Drudge linking to bird flu stories

The Drudge Report has linked to stories out of asia about the avian bird flu today and yesterday.

Today's story says that there are more outbreaks of the bird flu in Jakarta, Indonesia, but does not say that the virus has mutated into a form that can be transmitted from humans to humans.

Click here to educate yourself with the recent Foreign Affairs issue on the bird flu.

A Sinking Feeling

If you want to get really scared and concerned over the possibility of a worldwide pandemic of the avian flu, read this piece by ABC News.

Two sample quotes:

even the country's top health officials concede that a killer flu epidemic this winter would make the scenes of Katrina pale in comparison.

"You know, I was down in New Orleans in that crowded airport now a couple weeks ago," [Senate Majority Leader Bill] Frist says. "And this could be not just equal to that, but many multiple times that. Hundreds of people laid out, all dying, because there was no therapy. And a lot of people don't realize for this avian flu virus, there will be very little effective therapy available early on."

Not scary enough? Here's another one.

This week, the U.S. government agreed to stockpile $100 million worth of a still-experimental vaccine, while at the United Nations Summit in New York, both the head of the U.N. World Health Organization and President Bush warned of the virus' deadly potential.

"We must also remain on the offensive against new threats to public health, such as the Avian influenza," Bush said in his speech to world leaders. "If left unchallenged, the virus could become the first pandemic of the 21st century."

According to Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, Bush's call to remain on the offensive has come too late.

"If we had a significant worldwide epidemic of this particular avian flu, the H5N1 virus, and it hit the United States and the world, because it would be everywhere at once, I think we would see outcomes that would be virtually impossible to imagine," he warns.

Wash Post Says "Confirm Roberts"

I am truly impressed, pleased and humbled by reading the profoundly clear-minded editorial in the Washington Post's Sunday editorial page. It is titled "Confirm John Roberts," and while the Post's editorial page (headed up by Fred Hiatt) states that they expect Roberts to make rulings they will not like, they do something almost unheard of today: they place the determinative weight on his qualifications for the job, not his ideology.

And of course, one of the chief qualifications of a judge is to rule according to the law and not his or her preferences or wishes, which is what Roberts has promised to do.

But don't take it from me; read the whole thing. And when you're done that, click here to read an example of another outstanding example of a liberal responding to the ideas and efforts of President Bush on the merits of his ideas and efforts, instead of waging a personal campaign against him that blindly hates all things Bush. Bravo for Donna Brazile!! She is one of the Democratic party's few shining stars.

Here is the Post editorial:

Confirm John Roberts

Sunday, September 18, 2005; Page B06

JOHN G. ROBERTS JR. should be confirmed as chief justice of the United States. He is overwhelmingly well-qualified, possesses an unusually keen legal mind and practices a collegiality of the type an effective chief justice must have. He shows every sign of commitment to restraint and impartiality. Nominees of comparable quality have, after rigorous hearings, been confirmed nearly unanimously. We hope Judge Roberts will similarly be approved by a large bipartisan vote.

This is not to say we expect that as chief justice, Judge Roberts will always rule as we would like. Reading the tea leaves of any justice's future votes is a dicey business. But on a number of important issues, Judge Roberts seems likely to take positions that we will not support. His backing of presidential powers, and willingness to limit civil liberties, appear worrisomely large, while his deference to congressional authority relative to the states may be too small. He appears more suspicious of affirmative action than we think the court should be, and his view of certain civil rights protections has been narrow. Given his comments about precedent and the right to privacy, we do not believe a Chief Justice Roberts will be eager to overturn federal abortion rights. But we recognize that he might end up supporting that unfortunate step, as the late chief justice William H. Rehnquist did unsuccessfully. These are all risks, but they are risks the public incurred in reelecting President Bush.

Judge Roberts represents the best nominee liberals can reasonably expect from a conservative president who promised to appoint judges who shared his philosophy. Before his nomination, we suggested several criteria that Mr. Bush should adopt to garner broad bipartisan support: professional qualifications of the high-est caliber, a modest conception of the judicial function, a strong belief in the stability of precedent, adherence to judicial philosophy, even where the results are not politically comfortable, and an appreciation that fidelity to the text of the Constitution need not mean cramped interpretations of language that was written for a changing society. Judge Roberts possesses the personal qualities we hoped for and testified impressively as to his belief in the judicial values. While he almost certainly won't surprise America with generally liberal rulings, he appears almost as unlikely to will-fully use the law to advance his conservative politics.

For this reason, broad opposition by Democrats to Judge Roberts would send the message that there is no conservative capable of winning their support. While every senator must vote his or her conscience on the nomination, the danger of such a message is considerable. In the short term, Mr. Bush could conclude there is nothing to be gained from considering the concerns of the opposition party in choosing his next nominee. In the longer term, Republicans might feel scant cause to back the next high-quality Democratic nominee, as they largely did with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

If presidents cannot predictably garner confirmation for nominees with unblemished careers in private practice and government service, they will gravitate instead to nominees of lower quality who might excite their bases. Mr. Bush deserves credit for making a nomination that, on the merits, warrants support from across the political spectrum. Having done their duty by asking Judge Roberts tough questions, Democrats should not respond by withholding that support.

Roberts and Abortion

This piece from today's Washington Post, written by Charles Babington, shows how frustrated liberals get with a judicial nominee who 1.) knows the law, and 2.) sticks to the law, by refraining from extra-judicial philosophy and rhetoric, as happened in Roe. v. Wade.

