devarim

I have temporarily disabled comments and pings on Devarim post older than twenty-one days. If you'd like to contact me about an earlier post, you can email me (or use my gmail address, if you know it).

For those of you looking for some mind-bending this week, might I recommend these posts by elf and her Mr.?

Everything I Really Need to Know I Learned From GuestBlogging On DovBear

Now that our week of guestblogging for DovBear is over, and we each go off to our respective places in the obscurity of the jblogosphere, we wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you and let everyone know what we learned over the past week:

1. Spell Check is your friend.
2. MO vs UO is always a good comment generator.
3. DovBear has at least six arms.
4. Don't leave your blog running with the keys in the ignition if it will be out of your line of sight for more than a minute.
5. People love Amishinover even if they hate what he has to say.
6. You may catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but who needs flies?
7. Guest blogging for Dovbear does not turn you into a Chareidi/Cross-Currents/TobyKatz bashing, NY liberal (unless you are one already).
8. Posts about deleting posts are more popular than posts about anything else.
9. DovBear is actually Amshi - he took a "vacation" to let his Mr. Hyde side come out to play.
10. Dovbear's dashboard could use a cleaning.

Thanks, DovBear!

With love,
Krum, LittleWolf, Shanna, & Shifra

Thank you for bearing with us during today's technical difficulties. As we get back online, it is my pleasure to tell you that my upper right wisoom tooth (tooth #1) has been moved from my jaw to my pocket. The extraction was a tad more challenging than my dentist expected, but still nothing he couldn't handle. Upon removing the tooth, he said: "Aha! That is a lady's tooth." Why? Because the roots were curved (the complicating factor, you see). At least he didn't say that it was because she gave him trouble.

I have just swallowed my first does of codeine (alas, no Percocet) and I expect to begin downing rice pudding momentarily.

So, a day and a half after the tooth-yanking, and I'm in pain. But not pain of the oral variety. Oh no...it's the damn mosquito bites on my feet that will drive me out of my bloody mind before noon.

This time I really am the worst granddaughter ever. I forgot my Grandma's yahrzeit (anniversary of her death, according to the Jewish calendar) yesterday. (Obviously not that grandmother.) Even worse is that I thought about it at mincha (afternoon services) last Shabbat, when we usually say a remembrance prayer for those whose yahrzeits fall in the coming week. I thought of it, then tried to line up the calendar in my head and decided that it must really be the following week, and then figured that I should double-check upon getting home just to be sure. And of course I didn't check.

And I forgot about it entirely yesterday, and now I'm at work and all upset about it and I can't do a damn thing. She even tried to remind me, you see, because yesterday when I was home sorting through random boxes I came across a letter from her from 1996. What the hell was that doing in there?

Wow.

It's almost enough to counterbalance this.

Jewish terrorist Eden Natan Zadah kills 4 on Shfaram bus

In what police are calling an incident of Jewish terrorism, a Jewish man dressed in IDF uniform opened fire on a bus in the northern town of Shfaram Thursday evening, killing at least 4 people and wounding nearly a dozen more.

The shooter, Eden Tzuberi, 19, was also killed when he was assaulted by a mob of furied bystanders and witnesses.

* * *

The suspect was a resident of the West Bank settlement of Tapuah and was well-known to police for extremist views. He was a member of the outlawed ultra-Right-wing Kahane Chai party. An IDF soldier, Tzuberi had been tried in the past for refusing orders linked to the disengagment plan, and had been reported AWOL from the IDF 77 days ago - still in possession of his army-issued firearm. During his short army career he served time in military prison on two occasions.

* * *

Ikutiel Ben Yaacov, the founder of the far-right Jewish Legion group based in the West Bank settlement of Tapuah, shared police suspicions that such an attack might be aimed at derailing Israel's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

"We hope that Eden's death will not have been in vain," said Ben Yaacov, and added that "his murder will derail this sadistic disengagement plan."

* * *

Among the victims were two adolescent girls and the driver of the bus. The shooter also directed his fire outside the bus, and the casualties included pedestrians and bystanders.

Oh, I give up.

I was poking around Craig's List and found this ad:

The Princeton Review is compiling real essays (from real students) submitted as part of the law school application.

If you have successfully applied to law school within the past four years, please contact us for information about submitting your essay. Authors of essays selected for publication will be paid.

Please contact Suzanne Podhurst, Editor, The Princeton Review, at SuzanneP@Review.com.

