Bobo in Paradise Wonderland

Billie Burke: Why, Rochester, you're not afraid of the dark, are you?
Eddie "Rochester" Anderson: No m'am. It ain't the dark. It's what's in it.
Topper Returns (1941)

David Brooks: Katrina's Silver Lining

Summary: While we can't fight poverty on a large scale, we can rebuild New Orleans as a culturally and economically integrated city, which will raise up the children of lower-class households by integrating them into a middle-class culture "with people who possess these skills and who insist on certain standards of behavior."

Okay, with the Republican party's rampant incompetence, corruption, racism, and sneering contempt for the poor covering the landscape like Lake George covers New Orleans, why pick on Brooks for trying to distance himself from it? The question answers itself. Brooks the water-carrier for the Bush administration--including praise for the brilliance of the plan of having no post-war plan--is only running in place while the scenery changes around him. Heartfelt Republican pleas for "workable" solutions to the problems of poverty and race merely serve to shield the more delicate sensibilities among Republican voters from the broad wink and hearty handshake the party gives racial hatred and the politics of class division.

Unlike Rochester, we have every reason to fear the dark that descended on the Gulf Coast ten days ago. Still, it's true that it's what's kept in the dark that's truly scary. If Brooks is now so deeply moved by the devastation on one side of the great cultural gulf in this country he can start by repudiating the party that sunk the "underprivileged" ever deeper for twenty-five years while he cheered it on. Mr. Brooks, you helped carry that water. Saying now you're ready to help bail isn't good enough.

Happy Birthday

Otis Redding: born September 9,1941 died December 10,1967

Like everyone alive at the time I remember where I was when I heard JFK had been assassinated (in the hallway outside my fourth grade classroom, voluntarily working on a bulletin board after school because the student teacher was hot), and the murder of John Lennon (got it from Howard Cosell, like millions of others). I also remember exactly where I was when I heard Otis' plane had gone down in Madison, Wisconsin: a classmate's basement where we went after school to spin 45s and listen to the radio. They'd just played the Castaways' "Liar Liar".

Otis was, to my thirteen-year old suburban brain, the essence of soul, even if I was a bigger fan of Jackie Wilson. I remember walking around in a funk the next year when "Dock of the Bay" became a huge smash. It just didn't have that grit.

There's a great Stax/Volt documentary out there. I think I have a videotape copy somewhere, but it's not on the database. They ask Steve Cropper about the first time he heard Otis, who, if I recall, just walked into the Stax building one day. Cropper's eyes light up like Christmas Eve.

Reality Check

Before you hear another Republican touting Haley Barbour as Presidential timber, and before you listen to the "this is no time for politics" administration try to slag the whole thing off as Blanco's fault, check out A Night Light's for story of how well things are going in Mississippi.

(Link via the officially underappreciated Suburban Guerilla)

Ready For Some Football?

Um. First, I hate this Thursday night opening of the season. It's utterly out of whack, and what's even worse, it's on ABC. Can we send Hank Williams Jr. back to whatever it is he doesn't do the rest of the year, already? And I'll vote Republican if they'll just sponsor a Constitution amendment requiring him to drop his daddy's name. Christ, they sponsor enough amendments that one more probably wouldn't even be noticed.

Anyway, I was sorta half watching tonite, and my favorite moment came when I noticed that the legendary Raiders fans, who have their own soup commercial as well as a frankly homoerotic dress code of some sort, which I applaud, had mostly left the building with their team down 16 points, in possession, and three minutes left on the clock. That's two touchdowns there, fellahs; in case you missed it the two-point conversion rule was instituted in 1994. Heidi-ho.

Happy Birthday

Richard Henry "Peter" Sellers: September 8, 1925 --July 24, 1980

In the Goon Show days, Sellers received a fan letter asking him for a "singed photograph". Urged on by Harry Secombe, he took a cigarette lighter and carefully burned the edges of one of his publicity photos and sent it off. Two weeks later he received another letter with the same return address. "Dear Mr. Sellers," it read, "Thank you very much for the photograph, but I wonder if I could trouble you for another as this one is signed all round the edge."

