FW: [IP] Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences (not good!!! djf)

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Tuesday, Sep 6, 2005 5:58 pm
Subject: [IP] Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences (not good!!! djf)

Begin forwarded message:

From: Kelley Greenman <greenman.k@inkworkswell.com>
Date: September 6, 2005 5:32:33 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

Dave,

This was sent to another list. Perhaps it's too controversial for IP. Still, this is shameful.

Kelley

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/6/132725/8931

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at
the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display
case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up
the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the
windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The
cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices,
and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not.
Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the
looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home
yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a
newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the
National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of
the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real
heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New
Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and
disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running.
The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to
share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop
parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many
hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to
keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers
who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging
to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that
could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers
who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of
those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of
their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the
20% of New Orleans that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French
Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from
Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of
New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the
National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and
the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with
$25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not
have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have
extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours
standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We
created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We
waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses
never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits,
they were commandeered by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously
abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as
water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors,
telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the convention center to
wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into
the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian
and health hellhole. The guards further told us that the City's only other
shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and
that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked,
"If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?"
The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra
water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with
callous and hostile "law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were
told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to
give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a
course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would
be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay.
Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police
commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a
solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater
New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the
City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong
information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander
turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are
there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great
excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals
saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told
them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings
and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now
joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in
wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline
to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the
foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began
firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various
directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward
and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our
conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The
sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us
to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was
little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not
going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City.
These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the
Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain
under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an
encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide,
between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to
everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could
wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip
up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some
chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated
and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from
self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank
further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by
vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi- trucks and
any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape
the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck
and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the
freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn.
We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now secure with the two
necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered.
We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made
beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic,
broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system
where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and
candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or
food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look
out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the
first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not
have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and
individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90
people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking
about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations
saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were
going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials
responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling.
"Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct.
Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol
vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway".
A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy
structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and
water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into
groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or
"riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible
because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once
again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in
an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from
possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the
police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New
Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search
and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a
ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section
of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable
to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport
had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the
airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we
arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were
forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have
air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy
overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any
possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected
to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at
the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had
been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for
hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any
communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception
given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to
someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was
callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were
lost that did not need to be lost.

__________________________________________________
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Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

My own emphasis added at the bottom...

Leo Kowalski, 92, Retired Elevator Operator: "

You’ve lived in Williamsburg almost your entire life. How’s the neighborhood changed?

Oh boy, it’s lousy sir. Very lousy. They think they own the neighborhood.

Who's they?

They ride on the sidewalk. Bicycles all over the place. Motorcycles. Motorscooters. Whatever. They walk about with phones in their ears. Like a bunch of cattle.

Do you have a cellphone?

I have a phone, but I have a regular phone in the house. I don’t have this phone where you walk. Telephone man says they’re going to go deaf. It does something to your ear. I don’t know how true it is…

I heard they can give you brain cancer.

Yeah? Gives you brain cancer? You don’t have one do you?

I do have a cell phone. Pretty much everyone has one these days. It lets you go places and still make arrangements… but let’s go back to talking about the neighborhood.

Well, look at these lovebirds over here. On the corner smoochin’. You’re not supposed to do that. It’s a distress to the other people. And look at these people [walking by]. Two babies. Next time they’ll have three.

And you see what they got coming up the road here right now? You never seen this before. Carrying babies on their shoulders. I don’t say nuttin’. It’s none of my business.

What’s wrong with carrying a baby on your shoulders?

Suppose the baby falls off and cracks her skull open? And then what?

Has Williamsburg changed in positive ways?

It’s changed a lot. You got people that shouldn’t be here if I had anything to say about it. They got rings here and here. On the belly button. Maybe on the ass for all I know. I don’t know how they got here in the first place. They probably don’t even have a job. A lot of them walk on the street here and the girls put their hands in the boys pocket. Right in the back of their pocket! To see if they got any money.

And we never had these holes [in clothes] either. Never! Not when I first came over. One buys a hole and they all gotta. And then when they don’t have holes they’re carrying shopping bags.

Okay, maybe I should be asking you what you don’t like. What is it you don’t like about Williamsburg? Not just Williamsburg, but New York.

I don’t like the coloreds grabbing the white people when the white people should be sticking together. They want to mix chocolate milk.

"

(Via Gothamist.)

Duke Doesn't Suck.

3 Duke students travel to New Orleans, rescue people, come back while feds say they couldn't help anybody: "

But hey, in all fairness, George Bush was on vacation.

A trio of Duke University sophomores say they drove to New Orleans late last week, posed as journalists to slip inside the hurricane-soaked city twice, and evacuated seven people who weren't receiving help from authorities.


The group, led by South Carolina native Sonny Byrd, say they also managed to drive all the way to the New Orleans Convention Center, where they encountered scenes early Saturday evening that they say were disgraceful.


