Comments

My question, in all seriousness, and extending great effort to NOT be smug, I wonder why plans that had been put in place at the local and state levels were not followed. This was a foreseeable disaster (WHO decided to build a city below sea level surrounded by an ocean, river, and lake?).

The city of NO even had a plan in place but apprarently didn't follow it. While we expect governments to be inept, it's hard to imagine the extent when it involved such a massive loss of life.

I read this yesterday:

"New Orleans has long known that such a disaster could take place if a major hurricane hit the city.

"The municipality even prepared its own "City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan."

"The plan makes it evident that New Orleans knew that evacuation of the civilian population was the primary responsibility of the city – not the federal government.

"The city plan acknowledges its responsibility in the document:

"As established by the City of New Orleans Charter, the government has jurisdiction and responsibility in disaster response. City government shall coordinate its efforts through the Office of Emergency Preparedness.

"The city document also makes clear that decisions involving a proper and orderly evacuation lie with the governor, mayor and local authorities. Nowhere is the president or federal government even mentioned:

"The authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane is conferred to the Governor by Louisiana Statute. The Governor is granted the power to direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from a stricken or threatened area within the State, if he deems this action necessary for the preservation of life or other disaster mitigation, response or recovery. The same power to order an evacuation conferred upon the Governor is also delegated to each political subdivision of the State by Executive Order. This authority empowers the chief elected official of New Orleans, the Mayor of New Orleans, to order the evacuation of the parish residents threatened by an approaching hurricane.

"It is clear the city also recognized that it would need to move large portions of its population, and it would need to prepare for such an eventuality:

"The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Those evacuated will be directed to temporary sheltering and feeding facilities as needed. When specific routes of progress are required, evacuees will be directed to those routes. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed. ...

"Evacuation procedures for small scale and localized evacuations are conducted per the SOPs of the New Orleans Fire Department and the New Orleans Police Department. However, due to the sheer size and number of persons to be evacuated, should a major tropical weather system or other catastrophic event threaten or impact the area, specifically directed long range planning and coordination of resources and responsibilities efforts must be undertaken. [You can read New Orleans' Emergency Plan for hurricanes at its Web site: http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26]

"The city's plan also specifically called for the use of city-owned buses and school buses to evacuate the population. These were apparently never deployed, though the Parish of Plaquemines just south of the city evacuated its population using school buses."

Posted by mike atkinson at September 6, 2005 10:13 AM

Great post John.

From my view thousands of miles away I have been saying since the disaster we waste our energy finger pointing.

Inquests happen after the crisis is over. Blaming people is often something of a self gratification excercise in my opinion when what is needed is just action and practical help. Academic discussion comes later.

There are undiscovered, unsung leaders in every community so my question would be;

How can we identify community leaders in all towns?

Posted by Trevor at September 6, 2005 10:38 AM

I'd like to offer this as some explanation of why more was not done before Hurricane Katrina hit land. I used to live in that hurricane zone pummelled so many times recently, and I always evacuated when a storm was heading our way. But, I must say that, as the years went on, I didn't go as far out of town as I had for my first hurricane. My friends, who still live there, board up their house and stay. The house has made it through all these years. But, who can say if a tornado spawned by a hurricane won't one day hit that precise spot? Heaven knows, we saw a lot of instances where one house on a block would be obliterated while all the rest were left standing.

This week I read an account of someone in a neighborhood in Biloxi who, with his brother from next door, rescued several people in his neighborhood from their roofs. He said his house had survived Hurricane Camille in 1969 untouched. Water had not risen to anywhere near his nieghborhood then. If the worst hurricane to hit Biloxi in memory had not devastated his area, what would have led anybody to believe this one would? The news leading up to Katrina's hitting was no different (not that I could notice) from that leading up to Opal, Ivan, or Dennis.

In all hurricanes I've observed, the Super Dome has been a safe haven for people in New Orleans. The ferocity of Katrina was just such that all predictions fell short. And nobody could have predicted the breaking of the levees past "We always knew this would happen someday." I'd blame people who might have strengthened those defenses and did not, but I think it's somewhat understandable that some other precautions that might have been taken were not. I think John's asking, "How do we learn and go forward?" rather than "What went wrong?" (though examining the events of last Monday forward is a necessary part of getting the answer to how to proceed) is a valuable exercise.

