Creationists Making Gains in Texas

The Discovery Institute is trying to do for Texas what they did for Kansas and tried to to for Dover, Pennsylvania. They are trying to replace the science of evolutionary biology with a new version of "intelligent design." Story in the Houston Chronical.

About those financial markets

This is what happened.
This is what the Bush gang wants to do about it.

As though the chief function of this nation is to shovel money into the insatiable maw of financiers. I don't think we would collapse if these financial houses went under. I think we should build an alternative economic model to this one that has failed so miserably and, in the process, has created the worst income inequality in U.S. history. Tell me this: what is so great about AIG et. al.that they must be saved from themselves?

Birds in her Freezer

A widow in my neighborhood--let's call her Marie--walks her miniature schnauzer twice a day. I made her acquaintance on the street when we were both walking our dogs. She is slightly bent by scoliosis, and the walking helps her. She probably knows more about this neighborhood than anyone else because she talks to people she sees on the street while walking with her dog. She knows the soap opera versions of our private lives and manages to discuss these intimacies with some discretion and taste.

Her husband, before he died, had been a first-rate yard man in addition to his job as curator at one of Houston's most important museums. Their house and lawn literally glowed with sculptured life. A particularly important chore that the husband had previously handled with great competence and sensitivity was the burying of dead birds.

Marie kept pet birds of the smaller sort, finches, lovebirds and such. Inevitably, some died. Recently, a finch died, and the chore that had been handled so competently and sensitively by her husband now fell to her. She simply was not up to the task, so she put the bird in the freezer to keep until she got up enough gumption to bury it properly. A few days later, she picked up an injured sparrow and, failing to nurse it back to health, put it in the freezer along with the finch.

Marie has been without electricity for over a week, and the birds are now decomposing in plastic bags on the porch. Her sister explained to her how dead animals release a gas that permeates plastic. That is why her freezer still reeks even after the birds' removal. Marie's 83-year-old mother had chickens in her deep freeze. The excrescence is still there, and she doesn't know what to do with it. They think she's going to have to throw out the entire freezer. It reminds me of something my wife had told me. The insurance companies, she says, now have an exclusion clause for refrigerators because, after Katrina, so many folks just duct-taped their Fridgidaires shut and put them by the street for pickup. Apparently, you can't clean the stench of rotten flesh out of a warm freezer.

Marie went to the store for baking soda to put in her freezer, and she thought that she might get some for her mother, as well. She was disappointed to find the baking soda shelf bare not only at that supermarket but also at the two others she checked. It seems that Ike's pathway, from Galveston to parts of Kentucky and Ohio, is now a sump of moldering flesh, held partially at bay with boxes of baking soda.

I discussed these things with Marie in the shared and awkward knowledge that I live in air conditioned comfort with Internet access while she hunkers in the dark trying to read by the failing light of what she describes as a Ray-O-Vac.

Update: my mother says coffee grinds are helpful with de-stinking a freezer.

From Houston with Love

First diary

Second diary

Ike's Aftermath

The power went down briefly this morning but has been steady ever since. Internet access is as stable as the power allows. This morning I went to the Central Mkt. at Weslayan and Westheimer. They were well supplied. The cashier who helped me was from Ft. Worth. I remember from a conversation that I had with someone on the Thursday preceding landfall that the Central Mkt. (an H.E.B.) store, would remain open to serve the community. My cashier from Ft. Worth said that the backup generator had failed, and they had only been open since Tuesday. I definitely remember than an H.E.B. on the Southwest Frwy (I59S) was one of the first stores to offer ice. The drive, though short, was tedious without traffic signals but most drivers yielded to each other with at least a modicum of grace. In any case, if you can get to the Central Mkt., you will leave well supplied, as long as you have enough gas to get there and money to spend when you do.

North Houston and Harris County, where most of my students live, has a large population without the money or gas to get to the Central Mkt. The Houston Chronicle Online has a link to information about what supermarkets are open. I didn't test it. I understand that some McDonalds are open, and people are going there for food, air conditioning, and to charge their cellphones and laptops. FEMA PODS look pretty scarce out there, as does electric power. Everyone that I am in contact with is faring OK, and I presume prospects will improve there over time. I hope they improve rapidly.

Open thread for Hist. 1302 students

All sections of HIST 1302, both online and face-to-face, please leave the following information in the comments of this diary: your location; your condition; do you have enough food, water, ice? Do you need help?

Update: LSC closed through the week; will reopen Monday, September 22.

