A lesson in framing

If Karl Rove were marketing a movie on behalf of the Bush administration, I imagine the preview would look something like this. (via Defective Yeti)

Sweet

Finally. Clouds, wind and a high of 82 degrees, a full 26 degrees cooler than Monday. There may be hope for my fall victory garden after all.

The banality of evil, direct-marketing-style

So many things become salt in the wound after a child dies. Child-related junk mail is a big one, especially since it's usually pegged to the age the child would be if he were alive. I missed this when it first came out, but I have been exactly where Alison Gardy is, although I didn't think to boycott the companies that were torturing her with baby product promotions after her daughter was stillborn:

I dread opening my mailbox to see what the next installment will be in this eerie narrative of my daughter's parallel life as a consumer. It is hard enough to be without her. I am trying to heal and move forward with my life. The advertisements make that process much harder.

It took four phone calls to the baby formula company to get them to take my name off their list. The first three, made by me, did not work. After the third call, I hung up in tears and called my husband.

I couldn't cry. I called and screamed instead. But maybe that was because when the unsolicited box of infant formula appeared on my porch after Baby D's stillbirth, it upset 3-year-old Rocketboy worse than it upset me. He still says, three years on, that baby formula companies are evil. So that was a canny customer-winning strategy on their part.

The most appalling part for me was that out of all the calls I had to make to get off the marketing lists, only one rep expressed sorrow or regret about my loss and their ill-considered promotion. The rest just said something like, "Oh," or "Okay, then." I've had some poor customer service in my time, but nothing can touch how the diaper, formula and baby-food companies conducted themselves during my early bereavement.

Update, 10/3: NYT has now put Gardy's essay behind its subscription wall. Long story short, after her daughter was stillborn she still received countless baby-product solicitations. Her response, rather than call each company to be taken off its list, is to simply boycott them. Forever.

How many Aggies does it take to prep for a hurricane?

I don't normally make an issue of my alma mater (UT) or its archrival (Texas A&M), but this is just too good to pass up.

Break out your political haiku chops

and check out the Tom Delay Haiku Slam at Rox Populi.

Arrogant Tommy,
You should have kept your nose clean
While you talked values.

The ducks, they only get lamer, no?

Art and ideas

Fresh images are good:

edwardstewartartist
Check out his photo section with lots of his paintings. Lots of bold colors, with a Munch-y feel to some of it, but without the screaming. I like it.

Mrs. Weasel's Photo Show
Compelling assorted photos and images -- a grandmother, a hybrid wolf-puppy, Mr. Weasel, cats. Go.


Fresh perspectives are good, too:

LAmom
a fellow homeschooler and Christian liberal who happens to be pro-life:

Abortion is indeed a pro-life issue. But so is war (especially civilian "collateral damage"). People dying from starvation is also a pro-life issue. People dying from preventable diseases is a pro-life issue.

I'm greatly dismayed when I see a political faction try to claim the label "pro-life" based on one issue only, while advocating so many other pro-death policies. A lot of Christians have the feeling that they have to vote for candidates whose policies have led to thousands of deaths, simply because those candidates are opposed to abortion.

I admit I tend to think of all pro-lifers as anti-sex control freaks. This promises to stretch my mental boundaries.

Mary Anne, Tobias Funke, Ceauşescu, Cincinnatus, Isaac and me

Hombre turned me onto this little deal and now I can't stop. Which dictator or sit-com character will you be?

Milking the internet for information

If you're a fellow chronic lactator, you might want to check out the Breastfeeding Pharmacology page from Thomas Hale at Texas Tech. If you've never nursed a baby, you'd be surprised by how conservative some doctors are when it comes to nursing and medications, counseling weaning or extremely long pump-and-dump times. I don't blame them; they usually don't have specific info at hand and want to err on the side of caution. But then they don't have to deal with engorgement, balky pumps or peevish infants.

The database here has plenty of drug-specific information (with the usual legal disclaimers, of course) for the nursing mama and her caregivers. Enjoy.

That Brownie's repeating on us

You know where Michael Brown's working since he quit FEMA? FEMA. (from CBS, via Think Progress):

Sept. 26, 2005
9:05 p.m.
(CBS) — Later this evening, CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger spoke with a spokesman for FEMA, Russ Knocke, who confirmed that Brown remains on the FEMA payroll. He also said that technically Brown remains at FEMA as a "contractor" and he is "transitioning out of his job." The reason he will remain at FEMA about a month after his resignation, said the spokesman, is that the agency wants to get the "proper download of his experience."

