From Pine View Farm

As I was making my up I-95 (the main street of the East Coast) this morning to the Barry Bridge, in very light traffic (do the high gas prices have everyone on SEPTA?), I saw a most novel sight.

As I slid into the exit lane, the car ahead of the Perdue truck I had been following came into view. In it was a lady brushing her hair. With one hand, she smoothed her hair and with the other, she brushed it. The whole time she was in my view, at least a quarter mile, she had both hands entangled in doing her hair.

She was the only person in the car. She was occupying the driver’s seat.

I mentioned “intelligent design” the other day. My son asked me what it was. I replied, “Creationism in sheep’s clothing.”

Apparently, the testimony at the trial in Dover, Pa., is bearing me out:

Follow the link to read the complete story.

(Aside: Personally, I’m a Christian. And the God I choose to believe in would not sprinkle the world with fossils, carbon-14 dating, and other evidence of the great age and marvelous history of this universe as some kind of foolish test of belief that the world was created in October, 4004 B. C.

(Faith is the evidence of things unseen, not the rejection of things seen.)

I’m rebuilding the family computer. Not physically; I’m wiping the box, fdisking and repartitioning the hard drive, and reinstalling everything. It’s got so much junk on it from my son’s web-surfing it’s starting to drag real bad.

So we’re blowing it away and starting over.

I love doing that kind of stuff.

‘Course, if I had my druthers, I’d put Linux on it, but then my some of my son’s games wouldn’t work, and he’s the primary user of that box. But I might make it dual boot, Windows and Linux; haven’t decided yet.

A whole day of playing 52-pick-up with CDs! kEwL, dEwD!!!

There has been a lot of activity about the Tom Delay indictments in the blogosphere. I don’t frequent the nationally known “liberal” blogs all that much, but, even in the local blogs, one sees comments such as this from Daily Sally:

Okay, I admit it, when I read the news about the DeLay indictment for conspiracy to violate state election laws I did a little mental happy dance. Yes! Thank you! It’s about damn time!

And this, from Citizen Mom:

DeLay indicted.

Bill Frist is peeing his pants right now.

Or this one, from Pandagon:

You probably know that Tom DeLay has been indicted, and is stepping down as House Majority Leader. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the important part isn’t whether or not he did, but how aggressive his defense of his crimes is.

“I may be guilty as sin, but my self-defense is a blessing!”

If you visit more–how shall I put it?–combative blogs, you will find more exuberant comments.

Now, I’m not a big fan of the current Federal Administration. I find it to be in the tradition of the Republican Party–the party of Grant, Harding, and Hoover: inadvertent, venal, and incompetent.

But they have a vision. It is a vision of making the rich richer and the poor poorer; of instituting theocracy and peering into private lives; of sacrificing civil liberties to state power; of, more than anything else, consolidating the power of their Party. And to that end they are willing to sacrifice everything else, including truth, justice, and the American way.

Truth: what about those WMDs. Never were there, and evidence that they were not was systematically and intentionally ignored. Just in this Delay thing, the Republican Party is trying to paint the Texas prosecutor as a relentless partison. Yeah, right. A relentless partisan who has prosecuted three times as many Democrats as Republicans for corruption.

Justice: Willing to lock up anyone, including American citizens (however repugnant those American citizens may be), upon the word of a single man, with no evidence and no due process. There is a historical precedent for this. The Star Chamber–and it was one of the reasons the Founders fought the Revolutionary War to separate from England.

The American Way: I won’t go into detail. I suggest you go here, then think about what is going on today.

But I caution those who exult about the current travails of the Federal Administration. The loyal opposition (and it is, indeed, loyal, despite the attempts of at least some members of the Republican Party to mutate opposition of specific policies into opposition to the Nation) has no vision. It is reactive. It knows what it doesn’t want, but either does not know or cannot articulate what it does want.