'We found it absolutely incredible that the authorities had no way to get there for four or five days, that they didn't go in and help these people, and we made it in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai,' said Hans Buder, who made the trip with his roommate Byrd and another student, David Hankla....


At 2 p.m., the trio decided to head for New Orleans, Buder said. After looking around, they swiped an Associated Press identification and one of the TV station's crew shirts, and found a Kinko's where they could make copies of the ID.


They were stopped again by authorities at the edge of New Orleans, but this time were able to make it through.


'We waved the press pass, and they looked at each other, the two guards, and waved us on in,' Buder said....


'Anyone who knows that area, if you had a bus, it would take you no more than 20 minutes to drive in with a bus and get these people out,' Buder said. 'They sat there for four or five days with no food, no water, babies getting raped in the bathrooms, there were murders, nobody was doing anything for these people. And we just drove right in, really disgraceful. I don't want to get too fired up with the rhetoric, but some blame needs to be placed somewhere.'

"

(Via AMERICAblog.)

One half hour to get through to Dell Technical support, then 20 minutes of them getting down the information needed to transfer me to another department, and then again to a linux department.

All this because I need to get bad RAM replaced on a server.

It looks like the price of calling Dell to replace the bad RAM will cost as much as just going out and replacing the RAM.

Dell Support is a joke.

Text Message from New Orleans: "

An operative who's been reporting on the disaster in New Orleans sent us a text message this morning:

I have a rehnquist joke for you - he's actually been dead for 4 days but fema just found him.

Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.

RELATED:

Rehnquist, R.I.P. [Wonkette]

Finally [Wonkette]

"

(Via Wonkette.)

Chertoff's Reading Habits: "

On Sunday, DHS chief Michael Chertoff told 'Meet the Press's' Tim Russert that one reason for the delay in getting federal aid to Katrina victims was that 'everyone' thought the crisis had passed when the storm left: 'I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'' We're wondering what papers the Chertoff household gets, because these are the headlines that greeted most people Tuesday morning:

The Newseum has over 400 frontpages archived but we suspect that the one with the 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet' hed exists primarily in Chertoff's mind.

Hurricane Katrina [Newseum]
Transcript for September 4; Michael Chertoff, Marc Morial, Mike Tidwell, Mark Fischetti, David Wessel, Haley Barbour & Aaron Broussard [MSNBC]

Thanks to the NewsDesigner for a cleaner frontpage pic!

"

(Via Wonkette.)

Here's a simple pledge, "Never believe what the Bush Administration says, ever again."

The Will 2 Believe: "

Kevin Drum expressed some amazement today at the fact that the ABC News poll puts Bush's approval for handling of Katrina at 46%, vs. 47% disapproval. As Kevin says, 'Even if you're a more forgiving sort than I am, what exactly has he done that deserves approval?'

True. But there's a factor here that I think is always neglected in these polls: There's always a thin line between what we believe and what we wish to be true, or need to believe to be true. Unless you've given up completely on the Bush presidency, you naturally want to think the president and the government are doing the best job they can do with the disaster, because to believe otherwise is kind of terrifying. After Sept. 11, Bush's ratings went sky-high not so much because he did anything particularly distinctive in response, but simply because you have no choice but to trust the president under such circumstances. Similarly, especially if your own family is affected by the war in Iraq, you have to believe that the president is making the right choices and started the war on the best intelligence and on honestly held beliefs. It's simply a fact of human nature that people have an easier time believing the thing that makes them feel a little more comfortable and secure in their previous assumptions and their trust.

Jon Stewart put it well in his interview with Christopher Hitchens, when Hitchens obnoxiously asked if Stewart was really saying that he was 'on the President's side,' responding, 'No, I need to believe that the president is on my side.'

And that's a fact about public opinion that I believe Bush and Rove understand better than anyone. Whether they learned it only after Sept. 11, or knew it all along (the interview with fired Bush ghostwriter Mickey Herskowitz that came out right before the election suggests that Bush had an early instinct that what he calls 'political capital' could be created not just by persuasion, but by creating extreme situations -- notably war -- in which people essentially have no choice but to defer their trust to the president), they know it now.

And this is part of the story of the Bush presidency: at each point they have created situations in which to believe the worst about the president requires a difficult and unsettling surrender of your own assumptions and sense of security. It's easy and comfortable to believe that the president gets blowjobs from interns, and even to get comfortably outraged about it. But it's much more difficult to accept that he would lead us into war on false pretenses, or countenance the betrayal of a covert agent for political gain, or treat the federal disaster management agency as a 'turkey farm' for cronies of cronies who washed out at their previous trivial jobs, or ignore warnings of a terrorist threat, or...

