Best kisses

[judecorp]

I wonder why we don't have as much news on the damage from Hurricane Katrina. I mean, it definitely seems like this is a Big Deal with thousands presumed dead and all, yet television programs run as normal with little bits of news here and there. After 9/11 it seems like we all watched The Disaster Channel for at least a week. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, I don't know. I know that around here, many shows were pre-empted for an entire day when JFK Jr.'s plane went down... yet this morning, Regis and Kelly were blabbing at me when I was at a home visit.

It's weird to be in my new office. I keep going into the old office on autopilot. I have a crappier desk in my new office, a better chair (but still crappy) and a bigger corkboard. (Yay.) I stole the clock from my old office, brought all my hoarded toys and my plant in a yogurt tub. Whee!

One of my coworkers made these treats that consisted of three layers: 1) peanut butter, chocolate and rice krispies all melted together; 2) vanilla frosting; 3) brownie. I ate four squares of this stuff, and will call her The Devil every day from now on. Damn, those were wicked good.

My wife still has the best kisses in the whole entire universe. Freakin' /awesome/.

p.s. I /so/ want to call a moratorium on RI trips until the gas becomes reasonable. I have no clue how much we've spent making at least 1-2 trips a week since June 1.

Comments

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Because electricity is hard to come by down there right now?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, but there /are/ images and stories getting out... they just don't seem to be a news priority. I dunno. I guess the electricity is a possibility.

[folkyboy.livejournal.com]

well the news preys on sensationalism so unless they can show a body decomposing, they aren't going to bother.

an interesting theory: if this were to have happened in California, they'd have been in there immediately saving all the rich people and their little dogs too. but because this is happening in a predominantly black neighborhood, they could give a fuck....

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I definitely think the amount of airtime is related to the number of rich people casualities. But since we already know how I feel about rich people, I didn't think it deserved a mention.

I /am/ sad about the pets, though - jokes about rich people and their dogs aside. How terrible, for the people AND the pets! The whole situation is just so awful I don't know how to wrap my mind around it - especially since I've never been there.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of very good print and photo coming out, especially out of the Miami Herald and the St. Pete Times.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's true. I was specifically talking about television, though - or what passes for television that I tend to see on home visits.

[folkyboy.livejournal.com]

reportedly, gas is supposed to climb to $4 per gallon this month so i'd consider a bus or SOMETHING!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I can't really take a bus there and back because there would be no one to pick me up in Providence (my grandparents try not to drive there, it's an RI thing, people are scared of Providence) and the public buses are really spotty. Besides, I think it's like $20 to take a Bonanza bus. It's cheaper to take the commuter rail, but service is limited in Providence and I'd run into the same problem (no ride) at the next stop up (South Attleboro).

My dad was always the one who picked me up from airports/bus terminals/train stations.

Besides, I'm usually bringing stuff back with me or using the car to cart stuff away... so bus wouldn't help with that, either.

[folkyboy.livejournal.com]

oh that's supper shitty :(

[kungfoogirl.livejournal.com]

I thought you were kidding at first.

I can't get away from hearing about Katrina. It's all I've heard about in the last several days.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

1. I love that icon!

2. Maybe I'm the wrong person to be judging airtime since I don't watch television. Perhaps my daytime TV sample is flawed.

[rizzo41.livejournal.com]

Well, also keep in mind that you were in NYC for the first week after 9/11, so we were living the disaster. A lot of the coverage we watched was local coverage. Maybe you aren't watching the right channels now.. or I'm watching all the wrong ones. I feel like I'm being smothered in Katarina coverage (and immediately feel guilty for thinking such a thing when so many lives are in utter shambles). They were supposed to show two episodes of Lost tonight, but instead pre-empted the second episode for Katrina coverage. And since the premeire is coming up they will probably just skip that episode and move on to the next one next week. Which will just leave me so very confused. (guilt) Every time I flip on CNN it's all Katrina, Larry King Live is all Katrina, and even A Current Affair is sensationalizing an already sensational story.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I guess you're right. I don't know what the rest of the US was showing in terms of 9/11 coverage since I wasn't there and I was in the City with you. That's a good point and I totally hadn't thought of that.

