How the Bush II administration manufactured the disaster in New Orleans, Part I: Dismantling FEMA

I've already discussed the nature of FEMA as President George W. Bush inherited it, but I'll recap quickly here: by the year 2000, FEMA was internationally recognized as a leader in disaster management; reported directly to the President of the United States; recognized and promoted the value of hazard mitigation (which accounts for about 90% of successful disaster management); and had encouraged many, if not all states to focus on their own disaster management programs. FEMA under President Clinton had also successfully consolidated federal emergency management responsibilities, reducing confusion and increasing the efficiency and success of federal responses.

President Bush reversed many of the nation's disaster management gains. His first budget eliminated funding for Project Impact, a program that worked on building disaster-resistant communities, later citing uncertainty as to its usefulness. Before the budget appropriations passed through Congress, however, Seattle suffered a 6.8 earthquake, from which it only received minimal damage; Seattle's mayor publicly credited Project Impact with enabling his city to survive the quake so successfully.

Congress subsequently restored funding for Project Impact, but for this discussion the point is that Bush had sought to eliminate a program that successfully improved the nation's emergency management capabilities. What is more, President Bush appointed Joe Allbaugh to head FEMA; Allbaugh had no experience in emergency management.

Allbaugh publicly indicated that mitigation and preparedness would be high priorities for FEMA, but the events of September 11th, 2001 intervened. Shortly after September 11th, the Bush administration embarked on a massive reorganization of the federal government, focussed on meeting the threat of terrorism. Among many other changes, this reorganization created the Department of Homeland Security and demoted FEMA, placing it under DHS. Many disaster management responsibilities were stripped from FEMA and dispersed among several other governmental bodies. DHS's mission, and thus FEMA's mission, became almost entirely focussed on terrorism. Mitigation, outside of the context of terrorism, was almost entirely abandoned.

In the wake of 9/11, the focus on terrorism is understandable; indeed, it was terribly overdue. In focussing on terrorism to the exclusion of all other hazards, however, the federal government lost much of it's ability to respond to natural and accidental disasters. Capabilities at the state and local levels also degraded as these governments, influenced by the direction of the federal government (much as they had been influenced under James Lee Witt and President Clinton) abandoned their own nonterrorism-related preparedness functions.

DHS's initial Secretary was Tom Ridge, who stepped down following the 2004 presidential ellections. He was replaced by Michael Chertoff, a federal judge. Chertoff reviewed the state of DHS and released a six-point agenda. This agenda focussed heavily on anti-terrorism activities, but made no mention of nonterrorism-related mitigation. Thus, by the time Katrina formed in the Atlantic, the nation was no longer prepared to meet it.

[Stay tuned for Chapter II]
[Prologue: The Clinton Administration]

NOTES [(added 1 Nov 2007)]:
1. Disaster management and emergency management are interchangeable terms.
2. See Haddow and Bullock's Introduction to Emergency Management, 2nd edition, (C) 2006, at chapter 2 for a larger discussion of the above points.

How the Bush II administration manufactured the disaster in New Orleans, prologue: the Clinton administration

There was, and to a lesser degree continues to be, a lot of finger pointing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. This blog started too late to address events as they unfolded, but I ran across this letter yesterday, so I guess that the issues are still current.

First, I'll point out that our government is divided into three branches: legislative, judicial, and executive. Disaster management is an executive function.

Second, to truly understand the issues behind the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, we should probably go back to the Clinton administration. In 1993, Clinton appointed James Lee Witt as the director of FEMA. Witt had been Clinton's director of Emergency Management in Arkansas, and had successfully responded to several major flooding disasters in that state. Witt was also a successful politician in his own right. Thus, when disaster struck the country during the Clinton administration, the man directing the federal response had hands-on experience in disaster management, and knew how to work with other people effectively.

Clinton also emphasized the importance of disaster management by making FEMA a cabinet-level position: Witt reported directly to the President of the United States. This, coupled with Witt's subsequent work with state governments, convinced many states to place a similar emphasis on their own disaster management capabilities.

Finally, under Witt, FEMA focused on mitigation. For instance, they created Project Impact. This program focused on predisaster mitigation, by asking communities to evaluate their own hazards and assets before disaster struck, and to take steps to reduce the likelihood and/or impact of those hazards.

