. My little sister wasn't even supposed to go, just me. She was too little. I'd bring enough for all of us to have water-cress and butter sandwiches, water cress and bacon sandwiches.
We panned for gold, and watched for deer. This was the year my very youngest sister died suddenly in an awful home accident. That same year my family went to live in Mexico, that turned into 2 and a half years. I always said my mom and dad unfitted me for American life! :). It is probably that experience that made it easier for me to feel at ease in BiH or Croatia than in the U.S.
Don't get me wrong, certain facets of American life are wonderful, I appreciate a LOT about this country, but I think some fo the same stuff bothers both of us.
I too have not lived the easiest life here in the States. I have lived in some very bad neighborhoods and I've had some bad experiences with personal betrayal, and haveing to leave everything just about, in order to keep my kids and myself alive. So I'm not comeing from a perspective of a cushy life.
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