Countdown: 24 Hours. Hitchens vs. Galloway in NYC, 7:00PM EST
George Galloway (Gorgeous? Or Gruesome?) is the British MP famous for “electriying the United States with his appearance at a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing on May 17, when he turned the proceedings into a condemnation of the war in Iraq.” He’s currently on tour supporting his new book, appropriately titled, “Mr. Galloway Goes to Washington - The Brit Who Set Congress Straight About Iraq.” Oh and he’s touring with, um, Jane Fonda. More familiar to us yanks is Christopher Hitchens, the one-time Trotskyist, former Nation writer, who had a public transformation after 9/11 and emerged as vocal supporter of the war in Iraq, and an enemy to fascists everywhere. Can you imagine how many friends this guy has lost over the years?
September 13th, 2005
Trying again. I turned off comment functionality a while back because spammers used this to promote their casino and porn sites. I may have found a workaround to that problem. Fingers crossed…
September 11th, 2005
Outside of Texas, Galveston’s history isn’t well known. But for the latter half of the 1800’s, Galveston was the largest and most sophisticated city in the state of Texas. In addition to its major port facilities, it claimed “the state’s first post office, first naval base, first bakery, first gaslights, first opera house, first telephones, first electric lights and first medical school.” At the time, it would have been reasonable to think that Galveston would be the “Houston” of Texas. Galveston’s surging progress ended abruptly. On Sept. 8, 1900, a hurricane battered the island and killed approximately 6,000 people. Galveston wasn’t wiped off the map but in 1980 Galveston was ranked the 29th largest city in Texas. Today it is mostly a quaint tourist destination with a charming city center that is reminiscent of New Orleans.
Joel Garreau thinks the tourist neighborhoods of New Orleans, the French Quarter and the Garden District (maybe some of CBD), about 10% of the city, will be fine. But the rest of the city, which contained about 400,000 people, will not be rebuilt. He asks, “What will New Orleans be known for in 100 years?” and concludes that it will basically be Galveston. Perhaps an equally salient question is, What will Baton Rouge look like in 100 years? What will it look like 5 years? With a sudden influx of 200,000 people, many of which will stay in the city, Baton Rouge has also been changed forever.
September 11th, 2005
You knew it was coming: a church sign in East Texas reads, “The big easy is the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.” I’m guessing that if the sign had space for more letters, it would have finished with, “… and deserved to be destroyed.”
But let’s keep some perspective. America’s faithful are doing an extraordinary job of answering the call to aid Hurricane Katrina’s victims.
September 8th, 2005
Until recently I assumed my friend Brad fled New Orleans before Katrina arrived. I learned that he was just evacuated–via helicopter. I don’t have any details but I think Brad and several others were holed-up at the Tulane University Health Sciences Center. He’s taken some photos of New Orleans before and after the flooding. My favorite picture shows his comrades on the roof watching the helicopter come into view.
September 7th, 2005
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