Thus, while disaster responses during the Clinton administration were not perfect, they were generally quite strong (Oklahoma City may be cited as an exception, in part because the criminal nature of the act blurred lines of responsibility), and the Bush II administration inherited a FEMA that was internationally known as a successful disaster management organization, as well as a nation of states and communities that recognized the value of, and were committed to addressing their own disaster management needs.

Stay tuned for Chapter I, where President G. W. Bush dismantles one of the world's preeminent disaster management organizations.

NOTES:
1. Disaster management and emergency management are interchangeable terms.
2. See Haddow and Bullock's Introduction to Emergency Management, 2nd edition, (C) 2006, at chapter 2 for a larger discussion of the above points.

The political vanguard

This is one of three photos of a patriotic van available here. I believe that this van is owned by a veteran, and I think that this makes the statements even stronger.

Most of the writing on the van concerns the appalling situation we have made in Iraq, but this view also shows "Remember Katrina".

I think that there are some real similarities between the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the still-evolving drama in the nation that was Iraq. Both are disasters. Both are disasters in large part because of poor planning on the part of Americans in power. Both continue to be disasters because of poor planning. Both occurred under the same President.

It's kind of sick that the US government has sent more people and equipment halfway around the world than to one of its own cities.

But what the owner of this van is really pointing out is how complacent we've become. Many of us are unhappy, but I don't see many people doing anything more than complain. And I can't exclude myself from that description.

We live in a nation that allows us to protest loudly, even garishly, against our government. But that right is worthless if we never avail ourselves of it.

Stay tuned for a future post in which I discuss how Mike Brown wasn't as responsible for the post-Katrina mess as people like to think he was.

[30 October 2245hrs: edit: add link to "Stay tuned..."; correct spelling; tags]

EMS kicks ass

Maybe ten years ago I purchased a waterproof shell (jacket) from Eastern Mountain Sports. A year and a half back I was too lazy to lift a box off of the jacket when pulling it out of my trunk, and as I pulled it, it tore.

All of the do-it-yourself kits for patching Gore-Tex seem to be for temporary use only, so I finally brought it in to the local EMS store to see what it would cost to get it repaired. Around $13, most likely, I was told. Given the cost of a new jacket, that's a great deal.

I picked up the repaired jacket yesterday - they patched it with a new piece of Gore-Tex, in the same color as the old, and from a few feet away you can't even tell that the patch is there. Up close it looks like a pocket. But the best part is this: the repair was free; they didn't charge me anything.

Scruffy is a Superfund cat

Remember how I said that Scruffy was separated from his mother at too young an age, based on how he follows Shadow around like a puppy, and doesn't know what to do with himself in her absence? Well, another piece of it is that he doesn't really have the litter box thing down. He does use the litter box, but his attempt at burying his feces, though I often hear him scraping away busily at the litter, is generally inadequate, to say the least. He often manages to step in his feces in the process, though, and since he frequently has loose stools, he then proceeds to track fecal matter all over the bathroom floor (and sometimes the walls, too), to say nothing of the rest of the apartment.

I have half a mind to send him back where he came from.

The amount of time, effort, and cleaning supplies that this cat will cause me to spend during his 20 year life will rival that of a moderately-sized Superfund site.

Of course, given how high strung he is, he'll probably die of a heart attack by age 12 or 13, so maybe I'm only dealing with a minor Superfund site.

Looking up an old friend

A few days ago, the cats dug up the business card of a woman whom I went out with once or twice some months back. She was a cool person, and attractive for other reasons, too; but we knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to work romantically because we wanted different things from a relationship (marriage and children were high on her present list of priorities, and I'm just not there yet).

We enjoyed the time we spent together, though, so I was a bit disappointed for myself when an old flame walked back into her life, and even more so when she then dropped off the face of the earth.

The competing fondness of friendship and hurt of - abandonment? - resurfaced with her card. Do I want to call her? I am curious as to how things worked out for her. I wonder if she is now engaged, or even married, and if she is pregnant.

At the same time, I wonder if I'd might prefer her to say that she was single again. It isn't that my wish for her to be happy, including marriage and child(ren), is false, but I guess my own needs and desires are more immediate, at present.

