William Reardon’s Blog

From Geoff, vote for the 7 Wonders of Chicago.

Another reason why I’ll never get Lasik

And, yes, from this you can safely assume I watch Kathy Griffin’s reality show.

I’ve had the final straw with Sprint PCS and my piece of crap phone. After running into Russ in the Y! cafeteria last time I was up north, my candidate set narrowed down to the Sidekick and the Treo 650.

Any recommendations or experiences with either? (Or deals that you know of!) I’m leaning a little towards the Sidekick at this point because I already use T-Mobile’s hotspot service to work at Starbucks, etc. and I’ve heard you can get a bundle deal that’s cheapter At the same time, having a palm integrated with my phone is a pretty sweet notion as well.

Eerie:

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV “storm teams” warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

From an Oct ‘04 edition of National Geographic.

Further discredit on anyone (including Bush) who claims nobody could see this happening and everyone involved for not having planned for this contigency. A pox on both their houses.

As Craig points out, the assult on my homeland continues.

Fuckers.

I visited the Ronald Reagan Library with the fabulous (and very pregnant) Diana yesterday. My favorite president of the modern era, it was cool to see various film montages of his legacy, as well as personal effects & a mock-up of his oval office. They’re in the process of of building the Air Force One Pavilion, featuring, uh, Air Force One. You’ll be able to walk inside and see Reagan’s Air Force One. Should be very cool.

My only complaint is that conservatives are charged the same admission rate as liberals.

Missing a pair of sunglasses? I have no idea who’s they are… Craig? Rick?

Could all bloggers currently demonstrating their superior wisdom asking why people where stupid enough to live in New Orleans in the first place, please do the rest of us a favor and shut the fuck up?

Really, despite what you might think the rest of planet is not filled with fellow callous, unsympathetic bastards. These people, best case, have just lost their homes. For most, it’s going to be a lot, lot worse. Some have watched a loved one die but had no one to take the body. Others were sick and died because of lack of medical supplies. People in the Superdome are living in a situation so depraved & frightening, that I’m ashamed it’s happening in my country. Show a mix of the two, I’m not sure I could identify a picture of New Orleans today from Mogadishu.

If, in looking all this chaos, pain, and destruction, your first question is “Why where these people stupid enough to live there?”, please stop reading this, pick up a wooden beam, take it to your nearest friend and ask him to beat you in the head in with it. Because, frankly, you deserve it. Not only are you callous, but you’re an idiot too. And hitting you in the head will give you both the beating you deserve and at the same time hopefully whack a few of the clearly loose screws back into place.

The fact is a lot of the people trapped in this situation didn’t have a heck of a lot of a choice in the matter. These aren’t the wealthy of New Orleans – they where part of that 80% that cleared the fuck out when the government said to. These aren’t the people who recently moved to New Orleans. If you recently moved to New Orleans, guess what — when the government tells you to clear the fuck out, you can recently move to yet another city.

The people who remain there are the poor. These are people who didn’t have a someplace else to go or the means to get there. By and large, they most likely live in New Orleans because that’s where they where born. They didn’t choose for their parents to live there and moving isn’t a particularly viable option. Relocating is hard, and when you’re poor, it’s even more difficult. Hell, Nickel and Dimed may be liberal porn, but at the very least it gives a sense of trying to move some place with no family, no connections, and pulling a shit job.

Second, almost every place in American (if not the world) has the possibility of disaster. That is a simple testament to the radical power advantage nature has over anything man can produce.
And as much as we like to anthropomorphize the environment, it won’t change the fact that the planet isn’t a loving mother, but rather a lifeless physical phenomenon, which can strike anywhere anytime.

In 1990, several tornados passed with a quarter mile or so of the high school I was at. In 1993, I watched CNN report live on the Great Flood from my old school bus stop. In 1995, the Chicago heat wave killed almost 600 people. I now live in California, where, between wild fires, we wait for the Big One. And of course, now every big city is a major terrorist target.

So, okay, maybe living in a flood plain isn’t the smartest thing, but neither is any of the above. Nowhere is truly “safe” or “wise.” If it’s not a hurricane, it’s an earthquake. If it’s not an earthquake it’s a blizzard. If it’s not a blizzard, it’s a heat wave. New Orleans held up for 300 years before now. Once in 300 years doesn’t make for bad odds. Driving your car to work is more dangerous than that.

I’m not sure where Brad Pitt picked up his sensitivity chip, but apparently the blogsphere shops at the same location.

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