Howard! You Sneaky Oraculizer! ♠ Howard! Espèce d'Oraculiseur Sournois! |

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Howard has been ambushing and oraculizing me perfidiously in the comments of this post. He took advantage on the fact that I was jesting with gorgeous South Dakota young women, and therefore not on full alert.

How vile! How unfair! A day that will live in infamy, if there was any.

So I had to retaliate in a hurry and frogmanize Howard the Oraculator.

It's quite long. No time to translate it in French, sorry.

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Howard s'est embusqué et m'a oraculisé perfidement dans les commentaires de ce post. Il a profité du fait que j'étais occupé à badiner avec de ravissantes jeunes femmes du Dakota du Sud et avais en conséquence baissé ma garde.

Si vile! Si injuste! Un jour d'infamie si jamais il en fut.

Bon, j'ai usé de représailles dans l'urgence et j'ai frogmanisé Howard l'Oraculator.

C'est assez long. Pas le temps de le traduire en français, désolé.

657 - Courtnee

Courtnee
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Sorry I am not the best writer over here. Yet I would like to say something. Yes you can blame the system and the Gov when it comes to disasters. That heat wave should really wake up people to wonder if they couldn't deal with that, how on earth will they deal with a terrorist attack of a large scale like us Americans had to deal with. They couldn't even deal with a heat wave? Weather disasters happen all the time. We have had our heat waves over here in America. I have sat here and watched on TV wondering what in the hell their problem is over there dealing with this. To many died over a heat wave. Over here we have a heat wave hit and go beyond the normal weather pattern for an area and it's all over the media what needs done. Not to mention that we know the elderly are at high risk. Where you will see organizations and the community all come together and protect each other and make it through it. One thing that I would like to bring up that shows the difference between Republican and Democrat views is a situation that happened in my home state. Not that this situation matters much on saving lives, but on how you deal with a disaster after and how it impacts the people of the state. We had a tornado go through and destroy a entire town, Spencer, SD a few years ago. We have twisters all the time in South Dakota. In fact just this year on June 24th we had over 60 in one day reported. So twisters for our state are nothing new, every year they create damage. Not every year they take out towns or kill. This one a few years ago took out a whole entire town and killed 6 people. Instantly help was there for the people of Spencer. South Dakota has inmates that work, they are low level custody inmates (trustees) that go out in the community and work, but also are ready to work in a disaster situation. I worked for the state corrections until last month as an Officer. When the Gov. says go we have to have the inmates on the road from their cells in 30 minutes. Something we are proud of that we can do. The lights went out in Spender, SD before the twister hit. There were no sirens no warning. They just heard and saw it coming and took shelter. The town was wiped off the map. Even the towns water tower was reduced to nothing. Inmates were taken to Spencer and paid .25 cents an hour to clean it up for the people. They were very happy to do this, as they felt like they were doing something right. They cleaned the whole town up in days. Did all the heavy work, mean while so many South Dakota people showed up to help there was a line for miles and miles of cars. People wanting to come help. Vendors in the area pulled together, Coke and Pepsi came and dropped off tons of pop and water for the victims and the volunteers. John Morrell the meat packing plant in my state dropped off all this meat. So everyone could eat. Our Republican Gov. Janklow was standing in the middle of this town that had nothing left helping grill food to feed people. No one died after, everyone pulled together to make sure every person in that town was taken care of. Now election year comes up and there is a debate on TV between Gov. Jannklow and Democrat Hunhoff. Of course Hunhoff tries to slam Janklow on the Spenser, SD ordeal. Saying having the inmates out there working took away from the companies in South Dakota that could of made money off that. Now here is were a very clear line is drawn on Democrat Vs Republican thinking. Since when is a disaster a time to profit and make money? In the end the state has to pay the bill. I rather pay inmates 25 cents per hour to clean it then to pay a small business a few million to clean it up so they can pay their workers $8hr or so to clean it. Sorry, that is not a time to make profit. We have inmates eating up the resources in prison as they sit there, get them out there, work them and it turns around and saves the state money. Also gives these inmates a lesson on what it is like to help other people instead of hurting them by theft or drugs. If there is a flood we are proud to say that inmates are on the way to help clean it up. South Dakota doesn't piss away money. We use resources that are cheaper and get the job done. These other companies can make money some where else, a disaster is not the time. This last election I know us at the Dept. of Corrections were biting our fingernails scared a Democrat would get Gov. of the state and we knew that would mean the end of inmates working in our state. Something we approved of because it gets them out, keeps them busy, teaches them new trades, and makes our job easier and in the end it helps society as a whole. But it takes away jobs from the people. Nah the jobs they do in the community when not doing disaster work are jobs people wouldn't want to do. Like spending 8hrs a day just filing paperwork. We use inmates to type in data off paper into computers. Jobs that are down right boring, yet they learn from the boring job for 25 cents an hour, how to run a computer, to type. To HOLD a job. Something convicts really have a hard time doing. When the unemployment rate hits a certain point the state does pull inmates from job sites and opens the state jobs for other people. So that can't be used against us. Well planned out program and it works. However, on another note. The medical system on a Federal and State level are messed up over here. I plan to post on my site soon my views on that as I am fighting them left and right to help my brother. I wouldn't trade our Gov for any other, just that I see some flaws and in this great country I am able to do something about it. Which I am, I have wrote my public officials and I am getting ready to build up enough people to lobby and change the laws. So that the people like my brother and the elderly do not slip through the medical gaps when they can't take care of themselves.