Until the Loyal Opposition can articulate a vision of what should be, rather than rail against what should not be, there is little likelihood that the current reign of venality and corruption will be halted.

Changes today, but no pattern. Some up, some down. More went up than went down, but the one that went down, went down a lot.

Penny Hill, Del., Exxon and BP, $2.79.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.79, no change.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, Sunoco, $2.79, up two cents.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.79, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.77, down 12 cents.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.89, up eight cents.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.82, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.79, up two cents. This is worth noting; generally, where the Wawas with gas pumps open, they are the lowest prices around. That certainly hasn’t been the case with this one.

Changes today, but no pattern. Some up, some down. More up than down, though.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.79, no change.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, Sunoco, $2.77, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.79, up two cents.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.89, up 15 cents.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.81, up two cents.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.82, down two cents.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.77, up three cents.

This is a fascinating story of the positive side of the internet and globalism, persons from the other side of the world helping persons they have never seen.

Indian Center Handles Hurricane Rita Calls

The call center, run by Effective Teleservices of Lufkin, Texas, set up a hot line for victims of the hurricane, and Patel and more than 240 of her colleagues began long days and nights fielding thousands of calls from frantic, scared people affected by the storm half a world away.

Click the link to learn more.

I’m not going to wade into the fray on this, but I have to cite, courtesy of Suburban Guerrilla, the single wittiest comment I’ve seen on the topic, for our political discourse could use far more wit (it has precisely half what it needs):

Tom DeLay found the one law about fundraising in Texas and broke it.

– Molly Ivins

I never threw away or sold a book in college. I majored in history and took enough sociology to have a second major, if my college had granted them (which it didn’t at that time).

(No doubt, that, plus 24 years on the railroad, is what prepared me for my present career training persons in how to install and use enterprise-level industrial-strength security software and, when I’m not working on training stuff, providing telephone technical support for my company’s applications.)

Consequently, the books I was required to read were usually pretty interesting and well-worth keeping (I read somewhere, any book worth reading once is worth reading twice–that’s certainly true for anything by Rex Stout). Granted, anything by Emile Durkheim or Max Weber was pretty heavy slogging, but the end result was well worth wading through the snowdrifts of their reasoning.

This book I’m looking for is worth reading twice. It’s time to read it again, for history is repeating itself.

I know that book is somewhere. It must be up in the attic in one of those boxes. I’ll have to go looking for it this weekend, when I have enough time to dig through dusty boxes in the attic.

In the meantime, you can read about it here.

And consider why it has become relevant again.

What a scary show!

Here’s the description from the website:

Fresh Air from WHYY, September 28, 2005 · Journalist Mike Allen is a White House correspondent for Time magazine. He co-authored a new investigative piece for the magazine into how the Bush administration appoints the officials who run vital government agencies.

Brown was a political appointee who brought little experience in disaster management to his job when he was first appointed. The article in this week’s issue is, “How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?”

Listen to it here.

Not much movement in the prices, but a little.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.79, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, Sunoco, $2.77, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.75.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.74, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.77, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.84, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.74, unchanged.

Not much change today. A couple of prices dropped a couple of cents, but most were unchanged from yesterday.

Penny Hill, Del., BP, $2.87.

Penny Hill, Del., Exxon, $2.79.

Penny Hill, Del., Getty, $2.83.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.79, decreased from yesterday.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, Sunoco, $2.77, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.75, decreased.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.74, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.79, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.84, unchanged.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.74, unchanged.

Give me a break. From Reuters:

“My biggest mistake was not recognizing (in time) that Louisiana was dysfunctional,” former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown, who was pulled from the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort and resigned after chaos and destruction in New Orleans.

But Nagin expressed compassion. “Mr. Brown is under a lot of pressure, I feel sorry for him,” he added.

The facts clearly establish that, even with a less than coherent state and local response, the Federal Administration could have taken many actions to ensure that relief supplies and personnel were available in a timely fashion after Katrina passed.

