The image above from epodunk.com shows where the 3.2 million Katrina evacuees have ended up so far. It’s kind of interesting; hit the link for more details.
HT: Z + Partners blog.
I usually leave the fisking of Nick Coleman, Doug Grow and the other StarTribune columnists to others. One reason is that I usually ignore their columns as part of my own “quality of life” commitment. A second reason is that I try to use outrage in modest doses as leavening in this blog rather than as a main course. And a third big reason, of course is that, as the Night Writer, by the time I’ve sat down at my computer to blog in the evening these columns have already been fisked to within an inch of their lives by others in the MOB so I turn to other topics.
Earlier this a.m., however, I grabbed a section of yesterday’s Strib to catch the debris as I trimmed my beard. It turned out to be the Metro section – or what they now call “twin cities + region”. Avid reader that I am, I found myself reading through the section before completing my grooming, which certainly made it easier to trim my hackles.
Mr. Coleman had a follow-up on the 11-year-old girl who died mysteriously last week; Mr. Grow was offering a tribute to a strip club doorman who died young. There was also a short AP article about a woman who just finished a 154-mile walk to the state capital to deliver petitions demanding a constitutional amendment requiring affordable health care. Oh, and there was an article about bars in Minneapolis trying to figure out how to hold onto what’s left of their smoking clientele in Minneapolis after the onset of the bar-smoking bans and winter.
Individually, each article had more than enough to get Mitch, Foot, Marcus and some others salivating. Taken as a whole, however, there was a certain ironic pattern that caused me to alter my pre-breakfast routine. Can you detect it?
I saw an article today in the StarTribune, Miami-based Cruise Ship Attacked by Pirates off Somalia, and it reminded me of a book I read last year by John S. Burnett entitled Dangerous Waters.
It’s an excellent and eye-opening read about a subject most people think has become quaint: high seas piracy. Burnett was motivated to research and write the book after his own small boat was boarded and robbed. While you won’t find much in the way of masted ships flying the Jolly Roger looking for easy pickings today, the reality is that the basics of piracy in the 17th century and today are still in place: slow-moving, lightly-guarded ships loaded with valuable cargo in international waters with little controlling authority — and a large, international pool of people greedy enough, or desperate enough, that have access to fast boats and weaponry and little fear of being caught. In fact, about all that’s changed is the technology. Galleons have been replaced by high-speed boats; cannons replaced with rocket-propelled grenades; cutlasses with Uzis.
While this (literally) cut-throat business has never really gone away, even in the age of high-tech navies, it is mostly invisible because it doesn’t affect our lives in many noticeable ways. As Burnett points out, however, piracy today can easily lead to a serious and confounding global problem.
One of the most pirate-infested areas today is the Malacca Straits. While the location might not be as colorful-sounding as, say, the Caribbean and you might be a little vague on the geography, the Malacca Straits are a very important little body of water. They link the Indian and Pacific Oceans and are the shortest sea route between India, China and Indonesia. They are filled with shallow reefs and tiny islands and there are only narrow channels available for the nearly 1000 ships – mostly cargo ships and oil tankers – that pass through each day like slow, fat fish in a barrel. Heavy traffic in narrow confines makes for relatively easy pickings for pirates in “smash and grab” types of raids (board, loot any crew and passengers, take electronics and other valuables from the bridge and beat it to a nearby hideout or fishing village). Sometimes, however, this results in tanker or cargo crews being tied up and their ships left to plow on out of control through a highly congested area. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of the effects that a grounding or sinking of a tanker in this area could have on this vital commercial thoroughfare. Here’s some of what the above link about the straits has to say:
The narrowest point of this shipping lane is the Phillips Channel in the Singapore Strait, which is only 1.5 miles wide at its narrowest point. This creates a natural bottleneck, with the potential for a collision, grounding, or oil spill (in addition, piracy has historically been a regular occurrence in the Singapore Strait, but over the past 15 years has grown alarmingly). Some 400 shipping lines and 700 ports worldwide rely on the Malacca and Singapore straits to get to the Singapore port. For example, 80% of Japan’s oil comes from the Middle East via the Malacca Straits. To skip the straits would force a ship to travel an extra 994 miles from the Gulf. All excess capacity of the world fleet might be absorbed, with the effect strongest for crude oil shipments and dry bulk such as coal. Closure of the Strait of Malacca would immediately raise freight rates worldwide. With Chinese oil imports from the Middle East increasing steadily, the Strait of Malacca is likely to grow in strategic importance in coming years.
