Commute From Hell

The client allows us, at their expense no less, to commute back to Tokyo for the weekend. I think they realize that Nasu is pretty much a wasteland as far as R&R is concerned. Anyhow, I now have the experience of a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend commute under my belt.

There were no reserved seats available on the train and that meant cattle car. I don't think I can do it justice. It must be experienced first hand. Imagine a couple of hundred people crammed into the train car, all seats occupied so the only thing left is the aisle or the space between cars. Everybody is smoking and drinking beer. There are guys rolling up and down the train with trolleys selling beer and snacks. To make room for them you have to become noncoporeal for a minute as there are no options to get out of the way. There are four stops between Nasu and Tokyo and at each one there is an unbelievable transformation where seats are emptied and filled and all in the space of two minutes while the train is stopped. The train immediately accelerates to 100+ mph and we cruise for a beer or two and the whole thing happens again.

Reach Tokyo station and the entire 15 car train empties onto the platform and a kazillion people get on a single lane escalator at once, which, in turn, spills you out into the main terminal where 38 quintillion people are going in some other direction than you. You don't know crowded until you try and find an exit at Tokyo station on Friday night.

I survived it so I am stronger right?

Mouth Breathers

Jane has an excellent post up at Firedoglake about the raping and pillaging that Dubya Gump and company are doing. Between the hundreds of billions they are going to spend rebuilding New Orleans ( an you know it will cost at least twice as much as they profess) and the fact that Halliburton was already feeding at the trough before all the bodies were recovered it is so breathtakingly disgusting that I am almost to tears. Couple all of this with the fact that Bush has suspended prevailing wage laws so that his coporate cronies and steal even more and you think you are reading a science fiction novel.

Tom Delay has the audacity to declare that the Repugs have done such a nice job over the last 11 years that the government is running at peak efficiency. WTF!.

Where is the outrage? Where are the calls for impeachment and special prosecutors? I don't know about you but I think I am reaching the saturation point and my head will just explode. I think the last straw may have been realizing that someone let Britney reproduce and that this seems to be more important than the destruction of the United States.

Jane has been on a roll lately and doing some great posts.

Bad Blogger

I know I am being a slug about the blog but I seem to always be in a crunch for time. The hours here are tough and even the commute to the client from the hotel is painful. It is at least 45 minutes by company bus with a nice healthy walk on either end. I was hoping to have some good pictures to post but it is just light in the morning when we head out and dark when we leave.
I have noted some things that are interesting/different about the Japanese. They are very rule driven and regimented in many ways. One example is cross walks. Almost all crosswalks are equipped with walk/don't walk signals and regardless of the traffic nobody crosses the street against the signal. Another example was last night as we walked to dinner and a fire engine with lights and siren going was stopped for a red light...very odd.
One very good thing I noted the other night after dinner with the client was that there was a driver waiting to drive him home from the restaurant. Seems that there is a service that you can use that will supply a driver to get you home if you plan on having alcohol at dinner. They drive your car (with white gloves on) and there is a car following to pick up the driver when he is finished. Very sensible.
Now that I have interrupted my morning routine to feed the blog beast I will put on my pants and get to work. Oh! Sorry for that image.

Different Than Tokyo

Well, I made it without incident to Nasu, Japan. It is very much not Tokyo. No English to be seen except the ubiquitous McDonalds, KFC, Denny's etc. Yes even here in the hinterlands of Japan. On the little scouting I did yesterday the reason I was told it was a "wasteland" are becoming clear. Not much to see and do except houses, factories and the shops to support them.
Hotel is small but clean with a toilet en suite, no Enlish TV so I am now down to just the internet for news. The hotel does have free high speed...go figure.
Up early and off to the client to see if I can bring this to a closure in the days allowed.

Be Prepared

Jump kits are essential in any preparation for an emergency. As the recent experiences of people who lived in the path of Katrina discovered you had better be prepared to help yourself as you cannot count on the government under this assministration. However, regardless of the who is running the government and disaster services, failing to take responsibility for yourself and your own welfare is negligent and is stupid.