There's also the possibility that, if I reached her voicemail, she might not return my call. She did drop off the face of the earth, after all.

So, each evening since the card showed up, I've debated whether to call her or not until it's too late in the day to call, and then I abandon the issue for another 20 hours. Today I noticed that her card seems to have vanished again. Just as well, I suppose.

Turn signals aren't about fashion

I was walking across a parking lot today when I saw one of those cars (an SUV, actually) whose rear turn signal were blue - the bulb was blue, behind a clear lens. Now, I've already gone-off about how most people are bad drivers, but since 95% of driving is routine, it only matters 5% of the time, so it won't surprise you when I say that this is the kind of setup that I don't like. Here in New York State, a flashing blue light is a volunteer firefighter or the rear-end of some other emergency vehicle; blue turn signals fall into the category of WTF is that!? And WTF is one of the last things that a driver should have to worry about.

Clear lenses on tail lights are just as bad, during the day. They make the back end of the car look like the front end. Is that car coming toward me, or going away from me? Again, WTF?

Weight obsession

I was led to this post from another blog.

Weight is a medical issue. Just about everything becomes more difficult to do as weight increases: the heart has to pump harder, to force blood through more miles (yes - miles) of vasculature; the musculoskeletal system must support and move the additional weight, which it is not prepared to do; the respiratory system is impaired both by extra tissue in the mouth/neck, which can cause sleep apnea, and because an overly large abdomen must be moved out of the way for the diaphragm to drop and the lungs to expand; etc.

And, it's a scientific issue. We are only starting to understand why some people gain weight while others don't. The nature of a proper diet is debated. How to calculate what a person's proper weight is is also unclear. So, weight is a complex issue.

Weight and body size are intimate details of our lives that are on public display every day; anybody we meet in person, anyone who just sees us is instantly informed about how much we weigh - not exactly, but close enough for it to be uncomfortable, particularly in an image-obsessed society such as our own. People whose weight or size are grossly at odds with our ideas of fitness are an easy target for people who feel more secure by pointing out other's faults. The anonymity of the internet only adds to people's boldness.

The same people are also the recipient of well-meaning advice. We are a social people, and we like to advise others, perhaps because it enables us to show off our knowledge. I suspect that often, advice is given more to satisfy a need on the part of the giver, rather than the receiver. Unsolicited advice also carries with it a subtext: "you're screwing up, somehow; I can show you how to do better. Aren't I so helpful, aren't I so superior?

Differentiating between well-intentioned advice and deliberate insult is not always easy. Some remarks fall into both categories. Perhaps they all do. In any event, they often say more about the speaker than about the intended audience.

See here for some more thoughts.

Update

1. I found another spider late last night, but I was too exhausted to bring it to Shadow's attention. What's more, she was asleep, and it seems rude to wake her for that.

2. Some time back I wrote about placing clothes in Scruffy's lair(s). I don't know what effect this has had, if any, but Scruffy is doing better. He also hasn't coughed in a while, so I think he's healthy, too.

3. Welding class has now ended. For our last class the instructor collected scrap steel in various sizes, and we sorted through it to build sculpture. I made a horned snake out of a busted chain hoist and a mouse with a wind-up key for a tail.

4. I am now another year older. Amazing how that can happen in just 24 hours.

Shadow has a larger vocabulary than I do

She chirps, chirrups, squeaks, and miaows, with what sounds like inflection. She puts the sounds together and recombines them, along with other high-pitched sounds that I don't know what to call. It's very cool, but I wish I could understand it beyond the most basic "hello" and "food?"

I think she's part Siamese.

I think we're out of spiders

I wouldn't go so far as to say that my apartment was overrun by spiders, but I did encounter then on a daily basis.

Enter Shadow. Shadow chases and eats spiders. And, having discovered this, I help her, either by lifting her to those spiders that are just out of reach, by chasing out-of-reach spiders down toward her, or by capturing them in a plastic cup, then letting them loose in front of her.

I went looking for a spider to capture in my cup last night, and again tonight, but no spiders could I find.

We appear to be out of spiders.

How is it that Stephen Colbert can run for the Presidency in only one state?