Whether through criminal accident or premeditated terrorism (elements of Abu Sayaff and Al Quaida are active in this area), it may be just a matter of time before such an incident fills headlines around the world.
It’s not an unknown threat to people who’s business it is to be concerned with these things, Burnett’s book and others (see below) does a good job of describing the efforts cargo and passenger lines, governments and military forces are making to mitigate the problem while also describing the bureaucratic, political and logistical hurdles they face.
All in all, today’s news story (selected by the Strib perhaps because it was so unusual sounding) highlights an issue we often overlook. If you’re intrigued by this information, Dangerous Waters is a sobering but very interesting read. You might also find the following related books suggested by Amazon of interest:
Jolly Roger With an Uzi: The Rise and Threat of Modern Piracy by Jack A. Gottschalk
Pirates Aboard!: Forty Cases of Piracy Today and What Bluewater Cruisers Can Do About It by Klaus Hympendahl
Maritime Terror: Protecting Your Vessel and Your Crew Against Piracy by Jim Gray
Also while I was on Amy’s site (see post below) I saw this link to an LA Times article about the liberal lawyers and judges who have worked with Justice Alito and support his nomination, including this comment:
Former federal Judge Timothy K. Lewis said that when he joined the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1992, he consulted his mentor, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. The late Higginbotham, a legendary liberal and a scholar of U.S. racial history, was the only other black judge on the Philadelphia-based court at the time.
“As he was going down the roster of colleagues, he got to Sam Alito. I expressed some concern about [him] being so conservative. He said, ‘No, no. Sam Alito is my favorite judge to sit with on this court. He is a wonderful judge and a terrific human being. Sam Alito is my kind of conservative. He is intellectually honest. He doesn’t have an agenda. He is not an ideologue,’ ” Higginbotham said, according to Lewis.
“I really was surprised to hear that, but my experience with him on the 3rd Circuit bore that out,” added Lewis, who had a liberal record during his seven years on the bench. “Alito does not have an agenda, contrary to what the Republican right is saying about him being a ‘home run.’ He is not result-oriented. He is an honest conservative judge who believes in judicial restraint and judicial deference.”
Hmmm. Intellectually honest. Doesn’t have an agenda. Not an idealogue. Has apparently read the Constitution. No wonder Teddy, Chuck and Harry don’t like him.
Thanks to Amy Ridenour I saw a post at Bizzy Blog detailing some of the WMDs that have been found in Iraq. What? You didn’t realize WMDs had been found? I wonder why that might be?
Bizzy Blog originally found the information at Atlas Shrugged (see link below) and posted it. When a commenter challenged the stories as being made up, Bizzy tracked down the links and included them:
Did you know this? From Atlas Shrugs (scroll to end of post), based on member-only information at Human Events Online (external links added in response to Comment 1 below):
Did you know WMDs have been found in Iraq?
* 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
* 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons agents
* 17 chemical warheads containing cyclosarin (a nerve agent five times more deadly than sarin gas)
* Over 1,000 radioactive materials in powdered form meant for dispersal over populated areas
* Roadside bombs loaded with mustard and “conventional” sarin gas, assembled in binary chemical projectiles for maximum potencyThis is only a PARTIAL LIST of the horrific weapons verified to have been recovered in Iraq to date. Yet, Americans overwhelmingly believe U.S. and coalition forces found NO weapons of mass destruction.
Weapons of Media Distortion, anyone?
My wife accepted an invitation from a friend of ours and has attended a couple of Social Justice Bible Studies. The invite came out of a conversation she and this friend, a Christian, had about his Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker and his belief that conservative Christians who criticize the federal welfare program aren’t concerned about the poor. To our friend’s way of thinking, this behavior is breaking faith with a fundamental premise of Christianity (and don’t we consider ourselves fundamentalists?).
