Literature Nobel goes to Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.  He is best known (among us older folks) for his novel Remains of the Day, which won the Man Booker Prize and was later made into an Oscar nominated film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.   The Hopkins character is an aging butler who remininisces about his life of service and his suppression of any emotional and romantic life of his own.

It is so quintessentially British that it seemed remarkable that a Japanese man could have so perfectly captured the life of an English butler;  but, in fact, Ishiguro has lived in England since he was eight, when his family moved there.   He was educated in English schools, and he thinks of himself as British, although he also has Japanese sensibilities, having been raised by Japanese parents and having spoken Japanese in their home.  Perhaps that mixture of English and Japanese life experience is what gives him such a range of emotional resonance.

Ishiguro's novelistic range is shown in the contrast -- of time, place, and almost everything else -- with his later dystopian novel Never Let Me Go.   As it begins, you think you're listening in on conversation of a group of teenagers in an ordinary English boarding school.    As the novel moves along, you begin to realize that this is far in the future and that these teens are actually clones to real people out there in the world, created for the specific purpose of supplying "spare parts," as needed, for their "originals."

The permanent secretary of the Swedish Committee that gave the award said:   "[Ishigura] is an exquisite novelist.   I would say if you mix Jane Austen and Franz Kafka you get Ishiguro in a nutshell."   And she added, "a touch of Proust as well" because of his focus on memory.

The formal statement from the academy hailed Ishiguro's ability to reveal "the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world . . . in novels of great emotional force" that touch on memory, time and self delusion."

I agree, although I found it very discomforting to read Never Let Me Go -- and couldn't bring myself to see the film;  but that's my own personal aversion to dystopian fiction -- and it's only this one of his work on this theme.

I prefer the real world as I know it.   There's plenty of room for human depth, conflict, love, and achievement within that, for me.   Even so, I greatly admire Ishiguro's writing, and I'm glad that his quality of writing has been recognized with the Nobel.

This will not be a controversial choice, as was last year's pick of Bob Dylan for the Literature Prize.   Some people thought it was great, others a bit odd for a singer to be chosen on the basis of song lyrics alone.

Ralph

Nobel Peace Prize for nuclear-ban group

Reuters is reporting:

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee, warning of a rising risk of nuclear war, awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday to a little-known international campaign group advocating for a ban on nuclear weapons.

"The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) describes itself as a coalition of grassroots non-gobvernment groups in more than 100 nations.  It began in Australia and was officially launched in Vienna in 2007."

"If Only Stephen Pollack Were a Muslim" -- Thomas Friedman

Tom Friedman's New York Times essay on our refusal to do anything about home-grown gun violence is a must read.

*     *     *     *     *

"If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted 'Allahu akbar' before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he had been a member of ISIS … If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another …

If all of that had happened, no one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and 'politicize' Paddock’s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies.

No, no, no. Then we know what we’d be doing. We’d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9/11. Then Donald Trump would be tweeting every hour 'I told you so,' as he does minutes after every terror attack in Europe, precisely to immediately politicize them. Then there would be immediate calls for a commission of inquiry to see what new laws we need to put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Then we’d be 'weighing all options' against the country of origin.

"But what happens when the country of origin is us?

"What happens when the killer was only a disturbed American armed to the teeth with military-style weapons that he bought legally or acquired easily because of us and our crazy lax gun laws?

"Then we know what happens: The president and the Republican Party go into overdrive to ensure that nothing happens. Then they insist — unlike with every ISIS-related terror attack — that the event must not be 'politicized' by asking anyone, particularly themselves, to look in the mirror and rethink their opposition to common-sense gun laws. . . . 

". . . they will not ask themselves to make even the smallest sacrifice -- one that might risk their seats in Congress -- to stand up for legislation that might make it just a little harder for an American to stockpile an arsenal like Paddock did. . . .

"On crushing ISIS, our president and his party are all in.  On asking the N.R.A. for even the tiniest moderation, they are AWOL.  No matter how many innocents are fatally shot . . . it's never time to discuss any serious policy measures to mitigate gun violence. . . . 

