if you ever look for somebody who's lost

especially during a major disaster such as hurricane katrina, please, do not leave a message such as these ones online: "mike, please call or text me. michelle. luv ya!", or "big cuz ruby, be lookin for U! maw-maw iz worried sick. call us!"

it's pretty interesting, entering data for peoplefinder. my heart goes out to all those people, but i want to shake a lot of them, and tell them that nobody is gonna be able to help them find their loved ones if they give such bad information. chances that the missing person zirself is gonna find that one message on that specific message board are extremely small, and messages like the above don't make it into any central database. nobody can search on them; do you have any idea how many rubys and mikes there are?

i doubt my flist needs instructions, but in case somebody googles this, you should include the following information:

• the full name of the person, including any nicknames under which zie might be known.
  
• zir sex.
  
• zir age.
  
• a short physical description, a link to a photo if you have one.
  
• zir address, at the very least the city and state. the neighbourhood or the street name, if the person's name is common.
  
• whom zie worked for (zie might have been at work when the disaster struck).
  
• other people who might be with zir. but remember, families can get separated during disasters; create a record for each person for whom you're looking.
  
• any information about when and where zie was last seen.
  
• your own name, your home phone / cell phone / pager (with area codes), your email address.

all this data will end up in at least one database; the more precise information you give that is useful for distinguishing your missing person from the many others, the better. hugs and kisses for the missing person are great; just make sure you leave pertinent information first. proofread the information, especially names and phone numbers. proofread them twice. oh, and? don't use ALL CAPS -- it's hard to read.

how many dead?

i know, i am morbid. but i can't keep the numbers from running inside my head, so they must come out. 80% evacuated from NOLA, if one can believe that number (i've not actually seen anything attempting to prove it); i am trying to be optimistic.

that leaves 20% in NOLA itself. 20% of 500,000 is 100,000. 20,000 evacuated from the superdome, another 20,000 from the convention center; some 10,000 picked up by coast guard and other rescue.

50,000. how many are still alive in the city? 10,000?

i think mayor nagins is way underestimating when he talks of "thousands dead". maybe he doesn't want to face it.

who would want to.

40,000.

and that's just new orleans itself. i am getting some pretty bad vibes about some of the outlying areas, listening to non-US broadcasters.

i wonder what sort of an orchestrated "america supports you" "freedom walk" will honour those dead 4 years from now.

40,000.

fox to investigate henhouse incident

What I intend to do is lead a -- to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong.

-- george w. bush.

i couldn't make this shit up. no, you unmitigated disaster of a president. you appoint a bi-partisan commission to investigate what went wrong.

"not now"

so i've been reading (mostly from conservative voices) that now is not the time to ask for accountability, because we ought to focus on getting those people help. and i've been wondering why not, because, well, i can multi-task. i can enter data for missing persons, and i can do research on louisiana state emergency preparedness measures, and i can write LJ entries, and oh yeah, work and have somewhat of a life. and that's just me -- i am not particularly speedy and efficient; there are people who do a lot more each day. whom does it hurt if people like me, peons to whom nobody listens but other peons, are asking for accountability? it's not like the president is immediately going to stop everything else he's doing, nor does anyone expect him to. i'm not asking him to get his hands dirty cleaning up the gulf coast, just like i am not expecting him to personally run the nation building in iraq, or do all the other things a president should be on top of. i expect he delegates, and that he has access to some of the best minds on the planet to advise him, and to do the work for him.

and at the same time as we're being told to not distract the good man from what's needed to do now, we're being told that the administration was in no way hampered from dealing with the katrina disaster by its efforts in iraq. they're adamant about it. so, in its own mind, the government can walk and chew gum at the same time, something of which i was fairly certain. i'm also not expecting it to fall down on, oh, collecting taxes, building roads, and any of the other tasks that go on.

but accountability, there's no time for that, apparently. i wonder why that is.

so does the white house press corps, which has started to grow some balls again. about a third down the page starts the really good questioning, during which scott mclellan proves that he has an advanced degree in weaseling.

once, just once, i would like a white house speaker who doesn't turn into a pretzel within the same question. i would have so much more trust in this administration, and would be so much less suspicious of its motives if i felt their speakers would, now and then, actually tell it straight-out like it is, instead of forever covering their asses.