A judge who sticks to the law will overturn that evil ruling. Over 45 million human babies have been murdered in the last 33 years. We as a group will be reading Roe v. Wade and looking at Justice Blackmun's justification for the majority's ruling, as well as reading Rhenquist's dissent.

There were six opinions in all written by justices on this decision. Here is a link to all of them.

Edwards on humility

I read this and was convicted. It's from Jonathan Edwards classic work, "A Treatise on Religious Affections," written in 1746 in response to the Great Awakening.

God help me to be like this.

Humble people do not naturally think they are qualified to teach, but feel the need to be taught; they are much more eager to hear and receive instructions than to dictate to others: 'swift to hear, slow to speak' (James 1:19)."

Transcripts of Roberts Hearings

I found a link to transcripts of some of this week's confirmation hearing for Judge John Roberts, the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Click here to read today's.

UPDATE: Here is what looks like an even more detailed and exhaustive list of transcripts for the hearings, from the Washington Post.

Describing themselves

When you hear Howard Dean, Ralph Neas, Joe Biden, anyone from NOW, Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, SIECUS, etc, speak, listen to how they describe their enemies and what their enemies are doing.

Almost without fail, those on the far left describe themselves and their own actions when attacking their opponents. It's eery.

Powerline has a wonderful example of how the left does this and why they have absolutely nothing to offer Americans. All they can do is try to play on the fears of the weak and underprivileged by spewing rhetoric that says their opponents are plotting the destruction of all poor and minorities.



First, Powerline quotes Sen. Charles Schumer, New York Democrat, who repeatedly tried to trip Roberts up.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called Roberts’ performance a “tour de force.” Schumer, reading a prepared statement, praised Roberts for testifying hours on end “without any paper in front of you at all, without a single aide whispering a word to you or passing you a note.” “You may very well possess the most powerful intellect of any person to come before the Senate for this position,” Schumer said. Schumer praised Roberts’ quest for modesty and stability, and for being his “a lawyer above all.”

Then, Powerline explains how since Democrats could find no factual or substantial reason to oppose Roberts, they went after his "heart." Pathetic.

Howard Dean sent out an email stating that, "John Roberts may have a sharp legal mind, but his record shows that he lacks a sense of justice...Roberts has spent a career using the law to protect corporate interests and roll back the rights that protect us all." Dean accuses Roberts of pursuing "ideological crusades."

Powerline opens fire:

What "ideological crusade" has Roberts ever pursued? None. Dean's real charge against Roberts is that he does not intend to carry on an ideological crusade by being an activist liberal judge. Dean thinks that every Supreme Court justice should be an activist liberal who will take the law into his own hands, overturn precedent where necessary, invalidate Congressional action when it conflicts with his liberal activism, and generally do everything possible to eliminate "inequality." Judge Roberts has indicated that he has no intention of being such a justice. Rather, he will read the Constitution and the laws and apply them according to their terms.

It is, of course, Howard Dean and his fellow leftists who are pursuing an ideological crusade, and their real grievance against John Roberts is that he has no intention of joining them, since "crusading" is not the role of a judge.

When Did I Become an Alarmist?

I don't know the answer to that question, but somehow, I have. I am determined to stop it. In the meantime, however, I am going to keep paying attention to essays like this, which should be posted over at the Balcony View blog also. However, because I thought this was so good, I'll post it in its entirety here.

Should Christians Boycott? If I gathered a true sense from you, the answer is no. We should engage and we should pray -- communicating love rather than hostility.

First off, you're example was a bit of a straw man (not to mention incomplete. See attached article). Of course boycotting a business for 1 quote out of a multitude is silly. Here are some harder examples:

* Company A is an avid supporter of homosexual groups, who in turn use their funds to wage an active campaign to promote GLBT-friendly curriculum in the public schools systems.
* Company B has an active policy of discrimination towards Christians, punishing those foolish enough to reveal their faith and using their profits to contribute solely to those politicians or organizations hostile to Christianity.
* Company C demands a "diversity-friendly workspace" and advises all employees to display tolerance paraphernalia in their cubicles. Those who do not are noted and passed over for promotion or even pushed out of the company.

The list goes on and on. Only an ostrich could miss the culture war that rages in America today. Is boycotting appropriate in these instances? I would say yes. Companies are not people; they are soulless entities scrabbling for financial dominance. They don't suffer from our lack of love. When their profits are employed as a political weapon against us, it makes no sense to continue arming the opposition. We can love and pray for sinners while still joining battle on the wider field.

The problem that I have with a lot of christians is that they say things like "God and politics don't mix." "You can't legislate Christianity." (I know you said that one today...sorry) Yes, it is true that you cannot legislate Christianity, but the implication left when this statement is made is that a nation's heart cannot be steered from the political arena. While I would agree that laws, alone, will never turn the hearts of a nation's people back to God, they most certainly can and have been used to lead the nation away from Him. That is why we must also engage the fight in the public square.

The criticism that was leveled against the Republicans when they took control of Congress in 94 was that they had been in the minority for so long that they didn't know how to lead -- the Democrats still sounded like they were in charge. It was true. I think that the same dynamic is evident in how Christians approach the culture war. We've lost something mentally. The alternately shrill or conciliatory tone in our voices proclaims louder than any statistic the fact that we have been
marginalized and we know it. We have been cowed into submission like a lion in the circus ring, scared by the cracking whip of liberal scorn.