Important Rules

• Wool is light, fire-resistant, and maintains its insulating properties when wet.
• Jell-O is a brand of pre-packaged instant gelatin dessert. It's the perfect food for hypothermia. Make the liquid, drink it. Choose a flavor that isn't colored red, so that when the patient vomits in the Emergency Department folks won't think he's bleeding internally.
• Plumber's candles contain more stearic acid than the regular kind. Very hard, burn a long time. Get 'em at a hardware store.
• Rule of thumb: Two sources of light; two sources of fire.
• In a survival situation you live as long as your feet do.
• In an ambush the killing zone is narrow. Get out of it.
• If you don't understand what's going on, back off until you do understand.
• You can live to be ninety without a Rambo knife but hypothermia or dehydration will kill you deader'n dirt by this time tomorrow.
• A terrorist attack is just a badly-placarded HAZMAT incident.
• Half-a-tank of gas is empty. Refuel now.
• Every time you refuel, check your coolant level, your oil level, and your tire pressure.
• In a survival situation you'll be astounded by how far a car can go with no radiator, no oil, and no tires.
• If you have an extensive kit in your car, one part should be detachable and easily portable in case you have to abandon your car.
• Nitrile gloves are better than latex gloves because: Tape won't stick to 'em; there's less chance of allergic reactions; punctures produce large rips so you know they're breached; and they have higher resistance to HAZMATs.
• Without a traction splint a femur fracture is 80% fatal. With proper traction splinting, it's only 20% fatal. Learn to make a field-expedient traction splint.
• Alcohol and disaster don't mix.
• Some situations are non-survivable. Think ahead. Stay out of those situations.
• Never ignore a warning, even if it doesn't make any sense to you at the time.
• Check the batteries in your smoke detector.
• Brush your teeth, wear your seatbelt, quit smoking, wash your hands before eating and after using the toilet, and look both ways before crossing the street.

The above link to Debra and Doyle MacDonald's site will get you started and there are excellent links on the page to get you more information.
The first rule of emergency preparedness is to assume the worst and never forget Murphy's Law. If something can go wrong it will.

No Slack

Here is something worth reading...now. Newsweek gives a brutal take on how Dubya blew it.

Bureaucratic timidity. Bad phone lines. And a failure of imagination. Why the government was so slow to respond to catastrophe.

Bad Moon Rising

Via Wolcott

Something to think about while we see the results of Dubya Gump's leadership in action.

James Howard Kunstler also sees a bad moon rising in the wake of Katrina.

"Meanwhile momentous things are swirling in the background. The price of gasoline may retreat sometime in two to six weeks, but I doubt it will fall below the $2.50 range again. In fact, having gone way above the psychological barrier of $3.00, the gasoline retailers may resist falling below that. There have been no new oil refineries built in the US since the late 1970s. There will be no new ones built now, despite the crunch on refined 'product.' Why? Because the oil companies understand that they are in a twilight industry and refineries represent huge investments in future activity, which the corporations correctly perceive will be shrinking as global oil production passes peak.

"The biggest shock to the public lies a couple of months ahead when the cost of natural gas for home heating (50 percent of the dwellings in America) combines with stubbornly higher pump prices to whap them upside the head. Natural gas at around $12.00 is now many times what it cost as recently as 2003 ($3.00). A lot of Americans will be shivering this winter and some of the weak, old, and poor will die as a result....

"Strapped for cash from filling their gas tanks, unable to buy Christmas presents at WalMart, and huddled around space heaters, the public will be wondering why they were so poorly prepared."

Oh The Burden

I accidently blundered into an article by Thomas Friedman this morning and I must say he has evidently found a new drug. One paragraph really jumps at you screaming clarity of vision and deep insight. That's all I have to say, the paragraph speaks for itself.

Because most Democrats have opposed the war from the start, and many Republicans no longer support the war per se, but only George Bush. The president has carried this war on his shoulders, and the more he's weakened politically by Katrina, the less he will be able to carry. Yes, Mr. Bush has said we'll do whatever it takes to finish the job in Iraq, but he said that before there was another huge job to do.

Emphasis mine.

Getting Focused

While I have only the internet and CNN Japan for input over here there are few things that seem to be abundantly clear.
First of all, Karl Rove's fingerprints are all over the replacement but not firing of Brown. This is classic stuff. One of Karl's favourite strategies is to deflect the issue and to give the press an alternate target and take the heat off the Dubya Gump. We shouldn't let him get away with this again and again. Dubya has the ultimate responsibility for those he appoints. End of discussion.