It is clear to me that we are in a cycle of hurricane severity. We must not tell ourselves that the worst is probably over. The last two years' experience seems to indicate that we must look forward to more, earlier, and deadlier storms. I see above that Mike says there were plans for evacuation in place that were not followed. I never noticed such a plan in effect when I lived near the Gulf of Mexico. My question to add to John's list: How do we get evacuation plans in place so that nobody remains in the path of an oncoming storm? Or, with Mike's comments in mind, how do we get people to follow the plans? Remember, people don't like to be told to leave their homes.

Posted by cathy at September 6, 2005 10:57 AM

Have you considered what you, your family, friends and neighbors are going to do in the event of a major disaster coming your way, whether it's natural or man-made?

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 6, 2005 11:41 AM

Maybe WE are ALL to blame and therefore should give up the illusion that we are not seperate from "the environment" and realise instead that we are also "the environment".

Posted by Caig Jones at September 6, 2005 12:27 PM

Plain and simple - public "MBA"s are trained the same way as any other business manager. As long as times are good, so are they. But most of them flat out can't handle challenges like the ones we face today. Want to change it? Replace all current business and MBA programs with Tom's type of insight and training. The training SYSTEM is broken, folks. It's not a Republican or Democrat or public versus private thing. It's time to get mad as hell at the REAL problem of where these jokers are getting their ideas, and change the system. In ancient Greece, educators who screwed up like this were executed or exiled. Education is a serious thing. It's time we started realizing that.

Posted by Dave at September 6, 2005 12:49 PM

What can we learn from how blogs, Wikis, Flickr acocunts, and other more contemporary forms of media were used (and are still being used) in disaster assistance so that those lessons can be more intentionallty applied in building/leveraging future technological infrastructure?

Posted by Jeffrey at September 6, 2005 1:44 PM

I would begin by putting together a team from all avenues--engineers, officials, military, law, and other areas. Next, it sounds simple but it isn't simplistic--use the tried and true why-why analysis technique. Once you have gone five generations down that road (why did A occur? Because B occurred. Why did B occur? Because C occurred, etc.) you might be at the root cause of the issue. Then take positive steps to prevent it from happening again in that particular locale. After you have gone through as much of the plan-do-check-act cycle as you can without actually experiencing another category 4 storm, you apply as many of your countermeasures as you can to all other areas with the same issue.

If we had the right people on the team I don't see why using these old Deming techniques shouldn't be as effective for disaster planning as they have been for manufacturing and other businesses for many years.

Then comes the hard part--making the commitment to doing and paying for the actions. Public commitment is always good until the tax bill comes, then we don't like the idea so much any more. Generating that commitment from the public will require real leadership.

BTW, when the military stepped in leadership appeared and things began to happen. Marine Gen. Honore and his partners from the 82nd Airborne and 4th Infantry Division should serve as prime examples of effective, positive leadership in this situation. My point is that military leaders may be the best on-the-scene leaders in this kind of situation because they have the experience of leading others through death and chaos.

Posted by Mike at September 6, 2005 3:01 PM

Great post, John! This is something I've been contemplating for my own family, and it looks like there are really two fundamental issues.

The first is realizing that there is an issue at all. I don't think this is the last disaster we'll be seeing where there was a warning available but not heeded by the authorities. We need better forums, better education, and places to get and act on the warnings of upcoming dangers so we can be prepared before rather than panic (or blame) after. For me, this involves reading a lot of alternative media sources, and learning to be better at separating the chicken littles from the true prophets (who just happen not to be welcome in their own country.)

If someone saw a big disaster coming, but no one wanted to know about it or do anything about it -- where would they be forced to speak out? It would be wonderful if those in authority would meditate on this one, and take the appropriate measures. I'm not waiting for the authorities or government, I'm going to read blogs, look at alternative websites, and do a lot of listening and thinking. If more individuals would become informed, and if we truly do have a government of the people etc., then this will automatically translate upwards.