We cannot afford to disengage the culture. We cannot retreat to some solely spiritual realm and allow a radical, God-hating minority to hijack the ship. As the head goes, so goes the body. It is no accident that the culture is growing increasingly hostile to Christianity: it has been legislated bit by bit and the culture has turned to accept it. Whether it is a frontal assault against professions of faith in the public arena, or it is an oblique attack against Judeo-Christian values, we are in a battle
over what our name will be as a nation.

A boycott is a way of giving a reality check to those at the helm of a company who have taken sides -- who are using their visibility, resources, and influence to push the limits of the tolerable. We've made enough room. We've tolerated enough. We're going to "tolerate" ourselves right into the closet. We must fight back. Yes, first and foremost we must love our neighbor and show Jesus to the world, but if you were to see bandits waylaying a traveller, would you not fight them off? That, too, would be an act of love. We are at war, and the bandits have waylaid our culture. The devil is winning because we do not know how to fight. We've allowed the enemy to set the rules of engagement, and they've told us that swords, for us, are out of the question. When sickness spreads in a human body, a family, a church, a community, or a nation, it must be cut out before healing can take place.

It is no accident that homosexuality is the first issue which pops to mind when Christians think in battlefield terms. I believe that the radical gay agenda is the tip of the spear that the devil seeks to drive into the heart of the church. With it, he has the perfect weapon to undermine the entire religion.

I'll explain myself: Always before, the Church has held the moral high ground (and by "the church" I mean the Bible). We have confronted sin and conscience has verified our superiority. There have been no persuasive challenges against the rightness of scripture and therefore the goodness of God -- man has not, in his mind, been able to peek behind the curtain
and discover the whole thing to be an invention. If we were able to see a flaw in God -- or more rightly put, the evidence of man's fingerprints upon God -- it would undermine our belief as surely as most rational people do not suppose that the Gods of Olympus might really exist.

Well, think on this for a minute: what if the Bible clearly indicated that blacks should be enslaved and treated as they were prior to the Civil War? The religion would have survived while prejudice remained, but by this current generation, the only remaining Christians would be in the KKK. Why? Becasue that seed of evil discovered in the midst of the Bible's goodness would have shown the whole business to be a construct of man and unworthy of belief. Any form of Christianity that remained in the mainstream would be drastically amended, and it seems hard to believe that its adherents could truly believe in a worthy God who had just suffered their enlightened updates.

The gay movement today fights for the moral high ground, and by our silence, we concede it. They not only say that their lifestyle is right and good, but they accuse us of sin and evil by opposing it. Our intolerance causes them pain. The consciences of good people are slowly being seared to accept this view as correct because we offer no defense --
becasue we are scared to respond in love with the truth. We've lost our moral confidence, and we have decided that that particular breach in the wall is too daunting so we should rather defend the more secure positions. What insanity! We don't see the repercussions of our decision. What credible appeal can we make to the authority of scripture in any matter of
sexual purity once we have truly lost this battle? The enemy of the gay movement is guilt, and they champion all who feel it. Pick a sexual perversion. Pick a "lifestyle" choice. They all suffer under the oppression of our puritanical rigidity and condemnation. Once this last rampart has been truly smashed, how does Christianity retain any credibility whatsoever?

It doesn't stop there, though. We all support the "war on terror." We all recognize that radical Islam is a threat and must be rooted out. Fundamental extremism is a dangerous thing -- these people hate us just becasue we are different than they are. Give it a generation. Let hate-crime legislation pass unprotested. Let gay activists set the curriculum in our elementary schools. Let the church continue to relinquish its moral authority. Bible-believing Christians will be the next target in the "war on terror," and they will find no sympathy in the mainstream culture.

Yes, it's likely that the battle is already lost, but does that give us permission to run from the field. Many Americans do still believe in biblical morality. What we have lost is our voice in the public discourse. We have been shut out, and we have been told that we are a dying few. So, the many start to lose heart and begin to flirt with compromise. How invigorating was it, though, to hear Bush call for a constitutional amendment to defend marriage and to see the overwhelming support for its defense? It gave back a little hope that maybe Hollywood and the fashionable elite don't truly speak for all of us.

A boycott is a way to be heard when your voice has been effectively silenced elsewhere. It's economic weapon may be crude, but it is effective. It makes a statement far beyond the ears of its economic target. It provides confidence to those who speak its message in the public arena and it gives pause to those PC-followers who are always looking for the next bandwagon. Yes, a nation's heart will not be changed by a boycott, but it may just be preserved for a little longer yet; and in
that time, maybe more will be reached for the Gospel.

On a brighter note, God's in charge of it all...

Video of Bidennedy v. Roberts

Click here to see John Roberts expose Joe Biden's agenda.

Click here to see Sen. Kennedy get all blustery.

Robert's Faith

Since the hearings for Judge Roberts are beginning today, I'm now going to link to a piece written one week ago about how some Senators want to grill Roberts on his religious beliefs.

Post reporter Shailagh Murray says this is the crux of the matter:

The issue for both sides is not so much what Roberts believes is right or wrong. Rather, it is the degree to which he believes religious morality may be permitted to influence public policy. Liberals believe in a firewall between church and state, but as Christian conservatives see it, the Supreme Court should allow elected officials to restrict abortions or permit a Ten Commandments monument to be displayed on public property, if those actions have voter support.

However, if left-liberalism now functions a religion for many on the left, as Stanley Kurtz argues, then do liberals really believe in a "firewall between church and state"? Wouldn't it instead be a firewall between Christianity and state?

