They might have Cooties!!!

I'm begging you all... if ever I am well enough off to have the means to live in a gated community, and actually think it is a good idea to do so, please shoot me if I ever pull anything like this.

Seems to me that the rich folk are the ones instigating class warfare.

PS: Sorry for the lack of updates of late. I just haven't been moved to write about much. Like all things, it will eventually pass.

Everything I Learned About Being a Bad Leader I Learned by Being a Stage Manager

I've been trying to figure out some things about stuff.

More specifically, I'm puzzled why I can't understand the root of my discomfort about Bush. I mean, the news media is clearly still on his bandwagon ("Wanna change the national conversation just three days after a senior White House official was indicted, the first time that's happened in 130 years? Sure thing!!!"), so despite the specifics of why our President makes me queasy as a leader (Abu Ghraib, Big Oil, Big Mergers, press manipulation (e.g., Armstrong Williams, Jeff Gannon), John Bolton, John Ashcroft, John Roberts, Faith-Based everything*, 2000+ American war dead, Osama bin Laden still alive (& free!), Katrina (and the photo ops!), I. Libby, The Grim Cheney, WMD vaporware, mediocre economy, mediocracy embraced, ballot machine hijinx, Terry Schiavo, "Heckuva Job", Sixteen Words, et al)...

Despite all that, I still get the distinct impression that not only will the press never wisen up and look at that bigger picture, I'm still supposed to embrace this president and his administration. So I delved deep into my psyche this morning and found an answer while in my psyche, listening to the news.

He peddles fear. Not only does he peddle it, he manhandles it, twists it like so much silly putty and flings it out in all directions. To add to the laundry list of things we're supposed to be fearing now, he spent this morning at the National Institutes of Health talking about why we should be afraid of the chicken flu.

My point here is not to lessen the perception of the seriousness of the flu, but to look at the way this administration is and is not reacting to it.

The thing I learned in my career as a stage manager (truth to tell, I'm still learning this) is that no matter what sort of problem arises in the course of the run, the stage manager must deal with it quickly, effectively, and with a minimum of fuss. Fuss concerns actors, the poor dears. Alot. As a stage manager, it is imperative to deal with the problem without creating a fuss among the actors.

Expand the analogy to Nation-Sized. [insert nation-sizing sound effect here] Here, the actors (fragile little things) are the populace of the country. The leader of the country is the Stage Manager. (I'm simplifying a bit... I don't actually think the SM is the leader of a production. Mostly.) If a problem arises, it's the leader's job to deal with it without sending the population into a tizzy. But our leader, our President, has built his presidency on making certain we're in fear of something all of the time. Witness Tom Ridge and his call to prevent nerve gas injuries with duct tape, and the consequent run on duct tape. Or the run on flu shots everytime there's a scare of the reg'lar ol' flu. (My personal favorite was the Creamsicle Alert, an Orange Terror Alert the same day a Blizzard Warning was declared for DC.) We've been conditioned to fear everything, and the reaction has been, to the Bush administration, predictable.

My problem with this: It's at the very least unprofessional. Maybe some of it stems from incompetence. But I think there's at least someone in that organization who counts on the 'actors' getting into a tizzy when they see their SM running around squawking about nuclear threats, chemical threats, influenza threats and generally getting little done about them.

Because the second part of my problem with this is the fact that we're not safer than we were on September 10, 2001. The response to Katrina is all you need to see that. And I'm not talking about who's to blame here. I'm talking about the response. The fact that Chertoff and Brown and the rest of the country's emergency management infrastructure was "surprised" (their word) by the Katrina aftermath is a damning indictment. If there was actually something that surprised us one horrible, horrible day in the future, could we get 9 million people off of Manhattan Island? Could we get a million people out of DC? No, we couldn't.

Remember the two aspects of crisis control in stage management: Don't frighten the actors, and deal with the problem. This administration is not only not following those rules of thumb, they're acting in exactly the opposite manner. They are trying to frighten the actors and not dealing with the problem. The fear will distract the actors long enough to get re-elected, I'm guessing.

That's why when I'm President, I'm gonna have a Cabinet full of Stage Managers.

* Faith-Based Politics: The faith that politics will be base, yesterday. today and forever. ("O politics, where is thy sting?")

Fifteen minutes with Rush and Sean.

While putzing around earlier today, I decided to check in on Rush Limbaugh, who I used to listen to quite a bit in the late 90's trying to understand the conservative frame of mind. Know thy enemy, or something. Anyway, I was subjected to three grievous assaults on reality within 15 minutes. Here's how that went, and the research I've done in the past 20 minutes to refute them:

Circa 2:55 pm EDT: Rush declares only ten people died in the gulf hurricanes.

Truth: Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was only referring to Rita, the actual death toll stands over 300% above what he instructed his listeners to believe. The death toll from Katrina stands at 2,140, or 21000% over his estimate.

In the same sentence, we learn there were no murders or rapes at the New Orleans Convention Center.

There is some question about whether or not there were any rapes. No victims have come forward, according to authorities. The same is also being said of murder victims, although it appears that at least one major US news source has an account of a murder victim at the Convention Center.

Circa 3:10 pm EDT: Hannity was refuting the claims that global warming is influencing the climate and producing stronger hurricanes. To that end, he cited the 1900 Galveston hurricane, which was the most deadly natural disaster in American history, which occurred before - as Hannity stated - America was using fossil fuels.

Truth: Two major points where Hannity is intellectually dishonest or outright wrong. First, the 1900 Galveston storm does not even show up in the most intense storms to hit land from the last 150 years. However, four of the top five most intense storms - Alan (1980), Gilbert (1988), and Katrina and Rita - have occurred in the last quarter of a century.

