Sunday, December 20, 2009
Snowy Sunday
The snow is crazy right now! I like it though, it's nice to know that I'm done with school and be able to watch movies all day long (already have Chinatown and The Princess Bride down, there's still more to go). I feel bad for my boyfriend though, he's has to work from 6-11PM, poor soul. I'm so looking foward to this week; have work on Monday, hanging out on Tuesday, and Wednesday especially bc it's the office's annual Christmas lunch and we're watching Avatar 3D afterwards, courtesy of my boss of course. Though I wouldn't particularly choose to see that movie everybody is raving about it, and hey! it's free. Anyway, I hope you guys are done with finals and enjoy staying in not doing much of anything.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Assignment No. Tres
We like to think that our country stands for the greatest of things, and of those things freedom in particular is one that we celebrate often. Freedom, however, is a complicated thing especially when bureaucracy gets in the way. Many things went wrong in New Orleans before and after hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and out of those things one stands out: politics. Michael Brown, Governor Kathleen Blanco, President George Bush, and Mayor Ray Nagin; these are all people to whom we point fingers for what went wrong. Hindsight is always 20/20 but some of the mistakes made by officials within the local, state, and federal goverment could have been seen by the blind. Although efforts were put in to help the places and people affected, I think that a lack of uniform political structure was the root of all the other problems that followed.
Jenny Bergal words it perfectly when she says in City Adrift that "New Orleans wasn't devastated by an act of God. It was devastated by the inaction of man" (3). Since New Orleans was founded, people have been aware that it is located in a highly suceptible place for disasters to occur and though some seemingly sane measures were taken (e.g. uneven levee building), it wasn't enough and what's worse was that people in charge knew it wasn't and only manged to stand by. Not only had a hurricane of the magnitude of Katrina been predicted in the past, hurricanes like Betsy had already passed through New Orleans and still no rightful prevention was taken against it. In Front Line-The Storm, it became clear that the combination of the Federal goverment's inaction with the wrong steps taken by the local government ended up affecting poor people the most.
It took the Federal goverment a total of five days to finally step in and help New Orleans. After troubling disasters in the past had been inadequately dealt with, President Jimmy Carter signed an act to create the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an organization that was to help deal with disasters in the United States that were too severe for the local government. In 2005, FEMA's Michael Brown, a man with little experience in the disaster/emergency field, was of minimal help to the people of New Orleans. Pointing fingers at Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco for not being able to correctly communicate what their needs were, Michael Brown's plead reminded of me of Mr. Gladwell's chapter on communication and airplanes. A lack of interoperablity was indeed a problem. For the sake of the public's safety, interoperability is a system that teaches how to better communicate during emergencies. Though some states in the United States have interoperability already, the majority does not. Troops were not sent in until later in the process, food was not getting to people in need, and the national goverment rejected international help on more than one ocassion. I don't mean to blame everything on FEMA, though, as an organization with one purpose only, to help the country with emergencies, FEMA did a great job with 9/11; however, once it was taken over by the Department of Homeland Security, an all-encompassing unit, it was difficult for it to compete with "more important" issues, such as terrorism, so much so that a lot of its budget suffered a great cut. This cut substantially hurt FEMA and the country in retrospective as they were working on 'PAM', a hurricane simulator that was extremely similar to what happened in Katrina when the rug was suddenly pulled from underneath them and they were not able to address the most important step: how to respond to the emergency.
Four years after Katrina happened, the United States still lacks many of the things that it did back then in regards to disaster preparedness. Someone in the video said that this is the result of Federalism, to which another man responded "balloney". Though Federalism gives states and local authorities the freedom to make many decisions about how their constituencies are run and to spend the money as they better see fit, I agree with the latter in that the United States should a have a Federal standard, at least, that all states should adhere to when it comes to emergency preparedness just like we do with education and clean air. Unless a clear and uniform stance is taken by our government officials, the kind of man-made disasters that followed Katrina are bound to repeat themselves under equal or acuter circumstances.
Jenny Bergal words it perfectly when she says in City Adrift that "New Orleans wasn't devastated by an act of God. It was devastated by the inaction of man" (3). Since New Orleans was founded, people have been aware that it is located in a highly suceptible place for disasters to occur and though some seemingly sane measures were taken (e.g. uneven levee building), it wasn't enough and what's worse was that people in charge knew it wasn't and only manged to stand by. Not only had a hurricane of the magnitude of Katrina been predicted in the past, hurricanes like Betsy had already passed through New Orleans and still no rightful prevention was taken against it. In Front Line-The Storm, it became clear that the combination of the Federal goverment's inaction with the wrong steps taken by the local government ended up affecting poor people the most.