"They know full well most Americans don't want to take away people's right to hunt or defend themselves.  All we want to take away is the right of someone to amass a military arsenal . . . and use it on innocent Americans when some crazy rage wells up inside him.   But the N.R.A. has these cowardly legislators in a choke hold.

"What to do?

"Forget about persuading these legislators.  They are not confused or underinformed.  They are either bought or intimidated.  Because no honest and decent American lawmaker would look at Las Vegas . . . today and say,  'I think the smartest and most prudent thing to do for our kids is to just do nothing.'

"So there is only one remedy:  Get power.  If you are as fed up as I am, then register someone to vote or run for office yourself or donate money to someone running to replace these cowardly legislators with a majority for common-sense gun laws.

"This is about raw power, not persuasion.  And the first chance we have to change the balance of power is the 2018 midterm elections.  Forget about trying to get anything done before then.  Don't waste your breath.

"Just get power.  Start now."

*     *     *     *     *

Steve Bannon is not going away

When Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist in the White House, resigned-or-was-fired, he did not fade silently away.   He said he was simply going to continue "the war for Trump" from outside.    You know, get away from all that inside fighting with Jared for influence with the boss.

And he was certainly right about continuing the fight for populist, nationalist politics.   Whether it will benefit Trump remains to be seen.

Bannon's first act was to shore up his relationship with the ultra-rich, Mercer family, main financial backers of Breitbart News and right-wing politicians.   Bannon was promptly reinstalled atop the Breitbart News organization and assured by the Mercers that they would fund his efforts to recruit primary candidates to "take over the Republican Party." 

We saw the results of that last week in Alabama.   In the run-off election for the Republican primary to choose candidates to run for the open seat left by Sen. Jeff Sessions, Bannon campaigned for Judge Roy Moore, as anti-establishment as they make 'em.   His opponent in the run-off, Luther Strange, was endorsed by President Trump, who went to Alabama to hold a rally for Strange.  For more on these two men, see ShrinkRap ("So Much Losing," 9/28;  and "Guns, God, and Defiance," 9/29).

Steve Bannon's ambitions are larger than Donald Trump's presidency.   Trump was merely a convenient tool that Bannon tried to use to install his own vision in power.   Bannon's nationalistic agenda preceded Trump and will last far longer than the Trump presidency.

Reporting by Bloomberg Businbessweek, among others, says that Bannon and Trump still talk on the phone.   And Bannon tries to maintain the image of still being an adviser to the president.   However, they ended up on opposite sides in the Alabama race, because other advisers persuaded a reluctant Trump to back the establishment candidate, Luther Strange.   But it was notable that at his rally for Moore, three days before the election, Bannon told the crowd that "a vote for Judge Moore is a vote for Donald J. Trump."

Trump was so annoyed that his candidate lost that he deleted his tweets that had encouraged people to vote for Strange, and he began saying how great Judge Moore is, all but jumping on the Moore bandwagon.

Bannon left the night after the election to go to Colorado to interview potential candidates as part of a swing through Western states in search of nationalist candidates to help him "take over the Republican Party."

Regardless of the fate of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon is a force to be reckoned with, all on his own.

Let's start by helping the Democratic candidate Doug Jones defeat Roy Moore in the general election in early December for that U.S. Senate seat.

Ralph

Some statistics on deaths by gunshot

Based on an article by Nicholas Kristof in the AJC, using data from Harvard's David Hememway.

"More Americans have died from guns (including suicides) than the sum total of all the Americans who died in all the wars in American history, back to the American Revolution. . . .  American kids are 14 times more likely to die from guns as children in other developed countries.."

"When Australia suffered a mass shooting in 1996, the country united behind tougher laws on firearms.  As a result, the gun homicide rate was almost halved, and the gun suicide rate dropped by half, according to the Journal of Public Health Policy."

Will we accept the Las Vegas shooting as the new normal?

Here are some excerpts from an important op-ed essay by former Congressman Steve Israel (D-NY), published in the New York Times, October 3, 2017.   It's titled "Nothing Will Change After the Las Vegas Shooting."