That's also part of the disconnect or polarization in American politics. Those of us who at some point crossed over the river -- we've come to grips with the fact that our lives and our assumptions are in some degree of peril because of the president, in a way that we never felt about Nixon, Reagan or Bush I -- will believe anything, and have trouble understanding those who haven't crossed over, who still want to believe where it's possible to believe.

It's why it's extremely important not to fall into the trap of 'let's not be political at a time of crisis.' This is a moment where the unthinkable finally becomes real for a lot of people. Because it is real.

(crossposted at tpmcafe.com)

"

(Via The Decembrist.)

Keith Olbermann on MSNBC

The Video: http://media.putfile.com/OlbermannSwings

The Text: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8514671/

Definitely see the video if you can. It is editorializing, and
everybody's saying the same thing these days, but he says it better
than many.

Gore personally helps charter a flight for 140 people from New Orleans, and doesn't grant any press interviews.

Edison Hate Future: "

"

(Via Warrenellis.com.)

im brown, on the metro and messin with your head: "Ever since Sept 11, but especially after the London subway bombings, i have been getting 'the look' on public transportation and at airports. To put it mildly, my days of picking up girls on a plane are over. Shit, getting up to piss on a plane causes at least one lady on a plane to piss herself. It's like a chain reaction."

(Via Best of Craigslist.)

One can only hope for an Orange revolution in Egypt.

Zakariya Abdel Aziz, chairman of the judges' group, warned that election safeguards needed to be put in place. If that did not happen, the election could "subject the office of president to danger, and subject it to the Ukrainian model," he said, alluding to the mass protests in Ukraine last year over charges of election fraud. "The committee and its president must take note of this and revert back to law."

It seems that time and time again this FEMA's (and by line of control the Bush Administration's) incompetence is being "routed around" by ordinary citizens that use the alternative lines of information and communication that exist to both ask for and receive help.

For instance, this story about a Wisconsin Bus Caravan that organized a trip to the Gulf Coast within 24 hours.

I wonder of this flattened organizational structure is just a small part of the inevitable evolution of disaster response and recovery.

A study of the flow reputational capital of help requests and responses in this crisis, especially with the tarnishment (perhaps that is too light a word) of the name of the federal agencies, may prove to be quite interesting in the coming months.

On NBC's Meet the Press this morning:

But the government message has found itself struggling for time on the airwaves against angry criticisms like Ms. Landrieu's, and anguished cries for help, like that of Mr. Broussard, the local official who broke down sobbing on NBC.

"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything," Mr. Broussard said. "His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday.' And she drowned Friday night."

"Nobody's coming to get us," he said through his tears.

"Nobody's coming to get us," Mr. Broussard said, his head sagging. "The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sake, shut up and send us somebody."

Perhaps one of the most depressing moments I've ever seen on the program.

From TF:

Aides: assistant Army secretary forced out

March 6, 2002 Posted: 11:02 PM EST (0402 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) --The assistant secretary of the Army resigned Wednesday, with congressional aides saying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had him fired for questioning proposed budget cuts for the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Pentagon said Assistant Secretary of the Army Mike Parker resigned from his post and expressed appreciation for his contributions. But congressional aides said Rumsfeld wanted Parker fired after his testimony to Congress last week.

The White House declined comment. But a senior Bush administration official would not dispute the report that Parker, a former congressman from Mississippi, had been asked to leave.

"The administration expects its staff to support its budget," the official told CNN.

The head of the Army's civil works division, Parker was "terribly honest" in his testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, congressional aides said.

Parker said Bush's proposal to provide the Army Corps of Engineers with approximately $4 billion -- down about 10 percent -- was not the right number. The corps had requested more than $6 billion. The assistant secretary told lawmakers that the cuts would mean canceling $190 million in already contracted projects.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, the committee's chairman, called the decision to let Parker go "a serious mistake."

"Assistant Secretary Parker came before the Budget Committee and answered questions put to him honestly and directly," Conrad said. "That is precisely his responsibility in our constitutional system.

"The administration will cost itself credibility with Congress if it attempts to suppress the truth from its own representatives who testify before Congress."

A senior Bush aide said that when the budget is final, you "want everybody to support it." Parker, the aide said, "doesn't appear to agree with the president's budget."



Find this article at:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/03/06/army.secretary/

Ah Hungary...

Parting Shots: Axe Murders and a Reality-Show Lawsuit: "

Woah, where did the week go? We got so many other stories we want to tell you about, but it's already 6:00, so we're just going to give 'em to you fast and dirty. Not that there's anything wrong with fast and dirty...

• The cops arrested a man in connection with the brutal murder of two Germans in late July. After what seems to have been an extremely light grilling by the fuzz, the killer broke down and admitted that he hadn't bought a house from the couple, but instead strangled and axed them to death, and then dumped their rotting carcases in a well somewhere near the puszta.