Hey! I thought. My application essay was pretty good, and I went to a good law school (two of them, actually) not very long ago, and this look slike it requires minimal effort on my part. I should send my essay in!

Wait a second...I didn't, technically speaking, apply to law school "within the past four years." Maybe I can fudge it, since I did get accepted to law schools in 2001? Oh, who am kidding - four years ago this week, I was moving into my first NYC apartment and buying my first casebooks.

*sigh*

Well, if any of you young'uns want to send in your essays, I'm sure Ms. Podhurst would be delighted to hear from you.

I decided to send a query email to Ms. Podhurst anyway; one never knows what exceptions may be made until one asks. (Which reminds me: always, always, always ask. Particularly for scholarship money.) As I was flipping through the old files to double-check for all of the relevant essays, I came across the following little piece that I included with my Yale Law School application. (This is not the essay I intend to submit, if Ms. Podhurst will entertain a submission frm me.) Rather than the "personal statement" requested by most schools, wherein the applicant expounds on her passion for The Law, Yale required an essay, on any topic, of no more than 250 words.

For some reason that I failed to record for posterity, I elected to include this essay with my University of Michigan application as well. I was admitted to U of M but chose not to attend (or even ask for scholarship money). Alas, I was rejected from Yale, which still smarts a bit - though, upon reflection, I can't imagine having gone there at all, or being any the happier for it.

I spent many flustered days wracking my brain for a topic, something that would show off my writing skills and make me appear intelligent without seeming flighty, something unique but not crazy. I finally struck upon the snowflake, though not due to any raging storm outside my window. Rather, while staring at the nearly blank screen of my boyfriend's computer (he was later upgraded to "husband") for quite possibly the five thousandth time that day, my eye settled upon a pair of paper snowflakes I had cut out and taped to his monitor some days or weeks or months past. (I really can't recall when I had stooped to that level of creative boredom.)

I've reposted the essay here, for your reading pleasure.

-=-

A snowstorm separates us from our daily lives, leaving us to read, to think, to share stories and renew friendships. Memories of sledding and snowball fights lead us to anticipate the next storm, despite the isolation it may bring. Children decorate windows with paper snowflakes and learn to examine real flakes on a swatch of black fabric. They marvel at the symmetry and beauty of each flake. The snow teaches a lesson of individuality: no two flakes are alike, and in that uniqueness is the essence of being. While our attention is diverted to their apparent perfection, we forget that the core of every snow crystal is a speck of dust.

This could mean that beauty is superficial, but a more fitting interpretation is that beauty grows from imperfection. Without these bits of dust, the ice crystals could not form. A seemingly perfect snowflake is the product of an atmospheric impurity. While a blizzard can gild a barren landscape, snowflakes may be nature’s way of hiding her smaller blemishes. Just as a speck of dirt is the seed for a snowflake, an impediment may be the foundation for a great success. One man overcomes stuttering to pursue a career in television. A difficult childhood evolves into a literary masterpiece. There is little incentive to improve without the occasional challenge.

Each of us is a snowflake: unique, beautiful, and formed around imperfections. Intricacies conceal our flaws, but this beauty would collapse without a blemish at its core.

Whoops - couldn't post this actually on Rosh Chodesh but - it's Av now.

So, I emailed Suzanne Podhurst, and it turns out that I'm not too old after all. Go figure.

Ah, it had to happen sooner or later. Heshy has paid me a visit. (Link crippled to prevent raising his Google PageRank.) If you don't know who Heshy is, consider yourself lucky. He posted two identical comments, one on a vaguely appropriate post and another on my snowflake essay. Strike one: don't post irrelevant comments. They will be removed (as the snowflake one has been). Both comments included a link back to his blog, which (as we all know) is a big etiquette no-no in the general blogosphere and will not be tolerated here. This time, the link has been removed, but in the future the whole comment will go poof. If you want to play on my field, Heshy, you will play by my rules. Capisco?

As for everyone else: Please don't feed the trolls!

Update: On further reflection, I decided to delete both instances of Heshy's comment.

Thanks to the RenReb, all I've been able to think about on Tisha B'Av so far is the imminent disengagement/withdrawl/evacuation/displacement/eviction from Gaza (and four settlements in the northern West Bank). Well, that, and the Holocaust. I've been forcing myself to read through Gilbert's Holocaust whenever my mind wanders. It's not the main point of the day, but I figure it's better than nothing.