The second issue is getting prepared once we realize there is a real danger. There is a great deal a country as a collective can do to get ready when the warning signs are seen well enough in advance. Pardon the biblical reference, the tragedy in New Orleans has me thinking that way, but remember how Joseph interpreted Pharoah's dream and Egypt was able to store sufficient grain to weather the drought? There are ample things an individual family can do to be more prepared in case of whatever local emergencies are the most likely, and plenty of educational material about how to get prepared. Such as storing enough food for a couple weeks, getting ham radios and licenses to be able to have communication centers during an emergency, getting to know one's neighbors so support teams can be formed more quickly.

If enough preparation is made by individuals, then they'll have more awareness and intelligence to be able to select more qualified representatives to make better judgements when they are in office. But those who do this the best could also do the work to better educate officials with the means to do something.

Posted by Harold Shinsato at September 6, 2005 4:41 PM

John,

Not so much a question as an initiative in this area. Jeff Jarvis wrote a terrific post at http://www.buzzmachine.com on how we can better use the network, with a bottom-up initiative, so that we can do more next time. It's not the whole ball of wax on disaster relief, but it's a part. He dubbed it Recovery 2.0

We've got a wiki set up to start piecing together the various Recovery 2.0 initiatives at http://www.4setup.com . Jeff will be pointing recovery2.com and recovery2.org to it soon. NZ Bear is also working on it - we'd like to get all interested people aware of it and coordinating with each other as soon as possible.

Thanks,
Greg Burton

Posted by Greg Burton at September 6, 2005 6:19 PM

Thoughtful comments on a painful subject. At this point I'd return us to constructing thoughtful questions, which takes some discipline and patience (especially if we're quick-answer junkies) but has more "upstream leverage." BTW, this strategy of choosing better questions to ask in order to gain a better set of answers comes from Marilee Adams' book, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1576752410/002-6045226-8262403?v=glance

Posted by John O'Leary at September 6, 2005 9:46 PM

Is decentralized government authority the most effective structure in terms of disaster response?

Should we have a centralized operations unit to coordinate disaster response to prevent the confusion of authority?

Can technology be leveraged to create storm-proof commuications units and networks that would be reliable even in the most treacherous conditions?

Should environmental factors be considered more seriously in future planning and development matters in the United States? How can we standardized environmental planning requirements so that they aren't corrupted?

Can we improve architectural styles of residential and commercial buildings in risk areas and simulatenously lower housing/lease prices for occupiers?

Can we establish a 'standard/official' electronic (on-line) site for bulletins, list of missing, notices, communications centre to assist those looking to connect with others (family, friends, etc.) and to provide official notices and bulletins as necessary. Would the centralized operations unit manage that site?

Should we have a standard broadcasting channel (radio or television) to issue national warnings, reports, etc. Could this channel override all frequencies to ensure that everyone watching/listening to TV/Radio would receive the report(s)?

Should flood blockage systems be considered for all high risk coastal areas in the US? Systems not disimilar to those in Venice where they are raised and lowered depending on tide levels?

How can we effectively teach our children (the next generation) to be compassionate to their fellow man, supportive of their community, respectful of nature, and selfless when their brother needs them most?

I'd better stop now...it's so good to be back!

Posted by Tom O'Leary at September 7, 2005 8:36 AM

Each situation has a unique risk profile and response plan, yet the basics must come before and with the first response.

Being prepared at the individual and family level is a personal responsibility. Having the information made available as to what to do and being prepared is a local and state government responsibility. Finally, the US military is the better at logistics than anyone else in the world and a tremendous asset in these situations.

My belief is that information and communication are critical throughout the process and across the board. It brings focus to the greatest pain points the fastest.

Since there is absolutely no way to get all the people out of a disaster situation before it happens, "gathering points" must be pre-defined (and prepared) so people know where to go for help, rather than just sit waiting for aid to come. If people know there is help nearby, they will find a way to get there whenever possible.

The Coast Guard is setup to rescue people one at a time, which will happen. The military, including national guard, handle larger groups all the time, and must be ready to move before an event. If non-government relief organizations and the press can get there so quickly with little preparation, FEMA must be able to react faster with all of their planning and budget. In this case, the military waited days to be asked by FEMA for help and people died in the delay.

After the event... isn't the most basic need safe drinking water?
We can only survive a few days without water, and about a month without food, so why isn't delivering drinking water to "gathering points" mission #1, especially in a hot environment?