I still think there is less coverage, though. There are so many people who don't know exactly how bad it is out there... yet I don't know if there were too many people who didn't know that the twin towers collapsed.

Then again, I don't watch TV. So maybe it's on all the time at night and I'm missing it.

[rizzo41.livejournal.com]

Could be. I was at the laundrymat last night and they had the network national news on. It was the guy who looks just like a younger version of Peter Jennings... Brian something? He was reporting from just outside New Orleans and half his report was drowned out by police sirens. I was there for 15 minutes or so and all he talked about was New Bagdad... I mean New Atlatis.. err.. New Orleans (terrible to make jokes, I know, but it's my defense mechanism) and Mississippi.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

It's not surprising that the news is focusing on the rioting and shooting. Not only does it make for more exciting programming, it certainly takes some of the guilt away. Nothing brings guilt like 5-day programming of the same people who still haven't been rescued.

[rizzo41.livejournal.com]

Uhmm.. actually that's not at all what I had said. I pointed out that they are reporting FROM somewhere near the devestation and there were a lot of police sirens from passing cars. They had plenty of coverage about (and interviews with) the refugees and how bad their situation is. No food, no water, no communication, corpses in the street, etc... I have yet to see a reporter hint that these people deserve what is happening to them, or that they are not important people, or that we shouldn't care, or anything of that nature.

[happy2beso.livejournal.com]

I haven't had time to watch the news really because of training so all the Katrina news I've gotten has come from journals and blogs. I feel extremely out of touch, but not sure what to do.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[jennbits.livejournal.com]

you should live in houston. it's 24 hours a day here, due to the refugees living here shortterm.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I suppose I'm a little far away to get a lot of the Big News. I wish there was more that I could do. I want to volunteer for the Red Cross but I don't know how I would swing it for work.

[jennbits.livejournal.com]

in houston, the red cross stopped taking volunteers because the situation is currently too dangerous. i'll update this when it changes..

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Dangerous in Houston? How so?

[jennbits.livejournal.com]

also. gas rose $0.80 since yesterday due to the hurricane and number of people that have swarmed here from NOLA. price gouging in a disaster situation. nothing lik ereally sticking it to people who have nothing left in the first place :/

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Gas prices have been gouged everywhere. I wish I could say it was just you guys and the refugees, but it's all over here, too. I've seen several gas stations here with enormous jumps in price. DRAT!

(I wish the increase in gas prices would send proceeds to the rescue and clean-up effort.)

[jennbits.livejournal.com]

Update on this: abc news came out and did a story on the price gouging and the gas companies have since lowered their prices back down from an 80 cent price hike to the national price jump average of about 10-20 cents/gallon since the hurricane.

A paraphrased quote from the coverage: "We spoke to the managers at one particular station who claimed that they were paying $3/gallon wholesale for their gas! That's really something, because they could have gone to another gas station in Houston [jenn's note: one of the few that didn't do the price gouging jump] and paid less for it RETAIL!"

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I'm glad some of the gouging has stopped over there.

One thing solstice00 and I were talking about last night was that this is definitely more of a demand-side problem than a supply-side right now. In Ohio and here in MA, the price of diesel gasoline hasn't jumped to the levels that unleaded has, so it can't simply be a problem of supply.

Everyone's mad rush to fill their tanks, coupled with gouging and the usual price-hikes of the Labor Day weekend, have certainly contributed to all of this hooey.

[kaasirpent]

I wonder why we don't have as much news on the damage from Hurricane Katrina.

I have a theory. This theory is that, after all, it's just poor southerners and we sound ignernt on that-thar TEE-LEE-OH-VIZ-EE-UN when thay allow us'ns ta tawk at awl....

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Pretty much what I was thinking, my friend.

