Reporters Without Borders has published on-line a guide to blogging anonymously.
Good show, guys. (and gals)
h/t Boingboing.
Jim Henley comments on this story:
Look, you can blame the Bush Administration for not exerting better leadership over the bureaucracy in this case and others, and you should. But this particular callousness is not Bush callousness or Republican callousness or even conservative callousness per se. It is instinct in the institution and the type of person drawn to serve it, whose first priority - and frequently its last - is control over its subjects. The irony - that every petty and large indignity is made with the conscious aim of preventing riots, and each guarantees incrementally that there will be one - appalls.
That's as good as any explanation as I've heard. It might be useful to remember it when someone suggests strengthening federal bureaucracy in response to the failures of the Katrina disaster.
Looking over some old articles, here's one from the Washington Monthly, 1995:
Rarely had the failure of the federal government been so apparent and so acute. On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew leveled a 50-mile swath across southern Florida, leaving nearly 200,000 residents homeless and 1.3 million without electricity. Food, clean water, shelter, and medical assistance were scarce. Yet, for the first three days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for coordinating federal disaster relief, was nowhere to be found. And when FEMA did finally arrive, its incompetence further delayed relief efforts. Food and water distribution centers couldn't meet the overwhelming need; lines literally stretched for miles. Mobile hospitals arrived late. In everything it did, FEMA appeared to live up to the description once given to it by South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings: "the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I've ever known."
[...]
How FEMA transformed itself from what many considered to be the worst federal agency (no small distinction) to among the best is the most dramatic success story of the federal government in recent years. Not only does it provide further evidence that the government can work, it offers a blueprint for what it takes: strong leadership, energetic oversight, and, most importantly, a total reevaluation of its mission.
[...]
But Clinton and Witt demonstrated an understanding of the virtues of the patronage system. The high number of political appointees allowed the new administration to free itself of the incompetents and replace them with talented new people. Clinton agreed to let Witt interview all potential appointees to ensure that they were qualified for the jobs. As a result, the resumes of the team they assembled are formidable. Elaine McReynolds, head of the Federal Insurance Administration served as the insurance commissioner of Tennessee for over seven years. Richard Moore, a former state legislator from Massachusetts, was appointed to help make state and local governments better prepared for disasters. Carrye Brown, head of the Fire Administration, had worked on Capitol Hill for 18 years where she was a specialist in disaster and fire legislation.
James Lee Witt, President Clinton's FEMA appointee, himself a product of political patronage, was head of the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services while Clinton was governor. His previous experience was in the construction business.
CNN Money lists the richest and poorest counties in the U.S:
1 Hidalgo County, TX
2 Cameron County, TX
3 Bronx County, NY
4 El Paso County, TX
5 St. Louis city, MO
6 Philadelphia County, PA
7 Caddo Parish, LA
8 Orleans Parish, LA
9 Baltimore city, MD
10 Mahoning County, OH
That's considering only counties with a population over 250,000.
I have lived in the first and fourth poorest counties, and am well familiar with the second, all on the Mexican border. That must qualify me for something.
Glad to be where I am now, although I did enjoy my time in El Paso. I've written about those other places in Texas here, here, and here.
Here's a balanced look at the failures of various governments in the wake of Katrina.
The looters we've seen on TV are opportunists. They saw the hurricane as a once in a lifetime chance to do what they could while no one watched. Not the people foraging for food and drink, but the ones taking expensive electronics, clothes and cars. In the political arena, some pundits are doing something similar. They're taking cover behind the horror of the catastrophe to score rhetorical points that wouldn't stand scrutiny otherwise.
Nicholas Kristof one of these. See this NY Times column, as he excoriates the President for "ongoing reluctance or ineptitude in helping the poorest Americans."
The administration might be inept, (which one wasn't?) but Kristof offers no evidence that the administration purposefully abandoned anyone because of economic status. That's the kind of accusation that is accepted by the most rabid critics, but thoughtful people will need some kind of evidence. Kristof offers this:
Under Mr. Bush, the national infant mortality rate has risen for the first time since 1958. The U.S. ranks 43rd in the world in infant mortality, according to the C.I.A.'s World Factbook; if we could reach the level of Singapore, ranked No. 1, we would save 18,900 children's lives each year.So in some ways the poor children evacuated from New Orleans are the lucky ones because they may now get checkups and vaccinations. Nationally, 29 percent of children had no health insurance at some point in the last 12 months, and many get neither checkups nor vaccinations. On immunizations, the U.S. ranks 84th for measles and 89th for polio.
