“Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.”

- Edmund Wilson

I'm pretty much on an every-other week schedule for Keegan's Thursday night trivia (when my family hasn't otherwise abandoned me), which would have me in the thick of the fray tonight - except that it is my lovely wife's birthday. Even though I've offered her a birthday present of the two free drink tickets I've accumulated from my most recent visits, she would rather celebrate the occasion in another manner.

She's already made it so easy for me that I can't possibly resist. She's already selected the restaurant where she wants to eat, and then it's off to the store to pick up the birthday present she's already selected. How good is that? This doesn't indicate a lack of faith on her part for my gift-buying acumen, as I think I'm pretty good at that. This just allows me to focus my skills and attention on our upcoming anniversary.

By the way, this is one of those birthdays for her that ends in a "9". If enough of you think the first number is "2" then I'm sure she'll be back at Keegan's in no time to thank you personally. Below is a photo of a previous visit, when we were joined by the mysterious Tiger Lilly (the Mall Diva was probably shopping).

(photo by Douglas Bass)

Could the outbreak of the H5N1 virus (avian flu or bird flu) in 57 people in Indonesia be the harbinger of the global pandemic that has had experts throughout the world very concerned for years?

Let's hope not, but this community of scientists, researchers and doctors is watching developments very closely and holding their breath. At stake, literally, are millions of lives around the world including, by one conservative estimate, 1.7 million in the U.S. (Note: my day job puts me in contact with people who have to concern themselves with projecting this risk, and I've helped write articles on this topic for risk management publications. I've posted on this subject in this blog here, here and here.)

You can read those posts for an overview, or do your own research (there's plenty of it out there now) or visit this blog which is aggregating the latest details and research on a daily basis. Here, however, are the pertinent details:

The reason the H5N1 virus has created so much concern is because it is genetically very similar to the virus that created the famous 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that is generally believed to have killed between 20 and 40 million people world-wide (one modern estimate puts the total at 100 million, however). The impact today could be even more devastating considering the world is much more densely populated now and people are many times more mobile, which could promote the rapid spread of the pandemic.

Despite the genetic similarity, an H5N1 vaccine has yet to be developed. The flu has already killed millions of birds in Asia, and led to the preventive slaughter of millions more domestic fowl. So far - and this is important - the virus has passed to humans only through animal to human contact; it has yet to take a form that allows it to pass from human to human (more potentially good news on this this in a few more paragraphs). Flu viruses, however, are very unstable and mutate easily; every influenza that affects humans - such as the strains that appear annually - began in animals and followed this path. The easiest way for the virus to mutate is to come in contact with a human or animal that already has another strain of influenza active in its body and for the two viruses to become recombinant. (Pigs, for example, have been shown to be able to host both H5N1 and "human" influenza and H5N1 has started to turn up in pigs and tigers in Asia.)

H5N1 infection so far have been mainly in Southeast Asia where many people live and work in close proximity to birds and other animals susceptible to being carriers. Approximately 40 percent of people who have contracted the virus have died.

Here's why the current cases in Indonesia are significant: Indonesia, unlike other asian countries, refrained from wholesale slaughter of commercial and domestic flocks of poultry thought to be harboring the virus, which might explain the outbreak. While there is still no confirmation of human-to-human transmission, the number of people infected there within a short timeframe is troubling. Also, this spring there were several small outbreaks in Vietnam in "pods" of people. The course of the Spanish Flu was for a few isolated cases in the spring, followed by a quiet summer and then a rapid spread the in the fall.

On a bit more positive note, some virologists think there may be some natural barriers keeping the virus at bay in humans, as noted here:

1. Its viral replication in human cells may be inefficient. There may be too few viral offspring emerging from infected cells to create a big "viral load" that can be spread through coughing or sneezing, as the human flu virus does so well.
   
2. The avian virus is unable to lock on effectively to human cells, or more accurately certain types of human cells. The spike that enables it to lock on to the cell receptor is the wrong shape.
   
3. Avian viruses' natural home is the gut of birds, where the temperature is a balmy 37 degrees Celsius. The human respiratory tract, though, is 33 degrees to 34 degrees Celsius. That coolness could have an impact on how well the virus reproduces.
   
4. Bird viruses are well adapted to evading the immune system of birds by skirting the molecular tripwires that unleash antibodies and white blood cells that destroy invaders. But they do not yet have this in humans.

This may be good news, but the spread of H5N1 to species other than birds (again, documented in pigs and tigers), and the ability of other influenza strains to make the jump to humans, still raises major concerns.

For a comprehensive look at the havoc a pandemic could create medically, politically and economically, and what can be done to reduce the risks and ultimate impact, I highly recommend you read this article by Dr. Michael Osterholm. Just because the risk is almost mind-bogglingly surreal to consider doesn't mean it can't happen. After all, a year ago how many people could have conceived of a tsunami big enough to devastate half a dozen countries, or a hurricane wiping out 80 percent of a major metropolitan area in the U.S.?

Update:

Here's a report from CNN that suggests that H5N1 is resistant to Tamiflu (oseltamivir), the leading antiviral drug that countries are trying to stockpile as a first line of defense until a vaccine can be developed.

