A smattering of many things
Labor Day - Hurrah to the laborers of the early 2oth century, whose sacrifices made possible many of the conveniences and rights we enjoy today.
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It was darned hot and sunny at Riverside Zoo in Scottsbluff, where the animals had more sense than we humans wandering listlessly among the cages... the critters knew that 1 in the afternoon is time to sleep in the shade, not frolick and play. But the greedy carp, ducks, and catfish in the pond were as fun as ever. I think we blew twenty-five quarters on the dog-food dispensers. The poor turtle... he never could quite swim fast enough to get food. So we'd throw food way far away so the ducks and fish would leave Mr. Turtle alone; in this way Mr. Turtle got to eat three bits of kibble.
***
The property reading for tomorrow was L-O-N-G.
But interesting. Let's see... build your own gosh-darn news-gathering network... you can copy the uncopyrighted... it's dumb to threaten Volkswagen... don't make a Vanna robot without her permission... and you don't own your cells after the doctor cuts them out. Oh, and dissents are much more interesting to read than majority opinions.
I read all forty pages out loud on the trip up and back (to visit Aunt Nadine) to keep my husband awake. In between cases, I'd pull out the laptop and brief the things, and he would comment. IP was something he covered in his MBA-TM, so this was common ground.
***
My mind keeps coming back to the Durkheimian concept of Anomie, the lack of connectedness to which Durkheim (lo these many years ago) attributed the rise of suicide in modern urban society. The single biggest difficulty - and the reason I am hesitant to pin blame per se on any government entity - in the whole Katrina nightmare is just where are we to put all these people and still maintain any sense of connectedness, community, relationship? If there was any delay in action, I cannot help but wonder how much of that delay is assignable to the impossible question: "Where shall these people go?" Wherever they go, will there be the social infrastructure (never mind the physical... as the Rev. Jackson observed, there are certainly 'places' they can go) to support these people in their huge emotional and social crises of disconnection? Will there be the pastors, the neighbors, the known and trusted merchants, the rituals, the culture? What about weather - how do we take people ill-equipped by experience and custom from sea-level tropics to high-altitude volatility? Where do we put all these people? Our compassion overflows; but rationally, we are perplexed. These poor, poor people.
***
Driving through western Nebraska, and especially Gering, desolation is so apparent. Abandoned buildings are everywhere. An underlying sense of futility pervades... is it the trees beginning to let go their leaves, the dust from the parched soil, or just the fading paint at every hand that say "why bother?"
Here we have unused space. But it isn't a match for the needs of those displaced. What life would they live that those who were here before didn't already abandon?
***
There's a town in Eastern Tennessee that I monitor from time-to-time. They're already at 8% unemployment. How could they absorb any more economic shock? Desperation begins to set in, and meth provides the escape.
***
And then there's joe-on-the-street; the people already at the bottom of the pile in such troubled places... overheard today: "Those people had Two Weeks warning, and they still wouldn't get out. I don't feel one bit sorry for them..."
Racist? I don't know... Ignorant? Oh yes. Uneducated and inexperienced with other cultures? Absolutely. And it is in the face of all these differences and barriers that we must find a way to absorb and support the displaced.
I think that politically no one can ever be satisfied with the response. Not ever. Not in the preparatory acts, not in the rescue. Because there was and is no way that imperfect people will behave perfectly.
***
It was darned hot and sunny at Riverside Zoo in Scottsbluff, where the animals had more sense than we humans wandering listlessly among the cages... the critters knew that 1 in the afternoon is time to sleep in the shade, not frolick and play. But the greedy carp, ducks, and catfish in the pond were as fun as ever. I think we blew twenty-five quarters on the dog-food dispensers. The poor turtle... he never could quite swim fast enough to get food. So we'd throw food way far away so the ducks and fish would leave Mr. Turtle alone; in this way Mr. Turtle got to eat three bits of kibble.
***
The property reading for tomorrow was L-O-N-G.
But interesting. Let's see... build your own gosh-darn news-gathering network... you can copy the uncopyrighted... it's dumb to threaten Volkswagen... don't make a Vanna robot without her permission... and you don't own your cells after the doctor cuts them out. Oh, and dissents are much more interesting to read than majority opinions.
I read all forty pages out loud on the trip up and back (to visit Aunt Nadine) to keep my husband awake. In between cases, I'd pull out the laptop and brief the things, and he would comment. IP was something he covered in his MBA-TM, so this was common ground.
***
My mind keeps coming back to the Durkheimian concept of Anomie, the lack of connectedness to which Durkheim (lo these many years ago) attributed the rise of suicide in modern urban society. The single biggest difficulty - and the reason I am hesitant to pin blame per se on any government entity - in the whole Katrina nightmare is just where are we to put all these people and still maintain any sense of connectedness, community, relationship? If there was any delay in action, I cannot help but wonder how much of that delay is assignable to the impossible question: "Where shall these people go?" Wherever they go, will there be the social infrastructure (never mind the physical... as the Rev. Jackson observed, there are certainly 'places' they can go) to support these people in their huge emotional and social crises of disconnection? Will there be the pastors, the neighbors, the known and trusted merchants, the rituals, the culture? What about weather - how do we take people ill-equipped by experience and custom from sea-level tropics to high-altitude volatility? Where do we put all these people? Our compassion overflows; but rationally, we are perplexed. These poor, poor people.
***
Driving through western Nebraska, and especially Gering, desolation is so apparent. Abandoned buildings are everywhere. An underlying sense of futility pervades... is it the trees beginning to let go their leaves, the dust from the parched soil, or just the fading paint at every hand that say "why bother?"
Here we have unused space. But it isn't a match for the needs of those displaced. What life would they live that those who were here before didn't already abandon?
***
There's a town in Eastern Tennessee that I monitor from time-to-time. They're already at 8% unemployment. How could they absorb any more economic shock? Desperation begins to set in, and meth provides the escape.
***
And then there's joe-on-the-street; the people already at the bottom of the pile in such troubled places... overheard today: "Those people had Two Weeks warning, and they still wouldn't get out. I don't feel one bit sorry for them..."
Racist? I don't know... Ignorant? Oh yes. Uneducated and inexperienced with other cultures? Absolutely. And it is in the face of all these differences and barriers that we must find a way to absorb and support the displaced.
I think that politically no one can ever be satisfied with the response. Not ever. Not in the preparatory acts, not in the rescue. Because there was and is no way that imperfect people will behave perfectly.
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