i’d stuck up a #HurricaneMichael diary at C99%

6 responses to “i’d stuck up a #HurricaneMichael diary at C99%”

1. j of 9 | October 13, 2018 at 9:25 pm | Reply

   i popped into MSDNC yesterday for the 1st time in ages to see what could be seen of Hurricane Michael’s aftermath. a drone flying while filming over a dead city, not even a dog moving. I thought maybe i saw Wall E but not sure. what of this society will endure? nothing. look at the rubble at Mexico Beach. everything we build is junk. we don’t even consider building anything to last beyond a generation, not right now. and stuff we do build to “last” is probably better not being built, like dams, nuclear reactors, pipelines, etc. under capitalism’s creative destruction, homes, office buildings, malls, etc., were all going to disappear into one of our ever-expanding landfills anyway, so Michael is really lending a hand.

   for differing reasons, past imperial leaders generally felt obligated to monumentalize themselves in various ways, esp their rule as expressing the “mandate of heaven” in some sense. hello pyramids. the endurance of a ruler’s art & architecture was to be a testament to the wisdom & beneficence of the ruler. a Julius Caesar and many, many another conqueror walked into Thebes or Alexandria or Luxor and was stirred to competitive rivalry at the greatness they saw (they also just stole things too; e.g., Cleopatra’s pyramidal needles, the basis for the Washington Monument. not denying that all of this involved a lot of killing, plundering, slavery, etc.) In our society, our monumental buildings generally are reserved for the government. Yes, I know there are libraries & performance halls & museums, some quite impressive, in our larger cities, but in every hill & dale in this country, gov’t buildings, the courthouses especially, the temples of justice, offer the only monumental testimony to the “wisdom” of our political leaders. almost everything else is garbage. except maybe our prisons.

   the state religion served as a kind of “technology” for interpreting the will of the gods & propitiating the heavens in time of crisis & disaster. what techniques, what tricks, what pseudo-pious flimflam will our state religion offer for Michael? hmmm…more strident calls for even more gaudy offerings to our national deity, Techne, technology? more hyper-processed garbage from more & more complex processes? yeah, that’ll fix it.

   • wendyedavis | October 14, 2018 at 4:18 pm | Reply

     you left out towering stone edifices such as churches and cathedrals, as well, some taking masons generations to build, literally. some garganutan stone bridge spans as well; simply breath-taking in their architecture and creation, although labor was cheap, wasn’t it?

     gulf gal over yonder was incredibly helpful explaining gulf hurricanes, as she’d been thru many, and knew the answers to so many questions. she’d know many of the hardest hit areas in florida, and as to mexico city, said that most of the dwellings were old florida, meaning before laws mandating they be built on piles, and that yes, only wealthy would buy the properties and build mcmansions on them.

     now high rises had begun to be constructed to bend a bit, more like bamboo, in order to withstand such high winds, but i dunno where that’s so. but still, hospitals had windows blown to smithereens, patients evacuated. some local coverage had rick scott saying that people who’d been ordered to evacuate and *chose to stay* were on their own.

     how about all those who were too poor or disabled to evacuate, rick? but one thing’s for certain: the grifters are already on the loose and those areas will look like haiti (another clinton fucks all but the 1% family project) and new orleans, eh? more shock doctrine capitalism ahead for too many. i just saw on twitter that the gov of haiti just appointed sean penn to be ambassador at large. jayzus, star power; gotta love it. was he the star who ran for gov there some years back, and got trounced?

     18 confirmed dead now, and while there are any reports as to ‘hope wanes in search for survivor, not one said how many have been reported missing. but in any event, it was an epic storm in several categories.

     • j of 9 | October 14, 2018 at 9:01 pm | Reply

       most of those churches are crap too. I helped open one of these places up recently, remember? the contractors screwed up the design of the gigantic glass windows at the front of the auditorium, in the middle of winter they put the drywall in everywhere before they put the windows in, so the drywall constantly peels & warps, and they screwed up the installation of the fire panel & emergency annunciator. this is stuff that was discovered in just the 1st two months after the building opened. can’t remember how many leaks we had, it was a few, but we had a major backup spew into the reception area during the sanctuary dedication service, 275 effervescent guests present with something stinky bubbling up thru the kitchen floor drain. dignitaries and doo doo, seems appropriate in hindsight. what a scandal if the mother superior archbishoprick’s robes dipped in the poopy.

       but yeah, I was overgeneralizing as is my wont. America’s kitchiest place, “south of the border” ain’t going nowhere. (ok, I didn’t double check that.)

       http://www.thesouthoftheborder.com/
       pictures & worthless comments here
       https://www.yelp.com/biz/south-of-the-border-dillon

       • wendyedavis | October 15, 2018 at 9:52 am | Reply

         well i was speaking of stone edifices, but you’re talking stick-built, so there’s that… many builders are contracted to build christ-burgers, as i used to call one in boulder, because: low bids, but sometimes you actually do get what you (don’t) pay for. mr. wd used to get hired to fix the abominable mistake of other contractors. one of that sort sold his house, and the new owners ended up tearing the whole mess down.

         and crap done on the cheap will always fail, including foundations and concrete pads not even up to (wink, wink) the most basic (if not illegal) building code standards.

         the vid wouldn’t play. flashplayer out of date? pffft.

2. j of 9 | October 15, 2018 at 5:00 pm | Reply

   well san fran wasn’t exactly leveled in that big quake circa ’90 that we all saw on the MLB World Series, was it? pinkos do exaggerate the rubble, don’t we? I mean, how many people have actually laid eyeballs on those archipelagos of trash in the Pacific? and don’t even try it w/all the new piles of ruins in Syria! that’s just crazy talk. they got ruins going back millennia there!

   • wendyedavis | October 16, 2018 at 9:23 am | Reply

     well now you’re goin’ pretty far afield with quakes and bombings, but yes, very funny. but you saw the SF during the world series? but the infrastructure in the good ol’ usa would take trillions to upgrade to any safety standards reports said a decade ago.

     but aha! we the rabble have seen videos of plastic garbage patches? or were they faked like the moon landing ones?

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