Good news and not-so-good news re Hurricane Gustav

The good news, courtesy of (and thank God under all Her many names for) CNN: Gustav has now been downgraded to a Category 2 storm, with highest sustained winds gauged at 135 MPH, as of when it made landfall early this morning at the Louisiana coastal town of Cocodrie. And I checked in with my family in and near Lafayette, and they are all safe, provisioned and boarded up for the heavy wind and rain they will likely get today or early tomorrow, if not already. (The Leger family has been riding out hurricanes since before I was born, through Camille and Betsy; they most definitely know the drill.) My younger brother, Doug the firefighter, is being called back to duty early to help answer the emergency calls that will inevitably be coming in from all over Lafayette Parish today.

The not-so-good: Even with the storm itself still 65 miles out from the city as of 12 noon, New Orleans' port facilities are already floodwater-covered, and the Industrial Canal is already beginning to "overtop" its recently-rebuilt levees. This is mainly small quantities of water slopping over the wall here and there with wind and current, but as the rain continues this may worsen.

And despite my earlier prediction, Hanna is not, in fact, following Gustav's trail at all, but hung a rico at Cuba and is now headed north toward our Atlantic coastline here in Georgia (the USA state, not the Eurasian former Soviet republic). Already skies here in Atlanta are overcast and rain has begun, though this may or may not be associated with either of these massive storm systems.

Thanks to mshollie , ici1011 , crystalgee (three of my old Nawlins cronies) for letting me know their status, and to the others on my f-list who have been posting information.

Dragon*Con '08 Report, Day 4 (and last): The most depressing part of a con

...is always the last day. The crowds that thronged the main lobby and upper function-space levels of the Hyatt and Marriott have noticeably diminished, and I passed people dragging suitcases to their cars as I walked in from the parking lot. There is still programming scheduled until 5:30, but much less than the previous three days (only one board instead of two was needed to post the grid at the Information booth on the Hyatt concourse today). My sole disappointment this year has been missing the Saturday morning street parade (why on God's green and pleasant Earth don't they move it to noon or so when late-night con types like me can actually get up for it, instead of 10 AM?!) and concerts by Emerald Rose, which are always high-energy and rarely get such large audiences as here; but they are local and I can drive up to Dahlonega once a month to see them if I really want to, as they perform at a coffeehouse there.

Last night's Masquerade was beautiful and well-run as always, and handling emcee duties was none other than TrekTrak guest Ethan Phillips (Neelix from Star Trek: Voyager), who was highly amusing and clearly having fun. Alas, I was too far back to get pictures even if they'd allowed it; there should be some posted on their website by the time you read this. "Best in Show" among the Young Fen division entrants was a boy who wore a cunningly-put-together TransFormer-like costume which enabled him to fold up from robot to tank in about three seconds; he was clearly the audience's favorite, as they cheered him on to do it again when he claimed his prize. "Best in Show" among the adults was a troupe of vaguely Indian-goddess-looking ladies and a barechested, highly limber gentleman with them who balanced swords on his feet. Other highlights included a troop of formidable-looking computer-game soldiers who started out with a seemingly serious pose presentation, then suddenly broke into the "Crank Dat Soulja Boy" dance while the song played over the speakers; a Klingon who used a squash racquet to bat tribbles into the audience; a dancer posing as Axl Rose lip-synching and costume-changing to the blasting chords of "Welcome to the Jungle"; and a costume designed by "Starch Industries" called "Iron Man" which basically consisted of a giant laundry iron with legs (no steam, alas) and won "Most Humorous."

After that, I moseyed on down to the Hyatt sub-basement again for open filk, but was too early and so got to enjoy concerts by pixelene and lukeski (who once again joined forces—you should pardon the pun—to perform Luke's famous mashup of Episode IV: A New Hope and the famous 1950s-music Broadway hit, Grease Wars, to a standing ovation). Following that was a much better session of open filk than we had had on Friday night, with one of the Bedlam Bards and his guitar as well as a couple other very talented people joining us and me getting to perform a medley of my hit (you know, the one that won the Pegasus) to the most sustained applause I've gotten all weekend. A young man with an uncanny talent for impressions did a reading of "Casey at the Bat" in the voices of Bill Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Kate Mulgrew) as well as command performances of animated-TV-show themes and songs, and you'll be hearing more about him when I get home and can find his card. (He's got some stuff on YouTube you should check out; watch this space.) Finally getting to the point of risking being too sleepy to drive, I went home about 3:30 AM and crashed.