[...]
[T]he U.S. - particularly under the Bush administration - has systematically cut people out of the social fabric by redistributing wealth from the most vulnerable Americans to the most affluent.It's not just that funds may have gone to Iraq rather than to the levees in New Orleans; it's also that money went to tax cuts for the wealthiest rather than vaccinations for children.
The idea that tax cuts resulted in a lack of vaccine funding is risible. In fact, other critics point out the Bush tax cuts weren't 'funded' at all, in the sense that spending was not cut.
What's more funding for the Federal Dept. of Health and Human Services was increased by 21.4% in the first three years of the Bush administration, hardly what you can call neglect for the poor. (Source here, pdf file) Kristof's premise is baseless.
More from Kristof:
None of this is to suggest that there are easy solutions for American poverty. As Ronald Reagan once said, "We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won." But we don't need to be that pessimistic - in the late 1990's, we made real headway. A ray of hope is beautifully presented in one of the best books ever written on American poverty, "American Dream," by my Times colleague Jason DeParle.So the best monument to the catastrophe in New Orleans would be a serious national effort to address the poverty that afflicts the entire country. And in our shock and guilt, that may be politically feasible. Rich Lowry of The National Review, in defending Mr. Bush, offered an excellent suggestion: "a grand right-left bargain that includes greater attention to out-of-wedlock births from the Left in exchange for the Right's support for more urban spending." That would be the best legacy possible for Katrina.
While we still feel the emotion from Katrina we can set aside reason to come up with a "national effort" to address poverty. We've had a national effort for generations now. Kristof notes that poverty decreased in during the 90's and increased in the 00's. Painfully obvious to most everyone else is that those levels correspond to the performance of the economy during those times, and not to federal efforts to combat poverty.
The frantic effort to salvage Sean Penn's ego has failed.
Some time before those photos were taken someone may well have said, "Make sure the actor gets a flak jacket, 'k?"
What, you were surprised these organizations didn't provide a timely response to a major disaster? There's a lesson to be learned from all this, but I doubt many will heed.
For this reason I'm left cold by partisan attempts to smear the administration. So perhaps the head of FEMA is an incompetent political hack. I don't know why he's any worse than the incompetent political hacks on the other side. Go ahead and assign blame where it's deserved, and pillory the people who could have done better. Literally, if you like. But pay attention to the larger point.
The point? Keep control of your own destiny as much as possible. Don't farm out responsibility for your own life to government bureaucracies. In areas where that's not possible keep local government control, and keep a close eye on that government.
In practical terms this means keep a means of flight in case a disaster occurs in your town. Sometimes fleeing isn't possible, so keep a disaster kit handy. Have enough food and water to last a week or more on your own. It's not expensive to do so and you can manage it even if you're on government assistance. There may be someone near you who wouldn't manage well on their own in an emergency, so take care of them, too, if you can. If, like the people of New Orleans, you need extra protection from the elements, try to do that through local government, and fight to keep you tax dollars close to home so it can be done. Don't trust far away politicians and institutions to do it for you. (Don't trust the local ones, either, but at least you can keep a closer eye on them.)
I'm not hopeful that the Katrina disaster will change the way people think about government. Instead we'll elect different politicians to screw things up, and likely just ask the feds to do more to protect us. I fully expect a whole new layer of federal regulatory power to emerge. Perhaps we can call it the Department of Timely Response. Relief for the next disaster will have to be cleared throught this new agency in addition to the dozens of older ones.
Update - Perry de Havilland, along the same lines:
[...]I am rarely loath to heap scorn on the state for cocking things up, it does need to be kept in mind that this is the worst natural disaster in US history and any blame laying needs to keep a sense of proportion (ha, as if) as expecting the state to magically solve even the most unexpected problems with seamless efficiency is at best (and I do mean at best) rather like relying on a well meaning but hopelessly alcoholic uncle to be there for you when things go badly wrong. Well, he might come up trumps but it is probably not a good idea to expect him to be there when you need him.
Linda Seebach explains how current technology will safely extract oil from plentiful shale here in the West.
Hurricane Personals:
Must like long walks on the beach, and not drowning.
Our friend Andy at the World Wide Rant is collecting messages for folks missing after the hurricane.
Look here to find missing hurricane victims.