As many of you know, Stephen Colbert has announced that he is running for the President of the United States. This raises several issues:

* Each state individually regulates who will appear on their presidential ballots. Thus, it is possible to run for President only in South Carolina, as Mr Colbert is doing. More importantly, the state requirements often place third party candidates at a severe disadvantage: candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties are generally guaranteed a slot on the ballot, while third party candidates must fight for the same right. Consider Ralph Nader's Presidential campaigns, particularly that of 2000, in which the number of votes he received enabled his party to appear on the ballots of more (though still not all) states in the 2004 elections.

* A related issue is that, since a candidate only needs 270 electoral college votes to gain the presidency, and those 270 votes can be assembled from as few as eleven states, a candidate can be elected president without appearing on the ballot in 39 states (or the District of Columbia).

* And then there is the issue of the electoral college itself. When we cast our ballots on election day, we are not actually voting for a president. We are directing our state's electors to vote for the candidate of our choice. Since the distribution of electors does not reflect the distribution of the population, and since each state's electors (typically) vote together, winning the popular vote is not necessary to become President. (Remember Al Gore? You know, the guy who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his ecological work?) This also assumes that the electors vote as they are directed.

What can you do? Well, I see two options:
1) Sit on your ass and do nothing, or,
2) Get behind the movement to reform the voting process, such as the National Popular Vote's proposals on electoral college reform.

I lick my cats

I realize that this is weird.

Long before my kittens moved in, it occurred to me that, if I was to successfully communicate with a cat, then I should probably use its language as much as possible. This is why, for example, I hiss at my cats if they do something that they shouldn't - it works far better than saying "no!", no matter how forcefully I speak. I extend a finger as a surrogate nose to say hello to a cat, and with my own cats I sometimes extend my own nose to theirs (gently, gently). So when I realized that cats demonstrate affection for each other by grooming each other with their tongues, I decided to do the same. The result last night was a relaxed, purring Shadow who fell into that deep, limp, twitching sleep while lying on me.

"No reentry" is not the same as "emergency exit only"

A week or so back I discovered that one of the school's exit doors was locked or jammed shut, and alerted the security department. I was in the same building again today, and decided to see if this had been addressed.

It had been. I had to give the door a shove, but it opened into a stairwell. The door was labeled "No reentry on any floor," and had no knob or handle on the stairwell side. But the stair looked to lead out to the parking lot, though, which was where I wanted to go, so through the door and down the stair I went.

Two flights down I found the door to the outside, equipped with a big latch that read "EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY: PUSH HERE TO EXIT. ALARM WILL SOUND." After a brief debate as to whether I should just open the door anyway, I retreated back up the stairs, pulling at the knobless doors until I found a level with someone still working, and I pounded on the door until they let me in.

And this is the thing that really gets me: on witnessing my release, a woman came up to me and proceeded to lecture me on how "no reentry" means "emergency exit only."

I wonder how this woman ever gets out of the subway system, where half of the exits are no reentry and the other half require payment to get back in.

Why does Scruffy have to sleep on Shadow's head?

Scruffy and Shadow have resettled into our home after their time being boarded at the vet's. Scruffy seems to be enjoying the new chew-resistant kitty condo, though he still spends a fair bit of time in his lair behind/between the bookcases, but what really strikes me is his need to be sleeping on his sister's head. (Sorry - no pic at present, as I lifted him off of her head (for the 3rd time) before it occurred to me to take one.) This particularly bothers me because it increases her respiratory rate, which suggests to me that he is making it hard for her to breathe.

All of this is exacerbated by their decision to continue to sleep in the same shoebox, in spite of the fact that they're getting bigger, but the shoebox isn't. Or maybe it's more of his decision to crawl into the shoebox that she is already all but filling. Very cute, but I worry for Shadow's health.

Oof!

Badger spent the weekend helping his brother move, and is still recovering. New post(s) tomorrow, hopefully.

- Badger

Cyber-kitten

Shadow and Scruffy are being boarded at the vet this weekend, as I'll be in Pennsylvania to help my brother move. While they're there, Shadow will receive an indentification microchip, as her nature makes me worry that she may escape at some point. I don't have any type of vestibule or hallway between my living space and the outside world (I actually live in a tiny house with a main room, a cramped bathroom, and a tight kitchen, but somehow it seems easier to call it a studio apartment. House seems to suggest more than one room. More importantly, I rent the house, so I'm not really in a position to add a vestibule of any sort. [Digression over.])