In other words, says Hombre, "he'll be getting paid to tell them how badly he fucked up."

108 degrees

That was our high yesterday. Caramba.

Rita, we hardly knew ye

Hombre told me first thing this morning that Rita was all the way up in Illinois. That's better news than the 25 inches of rain that were originally forecast for east Texas and western Louisiana, but I wouldn't have minded a little of that moisture.

The animals are all inside, on the porch, and/or iced down. It's 97 degrees in the shade out back, and the local temperatures right now are all between 102 and 105. For the first week of fall, this is hot, even for central Texas.

Hurricanehead gave up on playing with the water hose and is now sitting on the kitchen floor peeling an onion, a favorite pastime. He is the only child I've ever known who carries a 'security onion.' My grandmother, who lived to be 94, used to eat sweet onions raw like apples. He must have the Mimi gene.

Claw-crossing time

Hurricane Rita's heading in. Matt Hardigree at Burnt Orange Report is liveblogging Rita from The Woodlands, just north of Houston. Here in Austin we're keeping our claws crossed for everyone down on the coast. See you all in the morning.

This explains a lot

Maybe my mother was right after all. (via Oliver Willis)

You are a Social Liberal (83% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (13% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

Unstormy weather

Now they say Austin might see some rain from Rita early next week, once the storm parks itself over east Texas and rains out. This is a welcome change from the tropical-storm conditions we were first told to expect, but of course our good fortune comes at the expense of others.

Austin has more than 9,000 evacuees from Rita here. My parents' friends in Clear Lake left town at 8 yesterday morning and arrived in SA at 11 last night. Pretty hellish in 100-degree heat. My cousins got their place in Port Alto cleaned out and then spent 4 hours driving the 45 miles back to Victoria.

The high cirrus clouds here were interesting around noon -- they were long and streaky and curved like a drawing of a hurricane on a weather map. Yes, I took pics. No, I can't get them onto the computer right now. My camera batteries gave out during the photo shoot, and there are probably no batteries in stock anywhere around here.

Worst bonus: When the batteries went out, we got to hear baby's first cuss word. Dit! I'd really better clean up my act.

This time it's personalish

Rita will hit closer to home than Katrina. My personal stake is probably just as low as ever since I live inland, but a lot of my extended family is under mandatory evacuation orders.

My dad and brother spent yesterday helping my 95-year old great-aunt clean out her keepsakes and important papers from her little house in Port Aransas. She's half a block from the water. The house has been there about 30 years and holds decades of memories for me and my family. It's never suffered much for its proximity to the ocean, but if Rita veers west, I'm betting it's a goner. My great-aunt is sanguine: "If it goes, it goes."

After they cleared out of Port A (authorities were heralding the evacuation order street by street with bullhorns) they dropped things off at my aunt's place near Victoria so my cousins could use the truck to empty their houses along the coast. Then everybody got the hell out of Victoria, too, since it's under a mandatory bug-out order as well. My folks, safely back in SA, are clearing all the lightweight stuff out of their yard and preparing to foster a friend's dog -- once he arrives in from Houston, an 11-hour drive the last I heard.

No one's here at Rancho Mother yet, but I'm willing to bet we'll be hosting somebody before all is said and done.

Disaster planning or planning disaster?

The Mother family did not do ourselves proud this morning. Yes, we know Texas is prepping for a huge hurricane. Yes, we plan to clear our half-acre of toys, pets and lawn furniture before the threatened 70-mph wind gusts hit Austin Saturday. But we did not think, as we should have before we hit the road at 6:30 this morning, How will the northward evacuation of more than a million people affect our homeschool trip to Sea World?

Answer: A lot. Once we hit westbound traffic in San Antonio, it was Over. Granted, there were other issues. Rocketboy had left undone something important that took time to correct. I can't say more because he was emphatic: "I will not have my stupidity on your blog." And we had to be back in Austin for his long-awaited afternoon doctor appointment. With all the northbound traffic, the odds of us getting home in two hours like we'd planned seemed laughable.

As our window for fun time at Sea World shrank to a faint pinpoint of light, we threw in the towel. We took Granddad Mother out to breakfast instead, then came back via backroad, where there were lines for gas in the tiny town of Blanco -- at least at the station that hadn't already run out of gas and closed.