Major kudos to Robby Hillard, D*C 2008 filk honcho, who poured genuine enthusiasm for filk and eagerness to have everyone participate into his work pulling together programming (such as it was) and running the filk room. If his attitude is still as good after the con as during, we may actually have someone caring and competent to stick around and run the thing again next year. (And if you know anything about D*C's notorious history of pissing and chasing off its filk czars, you know this is a Very Big Thing.) And another big batch of kudos to spambrian and his staff for yet another hilarious set of DCTV videos and bumpers to keep everybody laughing and patient while the show gets started; you can see them at dragoncontv.com if you didn't attend.

Costume count: Not nearly as many costumers out today; I suspect most of them are either too tired or have packed up their regalia (and a few may even be headed home early due to Gustav). Will note any remaining ones in the wrapup later.

The Repubs take a hint from God and Gustav

Announcements are in the news today that the 2008 Republican National Convention will be scaling back its activities, which begin today in St. Paul, MN, to show respect for those Americans still dealing with the Gulf Coast weather crisis. From the GOP's point of view, this is merely common sense, given that the unmitigated fiasco that was federal/state government's response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita three years ago happened on their incumbent's watch. The party of Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown and Junior Bush abso-frakking-lutely cannot afford to even give the appearance of fiddling while New Orleans drowns (again) if they want any hope in hell of winning this fall's elections. (They already have way too much of an appearance of being out of touch with ordinary, non-wealthy Americans' situations, thanks to their presumptive nominee John "I Can't Remember How Many Houses I Own" McCain.) None of the usual speechifying and hullabaloo today; only basic parliamentary and platform activities will be held. Beyond today, reports are that the party poohbahs are eyeing storm coverage and making decisions on a day-by-day basis. And many of the privately-funded parties planned around the convention site have been turned into fundraisers for the American Red Cross or canceled altogether.

While we're on the subject, who among the Republican National Committee leadership had an attack of the stupids bad enough to schedule the first day of the convention on Labor Day itself, smack in the middle of most Americans' holiday weekend (including those of their own people)? Memo to RNC Chair Michael Duncan: If you want to be seen as the party that will do more for the working middle class than the Democrats, you do NOT want to make them show up for party work on a federal holiday, let alone the one dedicated to honoring the working men and women of America. (Then again, if you really wanted to project a "friend of the American worker" image, you'd have picked someone other than McCain...but we've covered that already.) Do you really expect us to believe you couldn't have waited one lousy day until Tuesday to start this shindig? Do we need any more proof that the GOP cares more about its own political agenda and the coffers of corporations and their upper management than about the labor force that fills them?

Preznit Chimpy, for his part, has shown some smarts for once and decided not to speak at GOP-Con after all, taking a cue from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and staying on the job. (This has led some to speculate that GOP plotmeister Karl Rove, who is still very much in action consulting for the McCain/Palin campaign—and not in the slammer for defying a Senate subpoena, for some inexplicable reason—ordered the storm up in order to keep his party's single biggest political liability safely away from the convention podium.) Today he's in Texas overseeing federal response to Gustav in order to make sure that the idiocy that made the acronym FEMA a byword for screwups and inaction after Katrina does not recur. That agency is also showing it has learned at least a little from the prior experience, opening two new refugee centers here in Georgia along the interstate highways for Gustav evacuees fleeing the neighboring Gulf states.

There is even talk that Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin may actually not show up at the convention at all themselves even to accept their nominations, depending on how Gustav, Hanna and their aftermath play out. McCain, to give him his due, showed class in ordering the scaleback of the convention, saying it was "time for us to take off our Republican hats and put on our American hats." So did his chief opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, who said he was staying out of the storm zone to avoid his Secret Service detail and other security precautions usually taken when a candidate travels disrupting needed storm response.

Personally, I'm giving thanks to all the gods and goddesses above and below that the storm waited until after my party's convention to hit. Maybe it's petty of me not to take off my Democrat hat entirely, but as fearful as I am for all those in the storms' path, I'm also enjoying just a teensy bit of partisan schadenfreude at the GOP's cosmically, comically bad weather luck.

This Labor Day, my favorite cause is actually two

From MDA.org: Muscular Dystrophy Association National Chairman Jerry Lewis today will use his Labor Day Telethon to encourage families registered with MDA and being evacuated from their homes due to Gustav to seek out MDA services wherever they end up. MDA has almost 5,000 registered families in the affected areas. Lewis will ask viewers of his 43rd Annual telethon to not only make a donation to MDA, but also to make a donation to the Salvation Army's Emergency Disaster Services.
WHEN: Immediately. Telethon is airing live via www.mda.org using RealPlayer embedded media.
WHERE: Patients can find an MDA office in any location by calling (800) 572-1717 from a landline. Donations to the Telethon can be made to www.mda.org and (800) FIGHT-MD. Donations to the Salvation Army can be made to www.salvationarmy.org and (800) SAL-ARMY.

