Month: September 2005

Saturday/Sunday

I edited my Saturday post, since there was a weird error on my reference to Slate’s Jack Shafer’s column on the race and class issues. Feel free to see the corrected post.

I do think that among the bright spots in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina is the spirit of generosity of universities welcoming students of Tulane and other Gulf region schools. Seeing it on the local news, that such local schools as Rutgers and even my undergraduate alma mater are helping out the local students who would have attended the Gulf region school this semester, made the reminder that maybe we local folks have our own regional tragedy in mind, considering how close we are to the anniversary of 9/11. Alma Mater put it best in its press release:

We in New York City know deeply and personally how difficult and painful a disaster of this magnitude is for the individuals and families experiencing it. As we reach out to help those affected by Katrina, we will do so in the same spirit of generosity and compassion that the nation showed New Yorkers following the September 11th terrorist attacks.

And, it also really got to me, for some reason, when through Law.com, I saw how this blogger is helping out the law schools of New Orleans. Then I read the generosity of spirit of these law school deans to invite the stranded students. The law field isn’t without its heart, it’s nice to see, to help those starting their careers stay on track in such dire times.

The local news report that NYPD police and MTA buses are being sent down to New Orleans to help. (well, the buses are apparently taking the cops down and then would help transport any other trapped New Orleanians).

Last, but not least, the sudden news: the passing of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. While we have long known that he was ill, it was sudden and, that it happened during sad times, makes things sadder. I may not have agreed with Ch.J. Rehnquist about some decisions or opinions, but I will acknowledge his passing and his place in history.

There’s this saying, “May we live in interesting times,” that has been attributed to the Chinese. Indeed we do live in interesting times.

En Route ….. still

I thought after thousands of miles of traveling I know pretty much most of the “finer print” stuff related to travel. I was mistaken. Apparently, under the code “G” for group, everyone under that code must travel together. So in my case, me and my wife with the plane tickets in that group needed to check-in and board together. We didnt’ know that until B- needed to stay back in Malaysia. I thought I’d just go ahead use the ticket and reschedule B-‘s portion. Bzzzt, thank you for playing. So spent the day scrambling to find tickets back to Taipei.

Thank God for JetStarAsia, which I think will really compete head to head with AirAsia operating out of Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. It is now much cheaper to fly into and from Singapore Changi to destinations supported by ValueAir and JetStarAsia. So much so that there’s no need to fly into KLIA as the bus tickets from Singapore’s Golden Mile on Beach Road costs no more than US$7.50 to KL’s Puduraya. There’s about a dozen or so bus lines that do this trek and lots of people use it. You can save hundreds of dollars just by doing that if you’re willing to deal with the inconvenience of a 5-6 hour bus ride into KL. I am.

Having said that though, my trip last night was a real pain in the ass. Thought I was buying a Grassland bus from KL -> Singapore but found that it was really a ticket for Eltabina Ekspress. Well, the bus was okay, decent shape and not too full so I was able to lounge out for the bus ride down. It was getting to the Singapore’s customs that became a problem. I got stuck behind a bus load of Thai migrant workers. The individual time for custom’s to process them took about 5-7min each. I was standing in line for about 30+ minutes. Just enough time for my bus driver to leave me there at Singapore customs’s in Woodland. I was pissed needless to say.

Luckily there were plenty of taxi’s at 5am there and I was dropped off at the nearest MRT station. For SGD 2.90 I traveled from there to Changi Airport. One of the cheapest, cleanest, efficient and worry free trip one can take anywhere. Trip took about an hour with the two transfers along the way.

Now I’m banging away at one of the many free Internet terminals here…. can’t focus on the technical writing I need to do so I’ll just have to flush this day, relax and go with the flow. Next week will be a doozy — faced with having to move my office, apartment into a new place without B-‘s super efficient packing and cleaning skills. And having to finish some deliverables….

Thank God for coffee… I’ve fallen off the wagon. Oh well. Such is life.

BTW, based on the news reports, the New Orleans Katrina disaster seems totally off the wall. Is it worse than it reads? Tsunami devastation we’re talking about there? FEMA another disaster of a Federal Agency….

Laters,
=YC

Sides

I watched a lot of TV coverage today about the aftermath of Katrina — PBS, CNN and Fox News — to try to get a feel about what kind of spin is going on. The Newshour had the most comprehensive coverage, including an insightful analysis of the racial, political, and economic fallout. CNN had the best on-the-ground coverage. Their correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta had some video where he is on the roof of Charity General, where 200 critical patients are waiting for government choppers, while Tulane Medical across the street is evac-ing non-essential staff. The story inferred that the public charges were not prioritized. Fox had a sanguine view of the recovery. Much of the footage was a montage of wire shots rather than live coverage. What was puzzling was why the anchor needed to ask leading questions to the correspondents, rather than just letting the correspondents report their observations. The rawest blogging by the managers trying to keep up an ISP in the city, DirectNIC, was the most reliable in describing the true state on the ground. They are hoping to get a shipment of fuel for their generators by the end of the day tomorrow, or they’re sunk.

In terms of the meta-meta issue above the racial and economic issues, what does this do to our self-esteem as a nation? The social contract with our government? How secure should we feel?

We started receiving visiting law students from New Orleans today; a number will be staying with us for free at least for the next semester. The first one flew in last night, and all I could think about as she sat on the other side of my desk is that we were 10 minutes away from Ground Zero, and that we’re going to make sure they’re taken care of. That’s the least that we can do.