So is it true, as Kurtz argues, that "a certain form of liberalism now functions for substantial numbers of its adherents as a religion: an encompassing world-view that answers the big questions about life, dignifies daily exertions with higher significance, and provides a rationale for meaningful collective action”?

I think it is. Certainly, many liberals are not living in the present, but are rather trying to recreate Woodstock, which fits into Kurtz's thesis.

Who's to Blame?

The more I look into the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
, the more it appears that the local government in New Orleans and Louisiana was at fault, and not the federal government.

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

... Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

... Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene immediately.

Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.

And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.

Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.

A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?

Words Show Us More than Images

Stephen Hunter wrote another great piece yesterday, on why movies are made from books, whether to read the book first, and whether it matters if they change the story in the movie. The entire thing is a must read. But here are a few gems, and I'm going to add in a quote from Kurt Vonnegut at the end, to pile on.

I sat down to read Hunter's piece before taking a much-needed nap on a Sunday afternoon. Reading the piece was more refreshing than any nap, because of the way Hunter evokes a love and appreciation for words, in a world gone crazy with images.

Do I have to read the book first? Hmmm. A tough one. My answer has mainly to do with the quality of the book in question. They seem to come in two flavors: literature and not. How can you tell them apart? Well, actually, nobody can, except for the New York Review of Books and maybe they're just guessing. However, the best way to make this decision is to look at the first sentence of the book.

"Call me Ishmael." Yes, you should read the book (not that anyone's going to make another version of "Moby-Dick"). Can you not instantly feel a shiver in the prose and understand that the writer has a command of the language that isn't a part of the book, it is the book. Melville: genius. The book isn't just a story expressed in symbolic blots of pattern known as words, it is somehow, gloriously, a fusion of words and story so that they are inseparable. It's a living thing. It's not about plot. It's about feeling, knowing, understanding the accursed vanities of yon twisted Ahab upon the foredeck, stumping and growling and radiant with blasphemy, and watching how the fanaticism of his scarred ego infects those about him until they believe unto death by whale violence.

...On the other hand: "The VC-208 flight was somewhat lacking in amenities -- the food consisted of sandwiches and an undistinguished wine -- but the seats were comfortable and the ride smooth enough that everyone slept until the wheels and flaps came down at RAF Northholt, a military airfield just west of London." No, folks, you don't have to read the rest of Mr. Clancy's very fine "Rainbow Six" to conclude that for that distinguished gentleman, language is a medium by which facts are transported from his imagination to yours. Words are merely vehicles; they haven't meaning, weight, rhythm, sound, feel of their own or anything that resembles life.

You just don't read this type of writing, this love for language, very much anymore. And why is that significant? Hunter answers that question as well.

Storytelling movie-style is different than storytelling prose-style. The primary issue in prose is motive: You have to understand why the people do what they do, or else the whole shebang falls apart as illusion. The minds of the characters have to be consistent to be believable; action has to flow from character. Fiction writing is about what happens internally, even if lots of guns come out and stuff blows up.

Movies don't have time for all that internal crap. They can't go inside, so what's the point? They can show only from a distance, and if people do things -- silly things, random things, violent things -- we still accept it because, well, we're seeing it. It's there, it's reality, we go with it. Then there are pressing commercial obligations: They have seven minutes to catch the attention of a 17-year-old boy whose brain has been fried by video games and who, when he's not lost in cyberspace, primarily wants to get high or laid, in no particular order. He is the key to their riches; he must be pandered to.

Did you catch that? Action has to flow from character. I immediately thought of Bill Clinton. So many people in America said that his actions with Monica Lewinsky were separate from his actions as President. But I knew, his actions in both spheres sprang from the same character. And his actions with Monica revealed his character to be deeply flawed. He and his own interests were at the center of his universe, not others. His reliance on poll data also showed that. So a literate person would hopefully ask him or herself, is that a good thing if he makes decisions as president based on self-interest more than care for others and a desire to serve?

Read the entire Hunter piece.

Lastly, Kurt Vonnegut, in his new collection of essays called "A Man Without a Country," talks about the imagination. He points out the positive effect of words on the imagination, and the negative effect of images, especially endless images.

We are not born with imagination. It has to be developed by teachers, by parents. There was a time when imagination was very important because it was the major source of entertainment.

In 1892 if you were a seven-year-old, you'd read a story -- just a very simple one -- about a girl whose dog had died. Doesn't that make you want to cry?

Don't you know how that little girl feels? And you'd read another story about a rich man slipping on a banana peel. Doesn't that make you want to laugh? And this imagination circuit is being built in your head. If you go to an art gallery, here's just a square with daubs of paint on it that haven't moved in hundreds of years. No sound comes out of it.

The imagination circuit is taught to respond to the most minimal of cues. A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.

But it's no longer necessary for teachers and parents to build these circuits. Now there are professionally produced shows with great actors, very convincing sets, sound, music. Now there's the information highway. We don't need the circuits any more than we need to know how to ride horses. Those of us who had imagination circuits built can look in someone's face and see stories there; to everyone else, a face will just be a face.

Nothing, he believes

Journalist Ted Gup offers his version of NPR's "This is I Believe" that sounds so nice and senstive and intellectual until the last two paragraphs, when you realize his answer to NPR's question is, "nothing."

Which raises the question of, "Why are we listening to him?"

But in time, I came to accept, even embrace, what I called "my confusion," and to recognize it as a friend and ally, no apologies needed. I preferred to listen rather than to speak; to inquire, not crusade. As a noncombatant, I was welcomed at the tables of even bitterly divided foes. I came to recognize that I had my own compass and my own convictions and if, at times, they took me in circles, at least they expanded outward. I had no wish for converts -- where would I lead them?

