Paige Prill Leaves EMP
After six years on board, Prill announced today she’s leaving EMP and all PR matters will be handled by Christian Quilici.
After six years on board, Prill announced today she’s leaving EMP and all PR matters will be handled by Christian Quilici.
It was an awful week. So many distressing mental images, so many horrible pictures, so much depressing videotape. But there was one picture in the New York Times this week that was lovely to look at. I could stare at it for hours. Here it is, from a Thursday Styles piece on the mainstreaming of the mohawk. Sigh…
I wrote yesterday that President Bush had one more day before his administration’s failure to effectively respond to the disaster in New Orleans would become a huge political liability.
That was yesterday. Today, thanks to a “John Wayne” general who presided over the arrival of the federal cavalry in New Orleans, it seems that Bush like the residents of that disintegrating city has been given a reprieve. Whether it will last remains to be seen, but for now the images of dead bodies and screaming refugees have been replaced on TV screens and on the web by images of gun-toting National Guardsmen passing out water at the fetid Superdome and military medics tending to the sick and dying throughout the city.
That means the meta-story-line may return to the one Americans like: triumph over adversity. The horrified and ashamed tone in the news reports and newscasts that were coming out of New Orleans in the last few days suggested the meta-story-line was turning into a politically dangerous one, a story of a great nation brought low by its own failure to protect its citizens. That would have been a huge embarrassment to the Bush administration, and would have been seen, when paired with the situation Iraq, as a metaphor for this country being adrift and without a strong leader. It also would have exposed as it was beginning to the growing chasm between the haves and have-nots in America that is the unseen hallmark of the Bush administration, along with the disquieting concordance between class and race that created an all-black city of “left-behinds” in New Orleans, many of whom simply could not afford to flee as the hurricane approached.
But Bush, as they say, is a lucky guy. The day that began with New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin literally cursing at the Bush administration’s ineptitude (a powerful speech that was replayed on the cable news networks as Bush took off to tour the Gulf Coast) has ended with crowds of refugees in the city cheering the arrival finally of the National Guard. The media reports now include paragraphs like this:
At the New Orleans Convention Center, some of the thousands of storm victims awaiting their deliverance applauded, threw their hands heavenward and screamed, “Thank you, Jesus!” as the camouflage-green trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in what has become an increasingly desperate and lawless city. “Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here,” said Leschia Radford.
The same media reports, however, are also including statements like this:
There was also anger.“Hell no, I’m not glad to see them,” said Michael Levy, 46, whose remarks were cheered by those around him. ” They should have been here days ago. I ain’t glad to see ‘em. I’ll be glad when 100 buses show up. We’ve been sleeping on the ground like rats.”
Evacuees at the center told a reporter that they had seen seven dead bodies on the third floor, and said a 14-year-old girl had been raped.
“We all are stuck here with no police protection,” Mr. Martin, one of the refugees, said. “There are kids here, you’ve got little girls that are being raped and they’re not stopping for us.”
And reporters keeping a watchful eye for a moment analogous to Bush’s “bullhorn moment” in the rubble of the World Trade Center after Sept. 11 didn’t find one. He did try to give the cameras what they wanted; he hugged displaced black residents of Mississippi, an image that will surely make the front pages. He also gave a strangely out of touch quote about having sympathy for Trent Lott, a man whose suffering (if he is suffering at all) can hardly be compared to that of most hurricane victims.
“The good news,” said the president, “is that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubble of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s gong to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.”
And then he headed back to Washington, saying he wouldn’t forget what he saw. Oil prices remained high. The death toll continued to climb. Mayor Nagin hadn’t yet said whether Bush’s visit mollified his anger. And the Superdome still hadn’t been fully evacuated.
But Bush bought himself a bit more time, I think. This story is still on the brink of becoming a political disaster for him, and becoming a new frame through which his other failings will be viewed (and magnified). But, lucky for him, it’s not there yet, and could just as easily tip back into the more familiar Bush story-line: stumbling toward a hollow “victory.”
Katrina news-following gotcha down? Donated money to the relief cause and ready to lend a bit of levity to your righteous life? You may want to hit these events over the weekend, if’n you fear the teeming Bumbershoot masses.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been occasionally playing around with Urbandead.com, a massive online multiplayer zombie movie simulator. With a limited number of moves per day, players can search for weapons, explore ruins, and/or munch brains in a generic destroyed cityscape, while interacting with other players. While amusing at first, I quickly lost interest, due to the fact that nobody seemed all that interested in joining forces. In fact, with the exception of a group called The Many (a 60+ strong pack of zombies capable of wiping out entire blocks at a time) the cooperation element seemed all but unexplored.
In the past few days, though, the paradigm has dramatically shifted. Now, strangers hand out first-aid kits, safe houses are established where users can go temporarily offline without fear of being chewed on, and in-game cans of spraypaint are being used to warn of danger points, rather than just the usual “Cthulu rulez” geek speak. What this all means in a larger sense, I wouldn’t venture to guess, but any aspiring sociologists looking for a thesis topic may want to check it out.
