And from around the world (from Opie, back from Alaska):

Katrina, and Politics

Floods are mythic things. They all refer back to Noah, and they all refer to apocalytic events in general, whether personal or widespread. I received some hypersensitive comments about the Dylanologist's photo post last night, but let me inform you: Dylan's song Down in the Flood is DEAD serious and not a lark. Songs and poetry are more serious than prose. We lowly prose-writers must never forget that.

The hate-Bush Jihad is politicizing the storm all around the wacko blogosphere, and yesterday German politicians joined the chorus of blaming Bush for hurricanes - seriously. And now the well-known expert climatologist  RFK Jr. On Monday, we posted our satire, before the flooding began and when everything seemed OK there, which seems a bit insensitive in the current context. At the same time, the politicization of a storm is not only deplorable, it's a lie. 

I kind of hate to interject this at this moment, but the Left justifies lying, because they believe they are historically right and morally superior, so the ends justify the means. People like RFK Jr aren't stupid, just unwise  - they are clever and corrupted by arrogance. Most ordinary politicians are motivated by pure self-interest - money, perks, acceptance, stature, fame, favors, power, ego-building, and chicks in the Georgetown bars (sorry to state the truth, Chris "Little Tom" Dodd, Teddy and Gig-John...does not apply to my old college buddy Jerry Nadler) - those apply to the familiar smiley-face corrupt sad souls everyone easily sees and understands and accepts as one more dumb part of life in their towns, states and federal reps, and keeps a safe distance from the contamination, to protect their souls. Until they need contracts or favors...

But the Elite Left runs on deeper motives, and are therefore more insidious and dangerous than the average everyday conniving, mercenary political jerks that would use their poor mother or even their dog or kids for manipulative advantage, if they only could. Why? because the Lefty politicos think they have been anointed to save the world - not just their lowly selves and their pointless lives. They want to save you! But you don't want to be saved by them, do you? And one thing politicans know is that if you repeat a lie often enough, it will enter the ethos. Believe me on that, if on nothing else.

Anyway, having completed this highly therapeutic rant, the truth is that hurricanes appear in cycles - and we are in one. Rick Moran has already rightfully blown his top over this.

The best site I have found for New Orleans updates is the Times-Picayune's breaking news log, here.  With hundreds, if not thousands, of people still stranded in flooded homes, attics and rooftops across the city, rescue boats were bypassing the dead to reach the living, Mayor C. Ray Nagin said. Nola.com: NewsFlash - Crisis grows as New Orleans looted, flooded . And who knew that Katrina's rains hit Palm Beach and Miami?

Instapundit today lists some good places to donate money. Let's all step up to the plate, and do the right thing, as we did with the tsunami - altho this is nothing compared to that, it's bad enough.

(Photo: Mount Ararat and Mount Ururtu, from the website named)

Sunday evening, Long Island Sound, looking for stripers and blues.

Translation

Re our piece on translating Petrarch posted yesterday, a reader sent in this quote from the Hebrew poet H. Bialek: "Reading poetry in translation is like kissing your mother, through a veil."

The new Scorsese Dylan movie No Direction Home

The two-CD set is out today, and the film will be released on DVD on Sept. 20, and shown on American Masters on PBS on Sept 26 and 27.

From Pareles' review in the NYT today:

On the album, the finger pointing and moralizing of "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Masters of War," sung with quiet righteousness in performances at Town Hall in Manhattan, give way to the cascading images of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Chimes of Freedom." Mr. Dylan was already confounding expectations: The documentary shows him at a "topical song workshop" at the Newport Folk Festival performing "Mr. Tambourine Man," while some audience members appear to wonder exactly what topic the song is supposed to be protesting. In other clips, Mr. Dylan tells interviewers he's not a topical songwriter anyway. Accepting a civil liberties award in 1963, he called politics "trivial."

There were no confrontations as long as he played acoustic guitar. But in the famous 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance, he brought the Paul Butterfield Blues Band onstage with him and caused pandemonium. The folkies interviewed in the documentary still don't know what hit them; they complain that they couldn't understand the words, or it was just way too loud, or it was distorted, and they recall that Pete Seeger may or may not have tried to take a hatchet to the sound cable. (He says he didn't.)