Also, Senator Bill Frist weighs in. A key quote from his Op-Ed:

If a pandemic occurs soon, we will be in a race against time to build the appropriate defenses on the fly. We cannot afford inaction. Through the Project Bioshield legislation President Bush signed last year, we began the process of preparing for biological, chemical and nuclear threats. But Congress and the administration still need to do much more.

The avian flu poses a serious risk to our nation's health and security. Every medical worker, public health specialist, parent, and, indeed, every citizen, needs to think about how we can confront it. Right now, preparing to face a pandemic should rank very high among our nation's priorities. And, for the safety of its people, our nation needs to act now.

(HT: Avian Flu - What We Need to Know)

I don't watch a lot of protests on television, especially during football season (I find it more interesting to watch events where you don't know what's going to happen next). I do remember seeing several protests on television when I was younger, though: the '68 Democratic National Convention, Kent State, the Selma marches. You know the images - tear-gas, guns, fire hoses, baton-wielding police in facemasks, police-dogs tearing at clothes.

In later years I also watched the the TV show Cops with all of its jerky camera foot-chases through dark alleys after wild-eyed, half-naked suspects desperate to get away and knee-in-the-back arrests with bleeped out language and pixilated faces.

When I heard about the anti-war protests over the weekend and that Cindy Sheehan and others had been arrested - and since George Bush is the new Bull Connor - you might understand why I imagined a desperate melee of hair-pulling blood and brutality, or at least a little bruising.

Ah, no.
(Photo via Reuters/Yahoo. Click to enlarge.)



Back in the day, you would have heard angry voices:

"@#%#% Pigs!"
"Hippie scum!"

Now it's more like, "Good morning, I believe you had an appointment to be arrested?"

"Why yes, yes I did. I'm ready if you are, but be careful - my bursitis is acting up in this shoulder."

I mean, there's even a guy talking on his cell phone in the picture: "Hi, Muffy, it's me. Everything's right on schedule here, so I should be home by four. Hey, could you check and see whether or not I remembered to Tivo The West Wing before I left?"

I believe the group was chanting "The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!" Assuming this were true (except for all the people in China, Iran and Darfur and other places who are dead or in jail for protesting against their government) then the whole world has got to be thinking, "What a country!"

Times have changed, I guess, as has the song the protestors sing:

"All we are saying, is put us on TV!"

"All honor, all glory, all power, to you."

As our church's musicians and singers completed the first verse and rose into the chorus of this familiar hymn Sunday morning, I could clearly pick out the soaring soprano of one of the vocalists. It was my eldest daughter, Faith (aka "The Mall Diva").

I am usually moved by this song, but never quite in the way I was yesterday as my child, for the first time, was one of the ones leading our congregation deeper into God's presence. I nearly reeled as my mind flashed through the memories of her as a baby in the church nursery, of her growing up through the children's and youth ministries ... and of her now not just worshipping God herself, but helping others do so as well. It was an unexpected parental dividend and I felt an almost electric sensation, one not of pride but of being a part of something almost too big to be seen except in sudden slivers of the sublime.

And I thought of Doug's post from a week ago called "Living for Today" that was launched by an article in the Guardian entitled, "No kids please, we're selfish." The latter article somewhat anxiously considered the ramifications of an (arguably) increasingly self-centered Western culture that considers children too much of a bother. It sketched the lives of several successful people intent on wringing everything they could get for themselves out of life ... as long as it didn't involve children.

While I personally can't think of any adventure with the scope, stakes and potential fulfillment of raising children, I'm not going to assume the childless are inherently "selfish" - or assume that those with children are automatically enobled by the experience. Indeed, those who have kids simply to "fulfill" themselves are every bit as selfish, in my mind, as those who can't be bothered. Nor would I suggest that someone who shudders at the thought raising kids "owes" it to his or herself or to society to have kids anymore than I would encourage an inexperienced non-swimmer with a heart condition to take up whitewater kayaking. (My concern isn't so much that there aren't enough children coming along, but that there aren't enough parents.)

Seeing my daughter take on a new responsibility, using talents I had no way of bequeathing to her or of coaching her in, was gratifying on a deep, deep level for me. Raising her and her sister has taken up a lot of my wife's and my time, attention and money. There are innumerable things we might have invested these resources in if we hadn't had kids but I can't think of a one that could have given me a moment like yesterday's - or the many, many other moments we've enjoyed in watching our daughters become blessings to us and, most importantly, to others.

My wife and I have always known at a certain level that we are not raising our daughters for ourselves, but ultimately for others. As a result, there have been decisions we've made to do things in ways that would be more difficult (at least initially) for the two of us but were part of our responsibility. I've known I have to pass something on, just as someone passed it to me; to give what I have received.

What would I, personally, have done with all that time and money if I hadn't had my kids? Could I, like some of the people in the Guardian article, have become a force in the world, or someone important? Could I, like they, have written books? Perhaps. More likely, knowing myself, I'd have probaby frittered it all away with little to show for it.

Yes, perhaps I may have written books. Without my kids, however, I have no idea what I would have written about.

Swing open the pearly gates of TV Heaven, again. Bob "Gilligan" Denver passed away a couple of weeks ago, and now it's Don Adams from Get Smart.

Besides playing Maxwell Smart, I remember Adams as the voices of Tennessee Tuxedo from my own cartoon-watching youth, and as Inspector Gadget from my kids' era.