• The British government is hoping to tackle the problem of out-of-control fly-away Brit stag animals by issuing a set of useful guidelines, including 'Know the local laws and customs, for example acceptable behaviour and alcohol laws.' Hahahahahahaahahahahahahahaah, oh that's rich. [times online]

• The Hungarian government is promising to slash spending on administration, and to keep the deficit in check during its dicey-looking re-election drive. Hahahahahahaahahahahahahahaah, oh that's even better. [portfolio.hu]

• Something called Endemol, which is the owner of the license for reality show 'Big Brother,' is suing the creators of the Hungarian reality show 'Való Világ' ('Real World') for stealing their idea. Attila Árpa, 'the father of Való Világ,' doesn't deny copying the concept but says Endemol has no chance of winning. We smell a new reality show!

• An 83-year-old woman had her leg crushed under the tire of a bus after her arm got stuck in the door, and the driver didn't notice. She was dragged for 12 meters. According to tabloid Színes Bulvár Lap (offline) the injured néni isn't angry with the driver, because he has visited her in the hospital.

• According to the French daily Le Figaro, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) included Hungary on a 'blacklist' of countries where they had found problems with air safety. Hungarian aviation authorities countered by saying that the ICAO hasn't written such lists since last November, because it is 'against their principles.' Super!

• The parents of a five-year-old girl who was paralyzed after receiving a required immunization shot as an infant sued the state and won. But a new law that will become effective on October 30th will shift the responsibility from the state to the manufacturer of the medicine in such cases.

• In the process of turning Budapest's Madách tér (Madách square) into London, Steven Spielberg's crew removed stickers publicizing conservative opposition party Fidesz's National Consultation Board from the front of the organization's office. Meanwhile, the director of the acclaimed Holocaust epic 'Shindler's List' will allegedly compensate businesses affected by this weekend's shooting of 'Munich.' [index.hu]

• Lajos Koltai's supposedly so-so Holocaust epic 'Sorstalanság' ('Fateless') will be among the foreign films from which the American Film Academy will choose the Oscar nominees in January, having been officials put into competition by the Hungarian government. [index.hu]

• A bicyclist tried to rape a 24-year-old woman jogging on a bicycle path in the Southeastern town of Békéscsaba on Sunday. The woman managed to escape. Police have asked the help of civilians in finding the attacker, but are not urging motorists to run over any bicyclists they see. [index.hu]

• Two siblings, a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old, have been missing since yesterday afternoon, when they took off from their father's home near the eastern town of Nyíregyháza in the old man's Skoda. [index.hu]

"

(Via Pestiside.)

You've probably heard by now that Rehnquist has died.

No Further Commentary needed.

horror show update: "

I imagine most of you have seen all this crap from several other sources as well, but here are the links that made me cringe this morning:

Photo Op

Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La: But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.

Round Up the Usual Suspects

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Two key U.S. senators said on Friday they will launch a bipartisan coverup of what they described as an 'immense, but probably unavoidable failure' of the government response to Hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who heads the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the panel's other top-ranking Republican, said they hope to shift as much blame as possible to lower-ranking officials and career federal employees -- ideally at an obscure government agency that few Americans have ever heard of.'

In keeping with recent congressional practice, we will try to shield the president and the senior members of his administration from directly responsibility for this fiasco, although a few token resignations may be required this time around,' the pair said in a joint statement. 'Our primary focus, however, will be on figuring out how to throw billions of dollars in additional funding to the very same agencies that failed so spectacularly this past week.'

Guard Troops Descend on New Orleans

Bill Wattenburg said that he has lobbied the administration and the military to immediately begin [a food drop program as was done in Afghanistan, Bosnia and in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami.] He said he was told that the military was prepared to begin, but that it was awaiting a request from FEMA. 'We know very well how to do this, and it's just incomprehensible that we're not,' Wattenburg said.

Firefighting gear stockpile unused

Nine stockpiles of fire-and-rescue equipment strategically placed around the country to be used in the event of a catastrophe still have not been pressed into service in New Orleans, five days after Hurricane Katrina, CNN has learned. Responding to a CNN inquiry, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Marc Short said Friday the gear has not been moved because none of the governors in the hurricane-ravaged area has requested it.

Daley 'shocked' as feds reject aid

A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck.

City personnel are willing to operate self-sufficiently and would not depend on local authorities for food, water, shelter and other supplies, he said.

'Questions Linger' about the speed with which troops were deployed

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.

Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested -- and continues to request -- that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

Teenager 'loots' a rescue bus

Eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson jumped aboard the bus as it sat abandoned on a street in New Orleans and took control. 'I just took the bus and drove all the way here...seven hours straight,' Gibson admitted. 'I hadn't ever drove a bus.' The teen packed it full of complete strangers and drove to Houston. He beat thousands of evacuees slated to arrive there.

Authorities eventually allowed the renegade passengers inside the dome. But the 18-year-old who ensured their safety could find himself in a world of trouble for stealing the school bus.

