Last Day of the Summer

Today's the autumnal equinox, aka the last day of Summer. A good time to look back, especially since I'm now back in Austin. I'd say safely back, but for the hurricane bearing down on us. At least I'm not in Clear Lake any more, though I worry for my friends who are...
It's been a busy summer, as my travel map shows:

19 of the 51 states and DC, or 37%. I also drove within a mile of KS, NJ, and MS.
I had good conferences in PA and NY, and visited friends in PA, NY, and VA. I had a productive internship in DC and a blast in NV and HI. I lived in CA, TX, DC and MD for more than a month each, being generous with summer (which is easy to do in Texas, where summer lasts about 6 months. It was nearly 100 degrees today.). I drove through the rest of the states, though I think I set foot in each at least at a gas stop. Maybe not WV... I slept in HI, CA, NV, TX, TN, PA, DC, VA, MD, NY, and IN. Three different cities in PA, actually and two in NY.

Ich bin ein Hoosier

I'm about halfway home, in Terre Haute, Indiana. My only impression of Terre Haute is an apocalyptic scene from King's "The Stand". My only real impressions of Indiana are sports cliches from Hoosiers and the University of South Bend. Oh and that Gary, IN is an awful place to be a radiology tech. But an interstate hotel is an interstate hotel and this one has wifi.
I'm on my way back from Washington by way of New York. I visited friends in Rochester, which is really a pretty city, at least in the summer... After that stop, I proceeded to Ellicottville, an hour south of Buffalo, for COSIT.
COSIT was an interesting conference, on GIS and spatial cognition. It had about 100 people, so you could talk to almost everyone over the 4.5 days. The isolation in BFE, NY helped too, so everyone went out to dinner together. Best of all, the folks there really liked my research.
I listened to a lot of German this week, and spoke a but. The COSIT community is really dominated by Deutsch. Even the Aussies are really Germans or Austrians (except for the Brit). Maybe that's why everyone confuses Austria and Australia!

Kepler's Bookstore is Dead, Long Live the Independent Bookstore (maybe even Kepler's)

Kepler's Booksellers was a great bookstore near the Stanford campus in Menlo Park. It was a great place to browse books, grab a cup of coffee, people watch, all the things I love to do in bookstores. Now Kepler's is closing, although there is a campaign to Save Kepler's. The effort is partially inspired by Kepler's rich history I never knew about.

Kepler's will come back, or not, but I think this is a wakeup to support your
local bookseller. BookPeople in Austin is fanstastic, both the downtown monster store
and the Bergstrom Airport branch. (I lover how ABIA stocked the airport with local flavor in the restaurants, bookstore, music, etc.) If you need an excuse, Neil Gaiman in Austin at Bookpeople this month.

Powell's, in Portland, is also wonderful, both the physical store and the online presence. I should also check out Cody's Books next time I'm in Bezerkeley.

Natural Stupidity and Natural Disasters

This morning, our president, on national televion reassuring the nation about the drowning of New Orleans, said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." This is mind-boggling incompetence, ignorance, and ineptitude. I was talking to people last week about what would happen if the levees break, and I'm not a civil engineer, a disaster planner, or more than an occasional visitor to N'awlins. Wasn't Bush briefed before meeting the press? Wasn't Bush briefed as Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast?

An article on the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness website reports:

Last year, "in an eight-day tabletop exercise, more than 250 emergency preparedness officials from more than 50 federal, state and local agencies and volunteer organizations began using that catastrophic scenario -- dubbed Hurricane Pam -- to develop a recovery plan for the 13 parishes in the New Orleans area."

The planning scenario had a Category 3 storm flooding New Orleans by flowing over the levees and through gaps. They predicted a Category 3 hurricane could

"leave 300,000 people trapped in New Orleans, many of whom would not have private transportation for evacuation, send evacuees to 1,000 shelters, which would likely remain open for 100 days; [and] require the transfer of patients from hospitals in harm’s way to hospitals in other parts of the state;"

Last week, the Category 5 Katrina was headed straight towards New Orleans, before it lessened slightly to a Category 4 and swerved a bit to the east. Katrina was obviously worse than the doomsday scenario they planned for. Why was FEMA not ready even for Pam? First class ideological stupidity combined with cronyism.

Here's Bush in context, from a Washington Post story, since the official transcript is not posted by Good Morning America. The full context makes his quote even worse:

Sawyer: "Mr. President, this morning, as we speak . . . there are people with signs saying 'Help, come get me'. People still in the attic, waving. Nurses are phoning in saying the situation in hospitals is getting ever more dire and the nurses are getting sick because of no clean water. Some of the things they asked our correspondents to ask you is: They expected -- they say to us -- that the day after this hurricane that there would be a massive and visible armada of federal support. There would be boats coming in. There would be food. There would be water. It would be there within hours. They wondered: What's taking so long?"

Bush: "Well, there's a lot of food on its way. A lot of water on the way. And there's a lot of boats and choppers headed that way. Boats and choppers headed that way. It just takes a while to float 'em! ..."

Sawyer: "But given the fact that everyone anticipated a hurricane five, a possible hurricane five hitting shore, are you satisfied with the pace at which this is arriving? And which it was planned to arrive?"

Bush: "Well, I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday. I mean, I understand the anxiety of people on the ground. I can imagine -- I just can't imagine what it is like to be waving a sign saying 'come and get me now'. So there is frustration. But I want people to know there is a lot of help coming.

I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will."