Dang, I'm feeling old. Would someone mind driving by the home and checking on the Smothers Brothers?

Here's a Sunday thought that occurred to me: What is the difference between religion and faith in a living God?

“Religion” to me is like a Ming vase locked up in a storage case in your home. You can worship it, venerate it, pass it on from generation to generation. You can study it, talk about it with other people who collect Ming vases, and even feel better about yourself because you have a Ming vase and say that you love it. Other people will even say it is a lovely and beautiful thing ... and you might vote for them when they do.

But will it heal you? Can it bring you peace? Can you take it off its shelf and put it on your table at dinner time – even pour cream out of it, or serve your guests from it? Could you go so far as to lend it to your neighbors, or take it with you on a trip? Will you let your kids handle it up close and personal so they can enjoy its beauty and practicality? Can it stand up to having rocks thrown at it, and still bind the wounds of the one who did the throwing?

That is faith, my friends.

Some Hurricane Katrina evacuees have said they don't want to come to Minnesota where it gets so cold. Apparently they can deal with a string of hurricanes, but the occasional blizzard is too scary. With Hurricane Rita now on our southern doorstep, I offer as a public service the following list of reasons why blizzards are better than hurricanes.

1. With a blizzard you get a day off from school; with a hurricane you lose the school altogether.
   
2. After a blizzard, snowball fights break out; after a hurricane, looting breaks out.
   
3. After a hurricane you are waist deep in water and toxic sludge; after a blizzard you are waist deep in something you can eat (except for the yellow parts).
   
4. A blizzard drops a bunch of snow on your house and garage; a hurricane drops your house on your garage.
   
5. After a hurricane you mobilize the National Guard with automatic weapons; after a blizzard you mobilize the neighborhood kids with snowshovels.
   
6. There are so many hurricanes each year they have to be named alphabetically; blizzards are referred to by the year they occurred.
   
7. Blizzards sometimes result in snow up to your roof; hurricanes result in you sitting on your roof.
   
8. TV reporters at the scene of a hurricane look as if they're reporting from a war zone; TV reporters at the scene of a blizzard look as if they're reporting from It's A Wonderful Life.
   
9. A hurricane from Pat O'Brien's will knock you on your butt; a blizzard from Dairy Queen just gives you a brain freeze.
   
10. With hurricanes you can blame George Bush and global warming; with blizzards - oh, yeah, everything can be blamed on George Bush and global warming.
    

This list is not to suggest, of course, that blizzards (or hurricanes for that matter) should be taken lightly. Follow the link to find out more about the famous 1940 Armistice Day Blizzard that killed 49 people.

I've been trying to work up a little righteous anger or off-beat humor (or is it righteous humor and off-beat anger?) for a decent post, but I just haven't quite caught the buzz. Iowa will do that to you.

I just made two 10-hour drives in a span of four days, in the middle of which I played 27 holes of bad golf in hot, humid weather. Both legs of the trip involved an end-to-end traipse of Iowa. Nice folks there, and the gas stations give you a non-ethanol option, but even after a night's sleep I still can't get my brain off of cruise control. I'm feeling more than a little road-logged.

There was some extra flavor to the trip, however, because I brought along the Mall Diva and one of her best friends, Casii (sounds like Casey). They're at an age where if you asked them if they wanted to spend two days in a small car to go see some old people you're likely to get an eye-rolling you won't soon forget. If, however, you say "Road trip!" you're in business. They were good company, especially since the MD can take a shift at the wheel, but it did mean giving up control of the CD player. Well, I didn't give up control totally of course, but I indulged their music choices for the most part.

Casii had brought along the new Switchfoot CD, which was ok by me. I'd listened to their last CD a few times and found it better than just endurable. The new one sounded pretty good as well, though anymore it usually takes me a couple times through a CD to make out many of the words. The tunes were catchy enough, but on the second time through the disc the guitar choruses all started to sound pretty much the same to me, as did the vocals. I also found myself wishing the lead singer (who was, frankly, starting to sound rather whiny) would step back occasionally and let a distinctly different voice have a go, ala Ringo Starr and "Yellow Submarine." Overall I like the band, though, and appreciate their approach to contemporary Christian music.

A definite musical highlight, however, was when Casii brought out her Superchick Regeneration CD. I hadn't heard this feisty Christian girl band with attitude before (and don't even begin to think there's no such thing as a feisty Christian girl with an attitude or I'll put you in a small car with the Mall Diva) and the music was great! It was up tempo with an edge that encouraged a little enthusiastic head-banging - which the MD always saved for when someone was passing us (thank you all for not calling 911). While Superchick isn't nearly as subtle in their music and lyrics as Switchfoot, they do have an irresistible freshness and energy. As a bonus, one of the songs on the album is called "Barlow Girls"; I understood the lyric but had no idea what a Barlow girl was.

Turns out BarlowGirl is another Christian girl band with an edge. I checked them out on Amazon and iTunes today, and that's another one I think we'll be adding to our collection soon.

The new tunes will definitely make Iowa go by a lot faster.

I was up early this morning, leaving my brother's house to drive the 25 miles to my mom and dad's where I left the girls. It was strange weather last night - weirdly lit upside-down dinner roll clouds scattered around clear patches, followed by tremendous and sudden thunder and lightning, but very little rain. At 6:30 this morning there was fog as I set out on the highway.