Once again this Labor Day, I ask all my friends to match my $25 donation to MDA, and this time a like donation to the relief effort as well. Those of you who have objections to the association's chief spokesman, its fundraising methods or other reasons not to contribute, I have read what you have posted here in previous years and I understand your feelings. However, if you absolutely cannot bring yourself to support the vital research and patient care and services MDA provides for sufferers of 40 different neuromuscular diseases, at least consider giving to the storm relief effort. Or if you have religious objections to making a donation to TSA, please consider donating to the American Red Cross' similar effort as I am doing.

Either way, you will be helping people in genuine need, in the best American tradition. If you have already donated or intend to, thank you from the bottom of my heart. With the economy in a downturn, gas, energy and food costing more and many people preoccupied with personal crises of varying sorts, it is understandably more difficult than usual this year for people to make charitable contributions. Which is why MDA, the relief agencies and the people they serve need us all to come through this year, more than ever before.

Gov. Palin's kid is preggers. So f#@&ing WHAT?!?

Will someone please explain to me why the pregnancy of the daughter of the vice-presidential candidate of the Republican Party is a news story at all?! One report is actually headlined—so help me Ghu—"Gustav, Pregnancy Shape RNC." We already know she's going to keep the baby, that John McCain knew in advance of picking her mom, that the Governor herself is adamantly "pro-life" to the point of keeping her own most recent baby even after it was clear it would be what these days is euphemistically termed "a special-needs child." What could possibly make this matter so consequential that the TV and radio networks and cable channels must waste an entire news cycle on it?

Is it that the pregnant daughter is herself only 14 years old? Does the (non-)news somehow render Gov. Palin unfit? How? Is it that the GOP's self-marketing as the "family values" party is somehow undermined by this? Are the newsies just cheesed off that she didn't announce this little detail at once upon her selection? And what effing difference does it make who the father of the fetus in question is? And would they be making such a big deal of the pregnancy if it were Sen. Barack Obama's daughter, or Joe Biden's? Seriously, I want to know.

Talk about the candidates themselves all you want—their policies, their pasts, their accomplishments or lack thereof. But their families, friends and associates, as Sen. Obama has so excellently put it, are and should remain "off limits." Anything to do with the spouses, offspring, cousins, business partners etc. has no bearing whatsodamnever on the campaign and is not worth a single drop of ink or a single second of airtime.

So to Katie, Brian, Charlie, Wolf et al.: Drop it already and move on. This is the sort of thing that keeps alive the longstanding accusations by the right of "liberal media bias"...even when they have not the least basis in fact.

Dragon*Con '08 Report: The Wrap-Up

So, four days went by amazingly fast, I had a good time and the worst problem I had was losing my badge for about 15 minutes near the Hyatt Concourse information booth on Saturday afternoon (some kind soul turned it in, thank Ghu, and I was able to retrieve it by showing my driver's license at that same booth). And as of 5:30 Atlanta time this afternoon, the last panels ended, the Exhibit Hall and Dealer's Room closed and another Dragon*Con passed into history. Thanks to all the staff and guests who worked so hard to show all of us a good time and to keep us safe and moving.

Some final notes:

• I found a lost badge myself in the men's room at the Hyatt outside the Centennial Ballroom shortly after the Masquerade last night. Since someone had done me the same favor, I felt the least I could do was turn it in to the con. The con staffer guarding the by-then-closed Registration area was kind enough to take it to the staff there and thanked me.
• I discovered a second Exhibit Hall I had not previously seen this afternoon, in just enough time to explore it and find my old friend Larry Smith running his always-excellent bookseller's table. (The distinction between the Exhibit Halls and the Dealer's Room seems to be somewhat blurred in terms of what is actually going on and on display in each, not that I minded necessarily.) But I so did not need to see a drawing of the Family Guy characters costumed as The Rocky Horror Picture Show's characters that included Peter Griffin in Frank N. Furter's costume. (Trying to scrub that image out of my head now, thank you very much. And now you'll have to, also; sorry...)
• One of the best hall costumes I saw Sunday was on a couple of guys who stationed themselves in giant toy display boxes on the Hyatt Concourse as "William Shatner Action Figures." One in cowboy outfit with phaser, called "Action Shatner," and the other in TOS captain's uniform with Elizabethan frill collar, labeled "Shakespearean Shatner." A picture will be forthcoming shortly.
• The fellow I mentioned in yesterday's report from the open filking with the uncanny voice talent is named Craig Crumpton, and you can search his name on YouTube to find videos of him doing his amazing thing. He also has his own website, which you can and should check out. Recommended highly.

And the lovely little weekend-only world gets packed away for another year; hope you all have enjoyed reading what I posted.