I’ve already considered the lines of responsibility.

Mr. Bush doesn’t want to play the blame game.

No wonder.

He and his administration would lose.

Maybe a nice horse show will help the residents of the Gulf Coast forget their troubles.

Unfortunately, Mr. Brown is not available to organize it. He has a new job.

(CBS) — CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Michael Brown, who recently resigned as the head of the FEMA, has been rehired by the agency as a consultant to evaluate its response following Hurricane Katrina.

Dodecahedron suggests Brown should provide his consultancy on a skill he knows: tying a half-windsor. Personally, I think he might do better consulting on a four-in-hand; windsor and half-windsor knots are complicated.

Prices seem fairly stable still. We will see what happens in the next few days.

Penny Hill, Del., BP, $2.87.

Penny Hill, Del., Exxon, $2.79.

Penny Hill, Del., Getty, $2.83.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.83.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, Sunoco, and Getty, $2.77.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.74.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.79.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.84.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.74.

Paulsboro, NJ, BP, $2.99

Paulsboro, NJ, Exxon (TA Truck Stop) $2.97

A rather horrifying little news story in The Register. I haven’t followed the link in the story yet (I’m at work), but the Register, for all their sarky, cheeky attitude, doesn’t make too many mistakes. Here’s what they report:

When you’re not getting shelled or shot at, war can get deadly dull. Fortunately, America’s gals in uniform overseas appear to be having a rollicking good time, and no doubt enjoying numerous material perks as a result of being in short supply and high demand, and naked.

The evidence is visible at now that’s f**ked up, an online trading post for amateur porn and grotesque gore pics from the front lines of freedom in Iraq. It’s got everything, from soldiers posting photographed sessions with partners in country, or their girlfriends and wives back home, to the most appalling shots of what war looks like when the fragile human body confronts the power of mass, mechanized destruction.

My newly-wed son is over there. Sheesh.

Reuters reports

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush said on Sunday that Congress ought to consider giving the U.S. military the lead role in responding to natural disasters, as he heard one general describe the Hurricane Katrina rescue effort as a “train wreck.”

Hmmm. Why was it a train wreck, indeed? Because Mike Brown had no experience in disaster relief and Mike Chertoff really didn’t know what to do anyway.

Even Robert Novak, best known for outing CIA employees and then letting others go to jail over it, has turned his back on Chertoff.

So now Mr. Bush suggests putting the military in charge. This would turn a two century tradition of civilian control of the military on its head, a tradition that many historians hold partially responsible for there never having been even an attempted military takeover of the United States government.

FEMA has shown in the past that, with competent leadership, it can respond effectively to disasters.

What’s the difference between now and the 1990’s? The president in the 1990s gave FEMA qualified leaders, then let FEMA do its thing. The president since 2000 has used FEMA as a dumping ground for political hacks and cronies, stripped its budget, and buried its autonomy in the vast wasteland of the Department of Homeland Security. (He wasn’t alone in this. Indeed, he was a reluctant endorser of the DHS, but he did eventually endorse it and appointed the aforementioned hacks and cronies to lead it.)

DHSs job is to protect the US from external threats; it is not surprising that an agency chartered to respond to natural disasters did not get much attention. That’s the way large organizations work.

Similarly, the military’s role is to protect the US from external threats. Certainly, the military has logistical expertise and resources unmatched by any other organization on US soil. Indeed, they were ready to move in response to Katrina at the request of civil authorities, but those requests were sorely delayed.

But they have no expertise or training in planning responses to natural disasters and certainly no training in law enforcement.

This proposal is a non-starter on every level, but it does have the virtue of creating an appearance that Mr. Bush is doing something.

Now, the interesting question is what these different organizations have in common. Good problem-solving techniques recommend following problems till you find a common factor, then looking at that factor. Organization charts are frequently useful in this:

So let’s look at the chart:

What do the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Department of Defense have in common? I submit it is at that confluence you will find the root cause of the problem. Everything else is but a symptom.