The gray mists made it easy to imagine I was out at sea. Occasionally the hulking shapes of semis would appear out of the gray like freighters bound for distant ports. I had Ray Lynch's Deep Breakfast CD turned on, and as the song "The Oh of Pleasure" played it seemed as if the lights of approaching cars came out of the fog in the same way the ethereal notes of Lynch's melody emerged from the rhythm.

Fog is unpredictable. At one point ahead and well above me it cleared for few moments and I could see the top of a telecommunications booster tower, it's transmitters standing out like oversized ears, but I couldn't see the base of the tower. It was the type of sky where I could easily imagine God opening a trap-door, like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with beams of light radiating, to pronounce a mission for me (but first, "stop grovelling.")

Perhaps a mission is what I need. The fog and the familiar road I was driving were a little too apt a metaphor. I knew pretty much where I was and where I was going and what was immediately ahead, but everything else seemed so mysterious. This was the road I chose, but maybe I ought to check out my GPS - God Positioning System - to make sure I'm on the right track. As I'm thinking this, I recall what Cheeseburger Brown said earlier this year in his excellent "The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster" illumination:

"Just because you cannot see the path, doesn't mean it isn't under your feet."

Amen.

I'm on the road Monday and Tuesday due to another trip to the ancestral stomping grounds. I have a new post in my head that I'll be mulling as I drive Tuesday; more details Tuesday night.

One of the great things about subscribing to Netflix is being able to queue up a season's worth of a television show and watch every episode without commercials. This was a great way for me to watch Band of Brothers, and now my family and I are hooked on the first season of Lost.

We're not big television watchers for the most part. I mainly watch sports or ESPN with some news channels thrown in, while my girls are into Spongebob Squarepants and Kim Possible. My wife never turns the set on. We haven't made it a point to watch a particular show every week since Star Trek: The Next Generation and Mystery Science Theater 3000 went into syndication. It's not that we're anti-tv (well, maybe my wife is), but we usually have so many things going on that making it a priority to be in front of the set at a particular time each week isn't practical. I know, some of you are saying "Tivo", but I learned a long, long time ago that if I don't have time to watch something in the first place I'm probably not going to have time to watch it later either. How long ago did I learn this? Well, I paid six hundred dollars for a VCR to tape all those shows I was missing, so that should tell you something. (I thought that maybe with all the time I saved by microwaving my food I could watch all the tapes that were piling up. Didn't happen. I think I may still have some Miami Vice episodes in the back of the entertainment center that I haven't seen.)

Anyway, the commercials for Lost looked interesting so I put the DVDs of the first seven episodes in my Netflix queue a couple of months ago. They arrived last week and since then the family has been completely absorbed - even my wife! The ever-sophisticated Mall Diva really likes the show and Tiger Lilly is engrossed, except when she's hiding her face behind me during the really intense scenes.

What I like about it is the strong ensemble cast without any superstars, which makes it easier to identify with the characters. The plotting and pace are brisk, and while the writing uses a few tried and true conventions there is enough mystery and novelty to keep you off balance and trying to figure out what's going to happen next. Probably the most brilliant decision the producer and writers made was to tell stories within the story about the different characters through flashbacks. This serves the purpose of adding depth and backstory to the characters while keeping the story from being "trapped" on the island with the same scenery over and over. It also allows for special guests to appear in the show, which adds further variety and even some nice surprises (Hey - it's Veronica Hamel! I haven't seen her in ages! I think there might even be some Hill Street Blues tapes in the entertainment center as well!)

Of course, being able to watch each episode without commercials is extra sweet. We got through the first two DVDs in the series in just a couple of days, sent them back and we've started on the third. We should be done with the first season in a couple of weeks. This is definitely the best way for us to watch the rare show that's worth following. We won't be able to watch season two as it unfolds on Wednesday nights this year, but I'll be sure to have it in my Netflix queue well in advance of its release date next summer!

A four-blog conglomeration clawed its way into a five-way tie for first place at Keegan's Thursday night. Calling ourselves Ineffectual Takeout, Marty Andrade, Ben from Hammerswing 75, Dan from Northern Alliance Wannabe and yours truly made it into the crowded winner's circle with a whopping 16 points. (Tough quiz, including three questions asking how old Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and Richard Simmons are - and "real old" didn't count).

Tiger Lilly couldn't make it to trivia this week, so Marty had to take up the slack by contributing the crucial answer to one of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory questions - without satisfactorily answering how he happened to know that answer. Maybe a caller to his radio program this week can ask him again.

A couple of fun new things have hit the blogosphere in the last two days.

The biggest news, I think, is the arrival of Intellectual Takeout, a site created by the Center for the American Experiment primarily to equip or familiarize college students with conservative principals. The site features articles on a wide variety of topics and grouped under headings such as Cultural Studies, Foundations of Liberty, Economics, etc.

It is clear that a lack of intellectual diversity on our college campuses is an ongoing problem, but the majority of students lack the tools needed to confront this imbalance or are just afraid to stand up and challenge the people who hand out their grades.

That's why IntellectualTakeout.com, a project of Center of the American Experiment's FACT: Foundations for Active Conservative Thinking program, is designed to help students respond to the ideological imbalance on their campuses.

