September, 2005 archive

Americans seem not to like complexity. They like simple answers.

Many persons looking at what happened in New Orleans are crying “racism” at the relief effort, because most of the pictures on television showed black people suffering, while most of the folks who got away seemed to be white. And, given the thread of racism in U. S. history, the claim is easily made and easily believed. I decided to take a look the numbers to try to reconstruct some of the reality under the generalities. The statistics below are from the 2000 census, because that’s where I could find the most accurate snapshot across all the landscape I was interested in surveying.

What Do the Numbers Say?

More than two-thirds of the population of New Orleans is black. (Source: http://neworleans.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm)

In 2000 (I picked that because full census data is available), the federal poverty threshold for a one-person household was $8,350. The federal poverty threshold, though, points to a bare subsistence existence.

Perhaps a better standard is presaged by the concept of the “basic family budget,” which identifies an income of $27,005 as the minimum needed for a family of two adults and two children to have a “safe and decent standard of living.”

The average income per capita for a black person was $11,332; for a white person, $31,971. (Source: http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/incomeOverview.php?locIndex=3502. The disparity is striking.

There were 87589 owner-occupied units with an average occupancy of 2.6 persons, meaning that approximately 227,000 residents lived in “their own” homes. (Source: http://neworleans.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm)

There were 100662 renter-occupied housing units with an average occupancy of 2.37 persons, meaning that almost 240,000 residents lived in rentals. (Source: http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/housOverview.php?locIndex=3517)

The median rent was $378 (I assume this is monthly–the source does not specify). The median monthly cost for a house with a mortgate was $910. (Source: http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/housOverview.php?locIndex=3517)

Consequently, despite the presence of some high-priced rentals in fashionable districts such as the French Quarter and the Garden district, where monthly rentals could approach $2,000, I conclude that the great majority of rental housing was also housing occupied by poor persons.

So this gives us a picture of poor people living in cheap rental housing. Not an unusual picture for any city.

But what about transportation?

There were 0.77 vehicles per rental unit (compared to a state-wide average of 1.07 vehicles per rental unit). In other words, of those 240,000 persons living in rentals, almost 80,000 of them did not have vehicles–automobiles, pickups, what-have-you, in their households. For the owner-occupied dwellings, the average was almost two and a half vehicles per dwelling. (Source: http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/housOverview.php?locIndex=3517)

There has been a lot in the news about the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, which, in 2000, was 98% black. For a very thorough picture of it, go here: http://www.gnocdc.org/orleans/8/22/people.html. Average household incomes in 2000 were

Ninth Ward: $27,499
Orleans Parish (New Orleans): $43,176
Louisiana: $44,833
United States: $56,644

36.4 per cent of the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward were living below the federal poverty level. Source: http://www.gnocdc.org/orleans/8/22/income.html

So here is the picture of those who got trapped:

No car, no money, nowhere to go, and no way to get there.

Time Line

Governor Blanco declared a state of emergency on Friday, August 26. Here’s the beginning of the press release:

BATON ROUGE, LA–Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco today issued Proclamation No. 48 KBB 2005, declaring a state of emergency for the state Louisiana as Hurricane Katrina poses an imminent threat, carrying severe storms, high winds, and torrential rain that may cause flooding and damage to private property and public facilities, and threaten the safety and security of the citizens of the state of Louisiana The state of emergency extends from Friday, August 26, 2005, through Sunday, September 25, 2005, unless terminated sooner.

President Bush declared one on Saturday, August 27.

By then, evacuations were already underway.

The hurricane made landfall at 6:10 a. m, Monday, August 29.

The buzz on the internet, especially among the more conservative speakers, is that, since the eye of the hurricane missed New Orleans, many were lulled into thinking that the worst was over, thereby lulling officials into thinking that clean-up, not rescue, was the order of the day and that the flood did not start until the levees broke some time during the night of August 30. However, there seems to evidence that the flooding of the Lower Ninth Ward actually began with the storm surge, as it funnelled up the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet overtopping levees. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/13/AR2005091302196.html for more details.

