Professor's experience in New Orleans

[rehmwa 2]

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When I asked for clarification about that, and his response was "I wasn't there; as far as I know, no sociology professers were; none that I know of, at least."

He then explained that he had taken a story written by EMTs, as well as a NYT article, and forwarded it to his email group.

That was my only point, even if factual, it was way too full of PC content and extrapolation, and tailor written to empathize with a particular audience.

Thanks Michele - I bet the first poster just wanted to see how long it would take for someone to actually make the call. Maybe it's a sociology experiment by Mr Stillman and this is providing him research. The thread itself is very interesting (how a piece of politically charged fiction presented as fact will be argued despite an obviously placed means of fact checking). If so, good job for the researcher - got us all hook/line/sinker.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Michele 1]

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edit to add: Wait!! You just ruined a perfectly good thread with facts

Well then, back to arguing.
I actually only did it because people were getting slammed for not doing it and I wanted to find out if it could be done (I'm contrary that way. LOLOL!). I could've just let it go; I don't get free minutes until after 7 pm my time!

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[Alias 0]

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THANKS

Well, what did he say?

Carpe Diem

[StreetScooby 5]

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So, I'm just off the phone with Joel Stillman,

Outstanding!

We are all engines of karma

[rehmwa 2]

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THANKS

Well, what did he say?

Michelle made the call - I'm way to apathetic on these things. You have to be serious about it, and I only participate to pass the time.

ALL - WHO THINKS THIS IS A RESEARCH PROJECT? and we were just the subjects. If so - bravo

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Michele 1]

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ALL - WHO THINKS THIS IS A RESEARCH PROJECT? and we were just the subjects. If so - bravo

Nah.

I never identified where I was calling from, what site I had found it on (in fact, I let him believe it was an email group...), and he asked that I clarify on his behalf. So I did. While it could be argued that it was a research project, it was not an intentional one...perhaps telling in retrospect, but not a planned, controlled experiment.

Ciels-
Michele

~Do Angels keep the dreams we seek
While our hearts lie bleeding?~

[rehmwa 2]

He doesn't have to ask the caller a single question. He just posts on various sites and reads the threads and collects his data. Pretty cool. Much more effective than telephone polls or the like.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[GeorgiaDon 340]

Thanks for doing that Michele. I guess the internet (or is it internets?) really is just a giant game of "operator".

However, not being one to let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a good rant (after all, I am a professor myself!), I'd point out that this isn't the only such story out there, many visitors to NO were caught in the situation descibed (including a Swedish member of parliament who I doubt is a complete dumbass, and a nurse from Saskatchewan I heard on NPR this morning, who definitely didn't sound like a lobotomy patient). I still think that any reasonable evacuation plan needs to take into account that there will be lots of visitors with no mode of personal transportation. Can the airlines/rental car companies/buses take care of them all? On really short notice? I doubt it. The fact that there was no plan should be a wake-up call to every city that promotes itself as a conference/tourism destination (which would be about all of them I think).
Notice that I'm not blaming Bush. Actually it's not really about blaming anyone, it's about recognizing that this was a major screw-up that doesn't need to be repeated elsewhere. Plan the dive, dive the plan applies here. I doubt that dumping on hapless tourists who find themselves strangers in a strange land in the midst of a crisis is going to prove a very useful approach.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[kallend 1,673]

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Thanks for doing that Michele. I guess the internet (or is it internets?) really is just a giant game of "operator".

However, not being one to let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a good rant (after all, I am a professor myself!), I'd point out that this isn't the only such story out there, many visitors to NO were caught in the situation descibed (including a Swedish member of parliament who I doubt is a complete dumbass, and a nurse from Saskatchewan I heard on NPR this morning, who definitely didn't sound like a lobotomy patient). I still think that any reasonable evacuation plan needs to take into account that there will be lots of visitors with no mode of personal transportation. Can the airlines/rental car companies/buses take care of them all? On really short notice? I doubt it. The fact that there was no plan should be a wake-up call to every city that promotes itself as a conference/tourism destination (which would be about all of them I think).
Notice that I'm not blaming Bush. Actually it's not really about blaming anyone, it's about recognizing that this was a major screw-up that doesn't need to be repeated elsewhere. Plan the dive, dive the plan applies here. I doubt that dumping on hapless tourists who find themselves strangers in a strange land in the midst of a crisis is going to prove a very useful approach.

Don

Altogether too reasonable, Don.

People who spend millions, tens of millions, or hundreds of millions of $$ getting elected to leadership positions need to be held accountable for major screw-ups on their watches. No-one forced any of them to run for office.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[FallRate 0]

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>but "his followers" are generally unwilling to accept the allegation that
>this was almost entirely Bush's fault.

No one has asked them to. It would just be nice, for once, to see an acceptance of what the guy said without an immediate slam of someone else to deflect the blame away from him.

If you had posted my quote in its entirety, the fact that your response is nonsensical would be much more apparent.

FallRate

[billvon 2,466]

>If you had posted my quote in its entirety . . .

