Beware Media Overload

[flwyd]

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died tonight.

With John Roberts's confirmation hearings set to begin on Tuesday, things are about to get interesting. Already we've witnessed our dear leader's skill in quickly taking charge of the situation (lethargic), his compassion for those unlike him (badly forced) and his organizational planning skills (where were all the busses and military personnel before the hurricane?). Now we'll get to see how well he can multitask.

This is a president who was supposedly "strong on national defense." But most of the $427 billion for the Department of Defense is actually used for offense. And when FEMA was moved under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, planning for disasters and mitigating possible situations was removed from its charter and they changed into a response-driven organization. When pressed on NPR, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said "FEMA has plans for every conceivable tragedy. On Sunday, they started..." The time to prepare for a hurricane is not while the wind picks up.

Planning for a hurricane didn't require wiretaps, FBI/CIA cooperation, or secret detentions. Katrina didn't sneak past airport security, and there was no use asking for a passport. Hurricane effects have been known for a long time. The risk to New Orleans from massive amounts of sudden water has been raised as a concern many times in the last several years. The fact that New Orleans has the lowest rate of car ownership of any major city in the country should have come to mind. I'll try to put this in terms Bush can understand -- you aren't strong in defense if you don't rush the quarterback and rely purely on your secondary.

I wonder if, four years later, the country would do any better handling another successful terrorist attack.

The folks coming back from Burning Man on Monday will have some intense culture shock...

Comments

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that about the rate of car ownership, but I have been thinking about the burners. We had to get rid of our tickets this year due to my big move, and I can't imagine being at a week long party while a lot the places I associate with growing up were washed away or destroyed.

[477150n.livejournal.com]

How much contact with the outside world do they have at Burning Man? I thought I saw something about someone setting up phone stations there.. so do they have some idea, do you think, or are most people pretty well cut off?

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

Burning Man is an odd place. They have a post office, package delivery system, a couple radio stations, at least three newspapers, and wi-fi hotspots, all set up and run by volunteers. But there's no centralized information dissemination apart from the Greeters who say hi and gives a map and a What, Where, When to everyone who arrives at the gate. So there are certainly folks who've learned what's going on, but it's also got unusual information flow. I don't think many people listen to the radio (I didn't hear any after we pulled up at our camp site), most of the newspaper articles are written in advance, and most Burners are glad to not check their email for a week. So to reach very many Burners, the information would have to pass through the old fashioned method -- "Hey man... this dust storm may suck, but it's way better than what's going on in New Orleans..."

Since it's a place where people go to leave the rest of the world behind, there may well be some folks from the coast who pick up a USA Today in Elko tomorrow and discover that their house may be gone.

[477150n.livejournal.com]

god, that would be so wierd.

Often on backcountry kind of camping trips I've wondered what it would be like if something major happened while I was disconnected. Would I somehow hear about it? Did people camping on 9/11 notice there were no planes in the sky? I remember at that time wondering about the people camping and hunting in Alaska and places like that whose float planes were late to pick them up. What went through their heads?

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

Actually, I remembered after posting that comment that there's a bulletin board / white board at Playa Info where people post notes to each other, ask for rides, etc. So word probably would've gotten to most folks on the Gulf Coast, at least.

[477150n.livejournal.com]

So I'd forgotten that Russ & Angi were on a long backpacking trip last week. They were in the woods from Sunday night until Thursday. So they pretty much missed a big chunk of what happened... Russ said he gassed up the car for $3.50/g in Telluride, and that was his first clue. Then of course he went inside the gas station and saw the newspaper.