Brownie wanted a stiff 'Rita

Be careful what you ask for. Hurricane Rita is, for now, projected to clear a path from the coast up through central Texas this weekend. We'll see. God knows it's been hot enough here to keep any storm whipped into a fury. But it's too early to know where it will end up going -- which is why people are on freaking edge.

The bottled water aisle at Target was empty this evening. Empty. M.T. Of drinking water, anyway. There were plenty of confounded people walking up and down looking for it. One lady said she'd been to two other stores and a warehouse club, and they were cleared out as well.

A buttoned-down fellow eyed the last remaining fizzy water. "You mean we have to drink Pellegrino? I mean, I like Pellegrino..." he said softly. Yep. I figured the water coming from the tap still works for now and went to the rubbermaid pitcher section -- and found exactly one left, which I bought. The cashier said it had been nuts all day. Flashlights, water and c-batteries are gone. The lady in line behind me had loaded up on camping lanterns and propane mini-canisters.

The checker also said that Houston had been their distribution target for the most bottled water. So if you're evacuating from Houston to Austin and you're reading this, pick up some water on your way out of town. You may need it when you get here.

Save the electrons

It's almost the official end of summer - never mind that tomorrow it's supposed to be 101 degrees here. We just came through our first summer in the new house and my worst fear -- killer electric bills -- never came to pass.

This stuns me. At our old house, we routinely had summer electric bills close to $200 for an 1100-square foot house. And we had gas for the stove and water heater, or the electric bill would've been higher.

The new place is twice the square-footage. I was scared. Very scared. But this summer our combined water and electric (no gas in this area) bill never topped $160.

Why not? One, our new utility provider just charges less. And even though this house is older than our first, it is better built and better insulated, which must be making most of the difference. Also, we have been bonkers about conserving.

We use our a/c, clothes washer and dishwasher daily, sometimes hourly. We don't dine by candlelight or go to bed with the chickens. But we've been vigilant about using the least amount of effort needed to get the job done -- no pots-and-pans cycle if quick-wash will do, no fans left running with no one in the room to feel the breeze, etc. We keep the thermostat between 78 and 80 (this takes some acclimation), and I try not to use the dryer. Things dry faster and less wrinkly on the line anyway. And of course, I have been a caulking fool.

Rocketboy's motto is "Save the electrons!" meaning, of course, the electrons that are activated when current passes through electrical wires.

I'm still looking for ways to get our power costs down even more. I need a solar cooker. We were going to make one and I had the cardboard template all cut out, but the boys turned it into a rocket ship while I was on the phone. I may just buy one like Cookie's. We need radiant barriers in the attics, too, and I still want to install solar screens on the windows.

Then there are solar panels. One of our neighbors has a nice set on his roof and I have solar envy whenever I see them. Our utility offers rebates for solar systems if you jump through all their hoops, so I'm trying to muster the focus and free time to get started. If anyone has any advice on how to get started on a solar array or what to look for, I am all ears.

No, thank you, Mrs. Bush

The National Book Festival coincides with protests this weekend in Washington. Poet Sharon Olds sends her regrets (via dedspace):

But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.

What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

God bless Ms. Olds. This is the same reason that we donated our 'tax cut' to local charities. Blood-stained generosity is worse than worthless.

Monday fun facts

Did you, dear readers, know that:

If you, a regular citizen, round up a stray animal, you are not legally obligated to take it to the nearest animal shelter? In my great state at least, you may take it to any legitimate animal shelter of your choice, even if that shelter happens to be in another city. I was pretty surprised to learn that.

Today is a great day in history? Hurricanehead used his mini-pot for the first time today, much to everyone's surprise. He even took a board book in there to read.

Bill Clinton, the go-to man when W. needs to look compassionate, is slagging his successor on the record? Ah, the sweet liberation of not having to court votes.

What's your Monday fun fact?

Roberts hearings

I haven't said anything about these hearings because, frankly, I think the outcome is a foregone conclusion and it depresses me. It's one of those situations in which, to me, the political powerlessness of the silent majority is laid out in black and white. And it lays out my cynicism in stark relief, too: Roberts doesn't seem at a casual glance like an overt menace to women's rights they way Clarence Thomas did during his hearings. But Roberts is a Bush selection, and I can't imagine Bush choosing someone who isn't hostile to women's rights.

That's not a finger bowl, pup.

