Eric

Well, you seem to be making an assumption that all the people who stayed behind had no transportation out. Frankly, I find that assumption to be clueless and naive. And don't please lecture me on what it is like to be poor or how difficult it is to get out of an urban area - it is pretty damn presumptuous on your part. You live in TX right? When you hear the sirens, you go to the basement. I know it is a hell of a lot easier to go to the basement than get out of town, but the point is, if you LIVE in an area where natural disasters are semi-common, you KNOW what to do. Obviously it helps if you have warning and with hurricanes, we have plenty. I have known plenty of people who have ignored hurricane warnings over the years. My point is, like it or not, that if you live in a hurricane area and you make a choice to stay behind, you are rolling the dice ... and sadly, the consequences can be profound. But certainly not surprising. For the section of the population that has no means, that is a local government/public policy issue, which obviously failed in this case and I hope that is where one of the lessons can be learned. The point is - nobody should be shocked about the level of damage - human and property - that has been caused here. Hurricanes are profoundly destructive. We know that and when we know they are coming, our best strategy as it relates to saving lives is to tell people to get out of their way, ASAP. I think what this situation reveals is that if we really want to save lives, we need to do a better job of helping people get out.

Earlier, I posed the question of why more people did not get out in advance. If you live in hurricane alley, you KNOW it is SOP to evacuate when you are told. I have relatives who go through this 2-3x per year. Yeah, it is a complete pain in the ass and yeah it sucks to sit for an hour on a bridge and it is very disruptive, especially when 9 out of 10 ten times, you would have been OK had you stayed. With all the hurricane activity of the last 10-15 years, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that hurricanes are deadly - very. Yet, why do ABLE people stay behind, apparently in large numbers. If there was no warning, sure. But why ignore the warnings? Why does the government not get more aggressive in getting people out? I have profound sympathy and sadness for the current victims. The fact that some of them chose not to leave is completely irrelevant at this point. BUT, the fact remains, that the human loss would have been lower had more people followed the mandatory evacuation.

That may be, but we have a politcal forum and I think this thread belongs there. People have used the "impossible to divorce" arguement to take cheap political shots. I have no problem with that, but I don't want to read about it here. And if the response is "don't read the thread", well we have previously addressed this situation by creating a political forum. Live with it.

Take it to the political forum dude. ← No. This isn't politics. You explain our president's attitude to me. ← "Explaining our president's attitude" requires a political response. We have a forum for this sort of discussion. You can look for someone there to explain it to you.

Take it to the political forum dude.

A lot of the people that didn't leave were unable to leave due to health or poverty reasons, and it's really tragic and appalling that the city was not prepared to evacuate them. On the other hand, I'm sure the number of idiots who could have left but didn't is non-negligible. Guy ← Well, I thought I heard only ~75% of the folks evacuated. I surely doubt all of the 25% who stayed behind had health or poverty reasons and I doubt they are idiots either. To me this is a big part of the tragedy, because much of the human loss could have been avoided.

One thing I am curious about - why didn't more people get out while they had the chance? Wasn't there a mandatory evacuation? I am not trying to throw salt on the wounds, but it seems that is part of the solution if we are going to try and prevent this from happening again. From spending a lot of time in coastal hurricane-prone areas, I know that a certain percentage of people seem to want to stay behind and/or not take the warnings seriously. There is also the issue of those in hospitals and the aged. It seems they are particularly vunerable ...

I listened to some of the samples onthe BN site and think I will check this out. Frankly, I find most of his stuff (well his writing and overall conception) to be non-interesting to me and have sold msot of it back over the years. As much as anything, I want to hear some live Wes Anderson, who I think is sadly underrecorded (check out his 1998 Village Vanguard lp on Leaning House - it smokes big time).

Some hip Santa there, Eric! I had to buy it for myself, but I'm glad for the ride, too. ← Yep, I think I included the ad from Downbeat on my letter to the old guy ... I remember it to this day - UPS arrived at my folks late on Christmas Eve (the Mosaic folks even called my Mom to assure her it was coming).

Boy, that makes me feel old. The first Mosaic I bought was Mosiac 101 -- The Complete Blue Note Thelonious Monk, back in the "early days." ← Yep, got it for Christmas, 1984 I think. It really has been a fun ride ...

As compared to spending billions invaiding a country that had nothing to do with slamming airplanes into US buildings? Thus saving bin laden-- a sworn enemy of Saddam-- the trouble of toppling him. ← Thanks for setting that Bush-level rationale straight, medjuck. ← Please go play in another forum.

I don't know if Atomic Kitten mean anything in the US - they are a high-gloss pop band with very attractive members. I expect we'll be waiting a while for another XTC album! Andy is probably quite distracted. ← Not sure if I should be disappointed or envious ...

from another site: A pretty fair pitcher who came to the 1962 Mets too late; he had little left to offer at that point. Prior to that, he had won in double figures six different years. After his baseball career ended, he became a successful politician, holding a seat with the House of Representatives, and serving important roles in the Ford and Reagan administrations. His nickname was "Vinegar Bend".