Moving lines on the chart won’t change anything so long as those lines ultimately still point to the same common factor.

I haven’t messed about with checking gas prices for several days, because they have remained fairly stable.

Nevertheless, I drove to Pine View Farm yesterday, to take care of some family business and visit my mother in the home. I tracked the gas prices on my drive down. I started at Wilmington, Delaware, and ended up on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Along the way, I passed through the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I returned along a different route through Maryland and lower Delaware.

In Delaware, gas prices were in the mostly in the high two dollar range, but with a wide variation. Prices in Maryland were the lowest I saw; Virginia prices tended to be in between Delaware and Maryland prices.

These prices were sampled along US 13.

Shell, North Wilmington, Del,. $2.99. (This station is just inside the city line and tends to be higher than suburban stations.)

New Castle, Del., two Wawas, Sunoco, Hess, Citgo, $2.79; BP, $2.89; Shell, $2.94; Exxon, $2.82.

Red Lion, Dell, Valero, $2.95; BP, $2.89.

South Dover, Del., two Valeros, $2.75.

Woodside, Del., BP, Valero, and Exxon, $2.79.

Felton, Del., Shell, $2.79; Mobile, $2.84.

Harrington, Del., BP, $2.86; Valero and Citgo, $2.75; Sunoco, $2.84.

Greenwood, Del., Valero, $2.73.

Bridgeville, Del., BP, $2.79; Valero and Royal Farms, $2.73.

Seaford, Del., Exxon, $2.75; Tru Blu, Royal Farms, $2.73.

Laurel, Del., Royal Farms, $2.73; Citgo, $2.79; Sunoco, $2.85.

Delmar, Md., Shell and Mobile, $2.69.

North Salisbury, Md., Wawa and Exxon, $2.69; Chevron, $2.71; Shell, $2.74.

Fruitland, Md., Valero, $2.69; Shell, $2.74.

Princess Anne, Md., Shell, $2.75; Exxon, $2.79;

Pocomoke, Md., Sunoco and Citgo, $2.79.

On the Eastern Shore of Virginia, all but a handfull of stations were charging $2.75. The exceptions were:

A no name at T’s Corner was charging $2.85.

Stuckey’s in Mappsville, $2.73.

Keller, Valero and Chevron, $2.74.

Belle Haven Station, Valero, $2.74.

Exmore, Chevron, $2.74.

A no-name at Wierwood, Va., $2.76.

Along US 113 in Maryland and Delaware:

Newark, Md. (yes, there is one), $2.69.

Shelbyville, Del., Exxon, $2.84; BP, $2.99; Shell, $2.89.

Frankford, Del., Mystik, $2.95; Amoco, $2.83; Royal Farms, $2.73.

Millsboro, Del., BP, $2.89 at one, $2.99 at the other.

Georgetown, Del., Exxon, $2.85; Shell, $2.94.

Ellendale, Del., Exxon and Citgo, $2.85.

Milford, Del., Royal Farms, $2.79; Shell, $2.94; two Valero, $2.85 and $2.87; Mobile and Shell, $2.97.

Frederica, Del., Valero, $2.79.

As I write this, New Orleans is flooded again and Rita is bearing down on Texas.

Rita has already claimed its first victims.

And the pictures of traffic streaming north and west from the Texas coast have filled the news and the web.

Tomorrow will tell us whether Rita lives up to her billing, but already she has already caused her share of hardship.

God be with those in her path.

Bill O’Reilly is the true wearer of the mantle of Joe Pyne. Whenever Joe was losing an argument, he would start shouting, “I was in the Marines!” and drown out his guests and callers. Bill, of course, just keeps shouting. Apparently, he wasn’t in the Marines.

