Touch Base: Open Thread…
Posted: August 30, 2012 Filed under: just because | Tags: hurricane Isaac, Syria 25 Comments »
Hello…
It is one of those days, you know the ones, that are sad and melancholy with a touch of annoyance.
Dakinikat is still without power, and it looks like Boston Boomer is in the dark as well. (That is the annoying part of today.)
The sadness comes from loss, as Kat’s Karma has passed. I send sympathies and love to Kat today…she has lost a companion that touched so many lives…it seems so ironic that today is Mitt Romney’s big day, as Kat quietly spends the day thinking about a dog who showed such compassion and love and connected with so many people on a level that many humans fail to do.
We will try and live blog the RNC tonight. I will have a post going up in a few hours, but I just wanted to touch base with all of you. Here are a few links that I found this afternoon:
Iconic Images From Katrina Revisited for Isaac
17TH STREET CANAL
When Katrina hit, it was a Category 3 hurricane, which can do plenty of damage on its own. But when the levees built to protect New Orleans failed, water poured in and submerged the city. Since then, the federal government poured $14 billion of repairs and improvements and the Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday that the flood protection system was holding up so far as Hurricane Isaac storms blew through the area. A pumping station at the 17th Street canal in New Orleans — which was built at the site of a levee that breached during Hurricane Katrina — briefly went down early Wednesday, but operators were able to manually get it working again.
VERA’S CORNER
On a New Orleans street corner, neighbors buried the body of 65-year-old Vera Smith in a crude grave with dirt they got from a nearby park. Smith had been dead for days, killed by a car. Her body was left to decompose in the sun, along with other bloated corpses during the days after Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005. Thousands were stranded without relief and Smith’s body left on the corner without anyone seeming to care became of a symbol of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe after the storm. On Wednesday, the shrine was still up.
Sadness…
Meanwhile, Isaac triggers more evacuations after soaking New Orleans
Hurricane Isaac forced evacuations affecting tens of thousands of people in Louisiana and Mississippi on Thursday, even as relieved New Orleans residents said its destruction was nothing like that seen after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
A slow-moving Category 1 hurricane when it hit the region on Tuesday, Isaac was expected to weaken into a tropical depression on Thursday. Only one fatality linked to the cyclone has been confirmed so far.
But Isaac left a soggy mess across a widespread area along the U.S. Gulf Coast and could still bring heavy rain and flooding as it moves over the central United States – where rain is badly needed – in the next few days.
More than 1 million residents of Louisiana and Mississippi were without power due to the storm on Thursday morning, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Fears about a possible imminent failure of the Lake Tangipahoa Dam in Mississippi prompted authorities to order the immediate evacuation of 60,000 residents in nearby communities in both Louisiana and thousands of others in Mississippi.
And just one more sad link…Human Rights Watch: Syria: Government Attacking Bread Lines
– Syrian government forces have dropped bombs and fired artillery at or near at least 10 bakeries in Aleppo province over the past three weeks, killing and maiming scores of civilians who were waiting for bread. The attacks are at least recklessly indiscriminate and the pattern and number of attacks suggest that government forces have been targeting civilians, Human Rights Watch said. Both reckless indiscriminate attacks and deliberately targeting civilians are war crimes.
It puts the RNC and the GOP’s f’d up agenda/platform in its place doesn’t it? Giving perspective to a horrible political belief system that champions selfishness and an uncompassionate way of living.
Sima
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
fiscalliberal
grayslady
mablue2
NW Luna
peggysue22
quixote
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
As I said, a live blog thread will be up in a couple hours. I have a football game tonight, my daughter is singing the national anthem and cheering her team on, so I will try and post some comments later.
Hi jj thanks for this. Karma was a great new orleans dog and i will miss her. She went quietly in her sleep at home as i had hoped for her. I am still living off sparse battery power. I will post something when power returns. I feel so isolated.
I am so sorry for your loss, dak. It’s so sad to have to let go of a beloved pet but I know you are at peace knowing that Karma could not have been in a more loving home with her human partner and companion. R.I.P. Karma.
Sending love your way Kat…
Oh Dak, how much disaster can one person take? I’m glad that Karma passed quietly with her beloved slave close by, but that slave has to live with the loss. As a slave to my Tavi and my Holmes after, I have nothing but heartfelt sympathy for your loss.
Sorry about your beloved New Orleans dog, but am glad she went in her sleep peacefully.
Warm regards……
Kat. I’m so sorry about Karma. I am glad she was with you and you with her when she passed. Peace to you in your time of sorrow.
Oh Kat, I am sad to hear about Karma dying. It is so, so hard to lose a furfriend. At least she left in her sleep.
May you have comfort.
I’m so sorry.