This groundbreaking website provides students with quick access to a menu of ideas on a number of topics including Cultural Studies, Economics, Education, Environmental Studies, Foundations of Liberty, History, and Political Science. The website also connects students with other like-minded students and alumni, and can even assist them in job searches.

IntellectualTakeout.com is not about trying to indoctrinate students to the conservative point of view. It is about exposing students to thoughts and ideas that are not readily available in college classrooms and about spurring honest and open debate on campus.

Check it out and be sure to pass the word to high school and college students you know. You can be sure to get their attention by telling them it's something the system "doesn't want them to know."

The other new item is Google's new blog-only search engine. Although Google bought Blogger, the search engine delivers results for blogs based from other services. I had no trouble finding links to the MOB and others.

Oh, one last thing that you've been waiting for: I'll be at Keegan's tonight for trivia.

The protestors are picketing outside a Las Vegas Wal-Mart in 100-degree plus heat for $6 an hour and no benefits. (The average hourly rate for Wal-Mart workers in Nevada is $10.17, and the stores are air-conditioned).

Why?

Because the working conditions at non-union Wal-Mart are so bad, I guess.

Read the story here. HT: King Banaian.

A report that just appeared on WebMD today offers evidence that suggests babies cry while in womb:

A baby's first cry may happen in the womb long before its arrival in the delivery room.

New research shows that fetuses may learn to express their displeasure by crying silently while still in the womb as early as in the 28th week of pregnancy.

Video-recorded ultrasound images of third trimester fetuses show that they appeared startled in response to a low-decibel noise played on the mother's abdomen and display crying behavior, such as opening their mouths, depressing their tongues, and taking several irregular breaths before exhaling and settling back down again.

Researchers say the results show that crying may represent a fifth, previously unknown behavioral state for human fetuses. Previously recognized behaviors in unborn fetuses include quiet sleep, active state, quiet awake, and active awake.

The article notes that researchers say this behavior would require complex development:

They say documenting crying behavior in third-trimester fetuses may have developmental implications because crying is a complex behavior that requires coordination of various motor systems. It also requires reception of a stimulus, recognizing it as negative, and incorporating an appropriate response.

Go here to read the entire article.

The Mall Diva's treatise on gun safety a few days ago reminded me of when we took a DNR gun safety class together five years ago, and of our subsequent trips to the shooting range after she was certified.

Her first time with live ammunition she was 50 feet away and put her first shot in the upper left corner of the target - and her next four shots tightly in the black. I wasn't too surprised because she seems to pick things up pretty naturally.

For example, when she was the same age as the firearm training she also wanted to learn how to throw and catch a football. She has good coordination and picked that up pretty fast, so we moved on to trying to catch the ball while on the run. On about her third "catch" or so the ball hit her hands...and then bounced into her nose. Oh, the agony and gnashing of teeth.

The indoor shooting range we were going to also had handguns for rent, and my daughter soon laid eyes on a Desert Eagle, a .50 caliber handgun that her instructor had talked about a couple of times and had even brought to class once. She wanted to shoot the Eagle. This may or may not have had to do with the time we were plinking with a .22 rifle at the same range and a couple of guys had shown up in the stall next to us with a .44 caliber pistol. Even with ear protection we could feel the concussion from each shot and the vibration through the cement floor and up through our feet. So then we're at the counter and she's saying, "Dad, let's get the Eagle!"

"My child," I said, "think 'football and nose.' Think 'football times about 50.' Think that maybe a gun that can stop a rhino can also lead to rhinoplasty."

"Cool. So are we getting it?"

I could answer that, but I think I'll just let the boys out there keep guessing for awhile.

CNN wasted no time in reporting that the Shaw Group, which has been awarded a couple of $100 million contracts to rebuild the Katrina disaster area, has ties to the Bush White House. In its haste to create another Halliburton-type conspiracy (Halliburton has also won Katrina-related contracts, btw), CNN's unnamed correspondent either overlooked or under-reported a crucial detail, as Michelle Malkin notes:

The Shaw Group, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, is headed by Jim Bernhard, the current chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. Bernhard worked tirelessly for Democrat Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's runoff campaign and served as co-chair of her transition team. Another Shaw executive was Blanco's campaign manager. Bernhard is back-scratching chums with Blanco, whom he has lent/offered the Shaw Group's corporate jets to on numerous occasions.

Politics by its nature has always indulged its precocious step-children, Preference and Privilege, and this certainly didn't start in Louisiana. Louisiana does have, however, a celebrated reputation for not just winking at such antics but even romanticizing them. New Orleans especially has cultivated the term "lagniappe," a French-American word generally meaning, "something extra". It imparts a wry and cultured cynicism to the transaction, as if to say, "Why, cher, cronyism is such a harsh word, and one must be mindful of one's manners. After all, it's really just a matter of perspective."

I suppose a lot really does depend on how you want to look at something. Right, CNN?

HT: Bogus Gold.

Most reporting on the Federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina describes it in terms ranging from flatfooted to negligent to even criminal. Jack Kelly takes a detailed look at the facts instead of the perception here. An excerpt:

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

Read the entire article for an illuminating report of logistical achievement. HT: Hammerswing.