Back on today's troubles, rather than those of sixty and seventy years ago...major credit to Rabbi G for not taking sides on the withdrawal from Gaza (and four settlements in the northern West Bank - really, I'm not going to let anyone forget that secular Jews are also being removed from their homes). It has been reported to me (because of course I was late to shul) that he does not feel that he, or any of us, know enough details about the entirety of the situation to come down firmly on one side or another. I'm glad at least some community leaders are taking a balanced, mature, reasoned approach to all of this.

In that vein, the Young Israel of Brookline is encouraging the community to gather for a recitation of tehillim (psalms) tomorrow evening at 7:00 (to be followed by davening and learning). The goal of our prayers is not to stop the disengagement, nor to promote it. We ask only that, whatever happens, the events of the coming days and weeks remain peaceful an that what emerges from this is a stronger, safer, and united Klal Yisrael.

May the remainder of our fast be meaningful, and next year may we spend this day in celebration.

It has come to the COR's attention that an unauthorized COR 386 has been put on the following products:

* Trader Joe's Chick Peas
* Trader Joe's Black Beans
* Trader Joe's Red Kidney Beans

These products are not kosher supervised.

This alert came out on August 8, 2005, and was brought to our attention today. On August 1, 2005, I made a pot of chili using a can of Trader Joe's Red Kidney Beans. A question is out to R' G as to the status of the can opener, crockpot, spoon, and ladle involved in the cooking process. The bowls and spoons we ate with have long since been cycled through the dishwasher and mixed up with our other dairy stuff, and apparently now we can just assume they're all okay. Ah, what a crazy religion.

But if you'd like to write or call TJ's and complain about the mislabeling - by all means, go ahead.

Update(Tuesday afternoon, 16 August): I've heard back from R' G. As Mr. Elf suggested in the comments, the amount of any possible non-kosher ingredients would be so small in proportion to everything else as to be halachicly nullified. Which, in case you couldn't tell from my original post and follow-up comments, was pretty mich what I suspected all along. But, as I stated (also in the comments), we try to be extra careful about kashrut in our home, so as to maximize the number of people who feel comfortable sharing our meals.

From Ha'aretz

One police officer was wounded when settlers threw acid in his eyes. The officer began shouting, "I can't see!" Rioters sprayed another policeman with gas and he suffered from burns on his back.

Youths also assaulted senior officers and journalists present at the scene, destroying a camera of a Reuters photographer, throwing paint and cleaning fluids at an army colonel, and breaking the glasses of another journalist. Two settlers were also lightly wounded during in the clashes.

It seems that the these clashes sprung up when zealous teenagers (many of whom are not actual residents of Gush Katif) prevented the entry of empty shipping containers. The army and police had negotiated with leaders of the community to allow the passage of these shipping containers, which were being trucked in for use by other families who wished to leave voluntarily. The rioting teenagers acted of their own accord.

Okay, kids, let's get a few things straight. You say: Jews don't expel Jews. Great. I say: Jews don't prevent Jews from living where they want, including moving from one home to another, if that is their choice. Furthermore, Jews don't throw acid into the eyes of Israeli police officers. Or, y'know, anyone, for that matter.

Before you teach your children about political protest, you need to teach them a little bit about basic respect.

My law school application essay on agunot, which I submitted to the Princeton Review for potential inclusion in their 2006 edition of Law School Essays That Made a Difference...has been accepted for publication! Yay!

(Link added for clarification purposes.)

Two more IDF soldiers caught looting homes in Gush Katif:

Two Israel Defense Forces soldiers were caught Tuesday trying to loot the evacuated homes of settlers in the Gush Katif settlement of Pe'at Sadeh. This is the third time soldiers have been caught attempting to loot homes in that settlement this week.

* * *

According to IDF officials, the soldiers have already admitted their guilt....

Two soldiers from the Givati Brigade were caught on Sunday night trying to steal home appliances from evacuated Pe'at Sadeh homes. Evacuated residents who had returned to their homes to remove equipment they had left behind complained when they saw other houses had been broken into and looted.

Add one to the list:

• A Jew doesn't expel a Jew.
  
• A Jew doesn't restrict the freedom of movement of a Jew who wishes to voluntarily comply with government orders.
  
• A Jew doesn't throw acid into an Israeli police officer's eyes.
  
• A Jew doesn't spray caustic gas onto an IDF soldier's back.
  