'I dont care if I get blamed for it,' Gibson said, 'as long as I saved my people.'

Volunteers with 500 boats sent home:

They then specifically asked the DWF agent that they (and other citizens in the flotillia) be allowed to go to the hospitals and help evacuate the sick and the doctors and nurses stranded there. They offered to bring these people back to Lafayette, in our own vehicles, in order to ensure that they received proper and prompt medical care.

The DWF agent did not want to hear this and ordered them home -- ALL FIVE HUNDRED BOATS. They complied with the DWF agent's orders, turned around and headed back to Lafayette along with half of the flotillia. However, two friends were pulling a smaller 15ft alumaweld with a 25 hp. The DWF agents let them through to proceed to the rescue operation launch site.

The function of the military is to control the media:

Leroy Fouchea, [...] then offered to show reporters the dead bodies of a man in a wheelchair, a young man who he said he dragged inside just hours earlier, and the limp forms of two infants, one just four months old, the other six months old. [...] 'They died right here, in America, waiting for food,' Fouchea said as he walked toward Hall D, where the bodies were put to get them out of the searing heat.

A National Guardsman refused entry.

'It doesn't need to be seen, it's a make-shift morgue in there,' he told a Reuters photographer. 'We're not letting anyone in there anymore. If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq.'

Evacuation Disrupted by False Gunshot Report

Laura Brown, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman in Washington, said she had no such report. 'We're controlling every single aircraft in that airspace and none of them reported being fired on,' she said, adding that the FAA was in contact with the military as well as civilian aircraft.

And yet, Army Times says:

According to Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeremy Grishamn, a spokesman for the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the vessel kept its helicopters at sea Thursday night after several military helicopters reported being shot at from the ground.

[ They go on to describe it as an 'insurgency'! What the fuck! ]

See Geraldo freak out on Hannity (QuickTime) More of this sort of thing at Crooks And Liars. Also, The Rebellion of the Talking Heads, since it is news when reporters start actually reporting.

Halliburton hired for storm cleanup. So at least there's that."

(Via jwz.)

This is what I call a smoking gun.

FEMA head fired from last job -- head of Nat'l. Arabian Horse Ass'n.: "Xeni Jardin:
'

The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.

' Link"

(Via Boing Boing.)

Fwd: [IP] Reactions From The World Press BBC selection

"Soft Not-Power"

Begin forwarded message:

> From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
> Date: September 3, 2005 4:35:59 PM EDT
> To: Ip Ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>
> Subject: [IP] Reactions From The World Press BBC selection
> Reply-To: dave@farber.net
>
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@adelphia.net>
> Date: September 3, 2005 4:27:45 PM EDT
> To: dave@farber.net
> Subject: Reactions From The World Press
>
>
> Story from BBC NEWS:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4211320.stm
>
> Press dismay at Katrina chaos
> Newspapers around the world see Hurricane Katrina's chaotic
> aftermath as a defining moment for the presidency of George W Bush.
>
> While there is clear sympathy for the disaster's victims, many
> commentators place the blame for the delayed rescue effort squarely
> on Mr Bush's administration.
>
> Mexico's El Universal
>
> The slowness with which the USA's federal emergency services have
> joined the rescue operation has already generated great political
> tension... There is no doubt that the lack of well-timed responses
> to assist the population will have political costs for President
> Bush's Republican Party in the next federal elections.
>
>
> Colombia's El Colombiano
>
> It is now urgent that the world's leaders take heed of nature's
> warning, look at the evidence and realise that the climate, on a
> global scale, is changing. This is already known from scientific
> reports, but they continue to ignore it, to play it down, or not to
> care about it.
>
>
> Argentina's Clarin
>
> Katrina had more than the power of the wind and water, because,
> now, when they have subsided, it can still reveal the emptiness of
> an era, one that is represented by President George W Bush more
> than anyone.
>
>
> Spain's El Pais
>
> Up until Monday, Bush was the president of the war in Iraq and
> 9/11. Today there are few doubts that he will also pass into
> history as the president who didn't know how to prevent the
> destruction of New Orleans and who abandoned its inhabitants to
> their fate for days. And the worst is yet to come.
>
>
> Spain's La Razon
>
> Proving that even the gods are mortal, it is clear that the USA's
> international image is being damaged in a way that it has never
> known before. The country will probably be able to recuperate from
> the destruction, but its pride has already been profoundly wounded.
>
>
> France's Liberation
>
> Bush had already been slow to react when the World Trade Center
> collapsed. Four years later, he was no quicker to get the measure
> of Katrina - a cruel lack of leadership at a time when this second
> major shock for 21st century America is adding to the crisis of
> confidence for the world's leading power and to international
> disorder. As happened with 9/11, the country is displaying its
> vulnerability to the eyes of the world.
>
>
> France's Le Progres
>
> Katrina has shown that the emperor has no clothes. The world's
> superpower is powerless when confronted with nature's fury.
>
>
> Switzerland's Le Temps
>
> The sea walls would not have burst in New Orleans if the funds
> meant for strengthening them had not been cut to help the war
> effort in Iraq and the war on terror... And rescue work would have
> been more effective if a section of National Guard from the areas
> affected had not been sent to Baghdad and Kabul... And would George
> Bush have left his holiday ranch more quickly if the disaster had
> not first struck the most disadvantaged populations of the black
> south?
>
>
> Ireland's The Irish Times
>
> This is a defining moment for Mr Bush, just as much as 9/11 was. So
> far his reputation for prompt and firm crisis management has fallen
> far short of what is required.
>
>
> Saudi Arabia's Saudi Gazette
>
> The episode illustrates that when the normal day-to-day activity of
> society disintegrates, the collapse of civilisation is only a few
> paces behind. We all walk on the edge of the abyss.
>
>
> Musib Na'imi in Iran's Al-Vefagh
>
> About 10,000 US National Guard troops were deployed [in New
> Orleans] and were granted the authority to fire at and kill whom
> they wanted, upon the pretext of restoring order. This decision is
> an indication of the US administration's militarist mentality,
> which regards killing as the only way to control even its own
> citizens.
>
>
> Samih Sa'ab in Lebanon's Al-Nahar
>
> The destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina... has proved that even
> the No 1 superpower in the world is helpless in facing nature's
> 'terrorism'.
>
>
> Pakistan's The Nation
>
> To augment the tragedy, the government of the world's richest
> nation defied the general expectation that at the first sign of the
> storm it would muster an armada of ships, boats and helicopters for
> the rescue operation. For nearly three days it sat smugly apathetic
> to the people's plight, their need for food, medicine and other
> basic necessities.
>
>
> Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po
>
> This disaster is a heavy blow to the United States, and a lesson
> which deserves deep thought... [It] is a warning to the Bush
> administration that the United States must clear its head and truly
> assume its responsibility to protect nature and the environment in
> which humankind lives.
>
>
> Hong Kong's South China Morning Post
>
> Even if our money may not be needed, at the least we should be
> offering moral support. Our skills in dealing with storms may be
> useful to help Americans prevent other such tragedies. We should be
> offering this help rather than shrugging off what should be our
> humanitarian duty.
>
>
> Ambrose Murunga in Kenya's Daily Nation
>
> My first reaction when television images of the survivors of
> Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans came through the channels was that
> the producers must be showing the wrong clip. The images, and even
> the disproportionately high number of visibly impoverished blacks
> among the refugees, could easily have been a re-enactment of a
> scene from the pigeonholed African continent.
>
>
> BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television,
> press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more
> than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several
> bureaus abroad.
>
>
> Published: 2005/09/03 15:18:54 GMT
>
> © BBC MMV
>
> -------------------------------------
> Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-
> people/
>

FW: [IP] Hurricane Katrina Analysis - CFR Global Health Program

Some notion of the extent of the problem.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Saturday, Sep 3, 2005 6:08 am
Subject: [IP] Hurricane Katrina Analysis - CFR Global Health Program

Begin forwarded message:

From: AMBOLLC@aol.com
Date: September 2, 2005 7:58:52 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: For IP, if you wish: Hurricane Katrina Analysis - CFR Global Health Program

From: SRosenstein@cfr.org
Date: September 2, 2005 6:53:40 PM EDT
To: SRosenstein@cfr.org
Subject: Hurricane Katrina Analysis - CFR Global Health Program

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As we head into Labor Day Weekend most of us are heartbroken by news from
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The Council on Foreign Relations Global Health Program has been watching the situation closely, with a special eye on possible disease situations. We would like to bring some key
points to your attention. This transmission is going out on Friday,
September 2: It is possible that the situation will have changed markedly
by the time some of you read this, as you may not be checking your e-mail
until after the holiday.

We would first like to draw your attention to the extraordinary work being
done by the staff of the New Orleans Times Picayune. You can see the newspaper, which is currently only able to publish online, here:

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/katrina/

Friends on the Picayune staff tell us that the newspaper offices and printing presses were overwhelmed in the flooding, forcing the entire staff
to relocate to facilities at LSU in Baton Rouge. There, the exhausted staff
has been living 4-6 to a room in the dorms, or on cots in the makeshift newsroom, covering the demise of their fair city. If there is justice in the world, these folks will win the Pulitzer Prize for Community Service Journalism.

Meanwhile, the Global Health Program sees parallels between such things as
the tsunami response, major epidemic outbreaks, refugee crises, and the U.S. government response to Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath.

