I Want You On My Side
Aug. 31st, 2006 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Haven't gone running just yet, though I suspect the only running I'll do today is to Burger King. Ow, I'm a bad rabbit!
My left ankle is pretty sore, so I thought I would give it a rest. Still, three days out of five isn't bad, and I *definitely* plan on running tomorrow and probably Saturday. It's odd, but I can never seem to manage both sides of the diet/exercise equation. Not paying attention to making sure I'm as hydrated as I need to be, and certainly not eating enough in the way of good food. I'm going to have to seriously watch myself to make sure I'm drinking the water I need to be.
Tube's job finally got listed today! This is the one we've really been angling for since I've gotten here, and it's taken them about two weeks to post it. Not a good sign. What's an even worse sign is the mandator bachelor's degree you need for your application to be taken seriously! Doh. :/ Going to apply anyway, because I'd really like the job, but at this point I'm just going to have to pour most of my resources into other things. if Bookbuyers offers me the job with them (and they pay enough), I'll almost certainly be going there. At this rate, I don't expect HR at SJSU to get to the interview stage for the jobs I've applied for until November, anyway.
I've been thinking about New Orleans, the flood caused by Hurricane Katrina, and the government response to it. The first 'anniversary' of the disaster was just a few days ago, and conveniently enough Spike Lee made a documentary chronicling the whole thing just in time. He is who he is, so there's a lot of racial grandstanding (Al Sharpton is the equivalent to the word "Nazi" in racial debate -- bring him up and you automatically lose), but he does a very good job of showing exactly how special New Orleans is, and why it's such a tragedy that this enormous historical and cultural landmark is being so disrespected.
Lee goes after Nagin a bit, but largely shows him favorably (I agree with this; Nagin has stood up for his city very well, even if he has bungled the initial response). He leaves Blanco (the governor of LA) alone for the most part, as well, saving most of his anger for -- who else? -- George W. Bush. I agree with this, too. It's no secret how awful FEMA handled the response, and what's even worse is how Bush, Cheney, Rove, Chertoff (then-Director of Homeland Security), and Condi Rice were either MIA or seen having a grand old time while things at the Superdome and the Convention Center were falling apart. Lee does a great job of telling us exactly when everything went down, so we know that Bush was playing guitar with a country singer in the same afternoon a New Orleans resident had to leave his dead mother on a sidewalk.
The documentary was four hours long; the first part deals with Katrina and the flooding afterwards, while the second part deals with the cleanup and investigation afterwards. Even a year afterwards, there are parts of the 9th Ward that aren't clean, some residents are still waiting for FEMA assistance, and the insurance companies have been working hard to screw their clients out of as much money as they can.
It's frustrating and frightening to see how horribly our government has been handling our own people. There are some points where you just get numb to it, you get so weary about hearing day after day after day about how the Bush Administration is totally fucking America and her citizens that it doesn't register when you hear the latest questionable thing, or soundbite gaffe. We don't really get angry any more. We should be getting angry, and what's more, we should be channeling that anger into making America the way it's supposed to be. With or without the government.
The biggest lesson learned from Katrina and New Orleans is that we can no longer expect our government to care for us if/when something happens. If there's another tragedy (like an 8.0 quake in San Francisco, say), I can't expect FEMA to come in with water and supplies. The Red Cross, yes, celebrities, maybe, but the government? Probably not.
This leaves only one option; to make sure you can care for yourself and your loved ones in the event of an emergency. At the risk of sounding survivalist here, it's something the government has been mildly advocating for a while now, but it's something I think we should all start taking very seriously. Make sure there's enough canned food, water, clothing, bedding, batteries and first aid to last anywhere from three days to two weeks, that sort of thing. And perhaps more importantly, we should all be prepared to help each other if we can. At this point, we have to start thinking of ourselves as the cavalry.
In a way, it's a little empowering to be under this government. We get to learn to do for ourselves again, at least. There's the silver lining.
My left ankle is pretty sore, so I thought I would give it a rest. Still, three days out of five isn't bad, and I *definitely* plan on running tomorrow and probably Saturday. It's odd, but I can never seem to manage both sides of the diet/exercise equation. Not paying attention to making sure I'm as hydrated as I need to be, and certainly not eating enough in the way of good food. I'm going to have to seriously watch myself to make sure I'm drinking the water I need to be.
Tube's job finally got listed today! This is the one we've really been angling for since I've gotten here, and it's taken them about two weeks to post it. Not a good sign. What's an even worse sign is the mandator bachelor's degree you need for your application to be taken seriously! Doh. :/ Going to apply anyway, because I'd really like the job, but at this point I'm just going to have to pour most of my resources into other things. if Bookbuyers offers me the job with them (and they pay enough), I'll almost certainly be going there. At this rate, I don't expect HR at SJSU to get to the interview stage for the jobs I've applied for until November, anyway.
I've been thinking about New Orleans, the flood caused by Hurricane Katrina, and the government response to it. The first 'anniversary' of the disaster was just a few days ago, and conveniently enough Spike Lee made a documentary chronicling the whole thing just in time. He is who he is, so there's a lot of racial grandstanding (Al Sharpton is the equivalent to the word "Nazi" in racial debate -- bring him up and you automatically lose), but he does a very good job of showing exactly how special New Orleans is, and why it's such a tragedy that this enormous historical and cultural landmark is being so disrespected.
Lee goes after Nagin a bit, but largely shows him favorably (I agree with this; Nagin has stood up for his city very well, even if he has bungled the initial response). He leaves Blanco (the governor of LA) alone for the most part, as well, saving most of his anger for -- who else? -- George W. Bush. I agree with this, too. It's no secret how awful FEMA handled the response, and what's even worse is how Bush, Cheney, Rove, Chertoff (then-Director of Homeland Security), and Condi Rice were either MIA or seen having a grand old time while things at the Superdome and the Convention Center were falling apart. Lee does a great job of telling us exactly when everything went down, so we know that Bush was playing guitar with a country singer in the same afternoon a New Orleans resident had to leave his dead mother on a sidewalk.
The documentary was four hours long; the first part deals with Katrina and the flooding afterwards, while the second part deals with the cleanup and investigation afterwards. Even a year afterwards, there are parts of the 9th Ward that aren't clean, some residents are still waiting for FEMA assistance, and the insurance companies have been working hard to screw their clients out of as much money as they can.
It's frustrating and frightening to see how horribly our government has been handling our own people. There are some points where you just get numb to it, you get so weary about hearing day after day after day about how the Bush Administration is totally fucking America and her citizens that it doesn't register when you hear the latest questionable thing, or soundbite gaffe. We don't really get angry any more. We should be getting angry, and what's more, we should be channeling that anger into making America the way it's supposed to be. With or without the government.
The biggest lesson learned from Katrina and New Orleans is that we can no longer expect our government to care for us if/when something happens. If there's another tragedy (like an 8.0 quake in San Francisco, say), I can't expect FEMA to come in with water and supplies. The Red Cross, yes, celebrities, maybe, but the government? Probably not.
This leaves only one option; to make sure you can care for yourself and your loved ones in the event of an emergency. At the risk of sounding survivalist here, it's something the government has been mildly advocating for a while now, but it's something I think we should all start taking very seriously. Make sure there's enough canned food, water, clothing, bedding, batteries and first aid to last anywhere from three days to two weeks, that sort of thing. And perhaps more importantly, we should all be prepared to help each other if we can. At this point, we have to start thinking of ourselves as the cavalry.
In a way, it's a little empowering to be under this government. We get to learn to do for ourselves again, at least. There's the silver lining.