• A Jew doesn't throw urine, paint, stones, cleaning fluids, or pretty much anything except confetti at an IDF soldier.
  
• A Jew, particularly one representing the government, doesn't loot from the home of a recently displaced Jew.

• A Jew doesn't (chas v'chalila) kill a Jew.

This evening I had my upper left wisdom tooth removed (you know, the other one). The bottom two should be able to stay in. Now that I have two teeth out of my head (and in a small cardboard box on my desk)...maybe I could make a pair of earrings?

The big scary roof-of-my-mouth injection didn't hurt as much this time, but the actual tooth-removal was considerably more noticeable while in process, and the residual pain is shaping up to be far worse. Ugh.

(No, Lindsay, I'm not coming in tomorrow.)

A little over a month ago, Julian and I closed on a new apartment. The place needed lots of renovations: there was major water damage on the parquet living room floor; similar (minor) damage on the master bedroom floor; hideous carpet over even more hideous fake-wood ceramic tile in the other bedrooms; the same hideous carpet over slightly more palattable but totally impractical marble tile in the hallway; scary-looking floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the dining area (covering up - surprise, surprise! - another window); overgrown weeds on the garden terrace; baseboard electric heaters not installed to code; some bad wiring...

The list could go on and on, but basically the place was in bad repair. Except the kitchen, which looked nice (relatively new IKEA cabinets, decent-looking composite countertops, cheap but decent backsplash tiling) and had some very nice, relatively new (~ four years old?), stainless-steel exterior appliances. The tub of the dishwasher was slightly cracked, and while this didn't affect its usability, we decided to replace it with a new machine. This avoided the problem of having to wait a year before using the dishwasher. As a bonus, Rabbi G told us that if we get a machine with a stainless interior tub, we can switch it back and forth between dairy and meat by running two empty cycles (one with detergent, one without). It's not something we plan to do very often, but it definitely will come in handy. We also, sadly, had to replace the gorgeous range. The oven had a convection mode. There was a warming drawer. There was a wonderful smooth ceramic top. The problem, though, is that the ceramic top is not fully kasherable. Using one is doable, but problematic. (Yes, there are varying opinions here, but I'm not going to go into them.) Long story short, we deicded to buy the only oven we could find that fit all the following criteria: electric power source; coil burners; stainless steel exterior; self-cleaning mode (can you believe they still make ovens without this?); and Star-K certified "Sabbath" mode, which really is only good for making sure the oven stays on over a holiday, and allowing you to adjust the temperature during that time. Oh, I would have been much happier with gas, but there is no gas line in our kitchen.

Anyway, back on topic...we began renovations (and by "we" I mean "our contractor and his people") about a week and a half after closing, just before the fast of 17 Tammuz and the start of the Three Weeks. We had all the floors (save kitchen and bathrooms) ripped out and hardwood put in. Mirrors were taken down. The kitchen doorway was widened to allow room for the poorly placed refrigerator to open at least ninety degrees. The random wall forming a triangular closet in the master bedroom was removed to open up the space. Baseboard heaters were removed; wiring of various kinds was run throughout the apartment. Crown moulding was installed to cover up the wires. Closets were gutted. Old appliances were removed, new appliances were purchased, and the counters were cut to fit the new oven. Though it was not entirely within the spirit of the Three Weeks, we selected paint colors, because the floors could not be sanded, stained, and finished until the walls were done.

All of this work was being done immediately, mind you, because we could not move in until the floors were completed, and the floors had to be completed last, and we cannot put our old place on the market until at least some of our stuff has been moved out,a nd we certainly can't sell it until we can be out. And the summer selling season is ending, so it really is a question of financial loss.

Delays, inevitably, were experienced. What with one thing and another, two weeks grew to three, three weeks grew to four, and now it looks like four will ultimately end up at about six. Not really surprising, I suppose. But the amazing thing is the paint. Because no matter what other things were done, the beautiful, colorful, and clearly decorative paint that we selected for the walls did not start going up until Monday, the day after Tisha B'Av.

It's a big ad! Be sure to watch with your sound on.

(Thanks, Ari B.)

Soferet Aviel Barclay will be speaking tonight at 7:30 P.M. at Nehar Shalom in Jamaica Plain. I'm going to try to make it (unfortunately, I have an appointment at 6:30 that I must keep), but even if I can't we get to hang out with Aviel and Joel on Sunday. Yay!

Apparently, today is National Punctuation Day.