First, a lot of the early media coverage focused on repeating the same stock footage over and over of lootings. The looters were nearly all black,
and you could well imagine that many viewers were thinking, �How could those people behave that way?� The image of black looters, harking to riots in the past and �lawlessness�, may have sparked a temporary downturn
in American concern. From that moment the call was not for rescue, but for
�law and order�. We are only now returning to a serious rescue mode, in light of public outcry regarding the estimated 20,000 people stranded without food, water, medicine, or hygiene in the New Orleans Convention Center. In our experience such shifts of external public opinion, however
transient they may be, have enormous outcomes on the ground, where minutes
may have life-and-death consequences.

Across the region we have some of the worst poverty in America, and most of
that poverty has a black face. Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana: these
are states that consistently, since the Civil War, have ranked in the bottom five states in America for virtually every social achievement, from
education and infant mortality to police corruption. Government, for many
of the region�s poor, has had one of two faces: corruption or overt neglect. New Orleans has had one of the highest murder rates in the nation
for decades and a notoriously corrupt police force. In our experience dealing with catastrophes and epidemics overseas, there is a DIRECT
correlation between the historic relationship between government and its people, and the willingness of the populace to believe in and correctly respond to government instructions. Of course tens of thousands of people
failed to evacuate: why believe the government this time? And of course those folks who are slowly starving and baking in New Orleans assume that
government has abandoned them.

I found myself recalling the way the Chinese people responded to the SARS
epidemic. Because they knew that their government had lied to them many times in the past and had covered up cases in the capital, people turned away from official government sources of information. Rumors spread like wildfire via cell phone text messaging, spawning a mass exodus from Beijing
of tens of thousands of people. The medical system in China is notoriously
corrupt and the peasants stay away from hospitals unless it is a matter of
life and death. When government told the masses to go to the hospitals if
they had fevers, the Chinese refused. The SARS situation spiraled out of control in large part because the people had long-standing, sound reasons
for distrusting their government. Public health collapses if the bond of trust between government and its people breaks, or never exists. I saw the
same thing with plague in India in �94.

Perhaps the single most crucial difference between New York�s response to
9/11 and New Orleans� and the hurricane region�s response to the current crisis is communication and its corollary, leadership. Though cell phones
were disrupted and emergency responders in Lower Manhattan lost contact during the morning of 9/11, the people of New York knew immediately what was going on. We did not lose electricity citywide, TVs, radios. Mayor Giuliani rose to the occasion brilliantly, making full use of every press
conference and broadcast opportunity to honestly assess the situation, telling New Yorkers what the government did, and did not, know. New Yorkers were frightened, of course, but they knew what was going on and they could see, minute by minute, what was being done in their behalf.

In contrast, none of the people now trapped in New Orleans or wandering around in shock along the Mississippi/Alabama coastal communities have any
idea what is going on. They have no electricity, and therefore no
television or radio. Information is entirely rumors. When reporters
interview them, these desperate souls are grilling the journalists for news. This means that the comfort of observed leadership is completely absent. No matter what the Mayor of New Orleans says, his people cannot hear him. They do not see the vast destruction. I doubt more than a handful
of the folks trapped inside New Orleans at this moment have any idea how massive the damage to the Gulf Coast is.

Worse, there is real danger that the only overt sign of leadership will be
military, in the form of anti-looting enforcement and armed personnel. While bringing law and order to the situation is essential, the absence of
obvious civilian leadership and information means many local refugees will
view themselves as an occupied or policed population. Given overtones of racism, this could be explosive.

Looking forward, based again on my years of covering Third World disasters,
here are my concerns:

