Category: Old Dish

I would have linked to John Tierney’s excellent NYT op-ed today on how Wal-Mart is better able to deal with natural disasters than FEMA. But only Times Select readers can read the link. So I won’t. Nyah nyah.

The blogosphere has so far been pretty quiet about the North Korean deal. From what I can glean from the MSM reports, it’s essentially a re-run of 1994: they trade one kind of nuke reactor for another; we pretend not to notice their subterranean nuke development; there’s plenty of space for this thing to fall apart; and Kim Jong Il gets more goodies from the West. Maybe China, Japan and Russia figure that NoKo is falling apart anyway and this kind of engagement makes sense. It might if we had some kind of Gorbachev figure in Pyongyang. But, ahem, we don’t. I know we don’t have many good options here, but it’s hard to avoid the impression that the Bush administration blinked. And if things weren’t going so poorly with Iraq, Iran and domestically, we might have been strong enough to say no. Prediction: this will fall apart because of NoKo’s non-compliance. Even today, according to the Washington Post, “the official North Korean news agency early today quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman as asserting that Pyongyang would not give up its weapons program until it received nuclear reactors from the United States.” So the backpedaling is under way. Bush, alas, would rather find a way to blame Kim after the agreement falls apart than have China blame him now for recalcitrance. The fruits of weakness.

The culture goes to war over a nature documentary. My take here.

For the Republican deficits of the last four years? Bob Livingston passes the buck. Again. Mind-boggling.

Just an HIV update. I’ve been on the new meds for a couple of months now and after a week or so of torpor, have no side-effects that I can speak of. My viral load – i.e. the amount of virus in my bloodstream – went from 141,000 particles per cubic mililiter of blood in late May to 1500 after ten days on June 2 and has now come down to a grand total of 121. Still not good enough. We’re hoping for under 50 at the next count. My CD4 cell count – a sign of the strength of your immune system – has gone back into its normal range. Thank God for the evil pharmaceutical companies. One day, when the history of this period is written, I have a feeling we will look back with astonishment as we recognize that advances in medical science, particularly pharmaceuticals, were arguably one of the most significant developments of this era. And yet the people who pioneered these breakthroughs were … demonized and attacked. Baffling and bizarre. I’m merely grateful the attacks haven’t stopped the research progress. They’ve merely slowed it. Oh, and I talked my doc into giving me a pre-emptive treatment of Tamiflu. I won’t use it, unless the birdpoop hits the fan. But I’ll have it just in case. I’m not relying on president Bush. Not this time.

“The self-congratulatory letter from the resident of Mississippi you printed might have been funny were it not such a shocking distortion of the genuinely sad and tragic facts on the ground in that state. Friends of relatives of mine – middle class white people – were trapped in a small town in southern Mississippi for days – just like the people of New Orleans – without fresh supplies of food, water, and gas. They waited and waited as trucks passed their town by, residents growing more desperate over the course of three or four or five days. They pleaded for help in every way they could, and were abandoned by their government, just like nearly everyone else affected by this storm. Barbour is no saint. Their stories will eventually be told, and some already have.”

Bull Moose makes the best case yet. I’m watching Hillary. If she votes no, then it seems to me that independents should be very leery of any attempt she makes to move to the center over the next couple of years. As for the gay groups (excepting LCR), I’ve given up on them taking a fair view of things like this. Roberts is as good as you’ll get under this president. But that doesn’t make for a good direct mail pitch, does it?

The leader of Germany’s Greens has new leverage.

The top ten questions for the FEMA Director Application.

“C’mon, do it; admit Mississippians are a breed apart from New Orleanians. Our people and government care, and we make do. We have learned to take care of our own, as outside help is usually unreliable and often ineffective in the context of our traditional social structures.
From your Sunday link, “The Competence Factor II,” I’m certain you read the Washington Post; but, evidently, any news that differs from your trope of governmental incompetence is unmentionable, such as the attached link. Governor Barbour demonstrated decisive leadership, he pre-positioned assets in Hattiesburg, including his wife and ninety State Troopers, who relayed disaster information back to the state capital of Jackson within hours of the storm surge’s retreat. As First Couple, they have been ubiquitous at the sites of the tragedy, not on radio chat shows or cable news talk fests, assessing and assisting.
The city of Ocean Springs, a beautiful Gulf pearl, with an artistic heritage not unlike your Provincetown, was heavily affected; but, though its plight was ignored by the national media, its people and leaders have pulled together to endure and triumph. I guess if your citizens are not complaining about federal aid to a celebrity reporter in a logo ball cap, pressed shirt, and creased “cargo” pants that has dropped in to exploit your personal tragedy, you don’t warrant attention.
Please draw this regional distinction and the need for differential disaster responses to the attention of your vast readership; or let it inform your thinking about the role of government in a federal system and the flexibility responsible agents need to make to deal effectively with regional differences, even among the states of a region.”