Aftermath

Then there was all the finger-pointing about who did what when. Here’s FEMA’s description of how the process is supposed to work:

A Major Disaster Declaration usually follows these steps:
Local Government Responds, supplemented by neighboring communities and volunteer agencies. If overwhelmed, turn to the state for assistance;

The President approves the request or FEMA informs the governor it has been denied. This decision process could take a few hours or several weeks depending on the nature of the disaster.

Read more here: http://www.fema.gov/rrr/dec_guid.shtm

However, under the Stafford Act which established FEMA,

“. . . without state requests, FEMA could assess the catastrophic area, assess what assistance the state needed, start mobilizing that relief, present its recommendations to the governor, and, if necessary–as Andrew Card did–get in the governor’s face to force the issue of accepting federal help. Before Hurricane Andrew, FEMA officials took almost none of these steps. Consequently, when a disaster occurred, FEMA’s relief efforts were inevitably too little, too late.” (Jeffrey Itell, quoted in the Washington Monthly) (emphasis added)

This puts the lie to claims that FEMA was unable to do anything until requested by state and local authorities.

Conclusions:

The rest, up until today at least, is too well-known–persons trapped on high ground, dying in the streets, going without food, water, and sanitation, dealing with theft, violence, and other threats to their safety; all of this too fresh in our memories and in our eyes. I’m not going into it here. Instead, to my conclusion:

Was racism involved in Katrina and the relief efforts. I conclude a resounding yes and no.

Let me interrogate myself and find out why I think that:

Q. Why didn’t they declare a state of emergency earlier?

A. Look at history. No office-holder wants to send millions of people trekking across the country for nothing. It’s like when I’ve been sitting in a back-up on I-95. When I finally work my way through, I want to see at least a crumpled fender so I know I went through that agony for a reason.

Q. Was there racism in the evacuation?

A. No. The people who got left behind were left behind because they had no way to get out. Intercity transportation had shut down by Friday. These were largely folks who didn’t have cars and didn’t have money to hire transportation, had there been any for hire. And, of course, a few people on high ground and a few people who wouldn’t have evacuated anyway, for any reason, just as people today are staying on North Carolina’s Outer Banks as Ophelia churns towards them.

Q. What about those school buses?

A. New Orleans had only 324 school buses, a sizeable number of which were broken down anyway. They did not have the 2,000 school buses that some persons have claimed they had. Let’s see, 50 persons per bus (a generous estimate) x 300 buses = 1500 persons–they might have gotten a few persons out, but wouldn’t have made a dent in the number left behind. The “2000” number seems to have been a politically motivated smokescreen. See http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120005 for more information.

Q. Yeah, but didn’t they wait to send people in?

A. The people who were there on the scene seemed to have done as much as they could. Remember, they were leaderless. I do not mean that they did not have leaders; I mean they couldn’t communicate with them. Just about every means of communication stopped working as the flood knocked out power to the city. Consequently, I can quite understand why there was chaos on the ground (and in the water) in New Orleans. It’s much easier, in fact, to understand that than to understand why there was chaos and inaction in Baton Rouge and Washington, where persons had the opportunity to see what was going thanks to reporters who repeatedly put themselves in harm’s way to tell the story of Katrina and New Orleans.

It was the people from outside the area, those under the direction of FEMA, who did get not sent in.

Q. But don’t you think waiting so long was racist?

A. No, I think it was stupid and incompetent. Remember Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Q. But you know what Barbara Bush said!

A. Yes. She said “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”

I don’t see any racism in this remark as it stands. It is certainly tasteless, insensitive, arrogant, and condescending. Nevertheless, I think it proceeds, not from racism, but from classism, if you will permit me to mutilate the language.

Remember, these Bush folks are rich. Any acquaintance that they have with real life for working people, poor or middle class, is purely academic.

And she didn’t say, “those people” or “people like this (that)”; she said, “the people in the arena here.” I don’t see that as a code word. The phrase was directly relevant to the situation she was in.

Q. But the food and water? They weren’t getting any.

A. No one else was either. The complaints about the lack of disaster aid came from all over the area. Remember Aaron Broussard. The crucial difference in New Orleans is that there, the floods did not end. In the other places, the water had places to go, so it was easier to get in and help those who had been left behind.