I had a charismatic doggie like Karma — she loved everyone. I still miss her — she left a hole in my heart. My cats especially loved her.
It is so comforting when our loved furkids can go quietly in their sleep.
I’m just heading out…but this caught my eye: South Africa to Charge Miners in Deadly Unrest – NYTimes.com
WTF?
I don’t have a link — but I read that the majority of the victims of the police attack were shot in the back.
There is a universal personality drawn to being a cop it would seem.
Actually, I don’t think it’s universal, otherwise we would have total chaos, however there is a strong authoritarian, even fascist element to some who join the policing profession and those seem to be getting bolder. Back in the mid 70′s I had a young woman working for me who was married to a policeman – he beat her, threatened her etc and was eventually charged and convicted for brutality to an innocent citizen (not her, because his buddies covered up his domestic abuse). I had another young woman who was married to an undercover detective in a different division. He cherished her throughout a life threatening illness, and was never cited for citizen violence – went on to become a captain. Takes all kinds, however it seems lately that they are only hiring the wrong type, despite all the psychological tests they are supposed to put them through. But isn’t that the same in the armed forces – because they couldn’t get enough cannon fodder to join up voluntarily, they relaxed their rules and let gang members et all join?
Lowering the standards — or perhaps just not testing and doing the background checks would explain how the bad ones become cops.
Another thing (which you mentioned) is how cops cover for the bad ones and thus the whole organization is tainted by the bad cops.
We see that happening all the time with the NYC cops — especially the ones who are sexually harassing and molesting women (stop and frisk).
http://www.shakesville.com/2012/08/i-see-what-you-did-there.html#disqus_thread
Good grief, it’s getting worse than I ever expected, however I still cling to the idea that most of them are very good people who try to help others. It’s sad that the bad ones are getting the most attention, and are not weeded out before becoming a danger to the general public. That is a management problem, so perhaps the people that they promote to management are not capable of recognizing a problem before it comes and belts you in the face?
yet here is another like my second example’s husband. And this is after four Mounties had been killed by a right wing asshole.
From the description of the video:
“We were camping, when this cop (Doug Sokoloski) pulled into our campsite. We all assumed that we were in trouble, but really he just wanted to shred on the guitar and play the drums a bit. What a nice fella” See, there are really great people who go into police services, and this man alone was instrumental to making people want to support him and others like him.
The miners have been charged because if they hadn’t been out of control then the police wouldn’t have had to shoot anybody.
I know. Completely unbelievable, but that’s the idea.
It’s the most extreme example of victim-blaming I’ve seen applied to people who aren’t women.
For you Dak – Here comes the sun
Could it be that 0bama plans a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear pits? There’s an article listed on memeorandum about build up by Iran. So the scare factor has started.
Then for me it is the Navy Jets doing their practice bombing runs up and down the Puget Sound. Normal air traffic sounds very different from the Navy Jets (super loud — no muffling as required of civilian air craft). The civilian aircraft fly over head all the time — strait lines. The Jets overflights from the Naval Air Base have been a predictor of future action — bombing of Afghanistan and then the bombing of Iraq.
That cartoon with 0bama holding one card — and hearing the Navy Jets on a daily basis in non civilian erratic flying seems to me to indicate that something is going to happen before the November election.
I’ve heard this worry before, but I hope you’re wrong. I don’t think any sort of pre-emptive military action in Iran favors Obama, but we sure know if he did John McCain would be doing backflips.
I wondered when someone was going to jump Condi for her BS. Fred Kaplan does a great job and gets McCain while he’s at it.
Slate: Condoleezza Rice Has a Lot of Nerve
Really, Condi was part of the 8 year nightmare that was the GWB administration. No one, except the warmongers of the GOP, give a damn about Condi.
Honestly, I don’t think that the GOP administration cares, but she is black and she is an academic. I suspect they need at least one.
Paul Ryan’s top 10 lies.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13194-top-ten-repeated-paul-ryan-lies
1. Ryan blamed the US credit rating downgrade on President Obama
2. Ryan continues to claim that President Obama said business owners did not build their own businesses
skip #3 — because #4 is a dooooozy.
4. Ryan slammed President Obama for not implementing the deficit-cutting measures recommended by the Simpson-Bowles commission. But he himself voted against Simpson-Bowles.
Evidently Romney’s team already knows that truth isn’t on their side so this gang of sleaze bags are going for the repeated lie — which if repeated often enough is believed.
Here’s something interesting. Ryan’s speech drew a little more than half as many viewers as tuned in to watch Palin’s in 2008. FWIW.
Yes I saw that number — from my Evangelical family members — none are watching the convention and none of my sources intend to vote for Romney/Ryan. Generally these family members are glued to the TV.
Ryan is a dud.