Today's New York Times Science section has a "Cases" article/essay on the possible detrimental effects of a father's presence in the delivery room on the parents' future romantic and sexual relationship:

In the age of the "new man," very little consideration is given to the potentially negative side effects of togetherness in the delivery room. Every man I have spoken with over the past few years knows he is expected to be with his wife when his child comes into the world.

* * *

In the most striking cases, the symptoms that men experience come close to post-traumatic stress disorder, with its roots in the witnessing of an event that involves a threat to the physical integrity of self or others and responding with intense fear, helplessness or horror.

The symptoms, as my patients have reported, include recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event and efforts to avoid recalling it.

I do not believe that most men suffer these symptoms. But some do. And predicting which men will be vulnerable to them is nearly impossible in a social climate in which men who admit reticence about being present in the delivery room risk being labeled throwbacks.

* * *

Women may want to consider the risks as they invite their partners to watch them bring new life into the world. For some of the passion that binds them together may leave their lives at the very same time.

I'd be okay with him staying up by my head, if he wanted to. I think I'd be willing to forego the mirror allowing me to see the baby emerging, and I certainly wouldn't want Julian to look if he didn't want to. Arguably, he is not allowed to look, according to halacha. (I wouldn't go for the curtain thing, though, just because in my ideal childbirth scenario, I'm not laid up in a bed.) Maybe we're on to something here, we Jews.

Cutting the cord? Let the medical professionals do it.

I'm most of the way through The Two-Income Trap, which I picked up (used) for a mere dollar at the Booksmith earlier this month. The book's authors make compelling (though not irrefutable) economic arguments in favor of sending only one parent into the income-producing workforce while the other stays home tend to children, run the household, and serve as a source of "fallback income" should the need arise. Aside from the stereotypical assumption that Dad should be the one working while Mom stays home (which contains within it the further assumption that all two-parent families consist of heterosexual parents), and the further mistake of thinking that a woman who has been out of the workforce since shortly after college is readily employable when her husband loses his job, this isn't a terrible theory. The problem is that, in order to work, all of society has to go along with it. The present cost of necessities or quasi-necessities (e.g., a good home, safe cars, education, healthy food) is calibrated to a two-income household, and unless a significant portion of the country buys into this idea all at once, I don't think we can ever go back to the breadwinner-homemaker family model. (Let's not even contemplate what a sudden mass exodus of employees from the workforce would do to the economy.)

In that light, I read OrthoMom's take on this article she found on the Orthodox Union web site. While I fundamentally agree with most of the eloquent MomOf4's crituique, I have a few points (positive and negative) to add.

First, on the (very small) "right on" side of things:

While there are certainly valid reasons for women to work outside the home, it is critical that society begin to view full-time mothering as an ideal and that everyone - mothers, fathers and the community at large - help more women have the option of staying home. To that end, our community must make changes - it must deemphasize materialism and hold fulltime mothering in greater esteem.

But that little twist of semantics is the root of the trouble. Too many people default to the view that parenting is women's work. Why does Ms. Poupko Reichman insist that mothers be home to see their children off of school in the mornings and welcome them back in the afternoons? My father was a superb breakfast-maker when my mother was still asleep after coming off a night shift (she was a nurse). Wherefore the assumption that Mom will rush home from work to make dinner, at the expense of attention to the children, rather than alternating food-prep and homework-help nights with Dad?

But, really, what got me was the focus on parenting/mothering being the most important (and, by implication, only) contribution a good Orthodox Jewish woman can make to her family and immediate society. What are we supposed to do once the children have grown? What are we supposed to do if we can't have children?

Thanks to DovBear and Mis-Nagid, I've found yet another area in which the United States lags behind most of the rest of the world: flag design.

(Libya's rating is my favorite.)

On Sunday we had Aviel and Joel over for brunch. Both are delightful, and Aviel is much bubblier and more outgoing than I expected. As a peace offering, they brought a copy of Joel's new CD, Songs For People. The music is all folksy, just voice and guitar (I think...), stuff I like when I'm in the right mood but don't really own enough of. I absolutely love the bonus tracks (not listed on the web site), which consist of Joel singing Shalom Aleichem and Eishet Chayil. However, my hands-down favorite is Amelia. Too bad he doesn't have a sound clip to go with the lyrics; you'll just have to buy the CD instead!

For Better or For Worse goes meta

Let it be known...

Proclaim it far and wide...

Declare in every corner of the land...

I hate packing.