The chip is really neat, though it's not a new concept. The idea is to attach a unique, indelible identifier to the cat (or dog, or wonder llama) so that, should it escape and be found, the ID can be compared to a database to find the animal's owner and reunite the two. Previously, and perhaps still, tattooed ID numbers were used - these were placed on the back of the animal's neck; the microchip version is injected in the same place; waving a wand over the animal's neck reveals the animal's ID number.

The vet's comment was that it unfortunately wasn't a tracking device, only an identification one (Kitty Lo-Jack would be really cool), but Big Brother issues aside, I still think this is pretty neat. And I am Big Brother, too, or Older Brother at least.

More Scruffy pills -> more Scruffy unhappiness

Scruffy lost his appetite and stopped eating after a day or so of his medication, and I was advised by the vet to stop the medication for the moment. After his recheck yesterday, his medicine was restarted. Last night and this morning he came when I opened the canned food, but he didn't put in an appearance tonight, which meant that I had to pill him again.

Since the last time, I had learned both a better way to hold his head and to use a syringe to give him a bit of water and help him swallow the pill, so I was feeling reasonably confident of being able to give him his meds with little trauma to both of us. I rinsed out the syringe, laid out his pill, and went over to his bookcase lair.

Collecting him and carrying him to the kitchen was no trouble, but then things went rapidly downhill. First, I couldn't quite remember how I was supposed to hold his head. Thus, it was a bit of a struggle to get him in an opened-mouth position that allowed me a free hand to drop in his pill.

Then, once I successfully got the pill in his mouth and clamped it shut, I realized that although I had cleverly placed the syringe within reach, I had failed to preload it with water. I was using one hand and both legs to hold Scruffy, so getting to the sink wasn't going to happen. Luckily, I found the cup of water I had drawn from to rinse out the syringe earlier.

At the end of the whole thing, I had successfully given him his meds, but not with nearly the ease I had hoped.

Log off now and get your 30 minutes of exercise

I'm going to keep this short, for reasons that should become obvious. CBC is reporting that many Americans are spending less time having sex in order to spend more time online. Why do people do this? And will it effect our ability to survive as a species? In 50 years, will the only people left be those without internet access?

Come on, people! Do your part for the human race!

Post-spay convalecence day 2: cerebellar function intact

Shadow now seems to be much better than she was in the hours immediately after she was spayed. She has recovered her coordination, and she is moving about the apartment at her typical pace, though without the occasional mad dashes in chase of imaginary prey. She is moving a little gingerly as she climbs, and I expect she's still a bit confused and dismayed by her scar and her shaved-off fur. Rough-housing with Scruffy also seems to be off the to-do list for the moment, which is good because I don't want to have to separate them, and I very much don't want her surgical scars to be disturbed until they're quite healed.

I'd like to say that she appears to be in little or no pain, since that's true; that's how she appears. But it's not really useful as animals rarely show pain. Her meows do seem to be higher pitched, and she is less talkative. I suppose this might reflect her current pain and discomfort, but whatever it is, I hope she gets her old voice back. She also used to be more vocal, and used a wider vocabulary, too.

We'll have to see what tomorrow brings.

Separation anxiety

Remember how I said that Scruffy followed Shadow around like a puppy? Scruffy spent all of yesterday alone. He then spent the evening with me, because Shadow was in no shape to receive him. And while I don't know what he did in my absence, after Shadow and I came home he spent almost all of his time in his bookcase lair, until I foolishly made him aware of her presence in the apartment, in the bedroom area. Then he spent all of his energy doing two things:

1) trying to get to Shadow, and

2) trying to continue to avoid and hide from me.

Most of this consisted of sitting in front of the gate to the bedroom, sniffing at it, and occasionally trying to paw his way past it, but once Shadow had recovered enough that I turned off lights to try to get some sleep, Scruffy climbed up the pole to gain access to the bedroom, then quickly repeated this performance after I had chased him off and turned off the light again. Ultimately, I had to place one of the litter boxes in the kitchen and shut him in there for the night.

