Friday Notes

MANY UNIVERSITIES around the country are trying to make room to enroll students from the New Orleans area colleges, which for obvious reasons will not be offering classes this term. Link

Among the displaced students are those from Dillard University, where President Marvalene Hughes ordered the campus evacuated on Saturday. 225 Dillard students fled north in a convoy of buses, one of which developed mechanical problems and completely burned up, destroying students' belongings and provisions.

Dr Hughes retired this past spring from the presidency of California State University Stanislaus in Turlock (a block south of where I sit) and had just two months ago assumed the position at Dillard, an historically black college in New Orleans. I doubt that this was the kind of start that Marvalene was looking for. But she is the right person for the job. I can't think of anyone better suited to take charge in a crisis. She has apparently set-up a temporary office in Atlanta.

Administrators from many of the other schools are still unaccounted for.

BATCH BATCHELDER of Biloxi lost his home. He's blogging about it. Includes pictures of First Presbyterian Church, which survived.

THE ASTRODOME is maxed out. Link

WHY HAS IT taken so long to mobilize enough National Guard troops? One of our goals for the future should be the development of a rapid response strategy. (Give them all pagers like the volunteer fire-fighters.) Do you remember when people used to think of the National Guard as a kind of second-rate back-up army? It's becoming more and more apparent that they are a major player -- if not THE major player -- in maintaining stability during crises of many sorts. A well-resourced Guard is critical.

CONTINENTAL AIRLINES is giving away tickets to NOLA people who need to relocate. Link

SITE PLANNING a refugee camp. Link

THE HEADLINE read "Spindly Bush Saves Miss. Police Officers" -- I just couldn't figure out if it was the first President Bush or the second President Bush who had engaged in such heroics. It was neither.

"KATRINA IS A SOLDIER of Allah... It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire." Link

That must mean, then, that the tsunami was a wave of torment and evil that Allah sent to wreck havoc on Muslim peoples.

I don't buy it.

The real questions we have to grapple with are, why are there natural disasters -- hurricanes and tsunamis? -- catastrophes which don't seem to differentiate between good people and bad people. And why don't we know how to get out of their way?

OR maybe we should really be asking, why is it that there are good days, when things don't seem so dark and chaotic? -- especially considering that we aren't exceptionally good people.

Jesus said that God "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:45)

FIND THE LOWEST gas prices in your area -- from MSN. Link

SWITCHFOOT, the scruffy alternative band that the kids in our youth group all seem to enjoy, is doomed. Their new CD, nothing is sound, is featured on the frontcover of the fall sale catalog that our very mainstream local Christian bookstore mailed out this week.

THE REAL ESTATE MARKET in our corner of the world seems to be cooling down. Those who bought for investment purposes are probably getting a bit nervous right now. Link (Don't miss the chart at the bottom of the article.)

WHALES DEVELOP gull-baiting strategy. Link

FAST-FOOD RESTAURANTS are getting smaller. Link