An editor and mentor at the Post once told me I was "Wobbly." I asked who else was in that category and drew comfort from its quirky ranks. They were good people all -- open-minded, inquisitive, and yes, confused. We shared a common creed. Our articles of faith all ended with a question mark. I wouldn't want a whole newsroom, hospital, platoon or -- God forbid -- a nation of us. But in periods of crisis, when passions are high and certainty runs rabid, it's good to have a few of us on hand. In such times, I believe it falls to us Wobblies to try and hold the shrinking common ground.

Katrina is not 9/11

I have been trying to figure out why there is so little emotional reaction from Americans about Katrina, compared to the Sept. 11 attacks. It's obvious in the news coverage that there is a far less sympathetic reaction from reporters and news channels.

I figured that some of it was because it hurts more when other human beings attack you, and you know it's an act of war. But Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard says there is a difference in the way people are reacting on the ground in the South.

I walked the avenues of lower Manhattan in the days after the World Trade Center went down, and the camaraderie of people coming together was palpable. But Louisiana after the flood is different and darker. Perhaps it's the scope of the catastrophe, perhaps the undercurrent of violence, but even many of the aid workers seem to have turned to stone.

The Superdome: A "Den of Depravity"

Read this account from a New Mexico emergency worker, who courageously stayed in the Superdome to help after the levees broke.

In other disasters where Hesch has worked, people pulled tightly together as a community. But New Orleans didn't seem to know how to do that. "The Dome turned into a den of depravity at some point," he said, noting reports of rapes and people beaten to death.

Here is the whole story. It's got some great details.

-----

S.F. MAN RECOUNTS CHAOS IN THE DOME

By DIANA HEIL | The New Mexican
September 9, 2005

Paramedic's N.M. team stays behind to treat storm victims

You would think Greg Hesch, a critical-care paramedic from Eldorado, would have seen it all by now. Since he joined the New Mexico Disaster Medical Assistance Team in 1989, he has chased mayhem all over the country.

Hesch dove into Hurricane Andrew in 1992. In 2001, he witnessed the shock in New York after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. These are just the big ones in a long line of disasters where he has been called to the rescue.

But when Hesch stepped into the world of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans 11 days ago, he found unusual, unsettling things. First, the obvious: The catastrophic damage was incomparable to anything he'd seen before.

Hesch -- one of 35 people in a self-contained, federally funded team from New Mexico -- arrived in New Orleans at 3 a.m. Aug. 30 with 20 tons of supplies. Without a wink of sleep, the group set up treatment tents in the Louisiana Superdome, which was packed with tens of thousands of refugees.

But between 9 and 10 a.m., their plans were quickly altered. "We had people running through screaming that the levy just broke, and we had to evacuate," Hesch said in a telephone interview from Louisiana on Thursday.

Usually a hurricane rips through a town in one day, and then the next is sunny and dry. Not in New Orleans, which Hesch described as a bowl that filled up with dirty water.

As the water rose, so did the group of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and emergency technicians from New Mexico. They fled to the bleachers and then to the third level of the Superdome.

Hesch was dumbfounded by what he saw around him. Disaster teams from other states evacuated.

"It was very unique because they were yelling for us to get on the bus," Hesch said.

But Mike Richards, an Albuquerque doctor who heads the team, replied, "No! New Mexico isn't going anywhere!"

Alone, the New Mexico team -- and one doctor from New Orleans -- set up a full-scale acute medical-care clinic by 11 a.m. in the basketball and hockey arena, which is connected to the Superdome by a causeway. The sick and injured from the Superdome came to them. Some had head injuries. Some had gunshot wounds. Some had cuts on their bodies from walking through the water-filled streets. Some had gone cold turkey off their medications.

In the space of 40 hours, the staff treated 800 to 1,000 patients. Hesch said he sutured wounds under the light of his headlamp.

Sleep was impossible. One time, when Hesch and the team stretched out on the floor in the sports club to nap, low air pressure in the building triggered the alarm system. Strobe lights flashed, sirens blared and a recorded voice said, "Please, do not use the elevator."

"It quite literally was like a set from Hollywood," Hesch said in a hoarse voice. "It was like a lightning storm of strobe lights."

The staff disabled the alarms and the voice speaker, but they could not stop the strobes.

More startling for Hesch were the attitudes of the refugees in New Orleans. "I saw both ends of the spectrum and not much in between. Either they were ramping up and getting angry and wanting your stuff or they were very helpful," he said. "It's not really something I've ever seen before."

In other disasters where Hesch has worked, people pulled tightly together as a community. But New Orleans didn't seem to know how to do that. "The Dome turned into a den of depravity at some point," he said, noting reports of rapes and people beaten to death.

Some screamed at Hesch, "You should give me your cell phone!" Others demanded to know, "Where are all the resources?" He told them the break in the levees and the heavily populated city had created a difficult problem.

Hesch, luckily, met a few of what he calls "salt of the earth" people who kept him from losing faith in humankind. Two brothers who cleaned up the wreckage. A quadriplegic man in a wheelchair who took care of his cantankerous 84-year-old mother. A circle of people singing hymns.

"That was uplifting, but the rest of the time was like walking in a tiger's den," Hesch said.

In the midst of chaos, Hesch noticed a missing ingredient that could have helped. "Usually martial law is imposed so order is maintained," Hesch said. "Here, we did not have that."

