Category: Current Affairs

I have been avoiding thinking about the disaster in the south.  I have been avoiding thinking about all the people who are suffering, about the cost of rebuilding, of what will happen.  Actual the economic end of it seems unreal, when I think about Katrina I wonder what will happen to all those people, and I can’t fathom it.  Then I become angry.  Terribly angry.  Angry that we have allowed this to happen.  Angry.Because.Each.One.Of.Us.Is.Partly.To.Blame. Myself Included.  Better to not think about guilt.

We blame the conservatives.  We blame the Government.  We blame President Bush.  And well we should.  They have handled this very badly.  If the President handled 9/11 well, he certainly has handled this very badly.  A blight upon his presidency. He seems out of contact, as if he doesn’t care, and the incomptence spreads and spreads and no one seems to know what could be done, what could have been done, what should have been done. That we can hold ourselves up as a model of what is right in the world and tolerate this total lack of regard for human life from our President and Government is appalling.

Does anyone care anymore?

Of course, I know that by not following everything I am trying to escape and not face the facts, as I suspect are many Americans — it’s not my life — even though we feel bad for those who have suffered.  Send Money.  Send toiletries and food.  Many of us have done that, myself included.  Still it is another thing to sit here in my comfortable home and wonder what will happen to the poor.  Avoiding the issues does nothing to help, and hence I must accept part of the blame because I have done nothing to help.  Writing about it does nothing to help either, nor does complaining.  It maks the writer feel better, more virtuous.  hmmmm..  we are on a roll here.

As I said it is easy to blame the conservatives.  But truly are the liberals better?  I don’t see strong politicians mobilizing forces.  The democrats have been fronting weak, nobody candidates and then screaming when they lose.  Does either side really think about the poor as people, as someone who could just as easily be you or me?  No.  We read the reports.  We complain about the unfairness of it, but we don’t really upset the status quo.  We think of the government as apart from ourselves, our lives.  We let it go on its merry way and then we are angry when it disappoints us.   We blame the crooked politicians for paying poor blacks in New Orleans for their vote.  We don’t blame the poor, usually black, who vote twice.  The $50 payment is more tangible to them than the benefits or harm to come from voting for whoever.  They don’t see that anything will change anyway, might as well collect the money.  Are we any better.  We elect our government.  We elect people who don’t upset our comfortable lives, or we read the news and let it slide because we don’t really believe anything will change anyway.

Again people blame President Bush.  He has wasted an opportunity.  He has shown gross disregard for human lives.  So have many others.  Would someone else do better.  I would hope so.  Would the situtation have turned out better.  I don’t know.  There are too many reports about the failures being widespread.  This was ANTICIPATED.  Even the Wall Street Journal   has reported about the failures.  No one had plans, or more realistically no wanted to pay for those plans. Or the plans were incomplete even though the data was available in many places.   In a market driven economy there is no money in disaster preparedness.  It is a net money loser.  Even though the rebuilding of New Orleans and the relocating of thousands will cost billions, billions more will be made.   The economy doesn’t care.  Billions in, billions out; good for business. 

We have lost the human scale.

There was no plan for evacuating those residents who had no private transportation.  This in a city where almost a quarter of the population was poor.  City and state officials must have been aware of this.  Yet they never thought in human terms what this meant for all those poor people who had no cars or way to escape.  Invisible.

When they were finally faced with doing something, they transferred some to the Superdome.  Yet they had no provisions for food or water or medicines, toilet facilities or anything.  They thought they would just dump them there like bags of used clothing.  Invisible.

People were rescued and dumped on th side of the road while military and emergency operations went around them.  Invisible.

No wonder the poor looted and stole.  They know we don’t really see them.  It is so sad that they think that getting a high definition TV is what makes them worthwhile, but we have bred that mentaility as well.  Are we concerned?  As a nation no.  Invisible.

Back to the Wall Street Journal.  This time to Thursday’s issue: Old-Line Families Escape Worst of Flood  which describes residents high and dry, although granted inconvenienced, with generators, ice and security guards, using Audobon Park as a private heliport to come and go, while people are drowning and dying of dehydration such a short distance away.  Invisible.