*     *     *     *     *

"In the wake of one of the deadliest mass shootings in our nation's history, perhaps the most asked question by Americans is, "Will anything change?"  The simple answer is no.   The more vital question is, "Why not?"

"Congress is already doing what it sees as its part.  Flags have been lowered, thoughts and prayers tweeted, and sometime this week it will perform the latest episode in the longest-running drama on C-Span:  the moment of silence.  It's how they responded to other mass shootings . . . .  In my 16 years in Congress, [there have been] 52 mass killings.  Fewer lessons about Congress were starker than the ones I learned about why, after each one, nothing happened. . . . 

"[After Sandy Hook Elementary School] I was confident that at the very least we'd expand background checks. . . . My confidence ebbed when I heard my colleagues turn this into a debate over the rights of gun owners instead of the right to life of children . . . .  [and when speaking privately they said] "any vote for gun safety would lower their N.R.A. scores, making them casualties in the next election.

"'Finally, we will do something,' I thought after the June 2016 mass shooting in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub. . . .  [W]e heard that several colleagues had . . . started a sit-in to force the House to address gun violence. . . .  We held the floor for 24 hours . . . a moment [that] I thought . . . could no longer be ignored.  I was right.  Congress did act.  It declared that fines would be slapped on House members who broadcast audio or video from the House floor. . . . [i.e., a penalty for those who tried to force the House to act by filming the sit-in on their cell phones.].

" . . . Democrats would [ritualistically] offer amendments to prevent people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms.  A no-brainer, I thought.  If you're too dangerous to board a plane, you're too dangerous to buy an assault weapon, a common-sense position shared by over 80 percent of Americans. . . .[but the Republican chairman of the committee argued against it, saying that] "in American, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. . . .  The amendment failed.

"So did our attempts to rescind the infamous Dickey Amendment, which prevents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from even researching the relationship between gun violence and public health.   [It] was so absurd that it was ultimately opposed by its own sponsor . . .  Still we failed.

"And finally, there are those moments when members ourselves became victims.  Gabby Giffords in Tucson;  Steve Scalise at the congressional baseball game.   Even the proximity of bullets resulted in shock -- and inaction.

"Why?   Three reasons.

"First, just like everything else in Washington, the gun lobby has become more polarized. . . .  The gun lobby is in a race to see who can become more brazen, more extreme.

"Second, congressional redistricting has pulled Republicans so far to the right that anything less than total subservience to the gun lobby is viewed as support for gun confiscation.  The gun lobby score is a litmus test with zero margin for error.

"Third, the problem is you, the reader.  You've become inoculated.   You'll read this essay and others like it, and turn the page or click another link.  You'll watch or listen to the news and shake your head, then flip to another channel or another app.  This horrific event will recede into our collective memory.

"That's what the gun lobbyists are counting on.   They want you to forget.  To accept the deaths of at least 58 children, parents, brothers, sisters, friends as the new normal.  To turn this page with one hand, and use the other hand to vote for members of Congress who will rise in another moment of silence this week.  And next week.  And the foreseeable future."

*     *     *     *     *

I lose hope a little bit more when good people in Congress, like Steve Israel, decide not to run again -- as he did last year.   That means that we have to be more active -- more supportive of the good ones who are there and more involved in choosing the new ones to replace the Israels, who've served their time and done their best.

We have a choice right now to support the Democrat running in our neighbor state of Alabama.  Doug Jones is the only hope to prevent twice-removed-from-office Judge Roy Moore from being Alabama's new senator.    Riding in to one of his rallies on his horse, he pulled out a handgun and waved it around to make sure the crowd knows where he stands on gun rights.  Let's help Alabama send Doug Jones to Washington instead.

Ralph

Mass shooting in Las Vegas; 59 dead

A single shooter, with no known connections (at this point) to any terrorist group, and with no known disqualification (in our current laws) for owning guns -- took some of his 40 guns, including modified semi-automatic rifles and sniper sights, with him to his 32nd floor hotel room overlooking an open plaza in Las Vegas where a country music festival was going on Sunday night, with 22,000 people in attendance.