Communication is simpler than most would think. Even this basic process can be predefined and doesn't take advanced technology to solve. When people don't know what is going on, bad things start to happen. Portable AM/FM radios and handheld two-way marine radios with extra batteries must be at each "gathering point" with instructions as to when broadcasts and two-way communication will be made.

Identify the leader at each "gathering point" to facilitate communication and disseminating information. Hero's are everywhere and can help triage the situation.

First aid kits must also be dropped off with baby food and an assessment form for the survivors to complete - but just the basics. The assessment can be completed via radio hours later.

Now that a "delivery" has been made, returning with at risk people can be initiated that trip. Get in, get out, initiate communication. This can begin on day one via military and commercial helicopter.

It is strange how the first response is such a challenge when so little is actually required to simply begin - personal responsibility to be aware, safe drinking water and basic communication go a long way in reducing death count.

Posted by DougE at September 7, 2005 11:28 AM

I like the tone of your post, John. I think it´s quite a balanced opinion. I agree blaming is not a very productive activity, but in cases like this it is not a matter of blaming, it is a matter of asking to those in charge to do what they are to do. If not, what do you need them for?

Now we are realizing there is big risk of hurricanes and weather related dangers in the horizon. There could be more disasters in the future and what should be the way of facing them?

I think politicians should take into account the impact industrial pollution is having on the weather changes. And i think a more ecologic economic structure would be an investment for the future both in economic and human terms.

As you tell, a reconsideration of all policies and procedures to be taken in emergencies is a priority. I hope you are able to find a satisfactory solution for future cases.

Posted by Felix Gerena at September 7, 2005 2:57 PM

"The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Those evacuated will be directed to temporary sheltering and feeding facilities as needed." - OK, let's start with a conflict between what city has disposition of, and scale of disaster, that would cover entire city. As you see, there are no longer resources sufficient when entire city area (and surroundings!) is hurt. Facing that, city either had to be imaginative enough and prepare itself to operate in "far-away" places (have foreseen exile contacts/places, prepare funds), that would be not that stroke by the big emergency situation.

Second, naturally, follows - assuming superior role of city management (what was their position on war in Iraq, BTW?), government of country, naturally, would not stay very far away. It would endorse bravery of city operators, help them with whatever they ask for. And, being national disaster, isn't it, would direct national reserves for the issue of that scale.

Isn't horrorful facing of facts taking place of what was expected to be management?

Warmest greetings from Lithuania to all hangers of TP club! Hopefully, distance might be helpful there.

Posted by edis at September 7, 2005 5:01 PM

There is much to critize in the public sector's response to the Gulf Coast tragedy. FEMA has shown itself to be incredibly inept--again--and other agencies and officials seemed slow to respond. The idea of being able to evacuate tens of thousands of people with 18 to 24 hour's notice is absurd. Even with Katrina, the eye turned to the NE only hours before the storm struck land so who wants to evacuate with the forecast of landfall margin of error that are characteristic of these storms? The first near miss will destroy credibility in the evacuation process anyway.

buy viagra without prescription online Instead, we should inventory every credible concern of every major city and take a sharp look at that list and prioritize it for crrective action. Surely there are natural disaster concerns of one sort or another for every major metro area in the USA.

I continue to be appalled at how the Federal government defers maintenance or more pressing capital expenditures for infrastructure due to budget concerns. Let's cut out the pork and resist more boon doggles like No Child Left Behind so that the citizens get what they expect in terms of viable infrastructure. Note that I've not even alluded to how distracted our military is the last two years and just how expensive that whole mess in the Mid-east has become.

There's one other element of the current situation that I've not seen anyone talking about in any serious way. Look at how the plight of the urban poor has been exposed and highlighted. That's a collective social disaster common to every "great" city in this country--and it's worse and more pervasive in a cumulative sense than any natural disaster that we've experienced in a century.

When the streets are dry in New Orleans, let's look at the whole range of issues Katrina has posed for us.

Ed Terry

Posted by Ed Terry at September 7, 2005 6:58 PM

In a slightly different vein, but in the spirit of how this question was asked (which I admired) I thought I'd share the below excerpt from an email we circulated internally to our virtual team last week...

hey guys,

i'm officially out of office today but wanted to send along a quote. there's a lot of stressed energy out there right now and i thought it'd be a great quote for us to share as a service professional team. I think the questions in it are really powerful, and help us peacefully direct our energy in the direction we want to stand for as people...especially as we support our clients through challenging times...what do you think?

feel free to pass it along if you see fit...