This leads me to wonder what he would do if she vanished for several days. If it weren't cruel to Shadow to send her off (does anyone know of a kitty sleep-away camp?) I'd experiment and find out, especially since I seem to recall reading that isolating a kitten from other cats can bring it to turn to people for interaction.

Though maybe that's a bit manipulative.

Convalescence after spaying, day 0: cerebellum on vacation

Shadow has now been spayed, and we have returned home. She is presently curled up and asleep in the deepest, darkest corner under my bed, which is probably the best thing for her.

We got home between five and six, but the post-surgical instructions included not letting her out of her carrier until eight. So, a few minutes after eight I lifted the towel off of her carrier and opened the door.

After taking a few moments to collect herself she appeared, but I was appalled at her condition. She might have been drunk as she swayed some while standing, then when she tried to walk she had real difficulties with balance. Her strength seemed much reduced, too, as she couldn't climb onto the top of her carrier. With me in attendance, she slowly explored the small part of the apartment that I had walled off for her, never walking more than a few feet before sitting again to recollect herself.

Interestingly, when she came to the scratching pad she had no trouble scratching at it in a coordinated fashion - I suppose that the scratching action must be handled by a non-cerebellar pathway that is resistant to the anesthesia.

The taming of Super Scruff, the timid cat, part 12

Scruffy continues to do better and better, and is now willing (though not thrilled) to be picked up from his lair between the bookcases (he lost his cardboard box lair because he ate it, which explains the radio-opaque spots in his intestines on X-ray). The expression on his face and the attitude and tone of his body all suggest that being picked up is something that he resigns himself to, rather than enjoys, but he's no longer bolting, or trying to squirm free at any cost. It has been several days since he clawed me, though I have picked him up at least once a day since the end of last week.

Of course, he still runs and hides if I come near him while he's out in the open, but his stints in his lair have become much shorter, often lasting less than a minute.

Hooray for Scruffy!

I feel a bit guilty about spaying Shadow

Shadow is due to be spayed tomorrow. (Scruffy will be neutered in the near future, but it seemed best to wait until he was healthy again.) I received the reminder phone call this morning, including the instructions to let her have no food or drink between 9pm tonight and her appointment tomorrow morning. And there are two things that leave me feeling a bit guilty: depriving her and her brother (both growing kittens) of food, and having arguably unnecessary surgery performed on her.

The surgery is the larger issue. It feels a little like playing God to decide for another animal whether it should be able to have offspring or not. Actually, it feels a lot like playing God. If the situation were reversed, I know I wouldn't want to be sterilized.

All of this is balanced against the understanding that if I leave both cats unaltered, I'll probably have a new batch of kittens in the not-too-distant future - kittens that I will have trouble finding good homes for (I don't have the room, energy, or finances to add several more cats to my home), as there is an overpopulation of cats and kittens living in shelters. And, on a more selfish note, If I leave her unaltered I'll have to deal her being in heat every month or so for several years.

Surgery is not without risks, though, particularly since it will involve what I expect will be general anesthesia. And I worry that she will be scared, with strangers pulling her out of her carrier and gassing her into unconsciousness, as she struggles against them.

My poor Shadow :(

Tailgaters suck

On the parkway yesterday some moron in a white SUV followed me so closely that I couldn't see his headlights in my rear view mirror. I won't tell you how fast I was going (I don't want to receive a ticket in the mail), but I was will tell you that I was traveling at highway speed.

Of all of the moronic things that drivers do, this may be the one that most angers me. Because if something happens right in front of me, I have to choose between swerving and rolling over, hitting it, or slamming on my brakes - at which point the car behind me winds up in my back seat.

The irony is that if he manages to avoid me, and to avoid rolling over, he'll have successfully reinforced his asinine behavior ("I didn't have an accident; of course I can follow that close"). And if he does rear-end me, well, I shouldn't have slowed down that fast, right?

If only I could drop caltrops from the back of my car.

