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found outside a coffeehouse in Summerland today
Author Archives: Kyle Kimberlin
heckuva job
“Brownie, yer doin’ a heckuva job.”
That’s what the Compounder in Chief said to the Director of FEMA, after the latter proved it was a good thing they fired him from his horse judging job, before somebody got hurt.
I hope you will take a moment to read the New Orleans newpaper’s Open Letter to the President. This blog joins them in their indignation, and their call for the firing of FEMA director Michael Brown.
Well hey, I was watching CNN tonight and Aaron Brown was interviewing 3 young guys who forged press passes and drove into New Orleans. They drove right up to the convention center and started ferrying people out in a car. I think they said it was a Hyundai. Said they couldn’t figure out why the government couldn’t get in there. Said they people weren’t trapped by the water, but by red tape.
Can somebody explain to me why Tom Delay is still in office? The man is just repulsive. What a bag of wind. He’s blaming the local governments for the slow Federal response. Wow! The locals? Who were demanding help long before it came. Who cried and begged while the feds were doing photo ops and press conferences. It was their fault. Oh.
Think the next polls will show Bush’s approval rating below 30%? Yeah. And I wonder what ever happened to that guy who used to leave me comments, singing Bush’s praise.
defensive much?
They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
-Edmund Burke
Responsibility
“The responsibility of (government) for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact the prime object for which governments come into existence.”
— Winston Churchill
This was quoted tonight by Keith Obermann on MSNBC, and you can read his remarks on his blog, quoted here in part:
But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. … And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.
It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.
It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.
I don’t know about you, but next time and every time I step into a voting booth, I will
Remember New Orleans.
time going on
“Your good dogs, some things that they hear
they don’t want you to know —
it’s too grim or ethereal.
And sometimes when they look in the fire
they see time going on and someone alone,
but they don’t say anything.”
— William Stafford
Final Exams
I think you should go to this page in the Writer’s Almanac archive and read today’s poem, called What Happened When Bobby Jack Cockrum Tried To Bring Home A Pit Bulldog or What His Daddy Said To Him that Day, by David Lee. It’s cool, pretty funny, regardless of what you think about pit bulls.
(Personally, I love dogs – all dogs – and as much as I believe there are no bad ones, I wouldn’t have a pit bull around my little nephew. Sorry, but that’s just life in the real world. When it comes to gambling, I never bet more than I can afford to lose.)
Enjoy the poem.
The Sad Tail of Snowball
Desperate people are being forced to leave their pets behind.
… a police officer took a dog from one little boy waiting to get on a bus in New Orleans. “Snowball! Snowball!” the boy cried until he vomited. The policeman told a reporter he didn’t know what would happen to the dog.
There will be a special circle in hell, my friends. A very damp, warm, smelly circle in hell.
Advantage
What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.
-Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BC)
Time running out for survivors
<a href="Officials say they do not have the manpower, the resources or enough time to save everyone.
"My guys are coming “>CNN.com – Time running out for survivors – Sep 4, 2005: “Officials say they do not have the manpower, the resources or enough time to save everyone.”
Not to worry, the president has toured the area and everything’s going to be fine. Troops are mobilizing.
A Good Picture
I was looking for something in a closet the other day, and came upon this photo accidentally. It was in a desk frame, and I remember it was on my desk at a former job.
This was in 1991 or 1992, very soon after Tasha came to live with me. She was still quite young, and you can tell that she was very smart. It was taken on the bluffs, where we used to often walk.
I’ve started shopping online for a good marker stone for her place in the yard, next to Stella.
Well Fought
In case you’re surfing and not catching the news, Chief Justice William Rehnquist is dead. Agree with his politics or not, you have to admit it shows a lot of tenacity to stay on the job at age 80, fighting a terrible disease.
Criminal Dereliction
Is it possible that those dead people are still sitting at the convention center in New Orleans? Can I believe what I’m seeing on the TV? That woman in the wheelchair, covered with the plaid blanket is still there? The person beside her, in the white sheet, is still there? They’re still there, decomposing in the heat?
That’s somebody’s mother or grandmother, somebody’s son or daughter. How is it possible that this is happening? This has passed from being a tragedy to a shame to an outright crime.
Metaphor 