Ah, the old "you're misquoting me!" line. That's one of the favorites here.

"You said X."

"You're misquoting me! If you didn't selectively pick and choose just to support your absurd point, you'd see that blah blah blah . . ."

"Here's your whole post: XXX"

"How conveniently you overlook my _other_ post where I said the opposite!"

"Here are all your posts from the past two weeks: XXXXXXXXXXX"

"You quoted a post where I said someone owes beer. What the hell does that have to do with anything? Are you just trying to confuse the issue?"

I hereby christen this tactic Speaker's Corner Tactic #1. It will be closely related to Tactic #1a, the "you're twisting my words!" tactic.

[jenfly00 0]

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What do any of your questions/statements have to do with what he states happened???


She was raped?! Well, what was she doing walking down the street without a bra???

As was stated, the analogy failed. While what happened to the Professor after he chose to not evacuate is untenable, I can't help but wonder what he was doing there in the first place. Jen, I can't help but read your response as an over reaction to a comment you didn't agree with...sorry, but if you can clarify why the analogy works, or why it was proper that the Professor stayed, please do...

As for him being at a conference, I doubt that the mandatory evac order (or indeed, common sense) precluded leaving before it was done. I've left seminars before they were complete as well, with no ill effect, and not under an evacuation order.

Was there government failures from bottom to top? Yes, of course. But why some people who could've left (and note his "story" picks up several days after the mandatory evac. order and hurricane, and (possibly) the levy breaks all occurred) and chose to not leave still amazes me. As stated in an earlier post, the absolute only way I'd stay in a mandatory evac. area is if my 82 y/o father refused to leave, and I had somehow broken both arms and couldn't manhandle him into the car. He gives no explanation as to why he remained; where were the others in the conference? Not usually is a conference attended by only a dozen people...

Dunno...just dunno. Maybe it is about an adventure gone wrong; maybe it is a classic opportunity to study first hand human nature when society breaks down. Or maybe it's about a book...I just dunno.

Ciels-
Michele

Wow, tons of suppositions concerning why he was there and why I wrote what I did.

Let's stick to the facts (as he wrote them). He was there. Why is it so improtatnt to you to focus on why? That has been discussed to death. We've moved on to the topic of what he writes happened after.

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"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[rasmack 0]

You Americans are so cute when you argue

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...

[mnealtx 0]

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Wow, tons of suppositions concerning why he was there and why I wrote what I did.

Let's stick to the facts (as he wrote them). He was there. Why is it so improtatnt to you to focus on why? That has been discussed to death. We've moved on to the topic of what he writes happened after.

Yup...and now we've moved on to the topic that he didn't actually write it....

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[wmw999 2,167]

Interesting way to word that.
No, he didn't write it. He didn't claim to have written it.
It was actually written by an EMT who was there.
(read Michele's post, Jen -- she called the guy -- he just forwarded it to a list he's on)

Got any aspersions to cast on the EMT?

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[mnealtx 0]

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Interesting way to word that.
No, he didn't write it. He didn't claim to have written it.
It was actually written by an EMT who was there.
(read Michele's post, Jen -- she called the guy -- he just forwarded it to a list he's on)

Got any aspersions to cast on the EMT?

Wendy W.

Absolutely none.... why do you ask?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[kallend 1,673]

Do we take it that the story checks out but was simply attributed to the wrong person?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[rehmwa 2]

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Do we take it that the story checks out but was simply attributed to the wrong person?

Sure, call the EMT and validate it. Then it's real. Right now it's in the realm of "someone" wrote this.

No doubt it's a collection of people's stories and experiences - multiple authors; much is true, much is exaggeration, some is fiction.

Pick and choose which parts are which depending on what you want to believe (or, more specifically, what you choose to believe about people in different roles in this mess). I have no idea which parts are which. Although I'm pretty sure that 800 people wouldn't fit under a normal overpass - but even then, I don't doubt some group at some time sat under an overpass.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[billvon 2,466]

>Sure, call the EMT and validate it.

I listened to him tell it in his own words, and they match the description of what happened above.

[billvon 2,466]

>What was the purpose of intentionally staying in an evacuation area?

This question keeps coming up. And since we have several people right here on this board who either stayed through Katrina or who will stay through Rita, it shouldn't be hard to answer. I have a feeling the answer isn't going to be that they're lazy dumbasses; some people may have good reasons for wanting to stay.

[rehmwa 2]

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>Sure, call the EMT and validate it.

I listened to him tell it in his own words, and they match the description of what happened above.

cool then, the entire story - every single part - or just the general tenor or certain parts? It still reads as a collection of experiences told from a single point of view. It's a very normal method of writing as it provides continuity of the story. I'm certain your EMT could 'validate' the basic content of several passages with anecdotal examples. I'm not certain he could validate every passage through direct observation.

How do you know he wasn't just relating to you an e-mail he read that he agrees with based on a couple things he saw?