Scruffy's diagnosis: bronchitis; unhappiness for all

Based on his history, physical examination, and X-ray, Scruffy has received a Dx (diagnosis) of bronchitis. While this is far better than the asthma I feared he had, it's nothing to celebrate. For his part - well, he's sick. He's coughing. He's uncomfortable. He has a fever. What's more, he now gets chased down twice a day, and when he's caught (as he invariably is), no amount of scratching, biting, or yowling can save him from having yucky-tasting stuff rudely shoved down his throat. (His appetite is poor, so hiding the meds in his food isn't successful.)

For my part, I now have to terrorize him twice a day in order to ensure that he gets his meds, and I have a collection of fresh cat-scratch scars to prove it.

All of this occurs just as he was really starting to trust me, to sometimes allow me to approach and pet him, and to even enjoy being petted from time to time. Every time he progresses a bit, something happens that I have to chase him down again. If this cat ever comes to really trust me, it will be a miracle. If I manage to pill him for two weeks and don't give him an aspiration pneumonia, that will be another miracle.

On the other side of things, he has grown - he weighed 5.5 pounds on his visit to the vet on the 3rd, up from 4.3 pounds less than a month before. So it's not all bad.

* Aspiration pneumonia @ Wikipedia; @ eMedicine.
* Asthma @ Wikipedia.
* Bronchitis @ Wikipedia.

The connection between cats and our bipedal stance

I'm playing with Shadow with a plastic bottle cap. Sometimes I slide or roll it along the floor, other times I bounce it off of the floor or a wall. In her excitement, she sometimes winds up standing on her back legs, as her front legs grapple with the bottle cap.

This is not the first time she's done this, nor is she the only cat I've ever seen do this, but today it occurs to me, as she takes a few steps on her hind legs to keep her balance, that this behavior might in some way be related to our two-legged stance as human beings. Perhaps cats that can successfully stand on their hind legs are better able to catch prey, or something. Carried to an extreme, this would eventually yield fully bipedal creatures.

Today, I cut metal with fire

The oxyacetylene torch: personally, I think this is very cool. I made a simple jigsaw puzzle out of 5" scrap strap steel. Since it was made from scrap, it has a lot of slag and stuff on it from the practice welds it was exposed to. I can't decide if I should leave the slag there or grind it off.

If an artist can keep a secret apartment in plain sight, couldn't They do the same?

The Providence Journal is reporting that a group of artists assembled a rudimentary 750 square foot apartment in the parking garage of the Providence Mall, and lived there for up to three weeks at a time until mall security finally discovered them - four years after they started the project. Construction of the apartment involved smuggling cinder blocks, furniture, and a Playstation 2 into the garage; all told 2 tons of materials and furniture were involved. Now that they have been discovered they face some legal trouble, but that's not what caught my eye here. The real problem was that Providence Mall security somehow overlooked this apartment for four years. (By contrast, a burglar did find the apartment, and made off with the Playstation.)

Providence isn't a target in the way that New York and Washington, D.C. are, but think of the amount of weapons, explosives, and operatives you could hide in 750 square feet - that's bigger than my house. The garage is very close to I-95 (an exit ramp leads into it), and not very far from the Amtrak station.

I don't mean to be alarmist, but between Oklahoma City, the World Trade Center (twice), Madrid and many other incidents, can't we at least check out the darker, unused corners of our parking garages from time to time? Remember that the Oklahoma City and 1993 WTC incidents involved bombs placed in garages.

I mean, please.

Update: cats

A few folks have asked about the cats generally (using email) so I thought I'd provide a recap and update:

Shadow continues to be very affectionate and willing to be petted at length - I don't think she has ever voluntarily ended a petting session. She's also a big fan of chasing things that move, particularly if they disappear into a box or around a corner - I can actually see her sympathetic nervous system activate as her pupils expand to fill her eyes.

Scruffy continues to have a harder time - he's shy, and his shyness reinforces itself, since just about the only interaction he has with me is when I chase him down for the vet, for meds, etc. On the few occasions where I have petted him, though, he seems to enjoy it, so I think he's caught between the desire for affection and the panic of his shyness. He has to go back to the vet on Wednesday, for his cough, which I'm starting to think may be asthma, in part because he adopts the posture of the cat in this YouTube video of a cat suffering from an asthma attack. His activity seems unaffected, though, except when he is in the midst of a coughing fit, so it could be worse.

And that's the news from Lake Wobegon.

[symp nvs system link added 2 Oct 2007]