"The question that we would put to you is, as you see starvation [or pain, or...] and you feel the hurt of it, and you launch a rocket of desire, wanting the world to be better, and as you stand at this juncture where you can fork in the direction of what you desire, or in the direction of what you do not want, which way are your thoughts taking you?

Are you seeing the world better? Are you hoping better for them? Are you imagining governments getting organized? Are you acknowledging that the food exists, that the technology exists? Are you acknowledging that there is enough food for everyone? Are you wanting them to get it? Are you believing that it is possible?

Or, are you beating the drum of the ineptness of the governments? Are you beating the drum of things going wrong?

generic viagra online canadian pharmacy In other words, which fork are you taking, and which pathway are you helping chart for not only the future generations, but those that are living here now?

You can tell by the way you feel whether you are adding significantly in a helpful way to those who are in need of help."

- Abraham

This quote in turn stimulated a shift in direction internally for the team, and more wonderfully, in their energetic frequency and ability to transmit same, to our clients.

(As evidenced by the discussion that ensued.)

Posted by Andrea Lee at September 7, 2005 9:13 PM

what went wrong last week in New Orleans? question of the week? no. it's simple. it took almost six days before the people in charge of our disater response agencies even set foot into the area suggest they have more concern pushing paper than helping people. what would have been better than to see michael brown on the ground in new orleans, telling the president he needs 5000 federal troops airlifted in immediately to begin restoring law into a lawless wasteland. the problems would have not gotten so severe had our point person been on the ground tuesday morning--the day after.

he wasn't and now brown and chertoff need to quit along with president bush. thanks bob galica

Posted by BOB GALICA at September 8, 2005 10:51 AM

This will be an interesting "investigation". Floods and hurricanes are the responsibility of State & Local government. The feds need to be asked in. Here's a timeline from CNN:

Aug 28 - Katrina now catagory 5; Bush declares state of emergency before it hits, and ordered federal assistance

Aug 29 - Katrina downgraded to Cat 4, and "it's a miss!" as it swerves east and the news channels declare that New Orleans got lucky again as the most damage will be east of the eye.

Aug 30 - Ooops! It's not the storm, it's the lake! Catastrophe comes from the north, not the south. Levees are breached and it's flood waters from the lake that cause the disaster! Bush orders military ships and helicopters

Sept 1 - Gov Blanco finally mobilizes the National Guard, a state responsibility.

Sept 2 - Bush on-site; feds take over.

So, who is to blame?

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Posted by Jeff at September 8, 2005 5:31 PM

For a more comprehensive (and accurate) Katrina Timeline, you might want to look at http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline, which matches my own memory of events and includes references and original source references.

To Andrea Lee, thanks for the Abraham quote! How do we best organize our own thoughts so we move closer to helping create the world we want to see? How can we more accurately connect with where we are to help the tension of the contrast propel us to where we want to go?

Posted by Harold Shinsato at September 10, 2005 5:04 PM

Read the thinkprogress.org article Harold and consider its objectivity questionable. How Condoleeza Rice's movements and shopping expeditions as the crisis unfolded would suggest a lack of care on the part of the government is not clear. She is in charge of foreign affairs.

Noticed thinkprogress.org say that they are fighting against a "Radical Right-Wing Agenda" in the About Section which I think is an admirable thing to do, but make no mention of fighting against a radical left-wing agenda which would also be an admirable thing to do and would perhaps indicate a balance to what they report.

I think your timeline shows a political bias against the current government.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 11, 2005 1:31 PM

To what extent should civilians be involved in disaster prevention and recovery planning? How public should those plans be?

Who is, or should be, qualified or certified to plan and manage civil recovery efforts?

If planning for disasters takes place at many levels such as communities of interest, non-profit agencies, townships, towns, burroughs, counties, states and federal levels, which linkages should we try to maximize and which should we minimize?

Are there any examples, where plans for recovery from a wide-spread disaster have worked well? If so, what can we learn?..and what about disaster avoidance?

Posted by Carl Abramson at September 12, 2005 1:01 PM

We need to watch out for biases, however, I haven't found any published timeline as clearly researched with references to all the original sources.