It took the Federal goverment a total of five days to finally step in and help New Orleans. After troubling disasters in the past had been inadequately dealt with, President Jimmy Carter signed an act to create the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an organization that was to help deal with disasters in the United States that were too severe for the local government. In 2005, FEMA's Michael Brown, a man with little experience in the disaster/emergency field, was of minimal help to the people of New Orleans. Pointing fingers at Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco for not being able to correctly communicate what their needs were, Michael Brown's plead reminded of me of Mr. Gladwell's chapter on communication and airplanes. A lack of interoperablity was indeed a problem. For the sake of the public's safety, interoperability is a system that teaches how to better communicate during emergencies. Though some states in the United States have interoperability already, the majority does not. Troops were not sent in until later in the process, food was not getting to people in need, and the national goverment rejected international help on more than one ocassion. I don't mean to blame everything on FEMA, though, as an organization with one purpose only, to help the country with emergencies, FEMA did a great job with 9/11; however, once it was taken over by the Department of Homeland Security, an all-encompassing unit, it was difficult for it to compete with "more important" issues, such as terrorism, so much so that a lot of its budget suffered a great cut. This cut substantially hurt FEMA and the country in retrospective as they were working on 'PAM', a hurricane simulator that was extremely similar to what happened in Katrina when the rug was suddenly pulled from underneath them and they were not able to address the most important step: how to respond to the emergency.
Four years after Katrina happened, the United States still lacks many of the things that it did back then in regards to disaster preparedness. Someone in the video said that this is the result of Federalism, to which another man responded "balloney". Though Federalism gives states and local authorities the freedom to make many decisions about how their constituencies are run and to spend the money as they better see fit, I agree with the latter in that the United States should a have a Federal standard, at least, that all states should adhere to when it comes to emergency preparedness just like we do with education and clean air. Unless a clear and uniform stance is taken by our government officials, the kind of man-made disasters that followed Katrina are bound to repeat themselves under equal or acuter circumstances.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Assignment #2
In a country of immigrants and race struggles, it may seem arbitrary to point to New Orleans not only as an embodiment of this American tradition but also as an antithesis of it. Devastated by disasters, of the natural and social kind, it shocked me to learn that once upon a time New Orleans was a progressive, forward thinking city that ultimately fell victim to the retrogressive trend the rest of America was following. Still in ruins, this city's history holds as many answers as questions, especially in regards to hurricane Katrina.
Unlike most of America, founded by a French-Canadian in 1718, New Orleans became a multiracial and multicultural metropolis from the very start. Gaining a reputation for being wild, the city attracted visionaries and rascals alike and was populated by a wide array of people from different origins. Located in the South, New Orleans has retained influences from all the settlers that once chose it as home. Founded by the French, it was eventually taken over by the Spanish until America succeeded them. Along with influences of the Caribbean people that arrived to this main land as well, it's no wonder that the multiplicity of the New Orleans people would seemingly not fit in with the rest of the American puzzle. But the thing about America is that we need to put everything in a box, and New Orleans was no exception. To this day New Orleans' economy chiefly rests on tourism. In the hopes of making the city as tourist friendly as possible a hierarchical system of classes was bound to take place. As Brinkley explains, there are different economy oriented tiers that make New Orleans more like the typical American city; the upper class dominated by the whites, the tourism business, the shipping and oil industries, and last, and most certainly least, the poor black underclass.
Before New Orleans gave in to the rest of the county; however, an unhappy group of people, the Committee of Citizens, tried to stop the inevitable. Staging what would become a landmark case in American history, a member of the group, Homer Plessy, was arrested for attempting to board the same train car as the white folks. Along with other forms of protest like the African American newspaper L'Union (later renamed The Tribune), the case was denied and the Jim Crow system was consequentially there to stay by de jure and de facto circumstances. As Peirce F. Lewis writes in New Orleans: The Making of an urban Landscape, as recently as in 2001 the public school system in New Orleans was declared to be intellectually and monetarily bankrupt. The three main reasons cited for this crisis are the lack of funds, white abandonment, and "the scarcity of a tradition of educational aspirations in the poorest segments of the black community" (129). Unfortunately, as time passes in New Orleans, progress devolves into chaos.
The biggest chaos of all is one that still afflicts the city: Katrina. Unlike most of the United States, much of New Orleans is below sea level. It is located on a very susceptible place where floods had been a problem since the French had settled. Though Florida is also near oceanic bodies of water, its soil is dry, whereas New Orleans' is soft and muddy. Having faced multiple hurricanes before, the city had levees built to protect it from any future natural disasters but some residents knew better. People in municipalities like Plaquemines, where there is a white majority, were aware that the levees were not strong or tall enough to protect them and were warned and rather prepared for what was to come. On the other hand, people in Orleans Parish where (you guessed it) the majority of people were Black, were let down by their representatives when they realized, too late, that there was a huge lack of governmental preparedness for this kind of disaster. Mainly relying on evacuation, the city was not able to provide for the poverty-stricken citizens who did not have the means to leave the city, the majority of which were African American. Federally, the government took too long to step in and, like in the past, too little was invested to reconstruct the city.