Q. But almost everyone left behind was black. Isn’t that evidence of racism?

A. Not in and of itself. Everyone left behind was poor. But why the poorest of the poor were black? That is certainly the work of racism, long-standing, sometime subtle and sometimes not, but definitely racism. Maybe not just racism, but racism is the crucial factor.

Q. Umm, well, yeah, maybe, but weren’t there other things?

A. Oh, definitely. Much of the public reaction has had racist overtones–and undercurrents. I am quite confident that, had those trapped behind been white, a lot fewer persons would have jumped on the “blame the victim” bandwagon. We would have heard less about the school buses (especially if Mr. Nagin had been a white Republican, even though he was a Republican until shortly before being elected and changed parties to have a chance on the ballot), a lot less of “well they coulda shoulda left” and other stuff like that there.

Furthermore, we would have heard less about looting and more about “finding supplies to survive.”

Q. But we are hearing a lot about why weren’t the levees reinforced? Wasn’t there a racial element in that.

A. I don’t think so. The levees protect the whole city. Debates about whether to reinforce them go back a decade or more. Remember the basic principle of time management: “The urgent drives out the important.” To each succeeding Congress and Administration, something else, building something new or attracting more tourists or whatever, has always seemed more urgent that fixing something old that still seemed to be working.

And, as someone who lives surrounded by major navigable waterways, I have learned to view any construction project sponsored by the Army Corps of Engineers with suspicion. They have a tendency to create evidence where there is none (though, in this case, their analysis of the levee situation was spot-on).

Q. So that’s the best you can do? “Yes and no.”

A. Yes.

From Baghdad. It was about 3:00 a. m. his time, about 19:00 here.

He’s doing okay. He’s decided to go to OCS and looks to be stateside in about six to eight weeks.

It was good to hear from him.

No observations in New Jersey, but prices continued to trend downwards today in upper Delaware. For the first time since I started paying attention, most prices were less than $3.00.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $3.09.

Claymont, Del., Sunoco, $2.99.

Claymont, Del., Getty, $2.95.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $2.97.

Claymont, Del., BP, $2.97.

Claymont, Del., Wawa, $2.97.

“Skeptics become believers”

“Immortals become Supermen”

Bullfinche’s mythology? Wagner’s Ring? The Legend of Robin Hood? Le Morte d’Arthur?

No, ABC promos for Monday Night Football.

Come on, guys, it’s a game.

Sheesh.

My route was a little different today. Prices seem to have dropped a little and started to stabilize at the low $3.00 range.

Paulsboro, NJ, Exxon (TA Truckstop), $3.12.

Paulsboro, NJ, BP, $3.14.

Fairfax, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $3.09.

Greenville, Del., Shell, $3.20.

Greenville, Del., BP, $3.24.

Brandywine Hundred, Del. (Foulk and Wilson), Shell, , $3.15.

Brandywine Hundred, Del., Exxon (Foulk and Wilson), Exxon, $3.15.

Brandywine Hundred, Del., Getty (Marsh and Wilson), Shell, $3.12.

Brandywine Hundred, Del., Getty, (Marsh and Wilson), Getty, $3.10.

Brandywine Hundred, Del., No Name (TJ’s Food Mart, Marsh and Wilson), $3.12.

Whenever we hear a story about a tragedy, a crisis, or any old kind of bad thing, there always seems to be a line at the end that “grief counselors will be available.”

Now there’s research to indicate that, in many cases, the relentless pressure to see the counselors may not be helpful and may, indeed, be counterproductive for some persons.

Furthermore, the counseling itself may create self-fulfilling prophecies. Folks who hear over and over that they are likely to be traumatized in certain ways by an event may be influenced to react in those ways; folks whose personal best way to deal with events is not to talk about them much may be harmed by feeling forced to talk about them.

I am a proponent of counseling for persons in distress. I have visited counselors and found them wonderfully helpful. For many persons, having someone who is not involved to talk with opens the door to healing.