We're moving five blocks away! Why can't this stuff just magically transport itself?

I've been reading about the monster of a hurricane headed for New Orleans, and two things from this article are sticking out in my mind:

Estimates have been made of tens of thousands of deaths from flooding that could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a 30-foot-deep toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, and waste from ruined septic systems.

[New Orleans Mayor Ray] Nagin also dispatched police and firefighters to rouse people out with sirens and bullhorns, and even gave them the authority to commandeer vehicles to aid in the evacuation.

So, now would be a really good time for Katrina to get bored with all of the blowing-around and settle hersef into a nice, quiet thunderstorm somewhere out over open water. Any...minute...now...

...stuck in the middle(sex) with you.

(translation: I'm going back to Cambridge for my fall rotation. Yay!)

From an article in today's New York times on the geographical history of New Orleans:

Although early travelers realized the irrationality of building a port on shifting mud in an area regularly ravaged by storms and disease, the opportunities to make money overrode all objections.

Go read Alisha's post on Halacha, Hashkafa, and Life. She even provides footnotes!

Here, I'll give you a teaser:

I'll buy the necessity of imposing personally meaningless limitations in order to create a collectively meaningful mood. But how about when the defining line is not me vs. us but rather then vs. now? If women had been accustomed to painting their nails in Chazal's time (or were they?) would it have been forbidden during the three weeks?

I hope you come back from Israel with some answers, Lish. Some answers, and some more questions.

Today the New York Times published letters in response to the article I blogged about last week. Some selections (not necessarily quoted in their entirety) and my comments:

My husband and I took the birthing classes at Lenox Hill Hospital 40 years ago.

My husband was given a certificate allowing him to participate in the delivery room, even though he had chickened out of the course before completion. (A man who had spent seven years in graduate school!)

He admitted he did not want to be there. I told him I understood, as I didn't want to be there either! We had no problems with recriminations or lack or warmth then or after the birth of our two other children or ever.

Anita Kaufman
Scarsdale, N.Y.

As an anthropologist studying birthing fathers in the United States and around the world, I have found that no other society expects new fathers to set aside their own emotions to be neutral labor coaches and delivery attendants.

American dads benefit from sharing this life-changing experience with mothers, but both need support and reassurance through the process.

Richard Reed
San Antonio
The writer is a professor of anthropology at Trinity University and the author of "Birthing Fathers."

My womb has not yet been blessed, but I know that when it is, I will be happy to sacrifice the menial assistance or support my husband might provide for the essential, long-lasting reward of maintaining his innocent conviction that my vagina is made of diamonds.

Carrie Lebigre
New York

I'm too emotionally drained from all I've read and seen to really comment on the Katrina aftermath. Last night on the news here they had a guy standing next to a child (his son I presume) telling the reporter how he was holding his wife's hand through the waves and couldn't hold on any more, and she told him to let go and take care of the kids. And the reporter kept asking for his name and his wife's name so maybe they could try to help him find her and he just kept repeating, "No - she's gone. She's just GONE."

Bands of roving vigilantes have looted guns and ammunition and are "patroling" the devestated areas. I'm not entirely sure what their goal is, unless they are conducting requested mercy killings of people who have lost everything else or something. What is there left to steal? I did have one terrible thought: they could snatch up all the available food and water and demand high "prices" in exchange.

I heard reports last night of a prison where the inmates were holding a guard and his family hostage, but I haven't heard anything about that situation since then. A refugee in the Superdome apparently committed suicide by jumping from one of the upper levels of seats down onto the field. There have been reports of sexual assault among the refugees in the Superdome, and food and water (and particularly baby formula) is scarce. It's hot and humid and flooded and I'm guessing far from sanitary.

So much of New Orleans in underwater, and it's not like we - the people who built up the city, chose to live there, chose to fight the forces of nature - are without blame. A part of me (the flaky environmentalist part) wants to say we should just abandon lower Louisiana once we have all the people out...let the Mississippi take her new course and let nature restore herself. But, then again, I'm not one of the people who live(d) there, so who the hell am I to speak?

From this article in the New York Times:

The Superdome refugees will make the 350-mile trip from New Orleans to Houston on 475 buses to be provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Governor Perry said. The Astrodome, which can provide living space for about 25,000 people, will be available to house them - and presumably other refugees - at least until December, and longer, if necessary.

Katrina Refugee Camp Culture. This is going to be a fascinating doctoral thesis one day. Who will write it?