Got An Emergency Plan?

Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.*

As it happens, one of the side effects of last month's kitten-proofing the basement was an upgrade and expansion of our emergency preparedness. I'm curious about the rest of y'all. Got a plan? Anything happen recently to make you think about one?

Ours is pretty much an outgrowth of backpacking. I'm from the "be prepared for anything" not the "shave every ounce" school. Under duress grabbing my smaller pack, which hangs by the back door, would provide shelter, extra clothing, a pretty damned good first aid set up, means of purifying water and cooking, four freeze dried meals and oatmeal, bouillon, and stuff that'd keep two people alive for a week with no deprivation. There's blankets and a couple of gallons of water in each car.

The most likely disaster in this part of the world is a tornado. Surviving a tornado would mean being in the basement, and possibly trapped there. The best news about a tornado is that in the worst case the distruction might be a mile wide, so you're unlikely to remain undiscovered for long. Even so we're set for five days easy: a gallon of water per person per day, more meals, plenty of candles, another backpacking stove, another first aid kit, a toilet seat that fits over a five gallon bucket with disposal bags and enzyme treatment. Battery/hand cranked radio. Hammer, nails, pry bar, multi-bit manual screwdriver. Referee's whistle. Plenty to read down there, too, if you don't mind old magazines.

I've got means to feed the cats, too, for five days in our absence, but I can't imagine how it would come to that. There's two cardboard carriers upstairs and two down for emergencies--it takes two people five minutes to get Stinky into the hard carrier in the best of times, but he'll jump in a box by himself.

Regular maintenance: we don't have food-grade UV-proof storage for water, so we just rotate gallons from the grocery every other time. And prescriptions for vicodin, tylenol 3, and staydal nasal spray for the med kits. My wife usually does that because the doc is suspicious of me.

What isn't included: sleeping bags. If it were the dead of winter I'd try to grab the two 0º mummies, but otherwise ground pads and blankets are a better, space-saving choice.

Proposed upgrade: one of those inflatable beds for the basement.

Recent upgrade spurred by Katrina: more cash. They weren't accepting credit cards or doing any banking because the electronics were out. I never carry any cash, so now there's enough for two bus tickets somewhere and a couple of nights in a hotel.

Although I am thinking that current maps of all the routes to Canada might come in handy.

* Slim Pickens, Dr. Strangelove. The line was changed from "Dallas" after the Kennedy assassination, though why it was Dallas in the first place still puzzles me.

Public Service Announcement

Hi. I'm the late sports tout Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder. You know, I'll bet you've heard of the Department of Homeland Security, but maybe you aren't aware of everything they're doing for you. Well, many of us here on The Other Side have been wondering the same thing, and if half of what I've been hearing from some of our new arrivals is true, there's plenty of good reasons for that. So take a tip from "The Greek": God gave you legs for a reason, and in His Infinite Wisdom he matched up many of the poorer of you with an especially fine set. So remember, the next time you hear a hurricane warning, the surest bet is run like hell.

Not His Fault. Al Haig Was Supposed To Be in Command.

Editor & Publisher: Rumsfeld at Padres Game While New Orleans Sank.

Happy Birthday (Belated)

D. Sidhe, September 5. Many happy returns.

Public Service Announcement

"Hello, you're being spoken to by First Mother and former First Lady Barbara Bush, on behalf of Federal disaster emergency relief. Everyone I meet tells me things are going swimmingly. I hope what I've always heard about some minorities not being able to swim are unfounded, although you never see them in the Olympics, do you? Except running, I mean. Well, good luck, mind your betters, and shut that damn thing off and bring me another Scotch mist. And not so much ice this time."

Katrina

• I haven't been able to watch the cable news nets like I did last week, and that's probably a good thing. I saw Olbermann's blistering editorial last night, but I also saw some Barbie who said, after scenes from the Clinton/Bush I press deal, that "there's a lot of criticism in hindsight, and I'm sure the President appreciates the support of his family."