Food of the dogs

Perrito has nearly doubled in weight in the six or so weeks that we've had him. Remember how I chose him in part because of his tiny paws that I assumed meant he would not be enormous? Well, you should see those feet now. You could land a plane on that dog's paws. He's going to be huge. Which is good after all, because maybe that will take care of the shapeshifting problem.

Yes, this 25-pound puppy can flatten himself out to 1/4 inch high and slip under the garden gate like Flat Stanley. Once inside the Forbidden Zone, he eats baseballs and green tomatoes and tries to get the rabbit to come out and play. Dogzilla hates this, and so do I. The rabbit is indifferent.

What are we feeding proto-Clifford? He and Dogzilla don't like the high-dollar stuff the vet recommended. They let it sit and get full of ants. I don't want the fire ants bulking up and causing more trouble than they already do. So we started getting plain old dog chow. It's probably the canine equivalent of McDonald's, but they eat it.

Victory sprouts

The bean bed is full of little sproutlets today. I am very pleased. After a 4 1/2 hour outing to the park with the kids I am also quite tired. That is all. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves, as they say.

The butt-kicker within

When I was doing Montessori-teacher training, I read a lot about how children are intrinsically motivated to learn. The drive stems from their innate curiosity about the world and should not be corrupted by external rewards like stickers, prizes or the competitive hierarchy of grades.

For the most part, this theory has worked well for us with Rocketboy, with the exception of bath time and keeping up his room. For the boy, it's all about love of learning and finding answers to his questions. Plus kicking everyone else's ass.

The topic of competitive drive does not come up much in the progressive-ed literature, except generally to assert that it's a byproduct of meddling adults with their grades and gold stars. But I am learning that a certain amount of competitiveness is itself innate, which makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. It gets glossed over in the early-childhood lit, but it's there, at least for Rocketboy.

We've played cooperative games for years; he does gymnastics but no team sports yet; he has taken part in no academic competitions and we don't 'grade' his homeschool work. His music lessons are about learning the basics, not public performance. We are careful not to draw comparisons between his work and that of his peers.

We don't have to. He himself seems to do it reflexively. This is a child who wants to be the best.

I am on the fence about how to respond to the queries: "Was I the best, Mom? Was my (project, song, whatever) better than everyone else's?" I usually respond with some vague remark like, "Everyone seemed to do really well and have a good time. I thought your (whatever) was excellent."

I hedge because don't want him to think perfection is the path to my affection and approval. But he's a sharp kid and I know he won't buy the waffling for much longer. I also don't want to be critiquing his life constantly, suggesting ways to "improve" or gain an edge. Who wants a parent like that? But clearly, the kid likes to compete, even if the competition is only in his mind.

Rotten to the core

Paul Krugman offers a roundup of other agencies gutted by hacks and budget cuts, a la FEMA.

I'm relieved, too, Brownie

Too bad they didn't relieve Michael Brown of his duties sooner:

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being removed from his role managing Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, government sources said Friday.

Government sources disclosed the move but spoke on condition of anonymity because the change hadn't been officially announced. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff was expected to announce the change at a 1:45 p.m. ET news conference.

Brown will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, who earlier this week was named his deputy to oversee relief and rescue efforts.

I guess it would be too much to hope for to see Chertoff apologize to the nation and resign himself after making this announcement. But a gal can dream, can't she?

(via Dailykos)

Victory garden, fall issue

The new veggie bed is up and running, bringing our total to four. The borders (recycled swimming pool bricks) are mortared in place. The chicken poo, compost, vermiculite and peat moss are blended into what I hope will be a lovely substrate, and the pole beans and yellow wax beans are in the ground.

The yellow crookneck squash hill has its first blossom this morning. And I'm starting to get fall tomatoes, one or two a day. The basil is indestructible. The kids feed stalks to the rabbit daily but it never seems to get any smaller. The rabbit isn't getting any bigger, either.

Worst customer service ever

Not only are the folks in charge at FEMA unqualified, but Canada actually beat the feds to parts of Louisiana to help out after Katrina:

The Canadians beat both the Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. disaster response department, to St. Bernard Parish east of New Orleans, where flood waters are still 8 feet (2.4 metres) deep in places, Sen. Walter Boasso said. "Fabulous, fabulous guys," Boasso said. "They started rolling with us and got in boats to save people."

"We've got Canadian flags flying everywhere."

