September 04, 2005

• We haven't had this linked already today? Seriously, can we consolidate some of these Katrina links? I'm not playing down the scale of the disaster, but we don't want a flood on the fucking blog as well.
• Well, I've seen it before, but this is really, really powerful and sad. I hope everybody sees it. Bureaucracy has committed murder. (transcript link, from the MeFi thread, the part with Broussard starts about half way down).
• Word, Chy. Newsfilter is spinning out of control.
• I'm sure it's only just begun. Should we leave it to Mefi?
• It needs to be discussed, and there are people who read MoFi and not MeFi, so it is important to get the information out there, but we need to consolidate the data into one or two threads, imho. Right now I think Daily Kos, Eschaton, Crooks and Liars, plus sundry other blogs are doing a very good job of rounding up the information, and we could do well to filter thru them and post the various information to one or two active threads, just so the stuff gets heard. This is as important as giving aid to the people directly, as far as I am concerned.
• A little video love poem to Bush (WMV, from the Mefi thread). Yeah, it's partisan, go ahead and flame me.
• OK! You goddam communist child-molesting cannibal: why don't you do a poo-poo on Jesus' face like everyone knows you want to, you amoral satan-lover?
• Yeah, you love poo-ing on the christ, huh? How you can sleep at night I dunno.
• If it saves just one more life, I will welcome any amount of poo-poo on my face.
• I believe in you now.
• You're talking like the REAL jesus christ. I bet the evangelicals really hate you.
• In a bit more commie-loving, I was recalling how Hurricane Dennis killed only 10 people in the impoverished Socialist hell-hole thanks in large part to the timely evacuation of 1.5 million people by the Civil Defense forces. Why the Bombings Disasters Mean That We Must Support My Politics
• That hell-hole would be Cuba, commie-lovers.
• *smiles, winks in un-'s direction* *completely disregards that other guy*
• Well, Satan, you handsome guy, I notice you don't have any poop on your face. What's on tonight?
• I've actually got a game of chess with Mikey B. He's amusingly easy to beat, but the game will still take a good couple of hours. prior commitments, you know....
• I love the humor on MoFi, but I don't think this particular FPP deserves this type of response. Good lord, it's a video of a man crying while he expresses how dissapointed he is with his government -- and all people can do is complain about how hard it is to keep track of threads and make poo poo jokes. I know we are all exhausted by what has happened, but this is really not the time or place. Video clips such as this one serve a very important purpose by showing the level of frustration that people in Louisiana are experiencing. MoFi and other web-gatherings are excellent places for this information to be shared. Thank you Story Bored for posting.
• True, that video is tough to watch. Like I said above, I hope lots of people get to see it. Sorry if I offended.
• The New Orleans Times-Picayune rips Bush a new one: We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame. [...] Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
• A friend just sent me a link that nicely sums up the potemkin photo-op staged for dear leader. It boggles the mind the callousness of our government's response. I've been spitting mad about this ever since it began.
• "...all people can do is complain about how hard it is to keep track of threads and make poo poo jokes..." You won't find anyone more in favour of promoting, noting, and discussing these very issues, and my heart goes out to the victims of the tragedy, but do you honestly think we should have a separate thread for every one of these? How many clauses do I have to put in to my statement to stress that I'm just as fucking devastated about all of this and overwhelmingly infuriated with the incompetence as anyone while I also make that point?
• I too am stunned that they appear to care more about spinning this rather than saving lives. I just, there are no words really. I knew they were cynical about using national tragedies to make themselves look good, but Jesus H Christ, people are still dying while they're pulling this staged photo-op shit. It's a level of unbefuckinglievablity that I never even knew existed.
• I can no longer be surprised by their venality, mandyman. My ability to be surprised by their venality ended after the lead up to the Iraq farce. That's why I predict that this is nothing, you'll see worse.
• You won't find anyone more in favour of promoting, noting, and discussing these very issues, and my heart goes out to the victims of the tragedy Chyren I have no doubt about that. However, I have stopped following some of the longer threads (Katrina and the Waves, KATRINA) because they have become so long and because they do not always show up in the 'recent comments' sidebar (G4 w/OSX10.3.9 + Firefox -- is there something I'm missing?). If Story Bored had not posted this on the front page I would have missed it. NYT Editorial by Maureen Dowd. Maybe new maybe not -- I did a search {NYT -- might require registration} Mandyman On a personal note, I am still trying to deal with what happened last week. The amount of loss and pain that occured and continues to happen is overwhelming. The ignorance and stupidity of those in charge only makes it hurt more. On a political note, I hope that this serves to unite people enough to get rid of those in power instead of creating further divide. It actually heartens me that some of America's uglier side has been revealed and is now being discussed by a larger number of people. The photo-op and other spin is just more of the same shit and hopefully this time more people will see it for what it is.
• From douggles' link: And the now-famous Fox News video of Geraldo Rivera inside the Convention Center showed how Bush's idea of 'securing' the center was locking the people in. This just reminded me of Putin's decision to gas both hostages and hostage-takers in a Moscow cinema in October 2002. Is it true that the refugees were locked inside the convention centre?
• Zanshin, about the sidebar: I've been missing some new comments too, I think it's because it updates so quickly and often that I miss some between reading the thread and closing my browser (and losing that cookie) so that next time I view MoFi, those comments are assumed to be read.