His rudeness catches a lot of people off guard, just as Joe Pyne’s did. People who are normally courteous and used to dealing with courteous persons don’t expect to be yelled at and don’t usually react coherently or effectively. Terry Gross, of NPR’s Fresh Air, an experienced and accomplished interviewer, was one of his victims; this exchange shows his tactics as effectively as any you might hear.

But when he meets someone who stands up to him and cites evidence, he seems to have trouble reacting.

You can watch it here and read the transcript here.

Here’s a portion of the transcript.

DONAHUE: Let’s understand what’s happening here. Once again we have a woman who got to be just a little too famous for the people who support this war, a minority of the American population, by the way, and so the effort to marginalize this woman is underway and you’re helping out.

O’REILLY: OK. And we’ll cover it.

A number of sites refer to this exchange, but thanks to Blinq for the links.

Truth has broken out in the White House press room.

(Thanks to Suburban Guerrilla.)

Found on Usenet. I googled and found numerous entries of this on blugs, some with different “authors,” but I couldn’t find an original. If anyone knows where it originally appeared, I’d appreciate the citation. I found this copy on rec.boats, but the person who posted it stated he didn’t know where it started, either.

Hollywood Power Outage Sends City Into Chaos — No electricity for 26
minutes.

‘This is our Tsunami.’

By Felicia Ferndock: Actress, Photographer, Victim.

LOS ANGELES, CA, September 12, 2005 – Horror and disbelief swept
through the greater Hollywood area this afternoon as a power-outage
turned the city into a virtual war zone, and local residents struggled
to deal with the devastating aftermath.

The outage struck at 1:35 PM, during L.A.’s busy afternoon coffee and
Pilates rush hour. Traffic lights fell dark, local gyms and sushi
restaurants were without power for nearly 30 minutes and many
businesses were illuminated only by the light of the sun and its
blistering 78-degree heat.

“It was horrible,” said out of work actor and voice-over artist Rick
Shea. “I was in a Jamba Juice on Melrose when it hit. The blenders
simply shut down. A woman lunged for my Berry Lime Sublime and after
that, well, it got pretty ugly.”

In the ensuing panic, local radio stations broadcast conflicting
reports as to exactly which local businesses would be offering relief
supplies. Almost 100 people flocked to the Starbucks at Santa Monica
and La Brea only to find helpless baristas, no hot coffee and a totally
meager selection of baked goods.

“My mother is 83-years old and we heard on the radio that this
Starbucks was going to be up and running. If she doesn’t get a venti
Arabian Mocha Sanani soon I don’t know what’s going to happen to her, I
really don’t.” said cologenist Lucinda Merino of Los Feliz.

To make matters worse, those few people who did manage to get coffee
were further thwarted by a total lack of artificial sweeteners on site.
“Sugar in the Raw? Are you friggin’ kidding me?” sobbed local
homosexual and avid salsa dancer, Enrique Santoro. “I’m on the South
Beach Diet. My insulin levels are going to go crazy if I use this! Why
isn’t the rest of the country doing something?”

Deteriorating conditions may force authorities to evacuate the
thousands of people at local Quiznos, movie theaters and upscale
shopping centers, including The Beverly Center, where a policeman
told CNN unrest was escalating. The officer expressed concern the
situation could worsen overnight after patrons defaced ultiple “So
You Think you Can Dance” posters, looted a Baby Gap and demanded free
makeovers en masse at a MAC cosmetics store during the afternoon.

At least 2,000 refugees, the majority of them beautiful, will travel in
a bus convoy to Beverly Hills starting this evening and will be
sheltered at the 8-year-old Spago on North Canon where soft omelettes
with confit bacon and Hudson Valley foie gras was being airlifted in by
The National Guard. Thank heavens.

Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, Johnny Grant, told a group of embedded
reporters at a Koo Koo Roo Chicken restaurant on Larchmont, “The scope
and scale of this disaster is almost too much to comprehend. Local car
washes are at a standstill, the tram tour at Universal Studios has been
on hold for almost an hour now and I’ve been waiting for a rotisserie
leg and thigh with a side of green beans for upwards of 15 minutes.
This truly is our Tsunami.”