This 64 year old man opened fire, using a semi-automatic rifle (the audio clearly broadcast the rapid bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam sounds).   At last count 59 are dead and more than 500 injured, making this the largest mass shooting in the history of the U.S.  It's just 16 months since the previous record was set in the Orlando nightclub massacre.

Police found the shooter also dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot, after he initially shot at them through the door when they tried to get in.  His brother told reporters that he is completely baffled, that he had no indication whatsoever that would have suggested this.   He said his brother had no history of violence, ever, and that he had no religious beliefs or political leanings. 

The twice-divorced man is said to be good friends with his ex-wives, that he has a girl friend, who is currently out of the country.  He is well-off financially, owning more than one home, and is known in Vegas casinos as a "high roller" gambler, who is considered a privileged customer who gets extra perks, such as room upgrades, to court his patronage.   Apparently he spends much of his time gambling, often winning large sums.

In a warrant-authorized raid on his home in northern Nevada, they found more guns and some home-made explosive devices.   Neighbors, in the upscale housing area of mostly retired people, were shocked at the news.    Records at a local gun shop show that he had made some purchases there and had passed the background check.

So far (Monday, 11 pm) the police have not found anything to suggest a motive.   They have not yet found a phone or laptop or any suicide note or manifesto.   ISIS has claimed responsibility, but they often do that falsely;  and FBI agents seriously doubt it, because the man is so unlike the profile of their usual recruits (in contrast, he is white, age 64, relative wealth, immersed in casinos and gambling);  nor is there any indication of a connection with radical or fringe groups.

He had checked into the hotel several days before.   One wonders why such an arsenal in his room would not have aroused suspicion.   Rachel Maddow did some research and found that these casino-hotels regularly host gun shows, nearly one a week somewhere in the area.  So apparently people with dozens of guns in their rooms is rather commonplace.  Maybe they assumed he was a gun dealer.

At this point, what is there to say -- except the obvious?   Why does anyone need to own guns designed for nothing other than to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible?    If we did nothing except change the law that allows such semi-automatic and automatic rifles to be in ordinary people's possession -- then, instead of 59 dead, we might have 2 or 3 dead.

Why don't we at least do that?   Huh, WHY?

Ralph

Kim Jong Un is sane and understandable, even though he's also a terrible despot.

I found this New York Times letter to the editor, from Michael Mindlin of Long Beach, CA, especially compelling and full of good sense.  He writes:

"Let's get this out of the way.  Kim Jong Un is a terrible despot who starves and murders the North Korean people to further his militaristic goals.   But let's be clear:  He is not crazy or beyond understanding.  And using this falsehood to justify our actions is dangerous.

"In fact, the only thing more dangerous is the ignorance and hubris exhibited by President Trump.  Mr. Kim's actions are sane and absolutely predictable.  He has learned that to survive as an enemy of the United States he must possess a nuclear bomb.   He has one now, and nothing will force him to commit suicide by giving it up or by engaging the full power of an American attack.

"There is no good outcome that comes from false threats and name-calling -- only miscalculation.  Nor is there any military outcome that doesn't result in horrific deaths and possible nuclear fallout on the West Coast.   What is needed now is sober, adult conduct with the wisdom that comes from reading a history book and approaching the job of president as if there were millions of lives on the line."

*   *   *

That's the letter.  But read the next blog -- "Trump undermines his own Secretary of State" -- and think about Mr. Mindlin's observation that "the only thing more dangerous is the ignorance and hubris exhibited by President Trump."

Trump undermines his own Sec. of State

It seemed there was a lull for a few days in the taunting between Trump and Kim Jong Un.   There were news stories of "back channels of communication" with Kim's people and that the State Department is actively engaged in a diplomatic effort to resolve tensions with North Korea.

As reported by Eline Gordts and Nick Robins-Early on HuffPost, Sec. of State Rex Tillerson told reporters while on his trip to Beijing that the the U.S. has several direct lines of communication open and that we are actively engaged in dialogue with North Korean officials.  Tillerson added, “We ask: ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation, a blackout.”

