Puerto Rico

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Clarissa

October 1, 2017

“People on TV news shows spoke significantly fewer sentences about Hurricane Maria than about Hurricanes Harvey and Irma,” he writes, and “the spike in conversation about Puerto Rico right as the hurricane hit was also much smaller than the spike in mentions of Texas and Florida.”

True. And what’s really sad is that if Trump hadn’t started tweeting about Puerto Rico, it would continue to attract no attention. Nobody gives a drat about Puerto Rico unless it can be used as an argument in the eternally boring “good Trump / bad Trump” debate.

The mayor of San Juan is very smart. She knew she had to needle Trump to get him to say something nasty. Without this, it would all be still about millionaire knees and that sort of thing.

Trump is what he’s always been. There’s nothing new here. What’s everybody else’s excuse? Why is Puerto Rico only interesting because it can be used to say something about Trump? Why is nothing of any value if it can’t be seen through the prism of Trump? Why are slivers of reports on Puerto Rico sandwiched between the huge, insane stories about how the darn athletes stood for the anthem today? Nothing happened! Nobody knelt! They all stood! There’s no story here! Why in the ever-living fuck are we still on this??

OK, I’ve vented. Now let’s discuss where we are donating. Now is a good time to donate because everybody just got their paychecks and can afford to help. I hope people realize that it’s only money donations. Donating anything else right now is a horrible idea. Nobody can get even the available stuff in there. Money isn’t going to do much either while the infrastructure is down but it will help a lot in the coming weeks. This is a long-term disaster, folks. There’s no back to business for a long time to come.

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12 responses to “Puerto Rico”

Stringer Bell

October 1, 2017

“Now is a good time to donate ”

Yes. I have, and I will. But what is sad is that this is yet another responsibility of the government that it is abandoning.

I disagree with the premise of your post. People aren’t supposed to keep tabs on everything that is happening in the world. It’s exhausting. This is why we elect officials who’re supposed to do this work on our behalf.

This is FEMA’s job. They get paid to do this. I don’t agree with the parallels you make between some american citizen oblivious to the disaster in Puerto Rico and the fucking government sitting with their thumbs up their asses, doing nothing.

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 1, 2017
  
  I’m bitching about the reporters, not regular folks. It’s a major catastrophe on US territory and this sparse coverage is a disgrace.
  
  As for the government, as I’ve been saying, all it gives anymore us spectacle. But it’s a good show, let’s give it that at least.
  
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danmillerinpanama

October 1, 2017

The mayor of Guaynabo has a different view than that of the mayor of San Juan.

The mayor of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico cast serious doubt Saturday on the claims made by San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who has repeatedly attacked President Trump and accused him of abandoning Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

Guaynabo’s mayor, Angel Perez, said in an interview with The Daily Caller that his experience with the federal government has been different from Cruz’s, in part because — unlike Cruz — he has been participating in meetings with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies.

….

“My experience is different. I have been participating in different meetings at the headquarters of FEMA and our government and the help is coming in and right now my experience is different from hers. I’m receiving help from the government, we are receiving assistance from FEMA, I got people over here helping us with applications for the people that have damage in their houses. And we have here in Guaynabo, we have thousands of people that lost partially or totally their houses,” said Perez, who is a member of Puerto Rico’s New Progressive Party.

Perez’s comments echoed what FEMA administrator Brock Long said on Saturday. Long defended Trump’s tweets blasting Cruz and indicated that Cruz has failed to connect with the FEMA command center set up on the island to help with the relief effort.

When asked about Cruz’s “genocide” statement, Perez said, “I don’t know why she is saying that. What I can tell you is my experience. She is not participating in any meetings and we had a couple already with the governors and with representation of FEMA and of HUD, of these whole federal agencies that have given us help and she’s not participating in those meetings and some mayors from her political party have been participating, so I don’t know why she is saying that. My experience is very different.”

This article delves into the causes and effects of Puerto Rico’s antiquated infrastructure.

As to donations of money, there may well be little to buy and substantial difficulty getting to wherever anything useful may be available for sale.

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el

October 2, 2017

\ At least 2 dead, 24 wounded, 14 in critical condition in Las Vegas concert shooting

Horrible. Is it terrorism or a case of (drug-induced?) insanity?

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Sugs

October 2, 2017

Meanwhile I read that Trump has dedicated a golf trophy to the people of Puerto Rico. That’s exactly what they need, obviously.

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el

October 2, 2017

” Worst massacre in US history: At least 50 dead, 400 wounded in Las Vegas concert shooting […] Concert-goers reported… the sound of what they described as automatic gun fire. ”

But I am sure if the question of selling automatic guns to civilians (read: to every insane person who would wish one) were to be raised now, Second Amendment supporters will shout that this is a bad time for the discussion.

The shooter was “64-year-old Stephen Paddock from Mesquite, Nevada,” so I suppose it’s not a case of terrorism but of individual insanity.

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 2, 2017
  
  And let the obsessive moaning about “toxic white masculinity” begin. . .
  
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Stringer Bell

October 2, 2017

https://twitter.com/rob1cox/status/914846779723649025

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 2, 2017
  
  The market knows what it does.
  
  Said I sarcastically for those who are not yet fully awake.
  
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  1. Stringer Bell
    
    October 2, 2017
    
    The big turning point was sandy hook. If the mass killings of children didn’t move republicans in congress, then nothing would. The gun control debate is over.
    
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  2. el
    
    October 2, 2017
    
    \ The market knows what it does.
    
    (not sarcastically) The market does know, but do we know what we are doing?
    
    As predicted, Trump’s press secretary conveyed that it was too soon for gun control since “There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country” and since gun control laws “won’t stop these types of things from happening.”
    
    https://www.salon.com/2017/10/02/white-house-press-secretary-its-too-soon-for-gun-control/
    
    I have an idea: security checks won’t stop all terrorists, so may be it’s time to stop checking (shoes of) air travellers?
    
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el

October 2, 2017

I was shocked to discover that the shooter “was a multimillionaire who made much of his money investing in real estate.”

OK, now I read something less surprising:

// Their father was Patrick Benjamin Paddock, a violent bank robber who was on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Most Wanted list in the 1960s. The shooter himself had no criminal record beyond a traffic violation, police in Las Vegas said.

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5023994,00.html

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