Sweet suffering Jesus...

Fox News described Michelle Obama as Barack's "Baby Mama."

Just a couple days after the whole "terrorist fist jab" incident.

This election is just going to keep on digging out the ugliest, ugliest depths of the American psyche, isn't it?

It's fucking embarrassing to even share a country with some of these people.

Edited to add: In the middle of a charming full-on rant, Scalzi offers this concise summary of the issue:

Calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama” isn’t just Fox News have a happy casual larf; it’s using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama’s relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men.

My psychic prediction: If this can't be buried - and I doubt that it can - expect to see the right wing attempt to turn it around with bluster about "the real issue" being all those African-Americans who have children out of wedlock, and calling for Obama to denounce the "social pathology" of his people.

I am too sensitive of stomach to actually Google "the real issue" and "social pathology" to see if I've already been proven right.

(no subject)

Anyone want to read one of my academic papers?

It's co-authored with Lydia, but has a relatively high me:her ratio, and I'm pretty proud of the content.

Yikes.

I lived in Iowa City for five years.

Follow that link. Large parts of Iowa City, and Cedar Rapids, and eastern Iowa in general, are now underwater. They're closing part of I-80, one of the country's major east-west interstates. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that, due to the flooding of Cedar Rapids, most of eastern Iowa is about to lose Internet service. There are mandatory evacuations of thousands and thousands of homes.

It's pretty horrifying to read about. The chapel where Michael and I were married is expected to be underwater soon. The university art museum. The main university library. All of these buildings are expected to be flooded by the weekend, and the Iowa River isn't even expected to crest until the middle of next week.

Here's how bad the flood is expected to be: "UI had been bracing all at-risk facilities based on a measurement equation of the 100-year flood level plus one foot. Officials have added an additional 18 inches to that equation, which is how much higher they expect the river level to reach." The hundred-year flood level, plus two and a half feet. That's a bad flood.

What strikes me most, reading the coverage in the Press-Citizen, is how orderly and well-planned the disaster response is. And all of it seems to be being organized at the local level. Iowa City was badly flooded in the midwest floods of 1993 - they've been there before, and it shows.

( Read more... )

Is there going to be a Hurricane Katrina reprise?

No: As with earlier evacuations, public safety personnel will inform residents in a direct, door-to-door canvas. Transportation will be provided to those who require it. Those without housing options will be transported to the Red Cross Shelter at the Johnson County 4-H Fairgrounds. Emergency pet care is available, call 356-5295.

It's not that difficult. You deal with people individually, door-to-door. You provide them with transportation to a safe place. You set up an established, well-supplied Red Cross Shelter. You make provisions for people's animals. Remember Bush's wide-eyed protest, after Katrina, that "no one imagined the levees would burst?" Apparently people at ground level in a disaster like this have no similar shortage of imagination. They know. They know to expect a hundred-year flood, plus two and a half feet.

If I were still in grad school, we'd be sandbagging right now. Or setting up cots at the Johnson County Fairgrounds. Or loading up book carts in the library and taking them upstairs. Or something. There would be something we could do to help.

I lived in Iowa City for five years. Now it's underwater, and there's not the slightest hope of improvement any time soon.