In a final macabre twist, The Many has become much less of a threat lately, as the server for their coordinating website was apparently located in New Orleans.
CNN pulls no punches…
…while the fuckers at “fair and balanced” FoxNews lick Bush’s ass…
(Hat tip: Gawker.)
According to this nationally syndicated right-wing radio host, isn’t the wretched sanitation or the food shortage or the homelessness or the rotting corpses in the streets. It’s looting.
On Wednesday, Boortz called on police to shoot all looters, including those taking food, to kill. According to a poll on his web site, nearly two-thirds of his readers agree.
Earlier today, I postedone more timeabout my disappointment in Gov. Gregoire’s failure to provide leadership opposing I-912. I ended that post by saying the dire situation in New Orleans highlights how serious the failure to fund infrastructure safety and maintenance can be. If I-912 passes, for example, the Viaduct is fuckedand it’s likely a couple hundred commuters will die.
What more does Gov. Gregoire need to feel confident to go public against I-912? New Orleans has framed the debate for you Gov. Gregoire. Get on it.
You know, in a movie, this would be the point where people start throwing things at the screen:
The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so.
In this morning’s New York Times, there was an extensive list of charities accepting money to help hurricane victims. In addition to the Red Cross, there were Catholic, Lutheran, and Jewish specific organizations, among others, presumably raising aid for their own communities.
Now, I get an email from the folks at the National Youth Advocacy Group, the folks who stand up for LGBT kids. They’ve started a fundalong with a dozen other groups like Family Pride and the National Center for Lesbian Rightsand yep, it’s “directed toward LGBT youth and families affected by the hurricane.”
Those who are calling for FEMA Director Mike Brown’s head might be interested to know that he was forced to resign from his previous job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horses Association. Check out the story.
Seattle’s own August Wilson, who was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, is being honored by having his name permanently attached to a Broadway theater marquee. The New York Times has the story. The venue in question was previously named for one Virginia M. Binger, who did nothing for the art of theater besides get married to a Broadway bigwig.
CNN has a great new feature it’s calling “The Big Disconnect,” in which it puts the rosy statements from Michael Brown, the man Bush appointed to head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, up against the grim reality on the ground in New Orleans. Example:
Violence and civil unrestBrown: I’ve had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they’re banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I’ve had no reports of that.
CNN’s Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they’re losing control of the city. We’re now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn’t safe to be out on the street.
This week, I reported that anti-monorail Jan Drago opponent Casey Corr accepted more than $2,300 from monorail supporters, including Seattle Monorail Project spokeswoman Natasha Jones, back when he was a pro-monorail candidate running against Richard Conlin.
On Wednesday, Jones called to say she had asked Corr to give her money back, which campaign reports indicate he did earlier this month. “As soon as he switched [races], I called him and said I want my money back,” Jones said. “He said he’d had to change his stance” on the monorail. “I told him I had to change my stance” on him.
I just received this rant from invaluable citizen and pal Kerri Harrop, who is gaping in horror at the Laura Bush press conference on TV:
that cunt laura bush is conducting a press conference in lafayette right now, attempting to put a positive spin on the shamefully late response by the federal government.she feels the response has been “more than adequate.”
in response to a question regarding race and the fact that the “minority population has been devastated” [note: people of color are NOT the minority in new orleans]:
”this is what happens when there is a natural disaster of this scope…the poor people are the most vulnerable and that’s just always what happens.”
the fact that she willingly lets george w. bush stick his cock inside her on a regular basis only makes her comments all the more worse.
Thank you, Kerri. Fuck you, Bushes.
Last night should go down as one of the greatest in Seattle techno history. I wish that statement meant more to more people in this city.
This is from the introduction in Jonathan Raban’s new, not-yet-released book of essays My Holy War: Dispatches from the Home Front (it comes out in November):
Meanwhile the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terror at home and abroad has drained attention and resources from other — just as pressing — issues. In January 2004, Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to the British government, wrote in Nature that “climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today — more serious even than the threat of terrorism.” A month later, a study by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, “An Abrupt Climate-Change Scenario and its Implications for National Security,” painted an extreme worst-case picture of flood, famine, and nuclear warfare, brought about by a sudden increase in global warming. What was primarily interesting about this paper was that it was financed, and released, by the Pentagon. What was secondarily interesting is that although it gained much notice in Europe, it was barely mentioned in the American press.
This story about the mapping of the chimpanzee genome and research into the parallel evolution of the human Y chromosome is packed with fascinating tidbits, the full impact of which I’d probably need to read the relevant article in the journal Nature to appreciate.