They pretty mcuh are that today, aren't they? Here is something to ponder ... not Mosaic-specific, but to follow your thinking. What will happen to the 2nd hand market, the ebay market if you will, if entire catalogs become downloadable? I am sure the vinyl folks will always be there, maybe vinyl continues to have a solid (2nd hand) market. Personally, I like having the "hard copy" - be it the CD or the vinyl. I like being able to read the notes, look at the artwork, etc. Plus I can always "trade it in" at my local shop or put it on ebay if I don't like it (or want to raise cash for new purchases). The iTunes (more braodly, downloadable) solution completely ignores this issue today. Still, not sure I will want a e-version of the Mosaic booklet that I can view on my screen. Nor am I sure that I want to jack with a printer to make copies myself - I would much rather pay the pros for this. As to the material they will be releasing, who knows? One could argue that most of the "major" stuff has been taken care of (either by Mosaic or the majors). Having said that, Mosaic seems to have built a very loyal, trusting following. Point being, they could get into even more obscure stuff and many folks would follow them, "sight unseen (or unheard)" so to speak. Still, don't we have a thread around here about labels that have yet to be re-issued to any great extent on CD? The Complete Beehive Records Recordings The Complete Mainstream Records Recordings The Complete Xanadu Recordings And so on. Or, maybe some entrepreneur will get ahold of these catalogs and release them in e-versions only. Or perhaps Mosaic will. I damn sure hope I am here and in good health 20 years from now to find out

I like pretty much everything they did - definitely one of my all-time favorite bands. One of those bands that has an amazingly high number of quality songs. If Andy Partridge had had a "prettier" voice, these guys would have been huge in the US ... although personally I think his voice is a perfect fit for the music.

Following is an email update from the friend of a very trusted friend. I changed the names, but that's it. Amazing ... Gang - In regard to us and our immediate future, I offer the following updates: -We filed claims with our home owner's insurance, flood insurance, and with FEMA today to be one step ahead of the game -We are heading to Michigan to my parent's home for an indefinite period of time- Jennifer and the kids will be there at least 3 weeks to a couple of months -I might be called back to NOLA in my role as UNO's Critical Incident Stress Response team director to assist the university with its emergency response to the post-hurricane needs of students and faculty. At this point, the fall semester has been postponed until further notice, and it’s pretty likely the entire term will be cancelled. As of this afternoon, the www.uno.edu Web site was down, so there’s no “official” communication from the school because the entire campus was evacuated on Sunday. -If I am not called back for that role, I will likely head down as a volunteer for the Red Cross to help out with the clean-up and relief efforts in a week or so - The last report from the NOLA mayor predicts that more than 1,000 people in the city have died as a result of Katrina, and we haven’t even reached the point where water-based diseases are spreading broadly. Based on current images and reports, our home is likely under 10-20 feet of water and will remain so for a few days or weeks. We will probably have to completely rebuild completely because the water is transferring infectious diseases through building materials , and I am hopeful that we will be able to do so. The house we were supposed to close on today is likely 20-30 feet under water...so I don’t think we’ll be moving there any time soon. I truly appreciate your offers and comments and want to thank you guys for everything. Who knows!? Maybe Jennifer and I will turn the whole thing into a vacation and see some of you guys during our unexpected 'time off'! -Randy

I am probably around 80, the majority of which are post-1967. Generally speaking, I am an acoustic guy, although with Miles, I find his electric stuff particularly compelling.

Gag, I hate to admit it, but the cover art at Wal-Mart consistently has the highest resolution I have seen ...

Just grabbed the Jimmy Smith "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" session. WOW - it is kicking my ass all over the room

I noticed they are now up to 173 titles. This really is a very cool idea, IMHO.

It is back in at CD Baby

Agree - these really are gems, which frankly, I had very little knowledge of 3 weeks ago. Life is good!

a cleaned-up version of all (4?) of these CDs would make a hell of a Select!!

Oh, you know it will be! ← I am waiting on this--so I'll lose out on the nice pre-order discount--because if it is copy-controlled I do not think I can get it. I rip MP3s for my portable and do 99 percent of my listening to actual CDs at work--where I cannot load programs onto my computer, meaning I can't load the little dedicated CD player for the copy-controlled disc, which means I couldn't play the #$@$ing thing. Gaaaaaaahhh Is there any way to find out beforehand for sure, one way or the other? ← Didn't someone mention that the timing of the CDs is a factor? In other words, if the CD is greater than (maybe) 70 minutes, it cannot be copy protected due to limitations in the software? This is apparently why the Shaw LP is not copy protected.

Completely agree!!!