Criticism. Essay. Fiction. Science. Weather.
week:
1As the maps to our official past, monuments and memorials literally set our history in stone. 2Civil War Re-enactments and the Bradley Fighting Vehicles that Love Them. 3One whatever's perspective on
American/Iranian relations 4Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming - Or -
Delaware is the geographical center of Ohio 5This is not about Terri Schiavo.
We promise. 6Stick it to the Gideons. 7California increases its prison population six-fold and strikes a blow for the union man. 8It's not you; it's me... 9What's the Christian Coalition going to do with this one? 10Corporate nonprofit? Isn't that an oxymoron? Jed Emerson doesn't think so. And neither should you. 11You heard it here first:
Michael Jackson, not guilty! 12What's good for GM is good for GM. 13The Quaterly Review continues...
...with 2 Essays from the archives. 14What's that smell?
Saying no to the post-expiration date Nation-State. 15An antidote to the All-Star Break: Life before
the homerun call was on steroids. 16An antidote to the All Star Break: Life before
the homerun call was on steroids (cont.). 17Riding the city at night with a radio. 18Why shampoo really is the key to global economic development. 19Goat meat and digital watches: how to lay down the law without writing down the rules 20The control button is right down there. Next to the Z button. 21Clear Channels and
Herfindahl-Hirschman Indices 22Le Corbusier, meet Dr. Livingstone: using blank spots on the map to plan urban development. 23Sunk before it started raining: how the Army Corps of Engineers dammed Louisiana. 24The Carceral Continuum: I got my diploma from a school called Rikers, knowhatimsayin? 25Hey Betty and Veronica, let's find out
who wrote the Book of Love. 26The quarterly reviews go marching two by two, hurrah! hurrah! 27It's a mosque; it's a church; it's ... a museum! 28We're back for seconds, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. 29The only thing standing between you and free Internet is the Titanic. 30Capitalism: the worst economic system,
except all the others. 31All the cool kids are doing it... 32In America you get food to eat; won't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet. 33Q-Tip never wanted Tommy Hilfiger
to be his friend. 34I am what I am not, even if it's only because
that's what people think I am. 35From Good ... to Great! 36Daylight makes these cities shrink. 37¡AGUANTALA! 38A chicken in every pot and
a deed to every garage. 39Celebrate the seasons with the Quarterly Review! 40The jig is up, Mr. Nobel. 41Will the circle be unbroken?
By and by, Lord, by and by. 42There's nothing to figure out, General Turgidson. This man is obviously a psychotic. 43It's the Buddhists and the Communists
in a fight to the death. 44Yes, this Essay is about
Punky Brewster. 45This article isn't just about being a bad friend. 46Something has gone wrong with the bathmat. 47It's more of a suspended state of poverty. 48Politics has always been complicated, I guess. 49The Cuyahoga Daily Mirror, this ain't. 50If Air America couldn't do it
maybe Al Jazeera can. 51Bzz, Bzz. Who's there? A culture of transparency. 52RVs (but no propane) in the R.V. 53Adding ads ad nauseum. 54Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains: Peru's election goes to a runoff. 55The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid;
the second is pleasant and highly paid. 56Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere... 57If versimilitude can be lost, then it must exist. But how can it exist in a world of irreconcilable inconsistencies? 58Certain young, beautiful, economically powerful women please take note. 59Bugs. On drugs. 60Progress. Genuine progress. 61Electricity and music. 62Garcia in; Chavez out. 63I thought globalization was
something we did to them. 64Twenty-three days, 189 bicyles.
Could there be anything better? 65The First Quarterly Review:
Taste it again for the first time. 66An undersized, ill-dribbling twenty-something
feeling jealous. 67Wal*Mart goes organic. Right. 68Stop us before we pollute again. 69Yes, they actually measure that. 70Even the Amish guys are cheating?
Not so fast... 71What Jeffrey Sachs would proclaim if he spent all day sitting on his tuchus. 72Blueberry or coconut infusion? That'll be extra. 73Point being: ride your bike. 74If it's still broke, don't fix it. 75If Judd and Sam can do it,
so can I. 76Grandma Kenya's new cell phone
package totally rules! 77Two bracelets and two necklaces?
That'll be $20 and your manhood. 78What Jeffrey Sachs would proclaim if he spent all day sitting on his tuchus. 79The elusive fall season... 80Kenneth Pollack gets no respect. 81900 is the new 300. 82That's affirmative. Or, at least, it ought to be. 83Where's the outrage? 84Saddam Husseing - not a good person. 85Headaches call for leeches on the temples. 86Less than nine months behind schedule
and OK by me. 87We may not know all the words,
but we know when it's done wrong. 88Nephrons. And Frank Ghery.
You make the call. 89All these activist legislatures are enough to make you miss Samuel Alito. 90See it again, for the 90th time. 91A Seventh Quarter Two-fer. 92The man they called Body Love. 93Five years old is far too old for a federal law. 94Being Very Professional 95Not a single loaf has left the building
for over a decade. 96An Absentee article. 97You're less than nothing.
You're dirt. 98Get down to the basics.
The basic basics. 99You can almost understand
why Britney shaved her head. 100April's coming.