I can’t hope to summarize the argument here, but apparently human sperm are relative weaklings. And there’s speculation that we might in fact be closer in the evolutionary tree to gorillas (because the males of the species keep female harems) than common chimps (because chimp females sleep around to ensure rival males don’t kill their babies). Crazy! I can’t wait till they get to the bonobo genome. (Bonobos engage in all combinations of same-sex play because it helps the group to share resources better.)
Also priceless, for those who’ve been following the convoluted semantics of traditional marriage freaks: “[E]xperts who study fossil human remains believe that the human mating system of long-term bonds between a man and woman evolved only some 1.7 million years ago.”
After published reports yesterday that the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas - who wrote and recorded the original “Time Is On My Side,” among other R&B classics - was missing in the flood, the latest news is that she is alive, okay, and in Gonzales, LA with family members. Some more details from the great woman herself here.
The mayor of New Orleans is having a Rudy Giuliani moment giving voice to the anger of his city, being honest about the devastation and the death toll, and telling it like it is in a way that the media is loving. The difference, which is leaving him in tears, is that unlike Giuliani, he can’t promise the people he represents that help from the federal government is on the way.
Thanks to the good folks at Gawker, here’s a report and transcript.
Here are the lyrics from “New Orleans!”, the opening number in “Streetcar!”, the musical version of a “Streetcar Named Desire,” in which Marge starred in an episode of “The Simpsons.”
Long before the SuperDome, Where the Saints of football play, Lived a city that the damned called home, Hear their hellish roundelay…New Orleeeans…
Home of pirates, drunks, and whores!
New Orleeeans…
Tacky, overpriced, souvenir stores!
If you want to go to Hell, you should make that trip
to the Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississipp’!New Orleeeans…
Stinking, rotten, vomiting, vile!
New Orleaaans…
Putrid, brackish, maggoty, foul!
New Orleeeans…
Crummy, lousy, rancid, and rank!New Orleeeans!
Yikes. Matt Groeining better have that episode yanked from syndication.
While the rest of the country obsessed over the horrors of Hurricane Katrina and our government’s shameful failure to respond to said horrors, yesterday the California Senate voted in favor of gay marriage, becoming the first legislative body in the nation to back the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples. (Massachusetts’s pro-gay-marriage position was established via court rulings.)
Full story here.
Eli’s right the interview with New Orleans’ Mayor Ray Nagin is amazing:
Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody’s eyes light up — you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can’t figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man…And I don’t know whose problem it is. I don’t know whether it’s the governor’s problem. I don’t know whether it’s the president’s problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.
(The latest rumor is that the feds’ are excusing their shoddy response with the line that LA’s governor didn’t ‘request’ their help.)
More Nagin:
Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?
And I’ll tell you, man, I’m probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I’m probably going to get in so much trouble it ain’t even funny. You probably won’t even want to deal with me after this interview is over….
I don’t want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don’t do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can’t even count.
Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.
This morning’s PI has an article on the invisible anti-I-912 campaign. The quote the PI managed to get out of Gregoire’s office “opposing” I-912 is yet another example of exactly what I’ve been complaining about. Greogire is just MIA on standing up to the repeal. Kerry Coughlin (Gregoire’s spokeswoman) offers another non-statement in which she pretends to come out against I-912, but manages not to utter the words “I-912” “Christine Gregoire” “Opposed” “Against” “We will fight against…” Here’s her limp quote:
“If people understand the importance of these economic, safety, freight-mobility projects, and if they realize how many projects are getting done statewide … people would agree that this is something we have to move forward with,” Coughlin said.
Huh? Look, unless Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire comes out strongly to specifically denounce I-912 (an initiative that will repeal the critical 9.5 cent gas tax slated for road maintenance and safetynot road expansionincluding help for the Viaduct), the taxthe centerpiece of Gregoire’s first legislative session has no chance of surviving. Why won’t Gregoire show any leadership on this? Fucking A, w/ the lesson we’re learning from New Orleans about what happens when basic maintenance and safety projects go unfunded, Gregoire should be denouncing I-912 in no uncertain terms.
Bush this morning says what has been obvious to everyone in America for days: His administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina is “not acceptable.” Meanwhile, the mayor of New Orleans chooses different words, telling the federal government, “Get off your asses.”
Hear Mayor C. Ray Nagin cuss out the federal government here.
…Make sure you go see/hear In Resonance, the sound art show in the Rainier Room. I went to the preview with Nate Lippens on the opening night Wednesday, and not only is the exhibit a calm respite from the loud masses, but the delicate constructions (using such materials as tin cans, various sized speaker parts, and a “Talking Machine”) offer space to stop and think and enjoy the art of unusual noise. Curator Fionn Meade was interviewed on NPR this morning.
The NYT’s Paul Krugman makes a good point in his column today, a point similar to one that astute slog readers will have read yesterday:
I don’t think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn’t rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn’t get adequate armor.At a fundamental level, I’d argue, our current leaders just aren’t serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don’t like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.
Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.
So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can’t-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.