Medical attention was available but couldn't be delivered. Death by starvation and dehydration was imminent as the days dragged by without relief. Everyone knew what was going on yet no one seemed able to do anything about it. In an unprecedented, emergency session the President and Congress of the U.S. acted decisively to preserve life.

And critics loudly protested this federal intervention as a usurption of state powers and unwarranted intervention into personal rights, the local authorities refused to act on the federal mandate, and Terri Schiavo died.

Now many of the same voices are blaming the federal government for not overriding the authority, responsibilities and policies of the city or state government to protect its citizenry. Certainly some of these citizens who refused to evacuate in advance of Katrina voluntarily accepted the consequences of their decisions just, as some claim, as Terri Schiavo did. Others who were weak, vulnerable or incapacitated had no choice but to be at the mercy of the actions or inactions of others. That, too, should sound familiar.

So, how was your Labor Day weekend? You might say, “Oh it was a blast, we got together with family and ate some food.” Or, as I have heard since the holiday, “We stayed in and let everyone else get drunk.”

Oh! Ummm…ok. I’m glad you had a good time.

Anyway, I’m betting that most of your weekends weren’t nearly as interesting as mine. It started off as a normal enough trip to Oklahoma, and ended in a fight for survival!

Ok, ok. It was more of a “hunker down and pray that we don’t get hit by any stray bullets for survival” kind of thing.

Yeah, I said bullets!

Stray ones!

You see, my dear grandmumsy lives in one of the most ... interesting ... neighborhoods in Tulsa and sometimes the good folks down there just get their dander up. Here’s the dilly-o:

Sunday night, about 11:30, I heard gunshots. First there were five or six, then there was a lull, and then there were three more. Well, the third one hit something. I was up off the floor (actually, I was on an air mattress) and looking out the window just as fast as you can say “Sweet Onion Chutney!” I couldn’t really see anything, so I went to the room where my mother and sister were sleeping. They informed me that the bullet had come through their window. Yeah. We turned on the light and looked around, and found that the bullet had not only gone through the window, but had also gone through a wall on the other side of which was the bathroom. The bullet then ricocheted off the opposite wall in the bathroom and finally came to rest beside the toilet.

We called the police (obviously), and they sent someone over. The policeman asked us several questions, one of which was, “So, are you ready to pack up and move down here?” You’ve got to be kidding me. Anyway, a detective was on the way, but he was taking so long that I told the officer to call him and have him pick up some donuts for us, as by this time it was morning, and we might as well have some breakfast. He laughed at me. Hey, no harm in trying. While we were waiting for the detective, I did my nails. He was taking forever! Once, he got there, though, the rest went pretty fast, he took some pictures, bagged the bullet, and left.

On his way out, the officer told us what had happened:

Two girls were trying to break into a car at the apartment kind of across the way from us. One of them sliced her hand on the broken window, and the other went over to a man who always sits on a chair outside his apartment, and she started “chippin’ her teeth at him,” as the officer said. Well, he just ups and pulls out his pistol and starts shooting at nothing in particular. I guess he just wanted to scare them; hence the window-busting bullet. What makes me really mad is his total disregard to one of the most important commandments of gun safety:

Always know your target and what lies beyond it – especially if it’s me!

So, yeah! My Labor Day weekend was a blast, too!

Update:

The Mall Diva is my teen-aged daughter, making her blogging debut. She knows the rules of gun safety, having earned her DNR Firearm Safety Certificate five years ago.
- Night Writer

It's been a distracting couple of days. I'm right in the middle of the annual budget process at work, which is always a challenge for a numbers-averse guy such as I but is now complicated further by being in the middle of a changing over to a new laptop and operating system. On top of that, Wednesday night was my Fantasy Football draft requiring study on Tuesday night and, as I'm the commissioner, extra duties afterwards.

Then real life its ownself got a little fantastical, as my wife and daughters returned Tuesday night from a trip to visit family in Oklahoma and had to report on braving Hummer-sized cockroaches and sharing their bedroom with a speeding bullet. The Mall Diva has promised to describe her version of the events here in the next day or two, but in the meantime, Tiger Lilly has this account.

I showed up last night at the official MOB event at Town Hall Brewery at 5:20, and there were no bloggers to be seen on the patio or in the bar. I just figured everyone was being fashionably late. No, actually, what I was thinking was this was some kind of rookie initiation prank to see who can be fooled, similar to the "free turkey" giveaway prank the Vikings vets pull on the rookies each year.

Since it was a nice evening I decided to park it on the patio anyway. While waiting for bloggers to show I heard someone at a nearby table asking why the military couldn't have just dropped food and water from helicopters to the people near the SuperDome. The juxtaposition of the question so close to my thoughts of turkeys immediately reminded me of the WKRP in Cincinnatti episode where the station decided to put on a Thanksgiving promotion by dropping turkeys to people in a parking lot - from a helicopter. I can't remember for sure if the turkeys were live or frozen, but the result was disastrous either way, and the scene was perfectly played because the television writers knew the power of radio; they showed the cast sitting in the station listening to the broadcast of the "drop" as narrated over the air by newsman Les Nessman, "Oh, the humanity! The humanity!" The writers left the scene to the viewers imagination, as I have just left it to yours. Also for your imagination is what I may or may not have said to the person at the nearby table.