Not liking horses doesn't stop h-o-r-s-e from spelling horse, whether or not the source is a supporter of the current administration.

The fact that you and I do not accept thinkprogress's agenda should not blind us to the good original sources referenced there. And the original sources clearly invalidate the timeline presented earlier which unjustly points the finger of blame at local authorities.

Going back to the original intent of this thread, how can we re-think our ability and willingness to go past prejudices and engage in the work needed to connect more fully to what's here and what's coming up in the future so we can better engage with it? So we can be better prepared to handle it?

Posted by Harold Shinsato at September 12, 2005 1:12 PM

Harold, if a reporting source declares a political bias, as thinkprogress.org does, what it reports cannot be considered objective. It is slanted to support its own political views.

In fairness, it looks like incompetence was present on both the local and federal level in responding to Katrina. Aside from asking what you are personally going to do in in the event of another disaster, a useful question might be what can we do to prevent future government incompetence, rather than what can we do to make political hay out of what has already happened.

If you don't mind my saying so, h-o-r-s-e is an incomplete description of thinkprogress.org and it's timeline. A more complete description would be to combine that word with the material that commonly comes out of horses, bulls too.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 12, 2005 3:11 PM

Thanks for posting this. This is a difficult time with no easy answers.
I think there are two questions that should have been asked and then passed on down to every single person involved in the resue effort:
1) What do we need to do to make each and every one of our citizens effected by this catastrophe say "Wow! My government cares about me and did their best".?
2) What are the things that we haven't thought about or have thought about that could get in the way of turning this into a Wow!?
This was a missed opportunity as well as a disaster. It seemed we focused a bit too much on the part that was out of our control. Imagine if GWB started this ball rolling and had himself and key staffers MBWAing all over the place as a proactive measure. Maybe I'm too naive and I'm certainly no disaster expert, but my team and I ask similar questions all the time and we know it makes a difference.

Posted by Dan Kerkel at September 13, 2005 9:33 AM

Harold, rightwingnuthouse? I love that you keep finding these extreme sites. Do you have something against moderation?

I'm not "flipping the bozo" on you personally, Harold, only on your timelines, though I like the expression.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 13, 2005 12:45 PM

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

By all means, I'd be happy to see another timeline, Noel. But if you do find a moderate one, hopefully it will reference original sources and will actually teach me something I don't know which both of the timelines have accomplished for me.

I'm willing to keep listening and learning. I hope our leaders do as well. Here's a question I really want an answer to. How can I personally encourage and foster real dialog and courageous independent investigation of the truth?

I'm all ears, enough posting for me on this thread. It's all yours. See you in the next one :)

Posted by Harold Shinsato at September 13, 2005 8:13 PM

"Everything in moderation, including moderation" which effectively means a little extremism never hurt anyone. I give you credit here for a sense of humor I didn't know you possessed. : )

The only point I would mention is that you say we should be careful to watch out for biases yet you put forward timelines with evident biases. thinkprogress.org is biased against the government. rightwingnut is biased in favor of the government. I've seen on many other blogs - people's opinions must mirror a left bias or a right bias, and if it's a left bias, a right bias comes in to counter it and vice versa, some commentators being more shrill than others. I personally prefer it when people think for themselves.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 14, 2005 6:08 AM

I was away and didn't realize this thread had caught a second wind. Interesting questions. From Noel: "what can we do to prevent future government incompetence?" From Howard: "How can I personally encourage and foster real dialog and courageous independent investigation of the truth?" THAT is a major challenge in these partisan times. Anyone know of a news magazine or program that regularly presents multiple sides of political issues from participants who AREN'T so heavily invested in those issues that they routinely ascribe the most sinister motives to others' behavior? Listening to hired guns firing away at each other on MSNBC—replete with ad hominem attacks—can be entertaining (at times) but seldom illuminating.

Posted by John O'Leary at September 14, 2005 9:25 PM

Welcome back, John. I agree with you about partisan shenanigans, though some media programs are better than others and give a more balanced view of things.

As to Harold's question:

"How can I personally encourage and foster real dialog and courageous independent investigation of the truth?"

I would suggest it all depends on where you're trying to do it.

For example, if you do that in a blog, you will find that many people speak their minds. If you do that in your job, you might well lose it. If you do that in the media, you run the risk of being honest. : )

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