But it was my choice to see counselors; they were not forced on me by management, by the school board, by any authority figure.

Listen to the story here.

From Reuters:

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. disaster agency resigned on Monday after fierce criticism of his handling of Hurricane Katrina and U.S. President George W. Bush rejected charges that racism or the Iraq war slowed the government response to the disaster two weeks ago.

No doubt to spend more time with his family.

I also heard on “All Things Considered” that his resume in the FEMA website was mysteriously revised over the weekend.

Duh.

But apparently Dr. Khaled Zeitoun didn’t realize that.

Now he’s paying the price. According to Reuters,

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Manhattan fertility specialist has been sued by two women who say he broke their hearts after meeting them through an online dating site on which he pretended to be single.

In their lawsuits the two women, Tiffany Wang and Jing Huang, accused Dr. Khaled Zeitoun, 46, of pretending to be single and using mind games to entice them into sexual relationships with tales of past lives.

According to court papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court and made public this week, Zeitoun is married with three children.

Follow the link to learn more.

(Reuters may ask for a login. They just started requiring registration today.)

I’m taking the day off from pontificating.

I went to Church and to the grocery store (Super Fresh was mobbed!), got a camera case at Target for my son who is taking a photography class and using my old Agfa 35mm viewfinder camera with variable f-stops and shutter speeds, found a little bookcase at a flea market to hold my Linux books, and treated my roses for the dreaded Black Spot.

I do recommend these links:

Speaking of Faith: This is one of my favorite radio shows–it is an oasis of calm and reflection amongst the chaos of daily life. Today’s show had a marvelous interview with John Danforth. Here’s how the website describes it:

Conservative Politics and Moderate Religion (September 8, 2005)
John Danforth, a former U.S. Senator and UN Ambassador, has emerged as a cautionary Republican voice. A lawyer who is also an Episcopal priest, he describes himself as a traditional Republican and a moderate Christian. Politics driven by a religious agenda, Danforth says, is true neither to his understanding of Christian faith nor to the traditional values of the Republican party. He speaks about the values that have helped him navigate the line between private faith and public life and that inform his critical perspective on the present.

It was a fascinating discussion.

This American Life. In a departure from its usually highly-scripted (though entertaining) format, today’s show featured interviews with survivors of Katrina and other disasters, people who have been there. Here’s the description from the website:

Surprising stories from survivors in New Orleans. Broadcast the weekend of September 9-11 in most places, or available via RealAudio next week.

Persons interviewed include someone who knows and describes what it’s like to go without food and water for two days, someone who’s been living in a FEMA trailer park ever since hurricane Charlie, and others who share first-hand stories.

The opening of the show, which describes the rights of the Federal Administration to take action under various circumstances, is well worth a listen.

The gist of it is that, once the President of the United States declares a State of Emergency, federal agencies no longer have to wait for requests from the various sovereign States to initiate action (despite what the apologists for the federal administration are saying–whoops! Looks like I slipped into an opinion there, but, in extenuation, an opinion based on fact, not based on who I would like to see win an election).

(aside) Facts are good things. Whatever your political leanings, I urge you to collect as many as possible. Then form the opinions based on them, rather than collecting opinions and selecting facts to support them.

On the Media, which includes a fascinating discussion of the use of the word, “refugee,” to describe the persons fleeing from Katrina, which has been discussed earlier on this site.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, which had a “preliminary autopsy” of the failures in dealing with Katrina. I haven’t finished the article yet, but it seems to try to be very even-handed in trying to assess blame and credit. They have certainly found plenty of blame to go around.

And for my weekly dose of political satire, I listened to Le Show. This week’s show is not on the website yet, but last week’s show is a powerful tribute to the magic to New Orleans. (Harry Shearer, by the way, appeared in Spinal Tap and is the voices of Montgomery Burns, Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, and Reverend Lovejoy in The Simpsons.)

Hope everyone (well, the two or three persons who actually read this) had a great weekend. Regular flaming will resume tomorrow.

I can’t add anything to this:

While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.

The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?”

(Added 9/11/2005))

In addition to the link to the comments above, this was apparently initially reported in the Houston Chronicle.

