Shock and AW at Work

[Update and Second Update Below]

Shock and AW in your face: Plans to demolish former Old Town Bar and Grill building approved -- Front page headline in the Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010 Times-Standard newspaper. No one is saying that the building is anything other than what the "engineer's" say it is. It's how quickly they moved to tear it all down. The ink hadn't even dried before they voted "unanimously" to tear it down.

When all else fails, wait until there's some sort of "disaster," get someone or some agency to proclaim it an issue of "public safety," and then declare a state of emergency. After that its only a matter of pushing through whatever emergency meetings necessary to pass whatever ordinances or laws needed to do what could never be done before.

When that doesn't work, phony up some outrageous patten lie like, Saddam Hussein is evil (he hates Jews) and has weapons of mass destruction. Since we know his intentions we invade his country and a cost in billion's, if not trillion's of dollars we cannot afford, but must spend because it is a "necessary war." A necessary war that has already killed ten's of thousands of innocent people. To justify that war, they (our elected leaders) declared war on Social Security, Medi-Care and Universal Health Insurance -- not to forge working or middle America.

. . . and Now There Is Haiti

Here are some interesting pictures on CNN. Updated coverage.

Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again

Journalist and author Naomi Klein spoke in New York last night and addressed the crisis in Haiti: “We have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy—which is part natural, part unnatural—must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interest of our corporations. This is not conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again.”

---

"AW" —used to express mild disappointment, gentle entreaty, or real or mock sympathy or sentiment.

[Update Thursday, January 14, 2010]

There's a rather interesting conversation over at The Humboldt Herald about "Earthquake emergency no time for political pandering." Put the knee-jerks, top to bottom, in one room and they'd all look the same. A prime example why "Democracy," or if you prefer "democracy" as currently practiced and experienced does NOT work. If the poor people of Haiti are showing us anything, it's that they can work together to survive together WITHOUT government. No one tagging their homes.

[Update Friday, January 15, 2010]

Unlike Haiti it was heartening to see how effecient you local infrastructer took the shaking without so much as a quibble. Our illustrious Governor and our local elite's graced Friday's Times-Standard newspaper in all their splendor. If you have any doubt who these people are just look at the pictures published in the paper, ie., the Governor "shakes hands of Cherl Arkley." With all these fine folks on the job all us other citizens need not to have worried, even though there was no way to find out what was going on about anything!

 Ms. Arkley's generosity says it all:

Cherie Arkley, who owns Security National, which owns the historic building, was on hand for the governor's press conference Thursday, and afterward told him of her plans to sell off the bricks from the old building at $5 apiece, with all the proceeds to go to Keep Eureka Beautiful's street trees program. The governor pledged to buy 1,000 bricks.

”It's a wonderful way to parley a kind of sad situation into something nice,” she said, adding that Security National also has long-term plans to rebuild on the Old Town Bar and Grill site a building to house office and retail space, and possibly a restaurant.

We like parleying kinda sad things into something nice. Kinda like they're doing in Haiti right now.

--Joe