The National Guardsmen deployed to New Orleans were young, inexperienced and not intimidating, he said. By contrast, at Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the 82nd Airborne Special Forces carried locked and loaded AK-47s at all times, with the National Guard in strong force, he said.

A former Air Force guy himself, Hesch and other ex-military members of the team planned to set up a defense perimeter and "fight to the end," if the situation grew dangerous.

That didn't happen.

By Aug. 31, the Federal Emergency Management Agency told the exhausted New Mexico team it was time to leave. "You guys are just incredible but you're pushing it way too far," Hesch recalls FEMA telling the crew.

Before he left New Orleans, Hesch was confounded once again. A FEMA convoy from California had come under attack. People threw rocks at it.

Upon advice of others, the New Mexico team removed all signs that connected its vehicles to FEMA. "They told us, 'Be careful not to run over any dead bodies, and keep this as quiet as possible,' " Hesch said.

It wasn't a slow drive out.

Now located at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, the New Mexico team works with the Illinois Medical Emergency Response Team and the Louisiana Department of Health to treat patients at another makeshift hospital. It's one of the largest field operations ever set up in the United States, according to Richards.

On Wednesday, FEMA recognized the New Mexico team, the Illinois team and the Louisiana Department of Health for doing an outstanding job. And team members celebrated with a water-balloon fight.

As New Mexicans sort out the mess from afar, Hesch has a few insights he'd like to share: "I would tell people to be patient with their government and understanding because this is the nation's biggest disaster, bar none."

Hesch said he is disgusted that some Americans, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, are claiming that relief didn't come quickly because New Orleans has a large black population.

"It had nothing to do with race," Hesch said. "It had to do with the fact that New Orleans exists 12 feet below sea level. That is the big problem."

The other big problem, he said, were the high numbers of people trapped in the disaster. He said the city of New Orleans should have organized a more persuasive evacuation, using school buses and other means.

Contact Diana Heil at 986-3066 or dheil@sfnewmexican.com.

American Expectations

I heard this on NPR this morning and decided to spring for $5 for the transcript, because it makes the most sense to me out of the Katrina disaster.

RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Commentator Austin Bay did relief work with refugees fleeing Congo in 2002. He says criticism of the federal relief effort in the Mississippi Gulf springs from ignorance about the realities of giving aid.

AUSTIN BAY:
Katrina's aftermath has left southern Louisiana and Mississippi as devastated as any war zone, and having worked in an international disaster recovery operation, I'm actually impressed with many aspects of America's response to the challenge.

Considering the personnel and logistics requirements and the damaged transportation networks, National Guard relief trucks arriving in New Orleans within three days of their units' activation is a commendable feat. Within seven days of the disaster, Texas alone had received over 150,000 evacuees. American volunteers have appeared en masse, ready, willing and able to act, like my eldest daughter, who's been helping distribute clothing to evacuees at the Astrodome. One week after Katrina, medicine, food and clothing are flowing into relief centers throughout the Southwestern and Southeastern United States.

Critics who grouse that response to Katrina's devastation has been `abysmally slow' need to ask: Compared to what? Slow compared to our American expectations is the correct answer. I can guarantee you, no other nation on the planet could respond to this extraordinary natural disaster as rapidly and comprehensively as America has.

I suspect many Americans have a rather unrealistic idea of how relief efforts are conducted in other parts of the world. Perhaps they have an unrealistic idea, period. Often, major media in this country don't become aware of the extent of many international crises, natural or human-caused, until months after they've begun, or until relief efforts are well under way. Sudan's Darfur is a bitter example.

I know responding effectively means having timely and accurate information about the dimensions of a crisis. However, since Katrina, our media have flooded the disaster area. Americans get overwhelming minute-by-minute information, little of it actually new, much of it rumor, creating unrealistic fears and expectations. In the Congo or the south Asian tsunami, in so many mega-disasters around the planet, the initial tragedy is compounded because neighboring regions or nations can't provide sustained aid. Like human waves, the refugees wash from one poor country to another.

But America has infrastructure, abundant supplies, logistical capacity, a plethora of means, combined with the will to act. And we're seeing that. With the city of Houston opening its doors to the dispossessed, with universities and public schools throughout the country making room for students from hurricane-ravaged areas, I see America responding to Katrina's tragedy, and responding decisively.

Watch what happens over the next month, as American aid organizations, religious groups and willing individuals meet the challenge. America's great wealth is matched by its comparative efficiency and splendid generosity.

MONTAGNE: The comments of Austin Bay, a nationally syndicated columnist and colonel in the US Army Reserve, and he's the author of "The Wrong Side of Brightness."

Rebuke

I am rebuked somewhat by Hewitt's latest post on how to respond:

The Christian response right now is not just to avoid returning rhetorical fire with political opponents, but even more so to find a way of praising the efforts of those with whom we are used to battling over politics. (Workbench's Roger Cadenhead, for example, points to a fine effort by liberal bloggers to bring money to the effort. MoveOn.org's"HurricaneHousing" effort is a superb bit of internet organizing to aid the suddenly homeless.) There are many center-left and lefty bloggers among the 1500+ bloggers in 24 countries participating in the blogburst. As Alex Haley had engraved on his tombstone: "Find their good and praise it."

More details on how to help hurricane victims

Hugh Hewitt has more about the web-based effort to help hurricane victims in the long-term, as well as a critique of what steps our government should take. Make sure you read his last point about what the president should do. It's good, plus it's an example of healthy and constructive criticism. There are a lot of people complaining and yelling about what the government isn't doing, but they're not offering any ideas. Most of us, quite frankly, aren't knowledgeable enough to offer intelligent ideas on what should be done. I know I'm not. That's why I'm focused on how I'm going to help personally. I'll let the smarter people offer the ideas.