It is amazing that these are the people who want to rebuild New Orleans, and will probably be able to do it, without the poor black population, even though the grittiness and mix of cultures is a great deal of what has made New Orleans such an enduring culture.  Invisible.

A Government’s first reponsibility is to its people.  All its people in equal measure.  A community’s first responsibility is to its people.  All its people in equal measure.  I don’t think the United States as a whole is much of a community anymore and this makes me very ashamed.

I was directed to several blogs discussing these issues by various knitting links, most directly by Kerstin from whom I found myself directed to Tom Watson  who said this: 
An unwillingness to lead at the head of government: that is the hallmark of the modern American conservative movement, one that is firmly established (for now) in power over the dwindling Federal might of our country. This administration is unwilling to lead (outside of war and related saber-ratling) – it does not believe strongly in the mission of goverment, in government that can do good, in government that can lead people and improve society. It believes only in the marketplace and in thin, sloganish vitriol.

From Watson, I was lead to Jason Chervokas  and even more interesting thought provoking reading, which pretty much shaped my day.  While doing other things, I was contemplating so much that was running through my mind.  I will end with another quote:

If Howard Dean is correct, if it is time for a new America, the moral purpose he talks about restoring is a very old, very simple one that Conservatism has abandoned: Take Care of Each Other. That’s why people join together in groups to live–whether they join in families or tribes or democratic governments: to take care of each other better than they can take care of themselves. A government that has anything else as it’s primary goal is a government without moral legitimacy.

Where we DO we go from here?  Will we change our path or is just another little speed-bump on the road?

I think the tragedy on the Gulf is in the back of all of our minds.  I alternate between being concerned for all those directly affected and cannot imagine what it would be like to face the possibility of having lost everything, and being angry at the inefficiency. callousness, and general lack of concern that have caused the situation.  Yes it is true that we cannot control hurricanes.  But so much of what has happened in New Orleans was predicted and even expected and yet nothing has been done.  This was not even esoteric information:  It has been in papers, journals, even on TV, and in that sense we all have to take the blame on some level.  Somehow that is even more discomforting.  How much easier it is to blame the politicians or bureaucrats.  How much easier still to blame Mother Nature.

How do we balance our desires and greed (houses on the beach, ports, business, money-making, etc) with the consequences of our actions?  We seem much  better at putting the consequences off for another day and then when the day of reckoning comes, blaming it on someone else.

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The reaction I see most however, locally at least, is anger at the price of gas.  It is not that gas was cheap before, but the sudden rise has brought out the worst in many.  Everyone is talking about it.  Most people are angry.  Many are downright rude.  Frustration is understandable.  Bad behavior is not.  The situation is really out of our control.

Yes there is profiteering.  Yes the gas station owners respond to demand, have to pay for the next load of gas at whatever price it will be, and yes deliveries have been interrupted.  It is going to be hard.  The disruption of oil and gas production and delivery will affect absolutely everything.  Worldwide production was already barely keeping up with demand.  There is no place to make up the difference.  Gas prices will have to go up and demand will have to be reduced.  Even the release of the reserves will not mean immediate relief at the pumps, the US stockpiles crude oil.  Half of the refineries in the country are in the affected gulf states.

There are no easy solutions.

I had a lovely weekend in NYC with my friend Mary.  It was hot and sticky and we spent part of each afternoon napping, but all in all it was a nice break from the normal hectic routine. 

Friday we walked down Fifth Avenue to 28th street to go to Habu Textiles, which was an amazing place with really unusual Japanese yarns and handwoven silks and linens in textures and quality one does not normally find.   It was almost too overwhelming and we did not stay long.  I am already planning a return trip, but not right away.  Renovation expenses force me to keep my distance in the short run.