• Chyren, Mandyman, please defang. This crisis will re-invigorate this imoportant agecny, which was unfortunately absorbed and diluted into the National Security crap. You guys are stewing in dismal; I choose to bathe in hopeful.
• tracicle: They weren't locked in the convention centre itself - most were outside anyways, where there was a bit more air and the smell was better. There was a road block set up to prevent them leaving New Orleans. I don't know my geography well, but it's discussed in the video (by Smith actually, not Geraldo, who didn't know why they couldn't walk away). Some did walk out, presumably before the roadblock. I saw footage of an exhausted mother pushing a shopping cart with some things and a listless baby along the side of a highway - a woman in a car stopped and ran after them to give them some water. There was another group too, that the woman gave water to - a young man pushing another shopping cart with a child in it (not his own child, judging by skin colour, but to help the woman he was walking with). I don't know if those people ever found more help. I don't know who the woman with water was - a reporter, or an emergency worker? No uniform. She was headed seemingly into the city - she gave them the bottles she had.
• I wonder what impact this exodus, from what many might think of as a cultural promised land, will have on other city cultures twenty years on. People are being bussed as far away as Arizona. What will Mardi Gras look like in Phoenix in 2025? Will the whiter richer French Quarter and salvageable institutional, historical and business buildings be saved and the damaged houses in the ninth ward and other predominently black neighbourhoods be bulldozed? What if they improve and strengthen the levees and drainage, and fill in the lowest elevations, creating a little property value? Will the people who left even be able to afford to ever go back, rebuild, and become part of the city again? Will it become a sort of white Disneyland caricature of New Orleans, with the French Quarter surrounded by condos? Or maybe the diaspora will get some Mardi Gras going in places that could use a little. Maybe it will be made financially feasible by the government for them to be able to return to a better protected New Orleans and carry on as they have for close to 300 years? People will be studying whatever happens for decades.
• However, I have stopped following some of the longer threads (Katrina and the Waves, KATRINA) because they have become so long... I had to quit the zombie thread for the same reason. Clicking on it forces me to reboot my computer.
• moneyjane. Exactly what I've been thinking. If it weren't for the fact that much of the French Quarter survived, I'd say that it shouldn't be built up again. But how the rest does get built is a troublesome thing.
• I wonder what impact this exodus ... will have Been thinking about that too. I heard one news story about a bunch of cooks in the Convention center, presumably they're out now, bringing delicious Louisiana cooking to new places!
• "You guys are stewing in dismal; I choose to bathe in hopeful." I wonder how many fucking dead it will take for you to become floating on cloud nine?
• All I can say is thank God that Bush had all those Gulf Coast-resident National Guard troops pre-evacuated to Iraq so they'd be safe from this mess.
• It's hard to have a lot of hope when reading things like this.
• Oh, Jesus.
• I'm joining an Americorps disaster relief team in January. I have no doubt that, after a few weeks quick training, I'll be learning on my feet in Katrina's wake. What's making me sick and despondant is that I can't be there now doing the same job. Without the training and support team, I'd be more of a burden than a help to everyone there, and until January, I can't do much more than sit here safe and sound and fundraise. It's killing me to not be able to do my part.
• Okay...this is an awful question, but after reading so many appeals to find missing people, I'm wondering if the feeling is that most of them are somewhere in a shelter or that they're still stuck in New Orleans or dead? Does anyone know about any information about this, or are the officials just as screwed trying to figure this out? I mean, do they have accurate numbers of how many people were living in the various parishes to compare with how many people are currently in shelters, on buses, or in outside hospitals? I believe they were able to track down or identify everybody after 9-11. I'm getting the idea that like Vegas, there's a lot of transient people passing through New Orleans; in other words is it quite possible we'll never really know how many people were lost? I also understand that many medical and dental records have been lost or destroyed, which will hamper forensic identification of residents. If they don't know, I'm thinking there will always be an unanswerable question about people from other parts of the country who also went missing before and during Katrina.
• ...are the officials just as screwed trying to figure this out? Under the circumstances, this sounds a little naive.
• Heh? Naive to think their communications may be disrupted by the numbers and chaos? Actually seems fairly likely given how getting accurate information seems to be a problem for most everybody down there.
• Military vs FEMA
• wonder how many fucking dead it will take for you to become floating on cloud nine? Sorry if I sound harsh here. I believe something positive will happen. We will seriously address disaster preparedness and recovery, and we will make it a part of our childrens' education, as distasteful as that may be. Duck and cover didn't cut it.
• In another thread, we were joking about preparations for Y2K. The fearmongering bears repeating. We all have to assume the worst, and live in the present. It's like metaphysical Twister.
• I have no problem assuming the worst, it's when we assume the impossible or the unlikely, that's when I have a tad bit of trouble
• Re: Military vs FEMA Sounds like classic bureaucratic gridlock. I wonder if it was bureaucrat A waiting for B waiting for C waiting for A.
• I have enormous respect for your POV here, StoreyBored. I am glad that you can discern the impossible.
• Hee, hee.
• What's so funny?
• Sorry I misspell your name. Duh. as it were.
• By the way, on hindsight I think it is in fact a good idea to congregate links into a specific area.
• Brown rejected accusations he was too inexperienced for the job. "I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it," Brown said. Heck of a job... Also, he's still on FEMA's payroll, apparently.
• When he gets his Congressional Medal of Honor, who'll be laughing then?! Ha! Ha!