The second point, and the obvious one, is Hannity's rewriting of history. The claim that America wasn't using fossil fuels in 1900 is laughable. The first coal mine incorporated in the US did so in 1820, and the first oil well appeared (quite famously) in 1856. The two sources had been used by other civilizations previous to that for thousands of years.

Unlike some Republicans (Hannity among them), I do not view conservatism as a mental illness. I am baffled, however, by the continued willingness of Republicans to tolerate the kind of foolishness displayed by Rush and Hannity today (and presumably on other occasions). And it's not like they're crackpot, tin-foil-hat conspiracy theorists. These are two commentators in the mainstream of the Republican party who have massive news organs and multi-million dollar fact-checking machines at their disposal (Rush and Hannity are both on ABC Radio, and Sean has the added benefit of the Fox News network to utilize). Yet for some reason, they weren't able to conduct the same sort of vetting of information I was using nothing but my internet connection and some Google and Wikipedia searching. It's almost as if they don't want to hear the truth, or disseminate the truth to their trusting listeners.

Anyway, after Hannity declared the absence of fossil fuels in America previous to the 20th century, I turned it off. I advise you to do the same.

Just more evidence...

That Bush and his Presidency is the biggest disgrace to the spirit of this wonderful country since James Buchanan:

This item, from Brian Williams. This is not spin, this is not analysis. This is Brian Williams reporting the raw fact that the power came back on in the area around the location of Bush's motorcade before he passed through, and gave hope to the folks there that things might be nearing a return to normal. Then, after the President's departure, the lights again went out. Power had still not been restored to the residents more than 12 hours after it went out last night.

I really want to hear an ardent Bush apologist make a case for this one. I mean, really. How in the name of God is this defensible? How does this say anything except that Bush used New Orleans last night as a backdrop for a speech they'll play on continuous loop at the Bush library? What does this say about the Presidential power structure in charge in NOLA that allows so much of their resources to go toward providing America with the veneer of normality when the actual truth is still far, far away from that? Is this President so sheltered from reality that he doesn't know they turned the power back on just for him? Does our President now not know that the normality he saw last night in New Orleans was a fraud?

And at what point do Americans say enough is enough? At what point do we take Bush at his word, and force him to actually take responsibility. You know what... it's Open Letter Time:

Dear Mr. President:

Taking responsibility for something isn't just the words you say, Mr. President. It's being held accountable for that which you are claiming responsibility. So, by your own admission, Mr. President, you are responsible for this fraud. You, Mr. President, have committed just another in a long and historic string of frauds on the American people. You have demonstrated your incompetence. You have demonstrated your inability to deal with a problem far less severe than massive WMD attack on our country (something you told us years ago the country was ready for because of all the money thrown to your old business partners in the name of National Security and fighting the terrorist threat). You have demonstrated the failure of your plan to provide for the people of New Orleans, and any other poor sap of an American who happens to find themselves in dire straits because of a disaster, natural or otherwise.

Mr. President, your behavior is inexcusable, your failures are inexcusable, your "solutions" are inadequate, your ignorance is appalling, and you no longer seem to care about America and her inhabitants. Since you have indicated you are responsible for this debacle, this disgrace, I would be honored to accept your resignation. You serve at the pleasure of the people, and the people are no longer pleased. So for the good of your country, Mr. President, please, resign.

You owe me 1000¢.

Both of these are AP stories, with the times they were originally posted:

Bush Nominates Roberts As Chief Justice
Sep 05 8:05 AM US/Eastern

Bush, Congress to Investigate Response
Sep 06 1:11 PM US/Eastern

So, I was right by over 29 hours.

What a piece of shit this President is.

Take a deep whiff

I spent the first quarter century of my life growing among the shit-covered farm fields of Lancaster County. My schools were surrounded by them, and in the spring the smell wafting in on what would normally have been a fragrant spring breeze was enough to make even us sturdy locals gag.

The stank coming from 1600 Pennsylvania NW and the truth-twisting support network it has is far, far worse.

Most odious of everything that's going on (and there's a lot of odious stuff going on) is this claim being fronted by the heads of FEMA, DHS, and every right-wing blogger out there that the federal government had to play second fiddle to the local governments in Katrina relief operations. Had to. You know, states rights and all that.

I call bullshit.

In June 1963, then again in September that same year, President Kennedy nationalized the National Guard troops to effect the integration of Alabama schools after Governor Wallace literally stood in the doorway of state schools preventing black students from entering.

So, it could be fair to say that in a time of great national need, the President would have the authority to nationalize the Guard.

It would also be fair to say the President fiddled while Rome burned.

It would also be fair to say that the heads of DHS and FEMA are incompetent.

The Big Show

I was sad when Keith Olbermann left SportsCenter oh so many years ago, and I gave him a tryout when he had his first MSNBC show back in the late 90's ("The Big Show") but wasn't terribly impressed. Neither was MSNBC, and Keith went on hiatus.

Last year (or so), Keith came back, and he has really come into his own. Don't believe me? Go read his blog from yesterday, 9/5, about "The City of Louisiana".

Rehnquist & Katrina

I'll put $10 on the table as a wager to the first taker: The president names a successor to the dearly departed Chief Justice before he calls for an investigation, Congressional or independent, into the pathetic response of FEMA and DHS in the Katrina fiasco.

I'm serious. One taker, first one to comment and accept the bet. Timestamped news reports from CNN or AP for verification.