But to the people who are yelling and shouting and complaining (excluding those directly affected, who as far as I'm concerend can yell and shout as much as they want, they have the right), my question to those people is, "What are you going to do to help?"

Here is Hewitt:

I am confident that the private side of the effort will flower in the days, weeks and months ahead. About the government's response I am not so sure. Appropriating money is easy; spending it wisely and to good effect is not.

The Congress is back early. The president ought to request the opportunity to address a joint session as is appropriate after a national calamity. In that address, he ought to ask for what he needs and inform the Congress of his own innovations. Here's a few things I think he and the Congress ought to put down on the to do list, for doing almost immediately. As with the aftermath of 9/11, the urgent needs should propel necessary legislation through the two houses on the fastest of tracks.

First, the recovery region needs to be defined geographically.

Second, to speed recovery within that region, the president should ask for and the Congress should approve a complete exemption from all taxes --federal, state, and local-- on the income generated from the sale of goods manufactured in that region by new plants that meet the criteria of employing at least 100 locals and which are constructed without injury to existing operations across the U.S. A year of exemption for every 100 manufacturing jobs created in the recovery region should prove a powerful magnet. Thus if GM built a new plant in the region employing 800 people, GM would get eight years of tax free revenue beginning with the first year of operation. The same bill authorizing this and using the federal power to preempt adverse state and local law would also provide the Department of Commerce with the necessary authority to waive or modify statutes that would complicate the construction process. In this sort of emergency, you shouldn't have to get the local office of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife's concurrance that you are doing enough for a woodpecker on the endangered species list if a few hundred urgently needed jobs are in the balance.

I would also think any law of this sort would require the company seeking to take advantage of it to declare intent by the end of 2005, and to require start of manufacturing by 12/07. Incentives to hurry the start of manufacturing could be built in as well.

Third, the president should ask for and the Congress should authorize a tax credit for every American adult for the years 2006 and 2007 that provides up to $500 per person for money spent while on vacation in the region. That's a lot of weekends in the French Quarter and the surrounding region, but the sort of push the industry will need to get the visitor flow reestablished.

Fourth, monuments to the dead will eventually be erected, but the feds should avoid that conversation and the president should call for the establishment at Tulane of the Homeland Security's new Center for the Study of Mass Casualty Events. After 9/11, the tsunami, the earthquakes we have seen in Iran and elsewhere and now this, Homeland Security needs to focus on the aftermath of the inevitable next such event, the assessment of local preparedness in high risk areas, and the establishment of critical priorities in infrastructure upgrades.

To go along with that project, and to commemorate how both the South and the Country have recovered from disaster before, the president might also call for the establishment in the recovery region of a Smithsonian run "Museum of the Civil War." Though frought with pc danger, building the sort of modern museum complex and scholarship center that would attract history buffs from around the country and the world in a region thick with civil war history could be put on a schedule to open on April 12, 2011 --the 150th anniversary of the start of the war-- perhaps on Mobile Bay where a great battle of the war was fought on August 5, 1864.

The debates over what should go into such a center and the telling of the war would be entertaining and an energy-bringing lift to the region. (The first debate would be over what to call it --the Museum of the Civil War, The Museum of the War Between the States, etc.) A great museum complex dedicated to the crucial years of the Republic is the sort of project that will keep hundreds of thousands of eyes focused on the region.

Michael Barone speculated this week that a disaster on this scale is the opportunity for the exercise of the federal initiative that FDR enjoyed attempting, though infrequently with success. The proposals above are the sort that bring energy and purpose to federa; spending. There are of course others. If you blog on the subject, send me a link. My guess is that Mark Tapscott is full of ideas along these lines. Watch his blog for the appearance of those.

Finally, the president should announce --not ask, announce-- his plan for the evacuees. This is the most crucial immediate task, and what he needs to do is emphasize action, not rules, and the method, not its "equality of opportunity" or guarantee of result. We don't neeed American refugee camps, and we don't need a long time deciding that we don't need these things. If in two weeks folks cannot go home, I hope the president tells the North American command that it needs to send a few dozen of its best colonels down to Houston and other relief points, backed by some highly motivated troops, to interview each group of evacuees who are banded together by family or other ties. Those colonels should have the authority to determine these people level of need, and decide a plan for them, and then assign a trooper to carry it out with money on hand to fund the relocation of each group.

Example: A family fo five with no job to return to and an apartment that's been gutted. They have family in Atlanta. They are willing to make a go of it there. The colonel tells the soldier "Relocate these people to Atlanta, to a two bedroom apartment at a reasonable rent. Pay first and last and for the four months in between. Pay for some furniture and some clothes. And try and find a local church to "adopt" the family."

This is the boat people model, on fiscal steroids. It requires judgment, not rules. And it takes cash money and credit cards.

Just do it. The prospect of American refugee camps and the costs/miseries/dysfunctions of such places cannot be allowed to just evolve for want of a plan. If there are 100,000 displaced folks flat o their backs, that's about 25,000 individual relief plans and relocation efforts. Not easy, but much less costly to move quickly to relocate in this fashion than for an ad hoc relief agency to assemble and slowly --ever so slowly-- come up with blueprints and rules, plans and codes of conduct. Mistakes will be made and money wasted. But it is a far, far better approach than the drift that led to the Superdome and Convention Center crises.

