Waking Up USA

Kelly sent me the URL of a well written unconventional piece from an angry New Yorker, "We told you So" which is worth reading.

Rex sent me the URL of Ross Gelbspan's "Katrina's Real Name". (I had read yesterday a translation in Spanish in "El País", which unfortunately was not very good (the translation); so I recommend my Spanish friends that they revert to the original.)

One thing commentators are missing is the link with Bolton's/Bush's attack against the UN Millennium Goals in the last month. I remember hearing two years ago the US delegate at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development saying that the Bush Administration did not think that access to water was a basic Human Right (they were the only ones of all UN member countries saying that, of course). With the peoples of New Orleans begging for fresh water now, I wonder if Bolton/Bush will edit their speech for the UN Summit in a few days.

And speaking of international cooperation, isn't it ironic that the Bush Administration in refusing to ratify Kyoto, argued that American interests come first (including cheap gas prices which encourage the use of gas guzzling SUVs), says Kelly. Yet now they are begging Europe for help to fill their gas tanks as a result of refinery incapacity in the wake of Katrina (at considerable cost to European drivers, it might be noted). Humanitarian aid should of course be generous and unconditional. But gas? Perhaps the Europeans ought to remind Bush that international cooperation works both ways.