Mr. Dylan must have foreseen it all: the song he chose was "Maggie's Farm": "I try my best to be just like I am/But everybody wants you to be just like them." That performance is on the album, in a soundboard mix that polishes every barb in the music and, without audience noise, probably sounds clearer than anyone could have heard it at the time.

Read entire interesting review here. (Photo of Dylan in 1961 by Steven Fenergian, PBS, in the NYT piece.)

"Liberty has never come from the government.... The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it." 

 Woodrow Wilson

New Orleans dodged the bullet, and why it is all Bush's fault

It will be a mess, but nothing like the most dire fears/predictions. Unfortunately, that means that, next time, people will be tempted to discount the warnings. The TV is still hyping things, but that's just to keep you watching to sell you soap. Storm now Cat 3 and fading fast.

In the meantime, I notice that every paranoid wacko and malevolent jerk is busy blaming Bush for the hurricane.

I am not one of those wackos, but personally, it seems simple to me that Bush and his oil and Halliburton friends created the hurricane with their hurricane-generating machine on a top-secret oil rig in the Caribbean to damage refineries and oil ports in Louisiana to raise the price of oil so they and their Saudi accomplices can get rich. That's all obvious, right? So why did they miss their target? Hmmm, the story gets even deeper and darker...Maybe Rove had a plan...nothing is by accident, right? Maybe Rove and Co. aimed the hurricane towards New Orleans for a quick jump in oil futures, which they shorted in advance, but had the hurricane trained to dodge east into Gulfport at the last minute, after they collected their winnings. That must be the explanation. And it explains why Bush stayed at his ranch sipping French chardonnay and flirting with the lovely, sexy, Rove-controlled Cindy "Sheehan" - he knew in advance it would miss New Orleans. It all becomes clear now. Another head-fake from the demonic Rove, just like the correct early exit polls in the election, proven to have been designed by Rove to make the Democratic electorate complacent and to get out the fraudulent Nazi Republican vote. Still, once again Rove lied and people died in Katrina. Same old story.

Update: Got an email asking why I said "Rove-controlled Cindy "Sheehan."" Clear as day. She's the worst advertisement for the Dems they could possibly have. Everything makes perfect sense, if you only know how to look at it. Why "Sheehan" in quotes? Not sure it is safe to explain, with the Bushes running this police state we are in.

Update: Got another email asking me to explain the Ben and Jerry's connection with "Sheehan" and Rove, and to further elucidate the above. Heck, it makes all the sense in the world for the Nazi Repubs to be money-laundering funds through Ben and Jerry's to make her PR organization look authentically Lefty. Very clever to use the time-honored Ice Cream Tactic, perfected by Stalin in his annual Free Ice Cream for the People (but not for Jews) Holiday. It throws the press off the scent as they foolishly lick their Cherry Garcia cones and thus are distracted from the Real Story that is right in front of them. If those two pot-addled Vermont hippies were truly Left, they never would have charged money for their ice cream (produced at the expense of suffering, oppressed slave cows with only minimal voting rights, even in supposedly "enlightened" Vermont). Boycott Ben and Jerrys - tools of Rove and the Fascist Bush and the capitalist Bush-Saudi-Israel-Halliburton cabal. Free ice-cream (also, free health care, housing, food, sex, beer, gas, and SUVs) for the Masses, NOW! And you wonder why Cindy won't leave Crawford? She has a thing with GW. Obvious. What else would keep someone on a sidewalk in Crawford but true love? Cindy - Crawford...now you get it. See how it works? Just connect the dots. And don't believe those news photos, obviously doctored by Rove and his accomplices in the mainstream media to make her look like an aardvark. She is artful in the way she tries to disguise it by trying to sound anti-Bush. They have met already, remember, but she tries to keep that a secret - now you know why. It all adds up. It's a no-brainer.

Update: A thoughtful reader agrees, and points out that Laura Bush hasn't been seen for weeks. Somebody says they think they saw Laura sunning herself in the nude on the upper deck of George Soros' 120' yacht in Nantucket Harbor (anchored right off of Gigolo John's wife's mansion's beachfront) through their binoculars. That's all the proof I need. Hey, GW - call what you're doing "clearing brush" on the ranch, or polishing the doorknob, or whatever you want to call it, but the little wifey is having her fun too.

