Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005 Once again I'm going to point you to the Political Waves list, a Planet Waves project devoted to moving news to our readers. Jude, the list's editor and moderator, has been keeping up with both Katrina news as well as that of the passing of Chief Justice Rehnquist. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Political_Waves/ In the abyss of concerns raised by both situations, it's scarcely possible to keep up with reading, much less with reporting. Political Waves is one way we compensate for this. We also strongly recommend our readers to http://truthout.org, of which Planet Waves is a financial sponsor. They select about 20 of the day's most important news stories, post them to their front page, and then archive them for long-term access. They have excellent multimedia stuff as well, including a nice selection of on-the-scene video reports. In this space, I'll keep rolling with the more noteworthy observations I'm sent by readers or come up with, and continue pointing you to additional resources. And I'll keep a pulse on the cosmic perspective, which evolves rapidly over the next 45 days. More in-depth reporting will come each Friday in Planet Waves Weekly and the Q/A page on Jonathan Cainer's site. It is overwhelming to be reading about, hearing about and processing all of this, even far from the epicenter or from the United States. In France, many people have no idea what has happened. This is not a news junkie country, and it's not a culture that's particularly interested in what is going on outside its own borders. Yet it's also true that the impact of what has occurred will be slow-acting and come on a little like the rising of flood waters. The City of New Orleans is gone. Buildings cannot soak in standing water for weeks and still be usable, and it will take years to rebuild -- if another storm does not wipe out the recovery efforts from this one. The population is scattered; there will be nowhere to come back to for a long time. New Orleans is also a major port. It connects the Gulf of Mexico with a vast inland shipping network that connects with the Mississippi River. I heard yesterday that half of the nation's seafood comes in through New Orleans. And much of the grain that feeds the country is moved along the Mississippi and distributed from there; and for the moment this has become bogged down, just at the time of the grain harvest. While troops have moved into New Orleans and are slowly getting control, this is really a local response, and it still appears to be dreadfully inadequate. I have not heard of any federal facilities being used to house refugees, for example. The federal response needs to be directed at many levels, including getting commerce moving again, and dealing with economic impact on many levels. There was a time when that would have been easy; when the current presidential administration began, the federal budget was balanced. But the vast resources of our country are now being directed at Iraq, to the tune of about a billion dollars a day -- money largely being used to destroy, not to build or create. Each time I read a new contact point between Katrina and the Iraq war, my head spins -- levee repair money cut from the budget; state National Guardsmen sent abroad to fight, and thus unable to take care of their local areas; and so many more. The whole picture is enough to make one think that the Bush administration took over the U.S. government to fly it into the side of a mountain -- which is what many people thought, and had good reason to believe. But since Americans rarely feel the effects of their government's actions abroad, we could (in the past) cross self-interest off the list of why not to do something like start a war. Indeed, many believed it was a great idea because it would be a war for cheap oil. Now in a very real sense, the war has come home. The effects of one storm are being felt throughout an enormous country and -- if you draw the lines, understanding the effects on commerce and the economy if gasoline prices are not brought under control, and food does not start moving out of New Orleans and other southern ports at some point soon -- it is very strange to think that a hurricane can bring the United States to its knees. We are a resourceful country, and we need our resources. It was quite beyond belief to read that the State of Texas Army National Guard has borrowed Chinook helicopters from the Philippines, to use in rescue efforts in Louisiana. Then there are all the reports of the assistance the United States is NOT accepting, or remaining silent on. I'll be back tomorrow with some perspective on the oil shortage situation. This is one area that is sure to be a vast rip-off and where permanent corporate profiteering off of this disaster is likely to become a way of life in America. Meanwhile, you might find this link interesting. Cuba, quite close to Louisiana, has offered to send 1,100 doctors and tons of medical supplies. Do you think we'll be accepting that? http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.world.aid/index.html     e