Secondly, all this discussion and nit picking over the details of what went wrong and who is to blame is merely another distraction from the essence of the situation. The root cause of the whole thing is that planning for the emergency and the execution of the non plan was flawed and incomplete period. The essence of planning for an emergency or disaster is to follow, without variance, Murphy's Law. It applies to every facet of emergency planning.

• We didn't count on the levees breaking - Murphy predicted it.
• We didn't count on the looting and violence - Murphy did.
• We didn't count on the failures of the pumps - Murphy was sure of it.
• We didn't plan for so many refugees - Murphy coulda told ya.
• We didn't know the hospitals would be out of commission - ditto
• Ecetera, ecetera, ecetera
  

It's endless. The reality is that you should even plan for your plan to fail.

Any thing and everything that the adminstration is trying to use to distract us from the reality of the situation should have been part of any effective reponse plan. We need to keep hammering on the complete and utter failure of our government under the non-leadership of Dubya Gump in planning and executing a comprehensive response to the emergency. We should do it now and often and let them put it off until the time is of their own choosing. We need to counteract their spin with hard words and effective action.
There are no excuses and no crying in emergency preparedness. Absolutely none.

Lots of People

While I have visited Japan and Tokyo before this is first time I have had to travel outside downtown Tokyo (beyond taxi). It is almost an overwhelming experience. First of all, Tokyo Station is absolutely huge and the amount of sensory input is vast with most of it totally incomprehensible to someone who doesn't speak more that 20 phrases of Japanese and cannot read the first bit. Add to this confusion is a cajillion people going in every direction. I was fortunate to have a local as guide or I would probably still be standing in the middle of the crowd wondering where to buy a ticket. There are evidently different systems and each has it's own ticket counter. There are a lot of messages on the electronic boards in English but it is translation English and doesn't necessarily correspond to what you might think.
Tickets bought and you are assigned a car and seat and there is specific place on the one of what may be a 100 platforms where the door to your car will stop and open for a couple of minutes. The train will absolutely leave on time.

Once on the train the ride is smooth and comfortable and very quiet even though you are traveling like a bat out of hell. I must say the scenery is a little wanting and while there a few rice fields and stuff to see most of Japan seems to be urban or urban sprawl with a a high density mix of apartment buildings with what appear to be very small apartments. A little disappointing.

My goal for tonight is to sleep a full 8 hours and not wake at 4am (3pm EDT) and then try and spend Saturday figuring out the subway system.

So I am back in my hotel in Tokyo after a one day trip North to be introduced to the client. Sunday I will head back North and spend the week at the client and travel back to Tokyo for the weekend. From what I saw of Nasu on the taxi ride to the client there is not much to entertain there and explains why the client pays for our weekends in Tokyo.

As a side note you may or may not be as depressed as I am with respect to the number of "Golden Arches" I saw in the several hundred mile train trip today or with the fact that the first thing you see as you step out of the hotel in the heart of the Ginza is a freaking Denny's. Gimme a break!

I was hoping to be able to post a picture tonight but most of what I got was a blurry telephone pole whizzing by....I will try and do better tomorrow.

Reporting from Tokyo

I might be able to stay awake long enough to publish this but then again maybe not. Anyhow, here safe and sound though for some reason I couldn't sleep on the plane so I am dragging. Otherwise uneventful journey. Settled here in the heart of the Ginza and will meet colleagues tonight for a fast dinner nearby. Will try and post a bit more later or tomorrow. Right now rain locker and try and stay awake for another 3 or 4 hours.

