Dear Friends,
We are watching the ordeal of your region with concern.
The whole nation is watching.
We send you warm wishes for your safety.
At a time like this, we are reminded about why people need to work together, help one another, and count on their neighbors and communities. In times of crisis, everyone stands together, without regard to race or religion or economic status. It should be like that without a crisis.
We look forward to the day when your beautiful part of the world is rebuilt, restored, and revived.
Meanwhile, stay safe.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The newspaper reported today that only 3% of the people in North Carolina carry flood insurance, and 8% in South Carolina. With climate change and crazy storms the new normal, homeowners should rethink the value of flood insurance for their properties. That $400 hundred dollars that you think is unnecessary could wind up costing you many thousands or even your home.
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WE are insuring them with our tax dollars… and that’s not a bad thing from my perspective. The Koch brothers and the GOP want us to forget that one of the reasons we pay taxes is to create a pool of funds that people can draw on when they find themselves temporarily in need of food, clothing, and shelter. By demonizing the so-called “takers” the anti-tax crowd has convinced the public that they will never need to avail themselves of the government services they are starving by avoiding taxes. MAYBE a silver lining from this will be a realization that government IS the solution to large and complicated problems like a hurricane that floods communities…. But, alas, it is also possible that the cuts to FEMA and the redirection of FEMA funds to ICE will result in long waits in line or unanswered phone calls or emails that will be blamed on “incompetence” when the real culprit is the GOP’s desire to drown government in a bathtub.
As for flood insurance costs, this is an area where our government needs to get its act together… and step one in that process would be a recognition that “climate change and crazy storms the new normal”. As has been widely reported the NC legislature has largely ignored climate change in setting zoning regulations on the coast and that has resulted in putting more homes in harms way.
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Special thanks to the “Cajun Army” with air boats and skills honed in swamp lands. I wonder what FEMA has actually done and will do.
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I bet we’re going to see some real horror stories of bureaucratic neglect over the next few months. An incompetent administration like this is incapable of pulling it all together for a natural disaster.
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We will see more disaster capitalism. Koch will be all over this one. I have been asking my family in North Carolina about the structural damage to public schools for that reason. (The fam is okay.)
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None of us have any real idea of what the long-range impact of this disaster will be, on both a local as well as a national level. Believe its scope will be larger and deeper than any of us realize. But sending many thoughts to help lift people up and lessen their burden of devastation and loss…
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Meanwhile the Philippines and China have been dealing with a horrendous typhoon. Do you suppose there is any chance this government will offer help to “furreners” when we can’t even take care of those we are directly responsible for?
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“It should be like that without a crisis.”
It should indeed. How I long for some unity of purpose.
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that was a very sweet and heartfelt response.
our relationships within our communities defines our humanity.
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So grateful that my friends in North Carolina, and there are quite a few, came through this relatively unscathed. But there’s still a terrible mess to clean up, and we haven’t seen the last of this.
Climate change is an enormous existential threat. Here’s another, also made possible by politicians with coffers full of dollars from fat cats:
The factory farm, or confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s a few decades old. Before the CAFO, farmed animals were typically pasture-raised. Now, they are confined in industrial warehouses, in extraordinarily inhumane conditions, and fed antibiotics in enormous quantities to keep them from catching diseases due to the close proximity to so many other animals. Fully 80 percent of the antibiotics that we produce are used for this purpose. Under these conditions, bacteria mutate rapidly in order to survive, and the antibiotics used to control them become ineffective. They no longer work on the pathogen strains that have evolved to circumvent them.
CAFOs are petri dishes for the development of new pathogens, bacterial and viral. Already, we have seen the emergence of some horrific bacterial diseases for which no existing antibiotic works. The deadliest epidemic of the twentieth century–the 1918 flu epidemic–passed from poultry to pigs to troops stationed together in Étaples, France.
It’s only a matter of time until CAFOs lead to some horrific pandemic. If we continue allowing these to operate, it’s ALMOST CERTAIN that this will be the result. If the Department of Homeland Security wanted to devote itself to heading off a REAL catastrophe, this would be it. The people who run these CAFOs are playing chicken with all our lives. I believe that this is the greatest existential threat that we face today. I’m not kidding. This is a disaster of unprecedented scale waiting to happen. And inevitably, unless something is done, it will.
If we continue to elect politicians who know no science, the result will be catastrophic.
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