Earlier in the day, Tillerson had spoken of a peaceful resolution and offered reassurances that the U.S. is not trying to topple Kim's regime.  "I think the whole situation's a bit overheated right now, [and] everyone would like for it to calm down," he added.

So what does Tillerson's boss do -- the man-child in the Oval Office?   One day after Tillerson's hopeful statements, which were not a leak but obviously a deliberate, reassuring message to both the American people and the North Koreans, Trump tweets out this:

"I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man.  Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done."

My first thought when I read this was:   'Tillerson's going to have to resign.  Surely this will be the last straw for him.'   As difficult as this job is, to be undermined by your own president, while you are in a foreign country trying to stop a nuclear war, is an untenable situation.   Unless . . .

The only possible alternative is that Tillerson and Trump have strategized a "good cop/bad cop" routine.   But I don't think so.   I think we're seeing Trump at his worst, most dangerous level of fury and lashing out.

In the course of the last week, he had all those losses:  the last chance to repeal Obamacare;  the candidate that he grudgingly endorsed for the Alabama seat in the senate lost;  he had a travel-gate scandal in his cabinet and fired Sec. Tom Price;  the Mueller investigation is moving in on the White House;  he's being roundly criticized for an inadequate response to Puerto Rico's hurricane crisis, and San Juan's mayor -- a woman -- has bested him in the media war over just that failure.  So far, he's lost the PR battle, badly.

Every day he proves again that he is just not presidential material.  On a completely separate track from ideology or political policy -- he doesn't have the character or the soul . . . or the maturity for it.

But this is just the point.   Trump is incapable of absorbing very much criticism and behaving like an adult.    The real danger is that he'll reach the end of his short fuse of anger and humiliation -- and retaliate by sending the bombers toward North Korea.

Ralph

Puerto Rico's disaster -- and Trump's petulant, despicable response to criticism

The Trump administration got pretty good marks for handling the hurricane and flood damage in Texas and Louisiana from Harvey and in Florida from Irma.  Hurricane Maria's utter destruction of the island of Puerto Rico and other islands is another matter.

As reported by the Washington Post and MSNBC:    Over and beyond the vast physical destruction of houses, businesses, and bridges, virtually the entire island is without electric power and may be for months because the complete electric grid will have to be rebuilt.   It's not just some wires down.    Cell phone service is spotty at best, mostly non-existent.  And for days more than half of the 3 million residents were without drinking water, and the food and fuel supplies were dwindling to the point of unsustainability.  

The lack of communication meant that many of the people were isolated in remote areas.  Some inner parts of the island have not been reached by rescue teams even yet, 10 days after the storm passed.  Bridges were destroyed, roads swamped by water, hospitals and nursing homes in dire straits.    Even those with their own generators were running out of fuel.  Sixteen people are already known to have died, but that likely will rise as reports from isolated areas come in.   

Now, remember that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens;  they pay taxes.   Beyond the humanitarian crisis that we always want to respond to, we have the responsibility to them just as much as to the people of Texas and Florida.

Initially, even before the storm hit, President Trump was proactive, being in touch with local officials, declaring emergency status, promising assistance.   There were hundreds of shipping containers full of food, water, medical supplies waiting on the docks.

And then the storm hit on Wednesday, Sept. 20th.   Trump flew to his golf club on Thursday to spend the weekend.  And for four days neither he nor any of his top officials made any mention publicly of what was happening in Puerto Rico.   He did hold a meeting at the golf club on Friday with several cabinet officials, including Acting Director of Homeland Security Elaine Duke.   But the topic of the meeting was Trump's new, revised travel ban -- and he and Duke spoke only briefly about Puerto Rico after the meeting.

Meanwhile, Trump had a few other things keeping him busy:   a twitter war with the North Korean leader, another twitter war about NFL players and the national anthem, the final defeat of the "kill Obamacare" effort, and the election loss of the candidate he had supported for Jeff Sessions' senate seat.

Back in Puerto Rico, things were getting worse.   All the food, water, and medical supplies in the containers on the docks -- it was all still just sitting there, not getting to the people who now desperately needed them.   There were no drivers and few trucks.