There are certainly a lot of places where you can begin in taking on that argument, but my wife decided to start by going to the Bible study to hear what they were talking about, in part because she was really curious about what the group meant by “social justice.”
The group’s focus, as I’ve said, is on helping the poor and what we need to do as a nation to rectify this injustice. After my wife’s last visit I was curious as to what scriptures the group was using to support their position that this is the government’s responsibility and not that of the church or of Christians as individuals. The leader that time had cited either Leviticus 19:10 (“And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather [every] grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I [am] the LORD your God.”) or Deuteronomy 24:21 (“When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean [it] afterward: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow.”)
Well that’s pretty clear direction, but where the leader was missing it, in my opinion, was making the leap that the if people weren’t following that instruction then it became the government’s responsibility — ostensibly from a desire to do good — to pass a law requiring it. Oh, the peril of good intentions (and unintended consequences)!
It’s my take that when you’re trying to determine the nature or intent of God you should look for where the relationship is. Whether with the first Adam or the second, and through all the prophets in between and the apostles that came after, God has shown he is interested in establishing relationships, both between himself and people, and people to people. Now, in the case of the social justice bunch, it may seem like a natural step for God-fearing people to reflect this desire by delegating to their government the authority to act for this good. To me, though, that is also the first step leading to replacing a relationship between God and man with a relationship between man and the other big G – government.
Let’s play out the example of the gleaners. Man, or the church, through hardness of heart, is not leaving the gleanings for the poor. In an effort to be righteous (and concern that others aren’t being righteous enough), people get together and direct the government to pass a law requiring that gleanings be left. Then, if the poor aren’t doing a good enough job of picking up the gleanings (or if the more motivated ones are out-hustling the infirm or indolent) someone gets the bright idea that maybe they should put some of the poor to work collecting the gleanings and bringing the second harvest in where it can be distributed more equitably. If the people hired to do this were among the more ambitious ones mentioned earlier, they soon see that they get the same share no matter how much effort they put in to picking up the food.
Now, before the law was passed a poor man might pray and ask God to help him find the means to feed his family. Coming upon a field just harvested, he might thank God for bringing him to that place and giving him the strength and ability to collect the food his family needed. Maybe even a landowner passes by at that time and sees the man is diligent and offers him a job. After a time of living under the government’s rule, however, that man (or his now grown children) starts to see the law, not God, as his source and the excess harvest as something he’s entitled to; not because he’s a child of God, but simply because he’s poor. Furthermore, bitterness might start to set in and he starts to wonder why the owner of the field gets to have first pick, and why, instead of just leaving what falls during the harvest and what collects in the corners of the field, he can’t start also leaving every third row unharvested for the poor as well. Of course then the government has to hire more people to collect the additional food. The poor man’s belly might be full, but what is in his heart and his spirit? What was the result of all those good intentions?
And what benefit does the landowner get by doing it God’s way in the first place rather than being hard-hearted and subjected to government fiat? Well, certainly less interference in his life on a business level, but he also gains favor with God by following his commands and escapes judgment as well. As I’ve written before, when I stand before God and he asks if I helped the poor I’m not going to get very far saying, “Well, I paid my taxes!” Perhaps the most insidious harm from the welfare state isn’t the trap it creates for those who live from it, but that it disconnects everyone else from realizing their responsibility to get directly involved.
It’s a lesson that bears repeating even for those who are receptive, and I know that I don’t always get high marks on this test. Yet my family has at times taken people into our home, helped other people move into homes, and bought groceries or medical care for those who needed these things. Where possible we’ve also tried to disciple others so they could learn they can trust God and also avoid behaviors that might put them back in the same place. When the time comes when these people have no longer needed direct help from us or our church, we’ve been genuinely happy for their success and progress. If, however, it was my job as a government employee to distribute these things then I’d have to worry that if I was too successful I’d be out of a job myself!