658 - nelson ascher

nelson ascher
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Cher Frogman. When I visited your country in the summer of 89 and 94 I initially stayed in 3-star (non-climatized) hotels, but soon had to move to more expensive ones because the heat was unbearable. When I arrived here to stay for some time, I rented a flat close to the tower. Late in the spring of 2001 there were 3 or 4 nights during which I left my bed at least once every hour to take a cold bath until finally, one of those nights, I slept inside my airconditioned car. Last year, going from Aix-en-Provence to Barcelona and coming back from Spain at the height of summer I gave up visiting all those nice churches and basillicas because it was so much better to remain inside the car. Oh yes, by the end of the 2001 spring I did invest part of my earnings on the biggest most powerful and expensive portable air-conditioner: it cost me at the time, if memory doesn't fail me, FF 9.000 (that was before the Euro, and I had to take it home with me in my car because delivery would take too many days). Thus, I have the personal experience to refute anyone who says that this summer was such an exception: it was a couple of degrees warmer and the canicule lasted a couple of days longer. But the European summer has been hellish for the last 15/20 years as far as I can tell (and I can only speak about that period because before that I used to come to Europe during your winter which coincided with my longer South American summer vacations). Europe is too hot for me, and I'm Brazilian, so I know a thing or two about heat. Some definitely don't like it hot. Now, let me ask you something. I suspect that those French deaths were also due to the lack of another facility typical of modern life but somewhat lacking here: lifts. If you're 80, live on the fifth floor, walk with difficulty and don't have a lift in your building, before going downstairs, crawling to the metro station (even if you have money for the taxi, who said you'd find it easily?), getting to the hospital and then having to go back and climb all those stairs again,you might think twice. And, when you've made up your mind to go, you're already too weak to do it, the neighbour who lives on the same floor is on the beach or drunk or doesn't like to be bothered and, perhaps, you don't have a phone or don't really know whom to call.

659 - the dissident frogman

the dissident frogman France
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Cher Nelson Ascher, Are you Nelson Ascher the Brazilian poet? Are you the Nelson Ascher who asked a few questions to anti-war poets last February? ([url=http://www.porphyrogenitus.net/archives/week_2003_02_09.html#000031]http://www.porphyrogenitus.net/archives/week_2003_02_09.html#000031[/url]) Are you going to make me a pleased and honored (frog)man by the presence of such an esteemed guest in my humble dacha, by answering "yes" to the previous questions? Thank you for taking the time to share you story. I shall certainly confirm your own experience of the French summer - and your expertise as far as heat is concerned. On the lift issue, you're right in pointing at what can be - at least partially - an aggravating factor. That said, among the three hospitals I know, two are recent and do have (working) lifts although I guess we could use more of them But it probably depends on the time of the day. The third is some old XIXth century building with lifts that were grafted probably somewhere around 1970. They apparently work... Sometimes. Can't talk for the others hospitals, I'm afraid. As for other private or public buildings, it's certainly very variable. But there are indeed people living on top of 5 or 6 story buildings without lifts. Starting with an uncle and aunt of mines.

660 - nelson ascher

nelson ascher
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Yups. That's me. And the honour is mine. Though a perpetual frequenter of your site, I hadn't written you before simply because I hadn't figured out the true meaning of that lttle rectangle below your posts (unfortunately the 2 or 3 damaged braincells I have left deal somewhat better with words than images). Oh, and let me tell you too, I've the honour of being a Brazilian poet translated into French and published in France by, among others, Europe and Action Poétique, besides having a slim volume of my own published by CIPM (Centre International de Poésie de Marseille) under the title of "Stup". I've been writing about what things look like here for my Brazilian newspaper, Folha de S.Paulo, and I sincerely hope the French diplomats there have not been following my columns. But I've been infuriating quite a few of my readers whose thinking was formed but what's worst right here. I'm happy to belong to the growing number of people who'd like help showing Old Europe the way back (or maybe for the first time) to real democracy. Let me tell you that I love your work and am happy to see that it is not limited to a 35 hour week. (And thanks for remembering that text about the poets).

the dissident frogman