Anyway, it was but a few moments before I was joined by the eponymous Martin Andrade and Barry from Water Cooler Wisdom and Larry from...actually, I don't know if Larry has a blog, but he's not short on opinions. Minutes later Learned Foot and V-Toed Bill showed up to represent the Kool-Aid Report, though their shirts made it appear as if they were about to start representing Hawaiian Punch instead. Soon Swiftee from Pair O'Dice and his wife Trisha (Tricia?) were there as well. It was the first time I'd met Swiftee, and, well, he looks pretty much like I've always imagined him, except he wasn't wearing a pirate bandana around his head.

There was still no sign of our hosts, Mitch or the Fraters, but our patio group was growing and having a great time, especially when David Strom and Margaret Martin showed up from Our House. David was carrying a case that looked as if it held his 8-track tape collection. Instead, he was packing heat - a wide selection of cigars, from which he offered me one. It was great - and I was so honored that I'm not going to wash my hair for a week! Once I managed to keep it lit and my eyes stopped watering I saw Sandy from the MAWB Squad, who introduced me to Peg from What If, who I'd never met.

Then the non-blogging conservative radio host Bob Davis arrived and shortly after that Mitch Berg came out; it appears a small MOB group was gathered in the back room of the bar, wondering where everyone else was. Well, sorry, but there wasn't a sign or anything pointing out where to go (which, given our proximity to the U, was probably a good thing from a security standpoint), but you can't really expect an independent group like this to automatically go where they are expected anyway.

The announcement that a beachhead had been established on the patio brought King Banaian out. He wanted to usher everyone back inside - until Stromie gave him a cigar, and the Hennepin County Smoking Ban succeeded in changing behavior after all.

My brain is still in holiday weekend mode so this is as good a time as any to dispose of this music meme that's been going around listing the top songs from the year the writer graduated from high school. One thing I've been sad to see is that everyone else's list is at least two years more recent than mine. So let's climb into the Way Back Machine for a trip to 1976.

Here's some background: part way through my junior year in high school our family moved from a big city to a small rural town in Missouri, 21 miles from the nearest of even the most basic teenage creature comforts such as a McDonalds. This was not a pleasing development for me. I've always figured I just didn't like small town life; looking back at this list of the top hits and through thirty years of perspective it may be that I just didn't like the music.

This meme calls for me to strikethrough the songs I hated, boldface the songs I liked and do nothing with the songs that were neutral. I'm also supposed to underline the best and worst, but I don't have an underline function on my toolbar, so I've used asterisks. While there were a lot of bad songs to choose from for worst of the year, I'm going with Show Me the Way by Peter Frampton.

By itself it's not any worse than the others, but it has a strong negative association. You see, my senior class left on a chartered bus immediately after our graduation ceremony for the Senior Trip to Daytona Beach. The bus had a tape deck and we started out with, I think, three different tapes. Within the first six hours, however, two of these had either broken or developed that tell-tale 8-track flutter. All we were left with was Frampton Comes Alive — over and over and over. Why didn't we buy another tape at some point in the week-long trip? Well, Missouri had a 21-year-old minimum drinking age. Most of the states we were driving through had 18-year-old limits. Our resources were almost exclusively dedicated to buying beer, and — being high school graduates — we knew that the cheaper the beer, the more you could buy. So to this day I can't hear Peter Frampton or see a can of Old Milwaukee without a sense of revulsion.

Best song? That's easy, too: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Remember the scene in the movie Wayne's World where Wayne, Garth and two friends lip sync in the car to this tune? I lived this, decades before it was captured on film. Otherwise, 1976 was a pretty dismal year for music, overall. If I sometimes seem a bit crabby on this blog you simply have to remember my early influences.

Anyway, here's the list. If you want to play along with the year you graduated, here's the link to the Music Outfitters site that has the lists.

1976
1. Silly Love Songs, Paul McCartney and Wings
2. Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Elton John and Kiki Dee
3. Disco Lady, Johnnie Taylor
4. December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night), Four Seasons
5. Play That Funky Music, Wild Cherry
6. Kiss And Say Goodbye, Manhattans
7. Love Machine (Part 1), The Miracles
8. 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, Paul Simon
9. Love Is Alive, Gary Wright
10. A Fifth Of Beethoven, Walter Murphy and The Big Apple Band

What a week for the misanthropes, eh? They've got to be hoisting a few glasses of grape (bitter as they may be) this holiday weekend and smugly toasting their own validation from recent events. Whether it's the de-evolution of the rule of law into the law of the jungle in a major cultural center in just 48 hours (how's that for "punctuated equilibrium") to fear and rumor stampeding people to their deaths or to gas lines, it's a great time to be smarter than everyone else. Ah, human nature - you gotta love it!

And as if the main course isn't satisfying enough, there's also the floor show — a cavalcade of finger-pointing, ass-covering and political hay-making all high-kicking across the room — all while bodies still bob in the waters of Pontchartrain. Human nature, again!

For that matter, they may still be pulling bodies out of the Tigris. The disaster in Iraq was one of those things that happens around the world, like a famine or an overloaded ferry capsizing, that makes us, in our human nature, say "I'm glad nothing like that can happen here" — until Americans riot over cheap computers or the levee breaks.

