John Carpenter's New Orleans

I'm writing today from Australia. I was here exactly four years ago in September, 2001. Like last time, all the national newspapers are focusing on a major American disaster, this time New Orleans. The new articles and photo-essays of American tragedy will make an eerie addition to my collection of Australian newspapers published Sept. 11, 2001.

The current tragedy, though, is very different from Sept. 11. It is an unfortunate event and a true disaster, but it was completely predicted in all of its details. The potential for catastrophic post-hurricane flooding in New Orleans has been known for many years. In addition to the long-standing awareness of the risks, the disaster potential was repeatedly emphasized on all national news outlets for several days prior to the hurricane. I've seen numerous on-the-street interviews with flood survivors, and almost all of them admitted that they heard the warnings but didn't believe them.

So how much sympathy should I really feel? This is nothing to compare with a south-Asian tsunami or a Sudanese civil war. This wasn't even an "out-of-the-blue" natural disaster that took people unawares. The unfolding and loss of life in New Orleans could have been almost completely avoided if anyone -- the citizens, city officials, the National Guard, the President, etc -- if anyone had chosen to pay attention to the risks and prepare appropriately.

I also have no sympathy for Bush or for those who planned and are orchestrating the relief effort. Bush said yesterday, "No one could have predicted the levies would break." This is a rare and brazen level of even for the President. I watch about 15 minutes of news per day, and even I heard numerous predictions, in advance, that the levies might break. Everyone predicted that the levies could break!

Consider New Orleans a dress rehearsal for the real natural disasters that the US will eventually, inevitably face. Nature has been nice to us in the short history of our country. But sooner or later the statistics will catch up to us and we will have to face an unforseen catastrophe on a much greater scale. Judging from our performance in the utterly-predictable events in New Orleans, I think we can safely expect that the US will be completely wiped out when a real catastrophe comes our way.

I propose that the Hurricane Katrina aftermath be subtitled "The Power of Positive Thinking." The magnitude of suffering is truly a consequence of lazy optimism: "Those levies ain't gonna break;" "That storm ain't gonna be so bad;" "The flooding won't be severe;" "We won't have any trouble trucking in supplies from distant sources;" etc etc.

Also interesting is the speed with which this hurricane/flood affected economies around the globe. Flood hits new Orleans -> gas prices go up everywhere and much of the southeast is completely without gas for a while -> disruption in transportation -> scarcity of basic resources.... If we can't prepare for disruptions in global transportation, then when a big disaster hits we may see much bigger ramifications.

Nagin the Candid

Transcript of an interview with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Excerpt:

And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.

You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.

And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.

...but the whole thing is good.

Puped on Derrida

The current issue of Skeptic (vol. 11 no. 4) contains a priceless "memorial" to the work of Derrida, and to that great UFIA of 20th century thought, post-modernism ("The Death of Philosophy" by L. Kirk Hagen). This is one of the more satisfying articles I've read in recent years. Some highlights:

...it is usually unclear in Grammatology when Derrida is serious, when he is speaking metaphorically, and when he is simply word-smithing with no real objective in mind. ... One would think that the literati, whose job it is to understand, explain, and even teach the art of good writing, would have themselves excelled at self-expression.

Yet Derrida, the most revered figure in 20th century literary criticism, was unforgivably reckless in his exposition. He composed wierd, almost surreal narratives that seemed intentionally unintelligible. He took familiar words and concepts hither and yon, and distorted them beyond recognition.

...Like the essay it analyzes [Rousseau's Essay on the Origins of Language], Derrida's Grammatology is without merit. Among Derrida's most fervent supporters, it is difficult to find any two individuals who can agree on what the book is supposed to be about. How could they? On page 7 Derrida explains that "the word 'writing' has ceased to designate the signifier of the signifier," and adds that "strange as it may seem, the 'signifier of the signifier' no longer defines accidental doubling and fallen secondarity." ... He then tells us that language has "lost its warmth" because "its accentuated features have been gnawed by consonants," and that consonants are easier to write than vowels.

Of deconstruction, the author concludes:

...it is time to start looking for a suitable epitaph, and the best candidate so far comes from the oft-cited "Letter to a Japanese Friend" that Derrida wrote to Professor Izutsu in 1983. "What deconstruction is not?" asks Derrida. "Everything of course! What is deconstruction? Nothing of course!" Derrida was right... of course.

(UFIA = Unsolicited Finger In Anus)