h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Does it matter?

Only in so far as we can mark her as being stupid as well as dangerous.

It does if you like to split hairs: i.e. a cynical attempt to inflame religious bigotry a la Karl Rove to gain political control or an honest expression of said bigotry in the style of Fred Phelps. I'm not sure which is worse.

I read the news report of that interview and I suddenly felt an urge to scream. I can NOT believe that a member of congress would actually be ingorant enough to say she doesn't think Church and State should be separate. Isn't that the reason Europeans came to this country? To escape the repressive State religion of the time?

I think my head is going to explode. Must drink Shiraz.

stupid enough to plunge the society back to the dark middle ages.. never mind, you'll be over it in some 500 years. It's just a phase that civilisations go through..

I suggest to burn all your books except the bible, go to church three times each Sunday and once or twice during the week.. remember the inquisition is ready for you.

Yeah, I know. That's what I'm afraid of. So far no burning crosses on my lawn, though.

I watched most of Spike Lee's documentary about Hurricane Katrina, "When the Levees Broke", on HBO last night. So...one year later does anyone have any thoughts on the federal/state/local response, the slow pace of reconstruction, and what the future New Orleans should look like--or not?

Not that I have anything to say about it, but:

Perfect scenario: a full management plan that moves the Port of New Orleans down to the outlet of (I think it's) the Applalachicola River- the Mississippi has been wanting to flow that way for ages, and it's only through constant effort of Army Corps of Engineers that it's on it's current course. Remove dams on the upper Mississippi to allow sediment through to rebuild the delta. Increase protections for high-quality buffer wetlands, and give property owners incentives to build them, or in any case not destroy them. Allow New Orleans' economy to regrow with a base of tourism, oil industry, and education. Shift the rest down to the Appalachicola outlet.

Realistic scenario: Mississippi River will continue on its current course. New Orleans may lose some neighborhoods, but people will continue to build under sea level.

I think it's absolutely necessary to restore the wetlands. They act a buffer between the Gulf and the Mississippi river. Basically what Scandrea said.

As to the federal government's response... Basically a short-sighted administration castrated FEMA. Then it was just a matter of time before a major disaster hit. Really bad disasters in the United States are those that lack an immediate response by the government - the Chicago fire, the San Francisco fire, etc. At this point I don't really blame Michael Brown. Yeah, he could have done a lot better, but he was the wrong man for the job in the first place. I blame the people that appointed him to that position. I would never have taken that job, because I know I'm not qualified.

Who would have thought one would have to DO anything besides appear at photo ops with sleeves rolled up?

I can do that! That's eeeeeaaasy....

Click! What a picture, what a photograph. Standing there with your fig leaf gone.

I think it's important to get the homeowners in the Ninth Ward, and other poor areas of the city and Gulf Coast, back to their property. It shouldn't be gentrified so upper class New Orleanians and the political establishment feel comfortable.

FG- I've got to disagree with you.

The folks in the poor areas of the city didn't live there by choice- they lived there because it's what they could afford. People who could afford more lived in more protected areas.

By putting them back in the same place, you're setting them up for another Katrina.

It probably is important to get more people from different walks of life back to New Orleans, but that's not the way to do it!

I am at a loss to understand why we insist on building on flood plains and then being surprised when they flood. Building below sea level is even les comprehensible.

I am in the camp that says leave the dratted river alone and let it get back to its natural course, let the wetlands do what they are supposed to do. Get the people out of the flood plains and let the river flood. Build beautiful productive bottomland fields there, farm them without using a bunch of toxic chemicals. Move the city somewhere else. Sorry, a lot of history and stuff will be lost, but people will be able to rejoice in building a new history somewhere where it won't be in danger of being destroyed every few years.

Yeah, let's just dump the historical places. Why, Europe would look *so* different if they'd done that, all shiny and new -- partticularly the quake zone in Italy.

The complaint I believe FG was making is that, in one breath the city fathers are saying, "move on, it's a flood plain", and in the next, asking "who's next in line to get your condo building permits stamped?".

They are not moving, period, it looks like. What they are doing is pricing the last poor folks out of *anywhere* in their hometown they could afford to live. The few places in the ninth ward that survived have had their rents go through the roof. And there was a very real frustration among the better off citizens in that town when the evacuees started coming back, after all.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5283522.stm

Rebuilding where and with what is still a huge issue elsewhere on the Gulf coast.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5727241&ampsourceCode=RSS

SC

Actually, Scandrea, developers are moving into New Orleans and offering residents of the Ninth Ward lots of money for their properties. So the city/state/private developers *want* to rebuild on that land, floodplain or no. It's not a question of if New Orleans will be built, it's who will live there.

the really horrible thing about the whole situation is that no one has figured out what to do with all the displaced poor people who are now living in FEMA trailers in what amounts to refugee camps, complete with barbedwire fences and gravel and police harrassment. We NEVER get to see images of that in this country. It's like it isn't even happening.

This is the kind of situation that newspapers and media in general feed on. So why isn't there more on the deplorable conditions down there? We see accounts where the homes are damaged but repairable in the "upper class" neighborhoods. Surely the state can't hide these people and their plight. So what is going on?

Scandrea, at what point will people start to listen to your ilk? No one in power seem to want to listen as to what happens when you mess with the world and it's enviorons. I am believing that they are of the mentality that the world is going to go bad anyways so we just take care of ourselves and our enjoyment and let the inheritors of our degradation fend for themselves.

!!

"Building below sea level is even les comprehensible." What!! well, even to a dinosaur this is a rather .. traditional view on the world..

Far, far away, in Europe, which is actually a place many American families originate from several hundred years ago, there's a country "Netherlands", also known as "the low countries". most of that is below sea level, up to 4 meters (that's about 13 feet for Americans) below sea level. If part of that country is flooded, like it happened in 1953, the people there are shocked, and the gouvernment spends sufficient funds (or "whatever it takes") to rebuild, restructure, help, and even build dikes and waterworks so that statistically the next flood is not in 50 years time but in 1000 years time.