They are us.

Kim Cavanaugh made the point eloquently.

I tuned in to a national conservative talk show the other day while out driving about. Amazingly, a caller to the show was talking about “those people” down in New Orleans.

I’m angered and saddened by the reaction I’m seeing from some quarters. To attack the victims of the storm, and to then lump them into the blatantly racist category of “those” people is a shameful but revelatory indictment of our American culture and national attitude.

At a time when we should, as a nation, be pulling together, the fingers of blame are already moving the separate us, and, most sadly, exonerate those who are, by virtue of being in charge of the government, charged to

form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

but who are deserting their posts.

It gets screwier. According to Reuters,

FEMA is distributing $2,000 per household but has scrapped a plan to issue debit cards, deciding instead to provide funding directly to bank accounts or by mail. Bush directed hurricane survivors to register for aid on a government Web site, www.fema.gov, or by phone.

So there you are–in the AstroDome, without anything except the clothes on your back and the things given to you by the rescue workers. Now, fire up your laptop, hop on Wi-Fi, and go to the FEMA site.

Assuming you get through (according to NPR’s All Things Considered this evening, the best time to try to call or connect is after midnight), you can have them mail your check to—where?

Your home? Wait a minute, it’s still under water. And there won’t be postal service till Heaven knows when.

Your P. O. box? Oh, but you need ID to get a P. O. box.

General Delivery? I don’t know that that even exists any more and, if it does, dollars to doughnuts the guvmint ain’t mailing a check there.

I think the debit card idea was a good one. Why was it discontinued?

It was too inconvenient for FEMA.

Natalie Rule, spokeswoman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was quoted as saying:

”We tried it as an innovative way to get aid to evacuee populations in Texas. We decided it would be more expeditious with direct deposits,” she said, citing the large staffing operation that would be required to replicate the Texas operation in other states.

So, if you are sitting there in clothes still wet from the flood, be sure to have your laptop or your cell phone or your calling card ready so you can get help from those who swore to promote the General Welfare. Oh, yeah, maybe you never had a bank account (many of the victims of the flooding did not–never had enough money to need one) or maybe your bank is still under water.

Oh well, guess that’s your fault. FEMA’s ready to give you the money just as soon as the city is rebuilt and services are restored.

Sheesh.

Think I’ll go watch some of my Three Stooges collection. Somehow, they always managed to get it right in the end.

In the aftermath, it just gets more disgusting.

Emily Messner, of the Washington Post, has compiled a list of facts and rumors regarding federal powers in times of emergency. It should be required reading for anyone who wishes to straighten out the spin.

You can find it here:

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/thedebate/2005/09/facts_and_rumor.html#more

One of the interesting entries is this:

Fact: Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a State of Emergency for her state on Friday, Aug. 26. Full disclosure: The Post reported last week — erroneously, it turned out — that Louisiana had not issued such a declaration. A correction was published on Sept. 5.

Fact: President Bush declared a State of Emergency the next day Saturday before Hurricane Katrina hit.

And a comment posted to this site pointed out that

REGARDING Fact: Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a State of Emergency for her state on Friday, Aug. 26. Full disclosure: The Post reported last week — erroneously, it turned out — that Louisiana had not issued such a declaration. A correction was published on Sept. 5. The original artcile stated that the WaPost report was based on information provided by a Senior White House Official. If so, this seems quite worthy of a headline rather than a little snippet in Corrections.

In other news, NPR’s All Things Considered today had a several retrospectives trying to piece together what happened in the approach of Katrina.

Here’s one: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4839666

Here’s another: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4839669

And here’s an analysis from E. J. Dionne: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4839690

In good news, it appears that Mr. Brown can go back to taking care of horses, the job he came from. Yeah, he’s still on the Federal payroll, but I suspect he’s not going to have much to do from now on.

And remember, he was a political appointee, not a professional bureaucrat. Professional bureaucrats get a lot of bad press, especially from politicians who want to make appointees, but I have known a lot of professional civil servants in my career (I lived and worked in Washington, DC, for nine years), and, by and large, they take their jobs seriously and try to do them well.