Finally, I give the social justice group credit for wanting to do God’s work. I wonder, however, if they are as quick in desiring that the government enforce by law other scriptural commands such as those dealing with adultery and homosexuality. Perhaps my wife will raise this question at a future meeting. She finds the meetings pretty interesting and the conversation polite even though there are significant differences of interpretation and doctrine between her and a couple of the group leaders. She feels she is getting something out of it by hearing other perspectives, and hopes that the others are also benefiting. She plans to keep going back as long as they’ll have her.
It is, after all, all about relationships.
Update:
Similar thoughts are in this post from Stones Cry Out.
Details here.
The key element in the proposal, in my mind, is the emphasis on developing a vaccine through the use of cell-based cultures rather than in millions of chicken eggs, which has been the standard since the 1950s. The egg process takes nearly a year, as I understand it, while the cell culture method is much faster and allows researchers to move more quickly through various experiments and trials, both for the H5N1 avian virus or for any other strain that may develop.
While it may appear odd that we’ve not made many technological advances in this area over the past few decades – as opposed to, say, digital music media — the fact is there hasn’t been an economic incentive or suitable risk/reward profile — for companies to invest time and money in this area.
“We’re not as well-prepared today as we want to be,” Leavitt said. “We’re better prepared than we were yesterday, and we’ll continue to get better prepared every day as time goes forward.”
…Part of the president’s plan, he said, will deal with what he called “junk lawsuits” that stifle the output of vaccine manufacturers.
“The manufacturers simply refuse to make it if they haven’t got some protection, so that’s part of the president’s plan to provide that type of liability protection,” Leavitt said.
The people I talk to who are closer to the situation say recent developments and the increased awareness world-wide are encouraging and if the H5N1 virus doesn’t mutate to a form easily transferred human-to-human in the next year we will be in a good position to significantly mitigate the threat. If it develops sooner than that then we could be in for a rough time globally. The latest projections from Health and Human Services now predict – in a worst case scenario – up to 1.9 million deaths in the U.S. alone.
Historically, there is a high statistical probability that the world is due for an influenza pandemic of some kind. Whether it turns out to be the bird flu or some other strain, the work that’s being done in revamping research and development capabilities now will pay off.
I left work early on this first weekday after going off of daylight savings time and hustled home to finish my preparations for Halloween. I made it just in time to get the cider heated and the fire built in the driveway as darkness fell and the first waves of trick-or-treaters began to circulate. It was a nice night and almost every kid said “thank you” which made it even more enjoyable to be outdoors.
While it was cozy next to the fire, I had time between visitors to think about the ever-shorter days yet to come. I also remembered reading about the effect on human sleep patterns after Thomas Edison invented the electric light. Before 1910 people averaged nine hours of sleep a night. Now that number is around seven and a half hours a night, but laboratory studies have shown that if people are deprived of electric light they revert to a nine hour sleep schedule. I don’t know if they’ve measured the effects of blogging on sleep patterns, but I’m averaging six hours a night since I started this blog.
I’m going to bed.
I remember the first time I was going to go trick-or-treating for Halloween. I was four years old and my mom had bought me a black skeleton costume with silver sequined bones on the front that was probably next to invisible in the dark. It had a plastic mask that covered my face and had eye-holes that more or less lined up with where my eyes were. The material was some kind of filmy fabric that probably would have ignited in a warm breeze. (Kids in my generation had to be a lot tougher – or luckier – to survive). And I couldn’t wait to get out there and start hauling in my share of the loot.
When the moment finally arrived to hit the street I impatiently nodded my masked head at my parent’s reminders to be careful and bolted out of our front door like a greyhound out of the starting gate. The slamming sound of the storm door preceded by one and a half seconds the slamming sound of me colliding headfirst with the telephone pole in our front yard. I spent the rest of that hallowed eve tearfully laying flat on my back on the living room sofa with a large goose-egg and an ice-pack on my forehead while countless other kids came to our door for candy. I think the next year I went out as a cowboy.