Mary needed a nap in the afternoon as she is recovering from a cold; I was hot and sticky so returned to the hotel as well.  I had a wonderful roasted vegetable salad for a late lunch and a pot of coffee and then went for a short walk up Park Avenue to Walter Steiger (we are staying at the W New York on Lexington and 49th Street).  The fall selection was slim yet but looks promising with some attractive evening shoes and some very nice suede pumps with round toes that look comfortable and ladylike, unlike the rather childish or Betty Boop inspired styles that seem to have been so popular of late.       

Later, Mary and I met at the bar for a drink.  I really like the way the public spaces in this hotel are arranged and designed.  They are modern and hip yet friendly and relaxing too.  The staff have been very helpful and accommodating. 

Dinner at Aix on the upper west side was excellent.  The fish was superb, well chosen and well-repaired and the combinations of flavors were very well matched and balanced, just unusual enough to draw your attention, but so well done that they really stuck in one’s taste memory, as if they were meant to be and you had always known you would like that particular taste sensation even though you might not have encountered it yet.

I tend to get up early in the mornings so I used this time to catch up on my reading backlog of old magazines.  I suppose I should have been knitting, but somehow I was more in reading mood.  There is no real accounting for what will be the plan or activity of the moment.

I read a Forbes Magazine from last week.  It is filled with many interesting short articles, such as the one about China stealing technology through the use of Trojan Horses which invade computers and steal important information, eventually routing it back to the home computer.  Such things are notoriously difficulty to eradicate once acquired and they are also very difficult to trace.  It seems evident that China and India are going to be huge power forces in the future world economy and China certainly has an excess of human brainpower and willingness to work hard and achieve and compete on a global scale.   Still, I hope that this enormous use of mental ability is not used to shortcut the process.  China is already well on its way to success in the global economy and should not need to resort to short-cuts such as stealing ideas, rather than spending money and time on education to prepare a population to developed the next generation of ideas and their resulting products.  I believe that there are many in China who want to replace the Untied States as the center for new ideas and technology and they seem to be well on the way.   I would think that creating the atmosphere needed for innovation will put China at the top of the technology and manufacturing heap, not stealing old information, no matter how tempting that may seem in the short run.  Of course the powers that be in China may be counting on the possibility that by the time world figures out what happened, China will already be dominant and there will be no stopping them or turning back the tide.   If so, I think they are misinformed.  Already, according to something I read somewhere, Bill Gates, has said the best new ideas in R&D are coming out of Microsoft’s China facility as opposed to Seattle or Europe.

I thin the US has been neglecting China for long enough and it is time to begin to pay sharp attention, attention moderated by intelligence.

Also interesting were articles on the EU and the vote in France as well has how Great Britain is becoming a model for economic reform which many in Europe are looking toward to help with solving many problems in the European economy.   France and Germany are crippled by high taxes and expensive protectionist policies and these could eventually cripple the entire European community if a way is not found to integrate the future with the needs of the past and a way to integrate new EU members with old established economies.

Other articles that got me thinking, although my thoughts are by no means coalesced yet, were the article on the agriculture and land boom in Brazil, and the wild-west atmosphere and enormous profits to be found in farming in the central regions of that country.  Those of us in old established agricultural economies tend to assume that farm subsidies and protectionism are the only way for agriculture to survive.  Instead it is expensive and stifling.  This really gives one pause.

Last but not least was an essay on world health issues and the cost of solving these issues.  This particular article dealt with treating HIV infected persons with expensive drugs, which may not be the most cost effective method.  Oh the drugs may well be effective in helping those who already infected but they do nothing to stem the tide.  For that, treatment of other sexually transmitted diseases that lead to open sores, and education may be the best treatment.  Treating existing cases does not help if more cases keep appearing daily.

The whole issue of aide to Africa, and much of the third world, is such an interesting topic for research and thought.  Yes great sums of money are needed but getting materials and supplies to needy areas is just the bare minimum edge of what is needed to solve the problems.  You need to get the materials to people, pay the workers, educate the population so that they see the work of the aid that you are offering.  It is easier to raise money to buy things that it is to educate populations and pay workers.

It seems that if we want to really have a world with equal opportunity and rights we really need to rethink what those terms entail and what is actually needed.  So much of our attempts at solving the ills of the world are half-assed.