It’s when the political appointees at the head of their departments don’t know what to do and provide no leadership and no work assignments that the professional civil servants get frustrated and bored and spend their days surfing the Net.

Oh, and here’s a take on what it takes to provide leadership to a government agency.

For the first time in a long time, I saw a price under $3.00, at the Claymont, Del., Wawa. Wawas tend to have the lowest prices and therefore tend to drag down the prices of everyone around.

For the last few days, the Exxon Stations seem to be the highest priced. Maybe that’s why Exxon is doing so well.

Paulsboro, NJ, Exxon (TA Truck Stop), $3.12.

Paulsboro, NJ, Amoco (across from the truck stop), $3.14.

Penny Hill (near Bellefonte), Del., BP, $3.15.

Penny Hill, (near Bellefonte), Del, Exxon, $3.29.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $3.32 (back on top where he usually is), $3.27

Claymont, Del., Sunoco (just reopened after a pump transplant), $3.15.

Claymont, Del, Getty, $3.05.

Claymont, Del., Shell, $3.14.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $3.09.

Claymont, Del, Gulf (Joe and Tony’s), $3.14.

Claymont, Del, Wawa, $2.99.

Claude Lewis had a disturbing column in the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday, in which he told how

A 17-year-old youth walked into an Italian restaurant in Burlington, N.J., to order two large pizzas.

Emblazoned on his white T-shirt was a large yellow smiley face with the tip of a cat’s tail protruding from of the smiley’s mouth. Beneath the design was an explicitly depraved, three-word sentence that would offend almost any woman.

The owner of the pizza shop refused service, and the youth left and came back with his mother to show that she approved of his tee-shirt. The owner ordered them both out, and Mama threatened to go to the cops. Mr. Lewis concluded with these remarks:

In a civilized society, we must express outrage when people are intentionally discourteous. Parents who defend rudeness by their children when teachers demand respect do an injustice to all of society. In the privacy of one’s home, lesser standards may be tolerated, but in public places conduct must be regulated. There is also the unwritten law of cohesion that calls for propriety everywhere we travel. Only when parents abdicate their responsibility do we need specific ordinances to govern disobedience.

The level of public discourse in the USA has gone done the tubes. Frankly, I don’t care how people comport themselves in private, but politeness and courtesy seems to have disappeared from the public spaces. I hear words every day, even at work, in the most casual way, that I didn’t even know were words until I was 15 years old.

And I hear them–all but two–on the little bit of television I watch.

This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not freedom to be rude, though many seem to think it is. I frankly am tired of hearing George Carlin’s seven forbidden words minus two on television and on the street, from 10-year-olds and 70-year-olds.

I think Mr. Lewis’s column deserves a good read. It will be available on-line for about a week.

Christopher Rabb of Afro-Netizen objected to referring to the victims of Katrina as “refugees” and seems to have started a little tempest in a teapot. Here’s part of his first post on the topic:

Hurricane Katrina victims are Americans!

I don’t recall the media referring to Hurricane Andrew victims in ’92 as refugees. Do you? (Follow the link above to read more.)

So much so that he today published a follow-up post, in which he said, in part,

Both “refugees” and “you people” — or “the blacks”, for that matter — are clear and straight-forward terms and expressions.

So, for those of you who are part of the torrent of the readers who have lambasted me recently about criticizing the media’s use of the word “refugees” to describe the largely Black Americans who’ve been hit by Hurricane Katrina, I welcome you to start a conversation with a group of Black people with “you people” or “the blacks” and tell me if you feel connotations are not as valid as technical denotations.

So I went to the source, Merriam-Webster’s, and found this:

Main Entry: ref·u·gee
Pronunciation: “re-fyu-‘jE, ‘re-fyu-”
Function: noun
Etymology: French réfugié, past participle of (se) réfugier to take refuge, from Latin refugium
: one that flees; especially : a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution
– ref·u·gee·ism /-“i-z&m/ noun

It is quite clear from the definition of the word that Mr. Rabb is on to something. The word refugee definitely has a connotation, if not a denotation, of “otherness.”