I did, however, learn early on how important it is to think through a costume idea and I enjoyed the creative aspect of devising each year’s design as I got older until parents at the door started refusing to give candy to the big lug trick-or-treating with the little kids, no matter how clever the costume. The next year I decided to stay home and pass out candy in costume. My first customer of the night, a three-year-old girl in a white fairy princess costume ran screaming for the street and her father when I stuck my monsterized face around the edge of the door at her height. I felt really bad the rest of the night.
In later years when I was old enough to go to grown-up Halloween parties, complete with adult beverages, I reignited my creative muse and quickly added three important ground rules to future costume design: 1) I must be able to sit down while wearing the costume. 2) I must be able to drink while wearing the costume. 3) I must be able to use the bathroom while wearing the costume. Then, once I became a parent, I pretty much got out of the whole costume and Halloween thing. The world was getting weirder and I had more reservations about the underlying spirit behind the evening. We’d normally darken the house and take our kids in their costumes to “Hallelujah Night” at church.
Then, the Halloween after 9/11 I got to thinking that it was better to be out and involved in the neighborhood, and I started a tradition of setting up a firepit in my front yard and serving hot apple cider to the parents who, because of the way our house is positioned, could stand by the fire and watch their kids hit nearly every house around. Every kid that came by got a handful of candy and a “God bless you.” It’s become a popular stop each year since, especially in the years when it’s been very cold and windy.
Last year the folks at my office decided to have a dress-up day and costume contest for the first time. I struggled to regain my muse up until the night before when an idea finally dawned on me. A part of our Division had just been sold off to a company from Scotland. I thought that if I wanted to come up with something really scary, then I should dress up in full kilt regalia. A friend of mine just happened to have the authentic ensemble and let me borrow it. It was a big hit (see photo under “About” in the right sidebar) and I even won a prize. During the potluck lunch, however, I walked by a conference room were a number of our nurse consultants and our HR generalist were eating. The HR lady waved me in and said that she had been working lately on a new dress code, including approved underwear, and she and the group were wondering what… er, umm …a Scotsman might have under his kilt.
I may have blinked twice before responding, in brogue, “Ye mean tae tell me ye’ve no heard of the Loch Ness Monster?”
Great laughter and shrieking ensued, drawing a crowd as I slipped quietly away to the other side of the building … where I could still hear the additional uproar as the incident was recounted to new waves of the curious who had gathered in the conference room.
So, anyway, Monday night I’ll be out front of my house, tending the fire and passing out candy and cider. You can send your kids around, it will be safe. Just tell them not to ask any silly questions.
At 4:16 this afternoon someone in St. Paul, Minnesota with a Comcast account was the 10,000th visitor to this blog (as measured by Site Meter)!
I thought I was still several weeks away from this milestone so I was startled to make this discovery a few minutes ago. As such, I don’t have a prepared commemorative message other than to offer my warm personal regards and thanks to all of you – especially those of you who have visited regularly. Especially special thanks with whip cream on top to those of you who have left comments!
This blog started 8 months and 12 days ago when I had no clue as to how many people would ever see it and merely the sketchiest of ideas of what I was going to write about on day 2. It was exciting to see my average daily visitors number creep over 20, and to get my first comment (thanks again, Sandy!). It’s been fun to watch this blog climb up the TTLB Eco-system; lately it seems I keep evolving and de-volving between being a Marauding Marsupial and an Adorable Little Rodent (and don’t think that that isn’t hard on the old pelt!) Perhaps most amazing, 10,000+ visitors and no flames or trolls yet! (I’ll try harder).
Some details: the two most popular posts (396 each) by referrals are 21st Century British Healthcare and Love and the Difference Between Being a Friend and Being Friendly. I’m especially awed that the latter post has been downloaded in China, Japan, the Philippines and in several countries in the Middle East and Africa. Those two are among my favorites, but I’m also pretty proud of the time I compared doing this to being in a garage band.
Thanks, everyone – you’ve made my day!
Update:
So, with 10,000 visitors and some 60-odd (some odder than others) links, what is this blog worth? Here’s one measure:
My blog is worth $35,566.02.
How much is your blog worth?