“We want to accommodate those people suffering in The Beverly Center as
quickly as possible for the simple reason that they have been through a
horrible ordeal,” Grant said.

“We need water. We need edamame. We need low-carb bread,” said Martha
Owens, 49, who was one of the thousands trapped in The Beverly Center
when the escalators stopped moving. “They need to start sending
somebody through here.”

Along miles of coastline, the power simply surged, causing writers to
lose upwards of a page of original screenplay material, causing
DirecTV service to work only intermittently and forcing local
residents to walk outside and look helplessly at the breathtaking
Pacific from their ocean view decks.

“I can hardly begin to put this experience into words,” said seasoned
Two and a Half Men writer John Edlestein . “I was just getting into my
rhythm and making some real headway on a scene where Charlie Sheen
parties with a busload of female volleyball players when my Power Book
crapped out. I have nothing. Simply, nothing.”

Delivering a belated radio address live from the White House,
President Bush announced he was deploying more than 7,000 additional
active-duty troops to the region. He comforted victims and praised
relief workers.

“Despite their best efforts, the magnitude in responding to a crisis
over a disaster area this sunny and trendy has created tremendous
problems,” he said. “The result is that many of our citizens simply are
not getting the help they need, especially in the Hollywood Hills, and
that is unacceptable.”

“Southern Californians are resilient. I have no doubt they will
bounce back like this never happened,” professed Cellulite Reduction
Specialist, Kim Bellevue. “The therapy sessions could reach an all time
high, though.”

Pine View Farm has seen many hurricanes. The first section of the house was built in 1912 and, though not on the Gulf Coast, it’s on the East Coast in a favorite path of storms working their way north in along the coast.

I remember two vividly. Hazel, whose eye crossed from the Atlantic to the Chesapeake, then turned around and came back, and Donna.

Pine View Farm is not on the coast–it’s about a half a mile walking east through the pines until you start to see wetlands, then marshlands. Then there is a network of channels and barrier islands (unlike New Orleans, where development and drainage and flood control has stripped away the natural protection from the sea) before you reach the Atlantic itself.

So storm surge and flooding were not an issue there, but in nearby towns–watering towns where persons made their living fishing, oystering, and crabbing–right on the water, the storms left 35-foot fishing boats in person’s backyards.

We never left home for a storm–you see, the main thing to fear in a hurricane is water, and we were too far from the water. But the wind–those who have not sat in a house, dark because the electricity went out long ago, and listened to the wind and watched it bend the trees cannot understand the power of these storms. It’s one thing to joke about reporters flying from flagpoles. It’s quite another to see trees bend in ways trees are not meant to bend.

After Donna, it took a week for the power company to restore electricity. My father dug a well and installed a pitcher pump so we could have water. Cooked meals were prepared on the barbecue furnace he had built in the side yard.

Come to think of it, it’s the last time we ever cooked out.

Not since Donna has a hurricane made landfall at full strength along the mid-Atlantic coast.

In the years since then, all along the Atlantic seaboard, housing has sprung up along beaches and waterfronts. A drive down the Outer Banks of North Carolina reveals many, many new condos and beach homes perched in the sand. Houses built on sticks.

One day soon, in this period of hurricane activity, they will suffer the same fate as the homes along the Gulf Coast.

Words fail me.

As I headed out today, I found myself thinking of parallels between the discussions over how to pay for the war in Iraq and the rebuilding after Katrina and the “guns and butter” debates of the Viet Nam era. When I got home and burroughed my down to the Business section of the local rag, I found that Andrew Cassals has beaten me to the punch. Follow the link to read the entire column (it’s well worth it).

The war on the other side of the world isn’t going so well, and opposition at home is starting to grow. But the administration says we have to stay the course.

Is it 2005 or 1965? How can you tell?