Shell Shocked

With the pressures of work and the planning for an undefined stay out of the country coupled with the fast influx of bad news I can't even start to keep up with all the incompetence and lies of Bush and company now that Katrina's worst in known. Every news story I read about the bungled response from every level of government especially from the federal idiots sends me screaming. Why aren't there more questions about the cronyism that put Michael Brown in the position to kill so many people with his incompetence? The theory that his staff is supposed to cover his ignorant ass falls apart when you look at their qualifications to lead a national crisis management function. Out country is like a third world nation with respect to this disaster. I am utterly disgusted and am having trouble even comprehending what the next 3 years will bring.
Goddess save us all.
My left wing hippy yippy pinko commie gay loving consorts here in the left blogtopia(see blogroll) are doing a fine job of covering all the bases while I sit here shell shocked and speechless. You'd think someone who had experienced Nam, civil rights, JFK, MLK, RFK getting assasinated, landing on the moon, Kent State, Watts, 9/11, and Iraq and more could come to grips with thousands of innocent Americans dying from the incompetence of out ficticious leader. My bad.
I will check in, I hope, from Tokyo in a day or so. I will arrive(9/8) on my 56th birthday so you guys are off the hook for neat presents but I do expect someone to tell me happy birthday.

P.S. Delta just called and I did manage to get upgraded to business class for tomorrow's flight. Some good news.

Pigs in Shit

I was on the telephone but I think I just heard Barbara Bush on CNN say that the people warehoused in Houston with nothing but the clothes on their backs and broke with no hope were better off now since this was better that most of them knew as they were mostly poor people and didn't have that much to lose. I am actually incredulous, and speechless.
I gotta run right now but I will look around and see if I can find a link to the quote a little later.

Update: here is the quote from Lady Bush

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (she chuckled)--this is working very well for them."

Going Crazy

Sorry for the quiet. Going crazy trying to get everything done before I have to be out of the country for what may be a month and a half. The biggest hassle has been trying to get enough of several of my prescriptions for the trip. Thought I would save some money and hassle by trying mail order through the online pharmacy connected to my health insurance and it has been one of the most frustrating experiences I have had in a long time. First, they kept insisting that the multiple faxed prescriptions from my doctor were not received. I was getting emails letting me know that while I was also receiving emails telling me that some were shipped. I get half the prescriptions in the mail today and instead of a 90 day supply they are for thirty days and after 15 minutes trying to get to a real live human via they automated customer service I find that since the doctor wrote the prescriptions for a month but refillable 6 times they can only fill a 30 day supply. The gotcha here is that the fine print says that they charge you the copay for a 90 day supply regardless of the presciption filled. So now I have only a months worth of drugs but I got to pay for 90 days worth twice. Some deal. Now I will have to go down and beg my local pharmacist to sell me enough to get me through and pay full price for them since my health insurance won't pay anymore this month. If you use Medco/365Wellst be prepared for the hassle of you life.
Second, since Citibank ATMs are the only option for American issued cards in Japan I called Citibank to alert them that I would be in Japan and was informed that since I hadn't charged anything on the Platinum Citi Mastercard in 6 months they had cancelled the card. No notice. At least I found out before I was standing cashless in the Ginza wondering why my card didn't work. Will have to carry enough cash to cover me for the stay which is not really a problem in Japan since it is probably the safest country in the world. The hotels will at least take AmEx.
Last but not least I see on the news this morning that Tokyo is flooded due to massive rain. I guess I had better pack waders as well.
The joys of travel!

Home Again

Back Home...Damn it's a long way to drive to Northern Arkansas. Feeling a little guilty about trying to squeeze in a little vacation but I promise I didn't know Katrina was "The One". You know "The One" that we have known for years was going to hit New Orleans or at least close enough to breach a levee and turn the city into a freaking lake. You know "The One" that we should have had a plan in place to deal with.
While I am not a specialist in disaster management I have read a few books in which disasters happened which I guess makes me more qualified that Mr. Brown. The first rule of planning for a disaster is to assume that the worst will happen and plan, to the limits of your resources, for that event. If the worst doesn't happen you have wasted nothing because Murphy and his law(s) are still in effect and sooner or later the shit will hit the fan.
We have witnessed the epitome of synergy when it comes to Katrina and the Bush administration's response.
What happens when an irrestible force meets an unbelieveable incompetence?

Hit's Keep Coming

Via Americablog. This just continues from the previous post. It is almost to criminal to believe.

From a press release LA Senator Mary Landrieu sent out today:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young annd old - deserve far better from their national governmeent.