Update: Yes, yes. It is true.  "Gigolo John" is John Kerry's nickname on Nantucket, among the locals. "Gig-John" for short. (As in "Aw, sh-t, here comes that arrogant f-ing a-hole no-tip Gig-John again for another skim chai latte.") Gig-John would be President today, if Rove hadn't changed the votes with his electronic voting machine controller, located offshore on a top-secret oil rig in the Caribbean, adjacent to the top-secret hurricane generator. And still the right-wing New York Times refuses to put a reporter on the story.

Sail a 12-Metre

Does this sound good?

12metre.com on St. Maarten has five retired 12 meters, and they run several races per day. Yes, they have professional crews, but you can go too and they will put you to work.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel

Worst Case Scenarios for Storm

From Stratfor.com, an excellent intelligence source which has sent out a Red Alert:

The Port of Southern Louisiana is the fifth-largest port in the world in terms of tonnage, and the largest port in the United States. The only global ports larger are Singapore, Rotterdam, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It is bigger than Houston, Chiba and Nagoya, Antwerp and New York/New Jersey. It is a key link in U.S. imports and exports and critical to the global economy.

To read the rest, you need to sign on their site. Some of their stuff is free, but it's copywrited. 

Bono, Karma, Grace, Nihilism, and Christianity

One of Dr. Bob's best. A few selections from Grace 4 U2:

Grace says someone else can do it better than you–if only you ask. Its message is an affront: it says we do not have all the answers–and the answers we do have are wrong–often disastrously so. Grace does not excuse our wrongs–it covers our wrongs. It doesn’t nullify Karma–it simply puts the bill on someone else’s tab. When we receive grace, someone else is bearing the price, the consequences for the hurt and the harm we have done. When we give grace, we choose to pick up the tab for another’s shortcomings, wrongdoing, destructiveness, evil. And that’s where we draw the line: we are happy to receive grace, but it is too much to ask of us to give it in return.

And that is the roadblock–ironically–which we need grace to overcome.

What is needed is a core inner transformation: we must become someone different. We are hard-wired to take–we need to be transformed to give. Trying to be other-oriented–following the rules, being a good person–without this transformation is counter-productive: it breeds resentment, self-righteousness, pride, self-sufficiency. But this inner transformation cannot be brought about by ourselves–it must come through others, and above all, from Another. But once this happens–and our will must be broken before it can–the miracle of motive change begins to take place.

Read the whole thing.

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly, never be conceited. Repay no-one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the eyes of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thisty, give him drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals upon his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Paul's Letter to the Romans, 12: 9-21

Photo: The Church of Christ, Congregational. Norfolk, CT

Parker

We reported on the death of Rick's black lab Buzz last week, a reformed felon (Buzz, not Rick, well...hmmm, um) who was a hunting machine. The good news is that Parker has just joined Rick's household.

Future of Photography: Don't miss this piece in the NY Sun if you dig pictures and cameras.

Malkin's Update on MSM's lies and fables, here.

UN tries to hassle UK over expulsion of terror supporters. Hey, UN, take a hike. The UN is a joke. Thanks, Samizdata.

Rick Moran on the future of information, blogs, media, etc.  Plus some good insight into the thinking of a serious blogger.

Why do we like to hire illegals? Eric says it's because it's the old-fashioned way. I tend to agree. Here.

NY Games is fairly cool. You missed yesterday's game, but these are worth following for serious gamers who will get off the computer and into the game world.

Gasoline prices: Check this graph  of gas prices adjusted for inflation, and quit whining. A nation of babies. Anyway, haven't the Left and the enviros been longing for higher gas prices? They should be happy. But have you seen this graph in the news?

Translated Iraq Constitution, via MassRight. And the media flip-flop on the new middle-east constitutions.

The relationship between wealth and welfare states. Interesting discussion.

Meme:  A popular blog-world word. It's a cool word: it means a cultural gene; an idea or thought which is transmitted culturally, but has come to be used as an idea or thought that is transmitted widely. The basic meaning is more valuable, I think. Another aspect of a meme is its self-replicating ability, like a virus.

Sick of Cindy: This gal was a loony tune before her son was killed, and enough is enough.