Geoff Nunberg had a interesting take on this on today’s Fresh Air.

I posted in another forum (alt.aol.tricks) the following comment:

Rather, I think that there are persons in this country (indeed, in any country) for whom the poor and the disenfranchised and the minorities simple do not exist. They don’t see them at all. So they become definitely not a factor in any policy decision.

Stripped of its facade, evil is truly pedestrian and banal.

The people who were incapable of leaving New Orleans because they did not have vehicles were not on anyone’s radar. Public transportation out of New Orleans shut down well before the storm. And folks were left to fend for themselves.

And now the federal administration is blaming the victims.

Now, I’m a Southern boy. I grew up under Jim Crow and went to segregated schools, white schools. It seemed normal to me because that was all I knew until the 1960s. I know now it was not normal–that, in fact, it was part of the great evil underside to our history.

And I also know bigotry when I see it. And the worst bigotry is when bigotry becomes so normal that no one sees it when it is there.

Woodbury, NJ, Exxon, $3.41.

Woodbury, NJ, Coastal, $3.20 (there’s a Coastal refinery five miles away).

Woodbury, NJ, Enrite and Wawa, $3.12.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $3.32.

Claymont, Del, Getty, $3.15.

Claymont, Del., Shell, (whoops! missed this one today).

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $3.13 (not quite the lowest, but he’s getting back down there, where he usually is).

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Joe and Tony’s), $3.29.

Claymont, Del, Wawa, $3.09.

Holly Oak Mobil, Wilmington, Del., (just reopened), $3.12.

An interesting collection of opinions:

Are we number one? Harold Meyerson isn’t sure.

Even as Mr. Bush claims he doesn’t want to play the blame game, the Karl Rove character assassination game goes into high gear.

Now, I’m not a big Bush fan, but it is not taking political sides to observe that this administration has always played the game of character assassination, from starting rumors during the South Carolina primary in 2000 that John McCain had an illegitimate child by a black woman to the whole “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” scam.

And they have gotten away with it because Americans, by and large, want to believe that their candidates are, at least, reasonably honest; therefore, bald-faced lies get a hearing. And the politicians on the other side (whichever side it is) expect attacks that twist and spin their statements, but don’t expect attacks that are bald-faced lies, so, when they are presented with those attacks, they don’t know how to respond.

In other news, it looks like a bunch of left-leaning bloggers got sucked into a misrepresentation of what a German news report actually said. Here’s how Daniel Rubin summarized it on Blinq:

The Dutchman, Frank Tiggelaar, wrote that unlike CNN, “PDF News reported that the president’s visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of NeWS people had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.”

Only one problem. He was wrong. I asked Inquirer reporter Christian Meier, a six-month fellow from Bonn, to translate the Sept. 2 PDF report.

[EDITORIAL MODE ON]

I have nothing against opinions and against expressing opinions–heaven knows, I have enough of my own and I’m not shy about expressing them in the appropriate forums–but, before we express them, we should try to determine the facts. Our opinions should be based on the facts, not vice versa.

Facts cannot be based on opinions–the moment we use opinions to create facts, we are no longer dealing in facts. We are dealing in lies.

And that something appears on the internet does not make it a fact. Indeed, the gossipy old ladies in my home town were a more reliable source of information than the internet.

Check it once, check it twice, and check it once again.

[EDITORIAL MODE OFF]

I missed day 5. I didn’t leave the house. I’m back to my normal stamping grounds, and here’s what I observed:

Paulsboro, NJ, Exxon (TA Truck Stop), $3.12.

Paulsboro, NJ, Amoco (across from the truck stop), $3.14.

Paulsboro, NJ, LubOil (downtown Paulsboro), $3.13.

Claymont, Del., Exxon, $3.32 (back on top where he usually is).

Claymont, Del, Getty, $3.15.

Claymont, Del., Shell, $3.17.

Claymont, Del., Gulf (Cumberland Farms), $3.17 (not quite the lowest, but he’s getting back down there, where he usually is).

Claymont, Del, Gulf (Joe and Tony’s), $3.26.

Claymont, Del, Wawa, $3.15.