West, Texas
He's referring, of course, to the fertilizer plant explosion in the Central Texas town called West (named after a person) that has killed at least 12 and injured at least 200. The casualty count will probably change as more details are known.
This blogger, a woman in her 60s, ran toward the disaster to see whom she could help. (Via.)
One person on Twitter chided Friedersdorf: "I don't think that's such a terrible thing. Of course people are more interested in atrocities with a human perpetrator." Yeah. Like the fertilizer just parked itself nearby a bunch of people's homes. Had nothing to do with the prioritization of money over safety.
Lawyers, Guns & Money has been covering this. Erik Loomis's initial post, in which he pointed out the role of unions and zoning regulations in preventing this type of disaster, was swarmed by Michelle Malkin's flying monkeys. How dare Loomis politicize this tragedy! You know, the same way the Newtown parents politicized their own. Follow-up post trying to explain causality to idiots.
Another follow-up post. "[O]utside of New England, there was never much tradition [in the U.S.] of separating people from industry no matter how bad the health risk." Especially not in "bidness-friendly" states like Texas. Bill Minutaglio of the Texas Observer, who wrote a book about the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history:Because I wrote a book about The Texas City Disaster, my phone began ringing last night with reporters asking about parallels between West and Texas City. A public radio producer who said he wasn’t from Texas wanted to know if it was common to have industrial facilities, like the ones in West, close to residential areas, to schools, to a nursing home. He wanted to know if that kind of thing was “grandfathered” in.
I told him it was complex, and we talked about an inherited political and economic ethos in Texas. That the anti-oversight credo runs deep. It’s in the state’s bedrock. And that, over time, the results are painfully predictable: There will be another explosion (there have been others, more recent ones, in Texas City). There will be more loss of life. And the same questions will emerge-and probably dissipate: What could have been done? Was there enough oversight?
Answer: No. As Loomis concludes, "it’s a cultural problem. We believe capitalists look out for everyone’s interests and that as a society we should cater to the needs of the rich. When we do that, people pay with their lives."
Unlocked.
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