Behind the Curtain

Just in case you aren't frustrated enough by the Bush administrations demonstration of incompetence take a look at what a Dutch commenter posted on Laura Rozen's blog War and Piece
Dutch viewer Frank Tiggelaar writes:

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

I believe a good argument could be made that this is actually criminal behavior. This is actually not that much different from the "chicken dance" we have seen before on such things as Iraq, Social Security, environment, taxes...well pretty much everything. The primary guiding principles of this administration seem to be partisan discipline, industry giveaways, and relentless lying on any and everything. These tactics have been working pretty pretty well, at least on the sheep, when it didn't hit so close to home. When it hits you in the face and happens next door it suddenly becomes obvious even to your supporters that Bush and company are total fuck ups. It's taken over two years for some people to realize that Iraq is a total shit storm and that virtually everything about this misadventure is a result of Bush incompetence. It's taken less than a week to realize it about New Orleans. I guess that's progress.

Your Choice but Choose and DO

Your choices for Hurricane Relief (stolen from Billmon)

The American Red Cross
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: Provides a full spectrum of services to disaster victims, including shelter, medical care, food, clean water and assisting with cleanup efforts.
__________________________________

America's Second Harvest
Donation link: Click here
Relief focus: Transports food to victims and secures additional warehouse space to assist member food banks in resuming and maintaining operations.
__________________________________
Catholic Charities USA
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: Community based relief efforts focused on the long-terms needs of disaster victims and affected communities.
__________________________________

Direct Relief International
Donation link: Click here
Relief focus:Serves as a private back-up support to official emergency response efforts in the United States.
__________________________________

Feed The Children
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: Mobilizing and distributing supplies in hurricane devastated areas.
__________________________________

Habitat for Humanity
Donation link: Click here
Relief focus: Helping disaster victims rebuild piece by piece and house by house.
__________________________________

Humane Society of the United States
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: Dispatching Disaster Animal Response Teams (DARTs) to rescue animals and assist their caregivers.
__________________________________

Noah's Wish
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: Keeping animals alive during disasters.
__________________________________

The Salvation Army
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: Providing hot meals to displaced disaster victims and emergency personnel working to aid those devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
__________________________________

United Jewish Communities
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: Community organized and administered humanitarian relief for disaster victims.
__________________________________

United Methodist Committee on Relief
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: General community-based disaster relief, as well as the creation and distribution of "flood buckets" -- a relief item for those who prefer to donate with a personal touch.
__________________________________

United Way
Donation Link: Click here
Relief focus: Identifying serious needs of devastated communities and helping not only with front-line disaster relief but with long-term recovery.

Travel Day

Travel Day today. NW Arkansas to Memphis. Will be interesting to see the level of traffic and to see if there are any issues with gas. Prices bounce to $3 or so here in the heartland and I paid $2.989 yesterday in Kansas City. I was expecting worse. I expect as we get closer to the east coast for there to be some issues and higher prices since that is where more of the demand is.
BTW if you are ever in Kansas City make sure you visit the Steamboat Arabia Museum it is amazing what the salvaged from the 1856 wreck. 200 tons of stuff destined for frontier. Its a regular general store. Shoes, clothers, hardware, dishes, pots, tools, food everything you might expect to need as you set up housekeeping in the new territory.
Kansas City has also done a great job of restoring and adaptive use of the Union Station. Amtrak still services it but the rest is shops etc. Very nice and a gorgeous example of beaux arts architecture.
Ok, OK. Winslow's BBQ is the place for BBQ. Down in the old farmer's market area 5th and Main I think, and worth the stop. I highly recommend the burnt ends and sausage plate with your choice of sides.
Enough travelog for today. Will try and post some later from the hotel in Memphis and maybe some pictures as well.

It's Over

Well the golfing is over for this vacation. No small animals killed, No humans seriously injured. Only a couple of dozen lost balls. I don't believe any trees were permanently injured (DrMax). Now it is off to Kansas City to see the Steamship Arabia exhibit...looking forward to it. Back here to Arkansas tomorrow and then back to Atlanta Saturday if there is gas to be found. My daughter called from Atlanta last night to see if it was as insane here as there. Evidently there is widespread panic and long lines at pumps and the always present jerk who is trying to gouge his fellow man with $4.99 gas. I hope it won't be to difficult to find gas along I40. I will fill up here and then need two fills from about 3/4 to get back to the house. I have a Hyundai that gets pretty good mileage even though it is a 6.
That's it for the update..maybe more later.