[clarobscure.livejournal.com]

It's crazy, all of it. I heard that the situations in the Superdome are so unsanitary and unsafe that it's better to live on the streets and that when helicopters came to air-lift people out they were trying to shoot them down. ugh.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

The part about people shooting at rescue and evacuation workers is /really/ scary to me. On one hand I am trying to reserve judgment because I can't even imagine how it feels to be stuck out there, but on the other hand, I can't even imagine shooting at anyone, let alone someone trying to HELP.

I worry sometimes that some angry people's reactions significantly hinder their progress rather than help it - which then gives them more reasons to be angry.

[thelastbard.livejournal.com]

Every website I read has at least some reference to it. NY Times's front page is all Katrina, all the time. I don't have live television anymore (which can be quite nice), so I have no idea what's going on. I went to a friend's house last night and the ALBQ local news was talking a lot about it.

I think it just depends on where you live, and what channels you watch.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I suppose you're right. I guess I'm pretty out of the loop, media-wise. I check a handful of websites when I get home from work, and most of my TV screen time is during home visits (aka work).

[rachelmichellek.livejournal.com]

the lack of news and overall action is probably because the people dying are mostly poor, as opposed to the investment bankers and such killed in the sept 11 attacks. i can see the national rection being totally different if the population stuck and suffering there were a diferent tax bracket.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. You're not going to get much argument from me. Though I will admit that people are going to lose even /more/ sympathy from some of the stranded if they continue to do things like shoot at rescue helicopters.

Talk about making a terrible situation worse!

[rizzo41.livejournal.com]

I have actually seen so much Katrina coverage that I had dream after nightmare after dream about New Orleans.

I have discovered that CNN is the All Katrina All the Time channel.

And I think that the problems with rescuing people have less to do with the people being poor or ignorant or Southern or whatever else people are saying, and have more do to with complete lack of preparation on our part for a disaster of this magnatude; lack of communication resources (since there is no electricity and no phones no one knows what the hell is going on.. the police can't even communicate with each other) people are only getting information through rumor; nearly all roads into and out of the city are blocked or destroyed; and trucks with supplies are getting hijacked, helicopters are getting shot and the authorities have to be shuffled from plucking people off rooftops to keeping looters from breaking into hospitals and hotels (who are also lacking in food and water).

One of the CNN reporters got a phone call from a nurse in one of the area hospitals. She was calling to beg them for help because they had run out of everything. Patients were dying and the nurses were getting sick due to lack of supplies and the deteriorating conditions.

It's bad. But I don't think the problems hampering the recovery of people is because the Southern citizens are less important than other Americans.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

complete lack of preparation on our part for a disaster of this magnatude

Lack of preparation? EVERYONE has been talking about the possibility of disaster if New Orleans got hit with a serious hurricane... for YEARS. Everyone from environmental organizations to Nightline to National Geographic have envisioned this scenario at one time or another. Yet knowing this, there were no efforts to beef up precautions even though storms are getting stronger (thanks, global warming) and this was predicted to be a worse hurricane season than last year. Besides, the great thing about hurricanes is that you can see them coming. They'd been talking about Katrina for days in advance, and they had projected landfall and everything. They could have been more prepared if: a) they had listened to all of the warnings about this for years, b) they'd stopped cutting down all of the natural greenery that was protecting the coasts, c) they didn't have all kinds of troops and equipment and money stuck in Iraq forever.

I also believe that while the looting and shooting is happening, it's not happening to the level we are being made to believe by the media. We all know that the media sensationalizes everything to make more exciting news... and that our government will do /anything/ to distract the people from the real issues - namely that they really effed up here.

I don't think it's necessarily that the refugees are just Southern. They're poor, and they're minorities, and they're elderly... but mostly they're just plain poor.

[unblinkable.livejournal.com]

Oh, my gosh. Peyton was born the day of JFK Jr's crash. Imagine being in the hospital, bed-ridden after a C-section, and all you can find on TV is 24 hour coverage of searching for a missing plane. :|

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I was so oddly glued to the television when that was going on, but it got old fast even for me. Too much footage of just empty, open water.

I feel bad for you!