Reflecting on Ike--updated X2

We went into full hunker mode about 8:00 Friday night. We still had electricity but had all electronic components except the TV unplugged. I was able to watch the storm approach on TV until close to midnight when I unplugged it. I was hearing terrible news out of Galveston, and the storm had not even made landfall yet. Ike has been described as a Category 2 hurricane with a Category 4 storm surge. Everyone knows by now the devastation Ike brought to those in the path of this surge. Inland, it was a very bad thunderstorm accompanied by howling and screaming winds; the slamming of limbs into roof and walls; and the occasional sense that all might be coming undone.

In the absence of Internet access Twitter worked perfectly. At any given time, I was able to post text messages to Twitter so that friends and family could keep up with our situation. After I tired of listening the storm howl, I posted a final update, put my earplugs and eye mask in place and went to bed.

At daybreak, I looked outdoors, and saw that the rising water threatened to pour into the passenger side of my car. We were getting rain from the south side of the storm, and the water was rising fast. I managed to move the car.

By seven or so Friday morning, the worst was over. The water was high but it receded quickly.


Some limbs were down.

Trees were snapped.

A neighbor's carport collapsed.



This humble man pitched right in with the cleanup.

Neighbors helping neighbors.

A few hours later, after the water receded, we tried the toilet. It flushed--what a relief! Mayor White put out an order to boil and conserve water, so we adopted the policy of, "yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown flush it down." There were no water problems. One of three main water pumps lost power but it was quickly restored and the pressure was only down for a short time. The order to boil water, however, is still in effect.

We kept the refrigerator and freezer taped shut for the first 24 hours just in case the power was restored quickly. We were pleased that we had gas and water. We spent Saturday cleaning up and listening to the radio. Bad news trickled in from Galveston. Mayor White made public statements that FEMA had assured him that large quantities of relief supplies were staged in forward positions near Houston. White continued, "I fully expect them to honor their commitments and follow through." He sounded skeptical.

Michael Chertoff, Governor Perry, and John Cornyn gave joint press conferences conveying a rehearsed-sounding message about how seamlessly federal, state and local authorities were working together, as opposed to the Katrina fiasco. Saturday was spent assessing need and staging supplies. As the day progressed, it became clear that damage to Galveston and coastal areas was catastrophic.

By Sunday morning, it was time to empty the refrigerator. We had been hoarding ice since Thursday, and there was some left but not enough to keep perishables through the night. This was during the several hours when FEMA supplies were delayed because of the state guys --the same ones who had been yammering on about the "seamless" cooperation--reneged on their commitment to man the FEMA PODS (Points Of Distribution). According to County Judge Ed Emmet, Harris County has 12, 000 volunteers trained to man the PODS, but the state stepped in and said that they would man the PODS. Then they realized that they needed all state assets in the devastated areas. 36 hours after landfall, only one POD was established with ice, water, and MREs. Conventional wisdom seems to be that natural disaster is always followed by some chaos. In this case, it looks like much of the chaos could have been avoided if the city and county guys had been heeded.

Fortunately, a friend who had electricity called, and I was able to get some ice from her. Our neighbor across the street got some ice and a generator from his employer, Fed-Ex. They gave us half a bag of ice. We had to throw out some food but saved most of it into a cooler. Next time, I will lay in three bags of ice in a cooler. Even though most of it will probably melt, enough might last to extend the survival time of perishable foods from 24 to 48 hours. Anyway, I had a small but steady source of ice for as long as I needed. We lost little food, and were luckier than most in this regard. We found pleasant ways to pass the time outdoors.




Monday, we played the waiting game. I showed up for ice at Jane's Monday evening just in time, as luck would have it, for dinner. It felt so civilized to sit at table for a meal with electricity

Our own electricity was restored that night. A cheer went up and down the street.

HISD is closed for the week. Lonestar says we will reopen Wednesday but it looks doubtful. It looks like some of the PODs are working well while others are chaotic. Today, grocery stores are mostly either closed or empty. We have plenty of food, and have transferred perishable back into the fridge.

Update: PODs distribution has been taken over by County Judge Ed Emmet at the request of Mayor White. News reports say that the truckers carrying supplies for the PODS were supposed to get their instructions about where to go with what this morning. When this morning arrived, the state guys or the FEMA guys--whichever ones were supposed to be in charge of the planning--were just getting started. The mayor was very upset, and he and Judge Emmett seem to have intervened with President Bush to take over the PODS logistics.

Update x2
The PODS delivery got clusterf@#$%ed because they were using a computor system that treated all incoming information equally without any knowledge of the specific needs and conditions of individual areas. Furthermore, every time an elected official intervened to request expedited assistance to his own district, that request got counted twice. The result was chaos. Judge Emmett then sat down at a folding table with a clipboard and legal pad, and had all POD requests directed through him. Like I said earlier, they had prepared for this situation. My guess is, we'll find out later that this had been the official disaster plan all along but the state and FEMA guys didn't read it.