As reported by the Washington Post, the White House didn't seem to realize that:  "Unlike what they faced after recent storms in Texas and Florida, the federal agencies found themselves partnered with a government completely flattened by the hurricane and operating with almost no information about the status of its citizens.   The Federal Emergency Management Agency struggled to find truck drivers to deliver aid from ports to people in need."

The level of devastation made travel around the island difficult and, in many areas, impossible.   And the lack of help meant that those who would normally have driven the trucks were desperately trying to find water and food for their own families.   So, where FEMA usually would be in a supportive role to help the local state and municipal functions, they were having to step in and actually do those jobs.

They needed far more than the 4,400 manpower to come to Puerto Rico;  they needed the military to come in and take over the response.   Trump and his advisers were slow to understand this.   He was telling the media that their response was "great" and that the governor of Puerto Rico was praising him for the "terrific" response.

That was not what was beginning to show on our news media, as the networks got broadcast capability going.    Trump began to bristle at the negative images that were being shown.  As the week wore on, he began to criticize the local response, comparing them unfavorably to the way people in Texas and Florida responded.                                                        
It took five days after the storm hit before anyone from the White House actually visited the island.   It took a week for Trump to waive the Jones Act, which made it difficult to ship in goods from U.S. ports, using foreign ships.   He gave this lame explanation for the delays:   "Puerto Rico is an island . . .  surrounded by water . . . big water . . . ocean water.   It's a very big ocean."

Yes, Mr. President.    The second graders understand that.   Now please move on to a more helpful response.

As he left for another weekend at his New Jersey golf club on Thursday this week, now the eighth day of the destruction, Trump said this to reporters:

“We have done an incredible job considering there’s absolutely nothing to work with."    This was a slap at the Puerto Rican government and the people.   Rather than speaking about the severe destruction, he focused on how the rebuilding was going to be paid for, given the "tremendous amount of existing debt" on the island.

Finally on Friday, Day #10, San Juan's mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz delivered, via satelite on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show, an impassioned plea for help.  Her anger at the lack of adequate response, and her anguish at not being able to provide for her people, were vivid and palpable and very moving.    She said, "If anybody is listening, I beg you.   We need help. . . . I am done being polite;  I am done being politically correct.   I am mad as hell. . . . We are dying here.  If we don't get the food and the water into the people's hands, we are going to see something close to genocide."

Trump by now had gotten a report from a staff member who had been to Puerto Rico and from FEMA, and he responded by appointing a three-star general to head up a rescue operation, including military troops, vehicles, helicopters, communications, etc.

But, even while finally doing the right thing, he also let loose on twitter, blaming the local people for their plight and showing contempt for their not being more self-sufficient.   Saturday morning, he tweeted that the mayor and others had displayed "such poor leadership ability."   He criticized them for "not able to get their workers to help.   They want everything done for them."   He also noted that there are now 10,000 federal workers on the "totally destroyed island" and "doing a fantastic job."

He also said:  "The mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump."   And he took shots at the "fake news" on CNN and NBC that are "going out of their way to disparage our First Responders to 'get Trump'."

It's difficult to find the words for my utter contempt for this man.   Such meanness.   Such smallness of heart.   Trump is the one with "such poor leadership ability."

Former disaster assistance chief in Obama's administration, Jeremy Konyndyk, said he was trying to keep a balanced view of the Trump administration's response, because he knows how hard it is.  But these latest developments, he regards as "disaster management malpractice."

Mayor Cruz's response to the president's attack on her was to say "I don't have time for politics. . . . I have one goal, and it is saving lives.  I will say whatever needs to be said or done to be able to do that."   But, she added, don't take her word for it.    General Buchanan, the newly arrived three-star general, whom Trump has appointed to take charge, has told her that he doesn't yet have what he needs in Puerto Rico to get the situation under control, an implicit distancing of himself from Trump's critical stance.

Apparently, it takes negative media coverage of Trump himself, not of the devastating storm, to get him to act.   Only when he began to look bad on TV -- and when his lies about his great response were exposed -- did he really do the things that a president needed to do.   He's now done what should have been done a week ago, and help is on the way.   But this is going to be his Katrina moment.

Ralph