September, 2005 archive

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 8) 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.

So he pulled off a pretty little speech.

And he said he takes responsibility.

So rare is that for him that it was the headline in almost every report I saw.

No doubt, that’s what Karl Rove told him he had to say.

It is notable that Rove, a political operative, has been put in charge of Katrina recovery. That makes as much sense as putting a failed horse show manager in charge of FEMA.

George Odiorne once wrote that responsibility does not mean who caused the problem, but, rather, it means who’s going to fix it.

The choice of Rove shows that Federal Administration’s goal is fixing Bush’s poll numbers, not fixing bridges, buildings, roads, and lives.

It does not show Bush accepting responsibility for anything.

Accepting responsibility would mean making a difficult choice because it was the right thing, not the political thing, to do.

Accepting responsibility would mean realizing that, if you have to buy a new furnace and you are already out of money, maybe you need to cut back on something else or take a second job, because the credit card’s going to top out sometime.

Accepting responsibility would mean, for example, facing up to the need to ask Americans, including the rich (perhaps especially the rich, since they have had so many financial windfalls come their way courtesy of the Republican Party) to make some sacrifices, like, say, by rolling back some of the tax cuts for those in the top bracket and restoring at least part of the estate tax, (which the right wing, with true marketing genius, has managed to relabel the death tax).

The history of the current Congress makes it pretty clear they are not inclined to cut back, so taking a second job (more income) seems to be indicated.

Instead, Bush has ruled out any tax increases to pay for this recovery, just as he has ruled out any tax increases to pay for the blood and treasure we are expending in Iraq.

Bush is still running up the credit card. And you know what, my friends? When the time comes to pay the bill, he’s not going to be there with either his pretty little speeches or his billfold.

One of my co-workers told me that he once asked a gas station proprietor about price changes. He reports that the proprietor told him he received two phone calls each day, one about 7:30 a. m. and one about noon. I have no idea whether this is an industry standard, but the price changes seem to bear it out.

Yesterday’s prices stayed about the same as Thursday’s, but there was some movement at some of the stations.

No observations from New Jersey today, but the typical situation, where prices in Jersey tended to be 10 to 15 cents lower than prices in Delaware and Pennsylvania because of lower fuel taxes (probably the only example where Jersey’s taxes are lower than those of other states), seems to have gone on hiatus, to paraphrase TV flacks.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.99.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $2.96, 8:30 a.m, $2.89 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Sunoco, $2.96.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.91 at 8:30 a.m, $2.89 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.91 at 8:30 a.m, $2.89 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.91 unchanged all day.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $3.02 unchanged all day.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.89 at 8:30 a. m., $2.87 at 5:30 p.m.

From today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. Follow the link to learn more:

As an accused murderer facing the death penalty for four killings, former supermarket clerk John C. Eichinger has been called a lot of things.

On the witness stand, Eichinger, 33, said he confessed to killing three women and a child because the detective who interviewed him on March 25 at a Somers Point, N.J., Acme supermarket had a gun.

I found yesterday’s Fresh Air radio show to be very interesting.

First, Terry Gross interviewed Chris Mooney about his book: The Republican War on Science, which contends (according the description on the WHYY website) that “that the Bush administration has distorted research and misinformed the public on issues ranging from stem-cell research to global warming. The motivation, Mooney argues, is political power.”

She followed that with an interview of Robert Walker, identified as “a retired congressman from Pennsylvania who served as chairman of the Science Committee, (who) responds to (Mooney’s) allegations.”

Listen to it here.

Geeky Mama has a neat link to 25 Stupid Quotes about Hurricane Katrina. She says

it’ll make you happy you don’t have the type of job where you have to speak into a microphone whle under tremendous pressure.

The majority are from public officials, simply because they got quoted more than anyone one else, but the members of the press also are well represented.

You can see the quotes here.

Go here:

http://www.iworkwithfools.com/

One of the great odd events in Philadelphia is the Wing Bowl. Sponsored by a local radio station, it takes place the morning of Super Bowl Sunday. It’s an eating contest on the Professional Eating Circuit to see who can eat the most Buffalo Wings.

Philadelphia Will Do reports that the El Wingador, the champion of the Wing Bowl, well be performing tomorrow:

Find a way out of work tomorrow morning. Find a way to the Great Northeast. Find a camera and take some God damn pictures, because tomorrow morning the Philadelphia Prison System will be kickin’ it old school with Bill “El Wingador” Simmons and (get this!) Prisons Commissioner Leon A. King and Director of Community Justice and Outreach Wilfredo Rojas!

Right now, the nemesis of Professional Eaters is Sonja Thomas, the Black Widow of the eating circuit. Most professional eaters are, to quote a radio announcer I heard the other day, fat white men. Sonja Thomas is a 98 pound lady who won the Wing Bowl in 2005 and just missed beating El Wingador at last year’s Wing Bowl. I’m betting on her for next year.

Only in America.

The drift downwards continues. The Wawa did more than drift–it dropped to under $2.80. We will see whether it holds.

Penny Hill, Del., BP, $2.99.

Penny Hill, Del., Exxon, $3.09

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $2.96.

Claymont, Del., Sunoco, $2.96.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.91.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.91.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.91.

Claymont, Del., Gulf, $3.02.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.79.

Woodbury, N. J., LubOil, $2.96

Penny Hill, Del., Getty, $2.99

Penny Hill, Del., Exxon, $2.99

Holly Oak, Dell, Mobil, $2.99

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $2.99.

Claymont, Del., Sunoco, $2.96.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.95 at 8:00 a. m., $2.93 at 5:30 p. m.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.97 at 8:00 a.m., $2.93 at 5:30 p.m. (1% milk is $2.79 per gallon. Does milk burn?)

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.97 at 8:00 a.m., $2.95 at 5:30 p.m.

Claymont, Del, Gulf, $3.09 all day.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.93 all day.

Holly Oak, Del., Mobil, $2.99.

I learned on BoingBoing that

Boing Boing “band manager” John Battelle has broken the news that Google is launching a blog-search service. The URL, when it goes live, will apparently be http://blogsearch.google.com/.

I’ve added it to my links.