Here's what's in store. 101The coolest thing ever. I think. 102Not only are we going to grow mangoes, but we'll sell them, too. 103Famous for being famous. Just like Paris Hilton, but less trashy. 104Fourth Quarterly Reviews bring spring
showers and 90ways anniversaries. 105There's a new bunny in town. Just in time for Easter.
106Dream small. 107If Hillside won, then I was Truckzilla. 108Disco boys on bicycles.
Tsunami, Katrina
Eva Kaplan
The recent hurricane in New Orleans occurred less than a year after the tsunami devastated the coast South Asia. Since the laws of science and weather don't follow any rubric of 'rich country/poor country', we can trust that natural disasters will continue to occur in a non-discriminatory fashion -- they will happen everywhere. And with global warming, scientists tell us they will happen more and more frequently. What might differ according to the wealth of countries will be the way the disaster is handled. The two most recent natural disasters offer a glimpse of what those differences will look like. Since the scope of the disaster in New Orleans was much smaller (the tsunami's effects were felt over 4,000 miles from Indonesia to the East Coast of Africa while Hurricane Katrina's effects were largely confined to three states), it is difficult to compare the disasters themselves. What is interesting, however, is to look at what is comparable: how the disasters were handled (or not handled) and how the media represented each case. I will take each in turn. Since New Orleans is my hometown, you will have to excuse the New Orleans bias.
Handling Crisis
Despite reports that the hurricane hit Louisiana unprepared, the breakdown in communication leading up to Katrina was not comparable to that of the tsunami. Contrast reports of American scientists sitting around their labs scratching their heads over who to call about the tsunami with the first ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. Contrast no warnings whatsoever about the tsunami to backed up highways as people left New Orleans, to (albeit not enough) buses to transport those with no other transport, to (albeit not enough) space allocated in the Super Dome and the Convention Center to house those who did not/could not leave. Retrospect can tell us that not nearly enough was done to prepare for Katrina, but not anything was done to prepare for the tsunami.
The aftermath of each crisis displayed different problems as well. Hundreds of NGOs in Sri Lanka and Indonesia set up shop and began to compete for resources, slowing recovery efforts. FEMA, the US department in charge of handling crisis, has allowed for very minimal competition to allow things to move quickly, leading to fears that those getting contracts may have been chosen according to their connections rather than their reconstruction abilities. In the case of Katrina, private parties interested in donating have known pretty much exactly which NGO to support -- the vast majority of donations have gone to the Red Cross. Both approaches have their problems, but the differences may have significant effects on how quickly life as usual can resume.
Media
A friend of mine often states that crisis always strikes at the most vulnerable place. Images on TV and in newspapers of the poor and dispossessed were rampant during and after both tragedies. There existed a subtle difference, however. Coverage of the tsunami took the deprivation for granted, and the tsunami became number one on a long list of problems we already knew the region was facing. It was different with Katrina. Rather than adding to a list, the hurricane was represented as revealing many of the problems that are rife in Louisiana and in the United States more generally. The massive inequalities, the proclivities to looting and gun violence, the three days of bureaucracy before New Orleans was brought under the control of the Federal Government, the incompetence of the director of FEMA -- all of this came out during Katrina coverage. It was with a bit of delicious irony that editorials noted how far Bush's emphasis on homeland security had gotten us, and it was secretly satisfying to hear the word 'refugees' being used in reference to people in the richest nation on earth for once (although according to international definitions, of course, the New Orleans evacuees were internally displaced persons, not refugees). European press often commented on how surprising it was that this could happen even in America. Perhaps we kind of expect things like this from other places, where regional challenges and failings define our images of the place. But America is expected to handle things like this with ease.
For me, this idea represents a fallacy, one illustrated by terms such as 'developing' and 'developed' countries. The US is expected to be at the end of the development process, but the hurricane revealed that many of the things the World Bank criticizes about developing countries, like cronyism and knowledge gaps exist even in America. The hurricane revealed that Michael Brown, the chief of FEMA, had been hired using the old boy network as his application process. In turn, Michael Brown has said, "My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional." These are both fair points, but what is surprising to me is that people are surprised by these so-called revelations. This was not the first example of cronyism. Did no one else notice that Paul Wolfowitz was appointed president of the World Bank? And Louisiana is famously corrupt. In 1991 the gubernatorial election was between Edwin Edwards, who had been charged with racketeering twice but acquitted both times, and David Duke, the former leader of the 'new' Klu Klux Klan. Bumper stickers all over Louisiana stated simply, 'I'm voting for the crook' ('the crook' won, and was later sent to prison for 10 years on a fresh racketeering charge, one that prosecutors were finally able to prove). I didn't need a hurricane to reveal these contradictions. The issues that some people have been screaming about for decades are now being scooped up by politicians and hurled at the Bush administration like over ripe tomatoes.
There are very real differences in the way that rich and poor countries are prepared to deal with natural disasters which are illustrated by the tsunami and Katrina. Without trying to gloss over the international structures that dictate those differences, the idea that America would have advanced beyond the point of vulnerability to nature is ludicrous. Note to world: America has domestic corruption, we have incompetence, we have failures in communication and we have knowledge gaps. The 'developed vs. developing' world paradigm has its place, but we should consider that no country has fulfilled some Utopic vision. All countries should be placed on the same spectrum. All countries are developing.