There is still hope for New Orleans, though. For African Americans, cultural heritage and societal pressures in other parts of the Untied States is sometimes deemed a route to the streets, but in New Orleans it is their unique culture that leads them out of the streets. After turning the New Orleans' paradise into the country's parking lot, it'll take a lot of time and effort to bring back what it once was, but if the past is any indication, New Orleans has always been able to get back up and march to the beat of its own drum.
Unlike most of America, founded by a French-Canadian in 1718, New Orleans became a multiracial and multicultural metropolis from the very start. Gaining a reputation for being wild, the city attracted visionaries and rascals alike and was populated by a wide array of people from different origins. Located in the South, New Orleans has retained influences from all the settlers that once chose it as home. Founded by the French, it was eventually taken over by the Spanish until America succeeded them. Along with influences of the Caribbean people that arrived to this main land as well, it's no wonder that the multiplicity of the New Orleans people would seemingly not fit in with the rest of the American puzzle. But the thing about America is that we need to put everything in a box, and New Orleans was no exception. To this day New Orleans' economy chiefly rests on tourism. In the hopes of making the city as tourist friendly as possible a hierarchical system of classes was bound to take place. As Brinkley explains, there are different economy oriented tiers that make New Orleans more like the typical American city; the upper class dominated by the whites, the tourism business, the shipping and oil industries, and last, and most certainly least, the poor black underclass.
Before New Orleans gave in to the rest of the county; however, an unhappy group of people, the Committee of Citizens, tried to stop the inevitable. Staging what would become a landmark case in American history, a member of the group, Homer Plessy, was arrested for attempting to board the same train car as the white folks. Along with other forms of protest like the African American newspaper L'Union (later renamed The Tribune), the case was denied and the Jim Crow system was consequentially there to stay by de jure and de facto circumstances. As Peirce F. Lewis writes in New Orleans: The Making of an urban Landscape, as recently as in 2001 the public school system in New Orleans was declared to be intellectually and monetarily bankrupt. The three main reasons cited for this crisis are the lack of funds, white abandonment, and "the scarcity of a tradition of educational aspirations in the poorest segments of the black community" (129). Unfortunately, as time passes in New Orleans, progress devolves into chaos.
The biggest chaos of all is one that still afflicts the city: Katrina. Unlike most of the United States, much of New Orleans is below sea level. It is located on a very susceptible place where floods had been a problem since the French had settled. Though Florida is also near oceanic bodies of water, its soil is dry, whereas New Orleans' is soft and muddy. Having faced multiple hurricanes before, the city had levees built to protect it from any future natural disasters but some residents knew better. People in municipalities like Plaquemines, where there is a white majority, were aware that the levees were not strong or tall enough to protect them and were warned and rather prepared for what was to come. On the other hand, people in Orleans Parish where (you guessed it) the majority of people were Black, were let down by their representatives when they realized, too late, that there was a huge lack of governmental preparedness for this kind of disaster. Mainly relying on evacuation, the city was not able to provide for the poverty-stricken citizens who did not have the means to leave the city, the majority of which were African American. Federally, the government took too long to step in and, like in the past, too little was invested to reconstruct the city.
There is still hope for New Orleans, though. For African Americans, cultural heritage and societal pressures in other parts of the Untied States is sometimes deemed a route to the streets, but in New Orleans it is their unique culture that leads them out of the streets. After turning the New Orleans' paradise into the country's parking lot, it'll take a lot of time and effort to bring back what it once was, but if the past is any indication, New Orleans has always been able to get back up and march to the beat of its own drum.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Choose Life
In the midst of studying for finals and writing papers I often wonder why we put ourselves through this; why not go do something else, something less tedious than sitting down in quiet rooms while you stare at words that stare right back? The answer reminded me of a movie called Trainspotting based on Irvine Welsh's eponymous novel. It's a wonderful film about Scottish Junkies and one in particular who, like us, decides to choose life. The opening lines go like this:
"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... "
"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... "
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Calling the shots
Charlie Kaufman. Perhaps my favorite writer, Charlie Kaufman has written some of the best material in the last decade including my favorite movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I'm currently taking an ENG/FLM class in Baruch and became even more interested in him when we were shown a clip of another movie he wrote, Adaptation. I had seen the movie before but didn't recall him being a writer although in hindsight it made sense because of the Kaufman-esque style it had. A writer for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney's directorial debut) and for the spectacularly weird Being John Malkovich, Kaufman didn't get a chance to direct until last year when Spike Jonze bowed out of directing Synecdoche, New York, a concept film written by Kaufman himself, to direct the delectable adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are instead. Below is an interview about the movie (which I have yet to see, though it's on my Netflix queue) with Stephen Colbert:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/213523/december-09-2008/charlie-kaufman
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/213523/december-09-2008/charlie-kaufman
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