Update, 3:00 p.m., September 22, 2005:

Apparently, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post had the same thoughts. In today’s column, he says, in part:

On Aug. 3, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent a message to Congress in which he said that the United States could not continue to fight a war in Vietnam and at the same time continue his Great Society programs without, among other things, raising taxes. George Bush ought to read that message. It was titled “The Hard and Inescapable Facts.”

For Bush, facts are neither hard nor inescapable. He believes in “magical math” — a firm understanding that somehow, in some way, something will happen to make everything come out right in the end. This is the economics practiced by the dreamy who think that today’s credit card purchase will never come due. This, in a nutshell, is the financial blueprint for the United States of America.

The other big news here is that the local rag cutting its staff signifcantly. The story in the Inquirer started off with

The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, the dominant daily newspapers in this metropolitan area of five million people, will slash 16 percent of their newsroom staffs through buyouts or layoffs this year, their publisher said yesterday.

Dan Rubin had a personal take on it on yesterday’s Blinq.

And they are not alone. The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Houston Chronical are also cutting back.

Now, I like newspapers. I started reading the paper when I had just learned to read (The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot). I have travelled a lot on my job and I always read the local rag, whatever it may be. The local rag cannot fail to have more personality than USA Today (the MacDonald’s of Newspapers). And the local rag always has comics. (That’s why I don’t read the New York Times unless I am mind-numbingly desperate–it has no comics. I’m not interested in a paper with no sense of humor.)

I can learn more in 30 minutes with a newspaper than in 30 hours with television news.

The New York Times (as much as I find it pedantic, boring, and self-satisfied), the Inquirer, the Globe are among the nation’s great papers, along with, in my opinion, the Chicago Tribune, the Sacramento Bee, the L. A. Times, the Washington Post (my personal favorite), and a few others. What’s happening to them?

It’s not the blogsphere (which someone recently nominated as the ugliest new word of the last five years). Indeed, the great majority of bloggers I have read seem to be dedicated readers.

The bleeding started long ago. It’s people who don’t read. Some of whom don’t read at all. And, in some kind of wierd turnabout, these same people will believe anything they see at a website, but refuse to believe anything they see in the paper.

I’m gratified that my son, from time to time, picks up the paper. But, when I grew up, the Paper was not an option; it was a necessity.

You read your local paper every day. No question.

I’m not going to theorize why. There are lots of theorist out there. But it is distressing that MacNews is beating out steak and eggs.

Speaking of MacNews, the Suburban Guerrilla today reported that the National (not Philadephia) Enquirer (not Inquirer) was claiming that

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Follow the links to read more.

I don’t know what is most disturbing about this story, and I do have mixed emotions.

I find it’s appearance in the Enquirer (hardly renowned for groundbreaking, or accurate, reporting) particularly distressing, because I doubt they would print something like this unless they thought they could defend it.

If it is true, I don’t know whether it matters. I don’t think it could render his performance any worse than it already is.

If it is not true, as much as I am convinced that Mr. Bush is likely the worst president of the US since the Civil War, I would not like to see him smeared. There are enough legitimate issues to pursue without adding this kind of dirt.

I would urge you to read the comments at Suburban Guerrilla. Some of them are quite interesting.

And that’s all the thoughts I could manage today.

Some fluctuation during the day, but not as drastic as previous days.

Penny Hill, Del., Exxon and BP, $2.89.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.81 at 8:30 a.m., $2.85 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $2.79, 8:30 a.m, $2.79 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Sunoco, $2.89, unchanged all day.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.79 at 8:30 a.m, $2.79 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.85 at 8:30 a.m, $2.81 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.85 at 8:30 a.m, $2.81 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.89 unchanged all day.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.81 at 8:30 a. m., $2.79 at 5:30 p.m.

