From San Antonio: Advocates want homeless treated same as evacuees. Texas is not particularly well known for its efforts to help the homeless living there, making their hosting of Katrina's victims a touch ironic.

This is really quite typical after something like this. American's are generally giving and compassionate, but they sometimes need to be shaken into acting on it.

When they see something like Katrina, they understand the need to help those made homeless by tragedy. It's immediate and dramatic, and points out clearly how easily any of us can be destroyed by forces beyond our control. We can see ourselves in the eyes of the victims and so we reach out without hesitation.

The slow tragedy of economic destruction is not so immediately dramatic. When a community - or even an individual - is dragged down by a confluence of circumstances smaller and open to interpretation, it's easier to look away. Was it the closing of one factory? Was it the over-crowded classrooms? Or was it just laziness?

A hurricane is clear-cut. We know why they were homeless and there's no arguing about whether the victims brought it on themselves. It's easy to give there.

Economic ruination is a little different. If we admit that there are causes beyond the victims' control then we have to recognize the potential for chaos in our own lives. Now that's hard.

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On a different subject, yesterday we saw "Grizzly Man." This documentary by Werner Hertzog tells the story of the last few years in the life of Timothy Treadwell, including his violent death. For the last 13 years of his life, Tim had spent late Summer and early Fall in the Alaska wilderness among the bears. In 2003 he and his partner stayed later in the season than usual, when most of the animals entered hibernation, and the salmon had stopped running, and where killed by a hungry bear.

Tim studied the bears, photographed them, and (he claims) protected them from poachers. His detractors say that poaching is not that big a problem, and that Tim harmed the bears by acclimating them to human contact. During the off-season he brought his stories and pictures to schools across the country and never charged a speaker's fee. You watch the movie and decide for yourself whether Tim was a great naturalist, or a crazed fame seeker, or something in between.

Sometimes a movie is not just a movie. What made this so difficult for Leslie and I to watch is that we knew Tim. During his time away from Alaska he was a neighbor of Leslie's parents, and became a family friend. Tim even named one of the bears "Freckles" after my in-law's family dog.

Hertzog relys heavily on Tim's own footage that he shot over the years, and skillfully combines it with new interviews and narration to tell the complex story of this very complex man. I think it's a brilliant and beautiful movie, and it does Tim justice even as it shows the bad along with the good.

Learn more about Tim's legacy at Grizzly People (the foundation he started to fund his work).

Listening to the radio I was beginning to wonder if the rest of the world had forgotten us. Voice after voice was complaining how upset they were that the international community was quietly watching the U.S. Gulf Coast die without offering any aid.

So, I went to Google News and searched for "Katrina international aid". Along with a few editorials railing against the world for ignoring us and calling for an end to our foreign aid, I found several news articles that called that thesis into question:

* International Offers of Aid Pour Into U.S. in Katrina Aftermath (Bloomberg)
* Oil price drops as Europe plans US oil aid (Reuters)
* Aid for us? (New Hampshire Sentinel)
* Australia, Japan, Germany Offer Relief (Washington Post)

If you take the time to read a few of these articles, what you learn is that no less than a dozen nations have offered help so far, despite what the right wing commentators would have you believe.

The help includes cash aid from governments and individuals, French rescue workers from the Caribbean, and a release of gasoline from the Europeans' strategic oil reserves.

What you also learn from these articles is that this help has all been offered, despite the fact that President Bush has not asked for any assistance. Bush even went so far as to turn down the Russian offer of help, saying that the U.S. had "all the necessary means and equipment to conduct relief works."

In other post-hurricane news; this morning I received my first hurricane relief scam spam. It was an email soliciting donations to help in the relief effort. One link, buried within the email, was a legitimate link to the Red Cross (redcross.org), but the more prominent link was completely suspicious.

Yes, we should all be giving generously to this effort; but don't be fooled by scams. Give to organizations you already know and trust (such as the Red Cross) through links you can verify through a reputable source.

The "gun that won the west" is also responsible for one of San Jose's architectural oddities, the Winchester Mystery House.