• And both Joe Scarborough and Gerry Geraldo Rivers Rivera originally claimed that private helicopter that crashed was a Coast Guard helicopter which was shot down.

• They can go hide behind uplifting stories of rescue work and rebuilding efforts all they want. This story is gonna bounce, and bounce, and bounce. And just as with the aftermath of Iraq no one seems to notice.

• Senate Energy committee is starting up hearings on price gouging, a feel-good sop to the middle class, apparently unconcerned about dragging Federal officials away at an inoppertune moment. Not so the Collins/Lieberman committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security [sic]. Why is Joementum there every frickin' time you turn around, like he's Peter Sellers in Doctor Strangelove? How did we manage to get a Senate committee where the chair is more liberal than the ranking minority member?

• Mr. Peanut, to Mr. Potato, Sunday morning: "I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'"

For the record, this from the Times-Picayune:

LAKEVIEW LEVEE BREACH THREATENS TO INUNDATE CITY

By Doug MacCash
and James O.Byrne
Staff writers

A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new "hurricane proof" Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown...

emphasis mine. We can't send Mike Brown back to those horse people, because they're smart enough not to want him. But can't we find Chertoff some place out of the way where he can go back to sniffing Clinton's cock?

• And while we're at it, could someone, anyone, please get Babs Bush back into permanent air conditioning somewhere with the staff posted to make sure she doesn't see any more poor people? For the sake of everyone's beautiful mind?

• Ugly rumor I haven't been able to track down: the breech in the flood walls is relieving pressure on the levees, which were probably undermined, and they won't hold the pressure from a refilled Pontchartrain. Or, as Rita Cosby would put it, Lake Pomeranian.

• She didn't really say "Pomeranian", but that's about midway between "Pontchartrain" and what she did say. For cryin' out loud, it's been a week. Maybe next you could take us on a walking tour of Bor-BONE Street. MSNBC has stuck with its slime stirrers on the evening lineup instead of calling up journalists for the duration.

• New Orleans resident Harry Shearer has been tremendous at Arianna's place, following the media. He just asked why they don't follow up on something that's been bothering me: the Corps of Engineers spokesman said on Wednesday they were filling sandbags "as he spoke", but the operation didn't begin until Thursday. In fact, I heard someone make the same claim on Tuesday. Did we not have enough helicopters to do that and the rescue work? If not, where oh where could they be?

• And speaking of New Orleans residents, here's the unfortunately Anonymous in the comments of that blog that Brooks linked to:

In this case "liberalism", or at least the version espoused by Louisiana pols, FAILED those who can't help themselves.

Actually, "effinayright", this poster is a New Orleans native with refugee relatives currently living in his house, and is probably far more aware of the political situation in Louisiana than you. Corruption and cronyism had nothing to do with the DIY approach to evacuation - I defy you to point to a preexisting organized evacuation program in the deep red states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, or Texas that's any better than New Orleans. I defy you to tell me how Bush's cutbacks on federal funding for LA flood protection, or his restructuring of FEMA, all in the name of some bastardized version of conservatism, haven't had disasterous consequences for New Orleans. I'm especially interested to find out what kind of "back-up communications system" could have survived a Cat 4 hurricane and a complete innundation in poisonous muck.

Individual states, whatever their political leadership, lack the resources to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. Always have, always will. I can say from first hand experience that it's the federal government, poorly led by George W. Bush, that's killing my hometown.

Happy Birthday

James Mathis "Jimmy" Reed
Born September 6, 1925 Dunleith, MS. Onetime Hoosier (lived in Gary and worked in the mills; I told ya, we claim everybody).

Died August 29, 1976 Oakland CA.

Dark sun glasses,
Sharkskin suit, standing in the
Broken glass of east Dubuque
On a Sunday morning.
A Sunday morning.
Jimmy Reed is the King of Rock and Roll.

-Kevin Gordon