I'm only saying it's disjointed in content and doesn't feel like a single connected story. If it's a full story of a single person, pretty neat you got to meet the actual individual that spawned the e-mail chain that later was rewritten to attribute to some teacher that was never there.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[juanesky 0]

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What do any of your questions/statements have to do with what he states happened???


She was raped?! Well, what was she doing walking down the street without a bra???

As was stated, the analogy failed. While what happened to the Professor after he chose to not evacuate is untenable, I can't help but wonder what he was doing there in the first place. Jen, I can't help but read your response as an over reaction to a comment you didn't agree with...sorry, but if you can clarify why the analogy works, or why it was proper that the Professor stayed, please do...

As for him being at a conference, I doubt that the mandatory evac order (or indeed, common sense) precluded leaving before it was done. I've left seminars before they were complete as well, with no ill effect, and not under an evacuation order.

Was there government failures from bottom to top? Yes, of course. But why some people who could've left (and note his "story" picks up several days after the mandatory evac. order and hurricane, and (possibly) the levy breaks all occurred) and chose to not leave still amazes me. As stated in an earlier post, the absolute only way I'd stay in a mandatory evac. area is if my 82 y/o father refused to leave, and I had somehow broken both arms and couldn't manhandle him into the car. He gives no explanation as to why he remained; where were the others in the conference? Not usually is a conference attended by only a dozen people...

Dunno...just dunno. Maybe it is about an adventure gone wrong; maybe it is a classic opportunity to study first hand human nature when society breaks down. Or maybe it's about a book...I just dunno.

Ciels-
Michele

Hello Michele, it's been a while. Here is my take at I was an actual witness to the events down there.

My unit, a MP RIANG co out of Rhode Island were mobilized on Aug. 31st, (As usual newspapers say it was Sept 1st.

We deployed in less than 24 hours, I had probably 3 hours to get off work, have all my month payments done, dropped it off to a friend of mine, so she could take care of these, went home for about 15-30 min to pack, and was at my base in less than 4 hours (including drive time).

We landed in NO Naval air base on the 1st (less than 24 hours after the first call.) and took a helo ride to where else? Convention center in a Chinook.

From what this deranged professor is writing about, he was just a dumbass crack smoking GWB hater that was looking for something spicy to write about.

We secured the convention center (where in front of it was a make shift hospital from the crew of the IWO JIMA a Naval amphibous ship with hospital care facilities for 300 or more people and Harrier and helo landings).

The evacuation of the whole city was done through helicopters (until about 8pm everyday), less than 2 miles from the French quarter, where this "person" was.

By the time we arrived in the convention center, all the displaced people were already flown out. This place was a total mess, but take note please, there were plenty of MRE's (Military meals ready to eat), and bottled water inside and abouts the place, including the goods from the loot that a lot of people were told to drop if they want to flew out of there in helo. (I saw a 52" plasma TV among other things).

Now, there are quite a few inconsistencies in this guy's account of events, such as on Sept 1, there was already 1600 troops, from my MP Company to an Oklahoma engineering unit, in front of the convention center which I repeat, is about 2 miles from the French Quarters.

We walked to the Super Dome, on Friday, the 2nd, and there were about 2K people left in there, which were finished evacuating in about 48 hrs.

We were in the convention center in 72 - 96 hours after the hurricane hit, yes there were few pockets with bad elements still, and we had to deal with very few, but that's another story. I consider that a fast response, considering you have to activate reserve units from accross the country.

The major problem was the looting that took place, not the one for food, the one for the luxury items that ended up in a pile of rubish in from of the convention center, in addition to 50 % of the police force just walking out of their jobs.

I could care less of what color or nationality the people responsible for that were, they are all animals in my point of view, and jepoardized a lot of innocent lives, they were not seeking food water and shelter, they were predators in search of pray.

So I will definitely call BS on what he had to say, unless he could have swiped his debit/credit card through his ass crack and get $$25,000 without any electricity.

We helped in securing the place, and everyone in the city definitely knew about the evacuation taking place in front of the convention center. How do I know? I was there and talked / help these evacuees myself.

One more thing, why on earth this "professor" will talk about C-rations when they are MRE's and are labeled as such?

Feel free to PM/call me if you'd like detailed info. and Blue skies my friend.

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

[rehmwa 2]

So, how many civilians and babies were you instructed to shoot while there?

Edit: Juansky - read up in Michele's post. The professor personally admits he wasn't there, nor did he write the essay. It is likely a piece of fiction based on a collection accounts collected by somebody, then written to appeal to a particular demographic and spammed via e-mail. But still fun the discuss.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[juanesky 0]

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Wow, tons of suppositions concerning why he was there and why I wrote what I did.

Let's stick to the facts (as he wrote them). He was there. Why is it so improtatnt to you to focus on why? That has been discussed to death. We've moved on to the topic of what he writes happened after.

Those facts were already debunked. Ask anyone who was there

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

[Gravitymaster 0]

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So, how many civilians and babies were you instructed to shoot while there?

I'd also like to know if they were instructed to blow up the levees before they started shooting innocent civilians.