Bless Canada. Sweet Jesus. Aren't we under an administration that promised to apply the lessons of the business world to government? One lesson they may have missed: dead customers bad.

But I say not to worry, comrades. "“Freedom is on the march."” As long as you march properly. Otherwise, no freedom for you:

Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today...

The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

What if they gave a freedom march and nobody came?

Or, as FEMA hopes, what if they find thousands of dead in New Orleans and nobody documents it?

A request by FEMA that news organizations not photograph dead bodies being recovered in New Orleans is not going to fly with the major newsweeklies.

"I understand the request, but to not take pictures of dead bodies is not something we can heed," said Jim Kelly, the managing editor of Time.

Maybe, as someone close to me has said, it's time to hire a new government-services vendor.

FEMA head's pants on fire

Slate rounds up the malarkey in Brown's resume:

A Time magazine piece posted last night finds evidence that FEMA chief (as of 5 a.m.) Mike Brown serially fibbed on his resume (or, perhaps, had it massaged by others). There is, for instance, a reference to a college professorship of which there's no record. And then there was the time he was "an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." One city official clarified that the job Brown had was not as a manager but "more like an intern." The New Republic adds that Brown got his law degree from an unaccredited university.

For the record, Brown's confirmation hearing was apparently a grueling 42 minutes long.

Even if other people did bloat his resume for him, shouldn't he have been aware of that and corrected it? In the boilerplate hearing speeches -- I only scanned about ten pages of testimony before my eyes glazed over -- Senators repeat the apparently false claims in his vita. Did Brown correct? I didn't see it, but again I didn't read the whole thing. My kids are screaming in the kitchen right now.

Of course, by the time of the hearing he'd already been working for FEMA since 2001. So does the federal government check references and resumes? If not, what does that tell the world about our security and preparedness?

Looking long-term

Van Jones nails something I'd been feeling all week but couldn't articulate -- a sense of being anesthetized, or at least personally ineffective, in the face of tragedy:

Thousands of mostly poor, Black people were wiped out or abandoned by the government to die. And I couldn't even figure out how to get that online donation thing-ie to work. I didn't even call my U.S. senators. I just sat here, surfing websites, forwarding e-mails to my friends, blogging a little bit ... and wiping away tears.

Then he lays out nine suggestions for ways we can shake off that torpor and clean out the rat's nest our federal government has become. Worth a read.

Mike Brown, master of disaster

ThinkProgress (via Americablog) points us to this little gem:

"Mike Brown insists he is well-qualified to lead the nation’s disaster response agency - though he spent his time before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency probing whether a breeder was performing liposuction on a horse’s rear end,” the New York Daily News reports.

I'd probably find this pretty funny if not for all those dead people.

Creative help for storm survivors

Minddance tells how she parlayed used books into a few hundred dollars worth of Red Cross money, and then some:

I gathered them all up into 17 shopping bags completely full to overflowing, and sold them back to Half Price Books who gave me $166.00 for them. Half Price is donating lots and lots of books to the Hurricane Relief effort (they also have donated $50,000 to Red Cross). They said most of the adolescent and children's literature I had donated would be boxed up immediately for donation.

I took my $166.00 straight over to Lowe's who is accepting over-the-counter donations for the Red Cross and will match all donations up to $1,000,000. So all and all, my books earned $332 for the relief efforts. Not a lot. But not bad either when you figure that most of the books I sold to Half Price will be donated to the Hurricane Victims, too.

Good work!

Creative transportation time

My bike is back from its little tune-up -- the brakes are adjusted and the rear wheel has been trued. I'm ready to ride. But it might be fun to do my conservation part this way:

Jim Jundt was so determined to rein in his spending on gasoline that he got out of bed early and rode his 14-year-old quarterhorse mare to work.

Jundt lives 15 miles south of Minot and works as a mechanic at Goodyear Tire & Auto Service in the city....

While he worked, Patty waited patiently, eating hay out of the back of a truck.

If I had more than half an acre, I might just try to sneak a horse onto the property, deed restrictions be damned.

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

You know who else anticipated the breach of the levees around New Orleans? Writer Fanny Trollope -- 173 years ago.

I'll make this quick

I should not be blogging. I should be helping mortar bricks for the newest bed in our victory garden. Hombre is giving me the hairy eyeball because he's been out all morning slapping mortar on stones.