When it happens close to home there is nothing so predictable as the cries that that the whole situation was, itself ... predictable. Yesterday Jeff Jarvis tapped his baton on an operetta entitled "More than a tragedy - a scandal", launching commenter choruses of "they should have seen it coming" (they did, but - darn that human nature - didn't leave), global warming (it was a hot day in Galveston in 1900, too) and "Bush was on vacation" (as was Congress and 90% of the French, for that matter, which is every bit as relevant) and it's all Bush's fault (because we can't get troops and supplies into place overnight in a disaster area the size of Britain that has little functioning infrastructure). Of course, that's all human nature, too.

Just as it is human nature for certain criminal elements to always try to get away with whatever they can — even in ideal conditions — when they think no one is watching or can do anything about it. How shocking is it, then, to see this sort rise up and run amuck in the absence or abdication of most controls? It does make one wonder, however, if missions to feed and deliver supplies to the weak in New Orleans will resemble our efforts to get food past the warlords and to the hungry in Somalia.

Hurricane Katrina is a large-scale natural disaster exacerbated by the usual dark comedy of human error. The current situation is not a Republican or Democratic Party failing (it would even happen to the Green Party if they ever get their hands on the levers, which they will no doubt use this event to try and do). It is a failing of our human nature that leads us time after time to choose short-term gain or convenience over the long-term benefit even when faced with a demonstrably "when" not "if" scenario. You know, scenarios like a sub-sealevel city in a hurricane zone, or a densely populated major metropolitan area resting on a fault line ... or the implosion of the Social Security system.

All in all, it's enough to make you pull the covers over your head and wait for God to hit "reboot" ... except for the better angels of our human nature that draw us together and lead us to pray and to give, to go out of our way to help the suffering. It's what drives the majority of us to say, "What can I do to help?"

Granted, there will also be the minority who ask, "What can I get out of this?" or who delight in celebrating how much like animals we humans are, or can be. I guess I understand their point ... hearing or reading them tends to make me start to feel a little hairy myself.

NOTE: Earlier I mentioned the Comments section to the Jeff Jarvis post. While there was a lot of nuttery going on there, responses by people identified as Eileen and Petro were excellent and bear reading for their insight and ability to focus on the real issues at hand. Along that line, please read this link from that section that provides an insider's detailed explanation of the logistical hurdles an operation of this kind entails.

There was one time I thought there was a good chance the weather was going to kill me. I was stuck in a line of cars on Highway 35W in Iowa during a blizzard with white-out conditions, waiting while a Highway Department snow plow cleared a path for us to turn around so we could try and make it back to Clear Lake. When I heard a distinctive crashing sound behind me I didn't even check my rearview mirror, but pulled forward and to the left as far as I could. When I did look back it was just in time to see a semi pushing two cars through the space where I had been and into the ditch.

After I got out and checked to see if there was anything that could be done for the people in the ditch (there wasn't) and then ran to the Highway Patrol car 50 feet away where the trooper was still oblivious to what had happened, I tried to make it back to my own car. Ten feet away from it I suddenly couldn't breathe and almost passed out. I thought if I tipped over there - on the far side of my car from where everything was now going on - I might be frozen before anyone noticed my lump in the snow. Somehow I made it into my car, and that night — Christmas Eve, 1984 — I slept on the floor of the Zion Lutheran Church in Clear Lake with a hundred or so other stranded travelers, most of whom snored. I was tired, shaken and uncomfortable, but I knew that at some point I was going to get home.

I can't imagine what it would have been like to be lying there and not have a home to go to.

I can't imagine what it would have been like to be lying there and not even have a home town to go to.

At least I wasn't hungry. Shortly after our group of wayfaring strangers arrived in the church its members started showing up with hams, turkeys, pies, cakes, mashed potatoes, bread — everything brought warm from their own holiday tables, perhaps even snatched from under the noses of their own families, and carried to us who were hungry, and we were fed. I think I started to think better of the world then, and I know that my own steps along a certain spiritual path — tentative until then — started to quicken.

I don't have to tell you what has happened in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. I don't have to tell you to give. I'm confident you'll understand and empathize with the fear, the uncertainty and the desperation of those who have found a place to lie down (not necessarily to sleep) and are asking, "What do I do now?" I can tell you there are three organizations that I have some experience with and can recommend to you if you know you want to help but aren't sure where to give.

The Salvation Army - I know the work they did in helping Grand Forks recover from its flood a few years ago, and I know of no group more dedicated and efficient in meeting desperate needs regardless of the creed, color or condition of the people who need help.

Samaritan's Purse - our family packs several boxes every Christmas for their Operation Christmas Child program and I know the SP organization is masterful at the complex logistics involved in gathering, shipping and delivering materials to where they are needed. Their experience, and the experience of the Salvation Army, will be invaluable in this present situation.

Soldier's Angels - this group is new to me, but we have adopted a soldier and I've been impressed with how this organization has grown up around a simple, heart-felt idea. I have heard that their latest idea is to reach out to the families of National Guard troops from the effected states who thought they were on the front lines, only to have to worry now about the homefront.

Whatever you do, I know it will make a difference and probably in ways you may never ever realize.


Also, see Instapundit's flood-aid roundup and Technorati's flood-aid and Hurricane Katrina tags.