Penny Hill, Del., BP and Exxon, $2.97

Penny Hill, Del., Getty, $2.87.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.83 unchanged all day.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $2.89, 8:30 a.m, $2.79 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Sunoco, $2.89 all day.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.87 at 8:30 a.m, $2.83 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.87 at 8:30 a.m, $2.85 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.87 at 8:30 a.m. and $2.83 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $2.89 unchanged all day.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.85 at 8:30 a. m., $2.83 at 5:30 p.m.

Gibbstown, NJ, Valero, $2.94

Paulsboro, NJ, LubOil, $2.89

Paulsboro, NJ, BP, $2.99

Paulsboro, NJ, Exxon (TA Truck Stop) $2.97

With the current release, Opera for the desktop is now free. The unregistered version has been free for sometime, but displayed an add banner in the top of the screen. The ad did not in any way reduce the size of the main browser window.

I’ve been an paid Opera user since version 6 dot something dot something and have willingly paid to upgrade at version changes (from 6 to 7, from 7 to because I like the browser so much. I was attracted to it because the many of the web designers who frequent alt.html recommended it because it was W3C compliant.

If you would like to check it out, you can find it here.

I was, like, actually busy yesterday and today and wasn’t sure whether I would add anything here today, but this has me outraged.

Chris Rabb has tracked down a story in the Los Angeles Times that not only confirms the stories that Gretna township blocked citizens of New Orleans from escaping Katrina, but also chillingly shows that Gretna does not regret its decision.

Here is a portion. You can read the full citation at his site.

GRETNA, LA — Little over a week after this mostly white suburb became a symbol of callousness for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans — trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city — the Gretna City Council passed a resolution supporting the police chief’s move.

“This wasn’t just one man’s decision,” Mayor Ronnie C. Harris said Thursday. “The whole community backs it.”

(snip)

I hope the good citizens of Gretna stop and wonder, sometime, how many persons died, how many families were broken, how many lives were shortened by their actions.

Words fail me.

**********************

Well, no they don’t, but I’m not exactly sure how to express what I feel.

There is a lot more than racial prejudice in this.

There is the long-documented fear on the part of the country and the suburbs of the city.

There is probably some simply selfish self-preservation (”We don’t want to compete with anyone for an escape route”).

There is the fear of the “lower classes,” whoever they are, and, no doubt, some status anxiety.

And some fear of the big unknown–that amorphous faceless thing that exists in the city that the suburban and rural dweller does not know and does fear. For some surbanites, the city is filled with the nameless shuffling horrors and the creeping crawling chaos of an H. P. Lovecraft story.

But I know, as sure as I know that my skin is pink, that racism was the moving factor. It would have been a damned shame if those black hordes from New Orleans had fled to Gretna to save their lives.

The citizens of Gretna.

God have mercy on their souls.

Dan Rubin on Blinq has a powerful interview with a Natalie Pompilio, a reporter who was on the scene in New Orleans. You can find it here.

Here’s how Mr. Rubin introduces it:

Just back from New Orleans, after nearly two weeks of watching her old city fall, Natalie Pompilio sat down this week with BLINQ and talked about what it was like covering the worst natural disaster of our time. It was worse than Iraq, she said, and she knows from experience.

She tells how she lost her car, her money and ID. How she moved from place to place, happening upon the sacking of Wal-Mart, the exodus across Interstate 10. She describes the people desperate for human touch, the roving gunmen, a bicycle trip through dark waters, and the strange new sounds of The Big Easy. Click on the links to hear the interview.

It is well worth a listen, especially Part 2, which may explode preconceptions about who the “looters” were. (Spoiler: they included everybody, all races, colors, and professions.)

I recommend it highly.

The theme of today’s episode of A Chef’s Table on WHYY-FM was competition and food, such as recipe contests, bake-offs, and competitive eating, which I discussed earlier this week, including references to the Wing Bowl and the Black Widow and an interview with a Cookie Jarvis, a professional competitive eater.

You can listen to it here this week. After this week, you should be able to find it in the Archives section of the website.

Only in America (and, apparently, Japan).