Sarah Winchester, widow to the gun's maker, moved here about 120 years ago and started building her mansion. At the advice of psychics, who were trying to help her escape the ghosts of all who had died by the Winchester rifle, she continued building until her death in 1922.

And now the story is the subject of a new musical comedy! Sarah, her architect, and a collection of ghosts, will be dancing and singing and building their way across the stage of the San Jose Repertory Theatre beginning next week. "The Haunting of Winchester" kicks off the Rep's 25th season this weekend and plays through October 2. Buy your tickets now, or read more about the show at the Mercury News.

And, just in case you hadn't yet, get over to the Red Cross and put something in the hurricane relief fund.

Here's an interesting statistic... While the military deaths in Iraq are still a bit short of 2,000, a different milestone has been reached. More journalists have now been killed in Iraq than were killed in Vietnam.

In the just over two years of fighting in Iraq 66 journalists have been killed (and 22 kidnapped) compared to 63 journalists killed in twenty years of fighting in Vietnam (1955-1975).

More from Reuters/Alternet: More journalists killed in Iraq than Vietnam

How blunt should doctors be about a patient's weight problem? Would you want your doctor to tell you when your girth was in danger of affecting your health? I would.

Several years ago, when my gall bladder was first identified as the source of some of my problems, I asked the doctor, "Would it help the situation if I lost any weight?"

He would not commit to answer, or come right out and say that I was overweight. After much pressing, however, he did imply that, yes, I would put off the inevitability of surgery if I ate a lower-fat diet and maybe lost a few pounds.

I was not overly obese, just a bit overweight, but I lost over 30 pounds, and it definitely eased the pain I was feeling. Three years later I still wound up having to have the gall bladder surgery, but I had put it off and felt better for it by losing weight.

Still, I always wondered why the doctor refused to say the obvious; that was eating poorly and it was having a negative effect on my health. Now I see why:

A New Hampshire woman is suing her doctor for advising her to lose weight. There's no question of whether or not the advice was medically sound; only that it hurt her feelings.

Although he wrote her a note of apology, Dr. Terry Bennett may now lose the ability to practice medicine in the state. The woman's weight was not disclosed in the news article.

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Update: I just found another article at the New York Daily News, "Hefty complaint leveled against doc", the woman weighed in at 250 pounds and has diabetes.

I'm sorry, but if you are a 250 pound diabetic, you need to try to lose some weight. Get over yourself and admit it: you're obese and it's hurting you. Perhaps there's some reason why you can't lose weight, but don't be insulted when a doctor suggests it.

Eminent domain, Palestinian style... Now that the Israeli settlements have been removed from Gaza, thousands of Palestinians are looking forward to going back to their family's old farm lands and rebuilding their lives. But, they might not be allowed to go there.

They won't be denied access by their former occupiers. They will be denied access by their own government.

According to Freih Abu Meddein, director of the Palestinian Land Authority, "We will only give back the land if it doesn't serve a public use, like streets, schools or any assets left behind by the Israelis."

The Palestinian Authority claims that before Israel occupied Gaza, following the 1967 Six Day War, that 91% of the land was public land. Obviously they are laying claim to that land. The Authority is also laying first rights of claim to the other 9% as well.

So much for the right of return that the Intifada was supposed to be all about.

Read more at the Guardian Unlimited

Over the past twenty years, which product do you think has risen more in price, milk or gasoline? Most of us would probably guess that it's gas, even just by the jumps in price of this summer. We would also be wrong.

Over the longer term, milk has actually had a larger price increase, as has bread and groceries over all. Gas is right behind them, of course, but food is getting to be more expensive than gasoline.

So why do we pay far more attention to the spikes in gasoline prices? An interesting article in the Seattle Times, Gas-pump angst: Why rising price riles us up, takes a look at that question.

I think most of the analysis in the article is right-on, and I found it very interesting. One thing it glosses over, however, is the connection between gas prices and political issues. Yes, food prices (particularly farm subsidies) have political overtones, but to the same extent, and not for the population as a whole.