How to Really Help

You can't have missed the horror that is New Orleans right now, but all of us are helpless for the most part to help in any way besides giving money. The Red Cross needs your money, and Instapundit has a list of other charities to give to if you want to give somewhere else.

But Hugh Hewitt has written a column that is brilliant and, I think, inspires hope. Hewitt is trying to organize an internet-driven and internet-centered effort to catalogue all the needs that are going to emerge from this thing, and to have one central webpage where people can sign up to help meet those needs:

It is a task which may be beyond the ability of the local, state, and federal governments to manage. How, for example, does a government--at any level--presume to assist a shattered church in the reconstruction of its walls and its Sunday School programs, an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter in the care of its members, a community theater in the reconstruction of its playhouse, or scores and scores of high school athletes in the completion of their senior year schedules so that colleges and universities can offer talented kids a chance at a free education?

The only way such a multitude of specialized needs can be met is for the vast, vast numbers of their counterparts across the United States to act--independently of government--to come to their aid in a reconstruction effort.

N.Z. Bear, one of the most innovative entrepreneurs in the blogosphere, has agreed to help organize the launch of such an effort. If a particular organization in the devastated region--a PTA, a youth soccer league, a Presbyterian Church, a garden club, a cooking school, a literary magazine--decides it wants to ask for help, that appeal will be listed on a special page, which will get quite a lot of traffic as the country's bloggers publicize opportunities for people to help. Sometimes the requests will be for cash. Other times they will be for the sort of specialized help that only similarly situated people can provide. The fact is, the needs will be so different and so voluminous that it is impossible to predict what will come up. The second fact is that there are millions of Americans who would like nothing more than to help. Connecting the need with the volunteer at the level of specificity required is a solution that the web allows.

Hewitt says that the blog The Truth Laid Bear has agreed to be that clearinghouse, but the page has not been set up yet. Stay tuned for details, and keep praying for these people.

Meanwhile, if you don't read anything else, read this piece by the L.A. Times on conditions inside the Superdome. It's the best written piece I've read so far. And it ends this way:

One man was lying partway on a cot, his legs flopped off the side, a forgotten blood pressure monitor attached to his right arm. Some people had wrapped plastic bags on their feet to escape the urine and wastewater seeping from piles of trash. Others, fearing the onset of disease, had surgical masks over their mouths. An alarm had been going off for more than 24 hours and no one knew how to turn it off.

Suddenly, incongruously, the first notes of Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G minor," the Adagio, pierced the desperation.

Samuel Thompson, 34, is trying to make it as a professional violinist. He had grabbed his instrument — made in 1996 by a Boston woman — as he fled the youth hostel Sunday where he had been staying in New Orleans for the last two months.

"It's the most important thing I own," he said.

He had guarded it carefully and hadn't taken it out until Wednesday afternoon, when he was able to move from the Superdome into the New Orleans Arena, far safer accommodations. He rested the black case on a table next to a man with no legs in a wheelchair and a pile of trash and boxes, and gingerly popped open the two locks. He lifted the violin out of the red velvet encasement and held it to his neck.

Thompson closed his eyes and leaned into each stretch of the bow as he played mournfully. A woman eating crackers and sitting where a vendor typically sold pizza watched him intently. A National Guard soldier applauded quietly when the song ended, and Thompson nodded his head and began another piece, the Andante from Bach's Sonata in A minor.

Thompson's family in Charleston, S.C., has no idea where he is and whether he is alive. Thompson figures he is safe for now and will get in touch when he can. In the meantime he will play, and once in a while someone at the sports complex will manage a smile.

"These people have nothing," he said. "I have a violin. And I should play for them. They should have something."

Lastly, I can't help noting the distinction between conservative and liberal blogs. While Hewitt, Michelle Malkin and Instapundit blog the heck out of the Katrina aftermath, working to organize fundraising for relief and coming up with ideas like Hewitt's for long-term reconstruction, (which will be the greatest need) the Daily Kos is a total contrast.

One of the top liberal blogs highlights the faults in the government's response, and then posts a column by EJ Dionne that argues the opposite of Hewitt's point:

this is a moment in which individual acts of charity and courage, though laudable and absolutely necessary, cannot be enough. It is a time when government is morally obligated to be competent, prepared, innovative, flexible, well-financed -- in short, smart enough and, yes, big enough to undertake an enormous task. Not only personal lives but also public things must be put back together.

Kos then airs some more "angry voices" from New Orleans, which prompts hundreds of comments such as, "When did Bush ever care about the poor? As long as his life is not at stake... they all can die for all he cares."

Kos then posts on Iraq, and then moves on to suggest that President Bush was lying when he said that no one expected the levees to be breached. He then posts approval ratingan on the president, commenting, "Bush isn't coming out of this unscathed."


There is a link to a move-on site focused on providing housing for refugees. But then Kos goes on to boast that he was right to say that Katrina is a worse disaster than 9/11.

Finally, Kos complains that Pat Robertson's charity is getting federal money to help the victims.

Kos has no solutions, no innovative ideas, no hope, and makes almost no effort to help. All he has to offer is complaining, personal promotion, and pessimism. There seems to be more hate for Bush and the government than there is love and compassion for the victims of Katrina.

I hate to use such a tragic event as an example, but I think this sums up the substantive difference between the modern left and modern right in today's society. The left represents, by and large, the fruits of secular humanism, while the right is enlivened and energized largely by evangelical or evangelical-type Christians.