But I'm pooped from hauling donated goods all afternoon yesterday. This was at the apartment complex near my home. Families from the Astrodome start arriving today. The complex was running out of room to store all the donations so they were sorting things in the open air. Until a few thieves showed up and started driving off with items. So we had to shift gears and load things up to take to a nearby storage place which donated four enormous storage units. And by the end of the day, we'd nearly filled them all.

It was a good feeling, but it was also a very chaotic day. Apart from the change of locale, our sorting system kept changing as more donations arrived. We had to open bag after unlabeled bag and box of mystery items to see what they were and where they needed to go. Boxes of silverware were piled on toasters, mops lurked behind sacks of baby food, furniture was buried by mountains of clothing and toys. It was not the most efficient situation. But at least the things are under lock and key, and volunteers are willing to go sort things out as the families arrive.

Still, I have to wonder, why doesn't the Red Cross or FEMA just contract with Costco or Sam's or with manufacturers so that when disasters happen, entire pallets of supplies could be delivered to shelters? It would be so much easier to know the inventory of supplies on hand, to store and find needed items, and distribute them to people who need them.

Who are you callin' animal, critter?

On the road to the zoo I pondered this: If smaller government is better because it forces people to be more self-reliant, then why were so many politicians and TV blowhards upset about the looting in New Orleans? Rape, murder, sure, these are high crimes. But looting?

Remember all that palaver we learned in school about how life without the social contract would be, among other things, "nasty, brutish and short"? Hobbes didn't just pull that idea out of his hat. It's almost as if he understood something about human nature.

It amazed me that people were ranting about looters "acting like animals," because -- and please don't take this the wrong way -- we are animals. True, we are the only species that blogs. But we have the same survival drives as other animals, and it's the construct of social order that sets limits on those drives. When the social contract is invalidated, all bets are off. Hungry, thirsty animals of all species will forage for food and water. (I've never seen anyone eat a TV so I can't understand taking them but I also don't care. A TV is just a plastic box.)

For small-government folks to push rugged individualism and then to be agog over looting is disingenuous. When help didn't arrive in New Orleans, the social contract was broken. Chaos is the logical consequence of a broken social contract. I could go on about the many different ways it was broken, from the incomplete evacuation to the half-assed federal response and the deeper, longer-term failures relating to poverty, race, health care and drug addiction. But it's late and I'm tired and other writers will nail these issues better than I can.

So I leave you with this thought again: Chaos is the logical consequence of a broken social contract. Vote accordingly.

Refugee prep and a day out

There's nothing like a trip to the zoo to make you feel dirty. At least that's how I felt when we hit the road this morning, keeping our long-made plans to meet with family in Waco. People are still stranded with the rats and corpses in Louisiana, I thought, and we're going to the zoo!

But the kids were happy. They got to play with their cousins, and it was the first time in several days that I hadn't been glued to the news. We all came home refreshed and ready to rumble.

First, the Katrina meme. I am so glad to hear what my friends and fellow bloggers are doing to help. Hombre and I have added a couple of things. He is going through his professional society to see if any displaced members need a place to stay. And we learned this afternoon of an apartment complex close to our home that will be getting refugees from FEMA. They said these people will need everything. And when I went by today to drop off some items, I was amazed.

This small apartment complex, off a side street of a side street, was full of hot, sweaty kids and dudes and women of a certain age carrying mattresses and bags of food and diapers and everything else. There was hardly room inside the clubhouse to set down any more donations, and you couldn't turn your car around in the main parking lot. They are collecting for their own complex and six others in the area -- they expect to fill a total of 450 apartments with hurricane victims. Labor Day Weekend and they were busting ass in 95-degree heat for people they've never met.

It about made up for the knot in my throat when I listened to Green Day's "Holiday" for the first time since the storm, on the way to the grocery store. It's funny how lyrics take on new shades of meaning as events unfold. I am not a crying person much anymore but this evening in the Target parking lot I was really close.

It's all about priorities, Katrina version

It's Friday, and food and water are finally making it into New Orleans in decent quantities.

But on Wednesday, our leader was hard at work -- on a recess appointment to the Justice Department:

Bush used a ''recess appointment" Wednesday to name Alice S. Fisher to lead the agency's criminal division. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, had blocked the nomination because he wants to talk to an agent who named Fisher in an e-mail about allegedly abusive interrogations at the US military prison camp at Guantanamo.

Tip of the hat to Rachel Maddow on the Al Franken Show.