1.) The Mississippi Delta region is the natural ecological home
of a long list of infectious microbial diseases. It is America�s
tropical region, more akin ecologically to Haiti or parts of Africa
than to Boston or Los Angeles. The most massive Yellow Fever
epidemics in the Americas all swept, in the 19th Century, up the
Mississippi from the delta region. Malaria was not eradicated from
the area until after World War II. Isolated cases of dengue fever,
another mosquito-borne disease, have been spotted in the region over
the last ten years. Not only are all the mosquitoes that
traditionally carry these microbes still thriving in the area, but
the Aedes albopictus mosquito � a large, aggressive monster, was
introduced to the Americas from Asia about 15 years ago, and now
thrives in the Gulf area. (See:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/arbor/albopic_new.htm .) Most of
these troublesome mosquito species reproduce rapidly in precisely the
conditions now present, post-hurricane. Some prefer massive stands of
still, warm, polluted water: that would be New Orleans. Some, such as
albopictus and Yellow Fever carrier Aedes aegypti (see:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/dengue/ae-aegypti-feeding.htm ) like
small pools of unsalted water, such as fresh rainwater that
accumulates in tree stumps and debris. One of their favorite breeding
sites is the dark, warm, water-filled cavity of an abandoned tire,
for example. America�s commitment to mosquito control has been
declining steadily since we eradicated malaria, and even fear of West
Nile Virus didn�t spawn a massive re-commitment to funding mosquito
abatement programs. Worse, to my knowledge nobody has ever had much
success in clearing mosquitoes from the sort of massive water-soaked
ecology that now is New Orleans, nor the scale of water-pooling
debris found along the Gulf tri-state area. It is perhaps ironic that
the only real experience with this scale of insect control for the
last two decades has been in developing countries: the CDC and State
health folks should be reaching out to PAHO and the insect control
expertises of Africa and the Caribbean right now. If we cannot manage
to get ahead of the insects, there could very well be a disease
crisis ahead.
2.) For years the CDC has warned about Vibrio cholerae
(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/cholera_g.htm ), Vibrio
vulnificus and other gastrointestinal organisms found in shellfish
and some fish caught in the Gulf of Mexico. The old New Orleans
mantra has been that Tabasco kills �em, so chow down the raw oysters
and forgettaboutit. But we would not be the least surprised to see a
surge in algal blooms and their vibrio passengers over the next two
weeks both inside New Orleans and along the Gulf. Consider this: the
hurricane must have disrupted all of the coral reefs in the region,
and killed millions of fish. All that rot is now floating around in
the Gulf. It is food for algal blooms. The vibrio live in the blooms.
3.) One word: sewage. The longer the region goes without proper
systems for control of human waste, the greater the probability of
transmission not only of cholera, but a long list of dysentery and
gastrointestinal agents. Evacuating every human being from New
Orleans will, of course, help, but there will remain potential
disaster all along the tri-state coastline. Members of the Infectious
Diseases Society of America, which has mobilized scientists and
physicians nationwide in readiness to respond should an outbreak
occur, have compiled this list of possible organisms to be concerned
about at this time:
Enteric:
Typhoid (depends on likelihood of carriers- fairly plausible)
Cholera
Enterohemorrhagic E coli
Enterotoxogenic E coli
Enteroinvasive E coli
Campylobacter
Shigella
Vibrio parahemolyticus and vulnificus (including contamination of
gulf shellfish)
Clostridium perfringens
Bacillus cereus
Salmonella
Staphylococcal intoxication
Rotavirus
Norovirus
Giardia
Cryptosporidium
Cyclosporidium

Other enteric-spread:
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis E
Polio (very high herd immunity)
Coxsackie and other Enteroviruses

Rabies
Leptospirosis

Botulism

Vector borne:
West Nile Virus (likely to be highly problematic)
Eastern Equine Encephalitis
St. Louis Encephalitis
LaCross Encephalitis
Dengue fever (real risk)
Malaria
Typhus fever (remote likelihood, last outbreak 1921)
Murine Typhus (not often major)
Trench (Quintana) fever
Relapsing fever (Borrelia recurrentis)
Plague (unlikely, non-endemic area)

Respiratory and close contact:
Meningiococcus
Tuberculosis
Measles, mumps (herd immunity likely very high)
Pertussis (herd immunity modestly high among high-risk age
groups)

4.) Pharmaceutical supplies are a bewildering problem: why has
nobody broke into pharmacies around New Orleans to get essential
supplies for the refugees, and hospitals? We have dead diabetics, and
probably epileptics seizing, CVD patients in need of nitro, and
children who could benefit from proper antibiotics.
5.) One past hurricane in the region produced so much debris that
the cleared garbage filled an abandoned coal mine. We have never in
history tried to dispose of this much waste. It is hoped that before
any officials rush off thinking of how to burn or dump a few hundred
thousand boats, houses and buildings, some careful consideration is
given to recycling that material for construction of future levees,
dams, and foundations. Looking at aerial images of the coastline one
sees an entire forest worth of lumber, and the world�s largest cement
quarry. No doubt tens of thousands of the now-unemployed of the
region could be hired for a reclamation effort that would be rational
in scale and intent. It would be horrible if all that debris were
simply dumped or burned without any thought to its utility.
6.) The mental health of hundreds of thousands of people must now
be a priority. Uprooted, homeless, jobless, rootless and in many
cases grieving for lost loved ones: These people will all suffer for
a very long time. A key to their recovery is, again, a lesson from
9/11: information. Whether they are �housed� in the Houston
Astrodome, are in tents in Biloxi or end up a diaspora of Gulf
refugees flung all across America, these people will for months be
starving for information about their homes and communities. The poor
will not be logging onto computers somewhere to read bulletins from
FEMA. These people will rely primarily on broadcast information, and
it is essential that the leaders of the three states and key mayors
create reliable information sources for people to turn to. The Times
Picayune online will, of course, be the primary go-to site for middle
class Gulf refugees and expatriates, but to what outlet will a
million poor folks turn? Knowing what is going on �back home� is
essential to mental health recovery. We have been in disasters in
poor countries where wild rumors flowed among the poor for months,
each one sparking a fresh round of anxiety and fear. If government
cannot inform, there is no government.
7.) America, and this government, is going to witness an enormous
political backlash from these events, stemming primarily from the
African American community, if steps are not boldly taken to
demonstrate less judgment, and greater assistance, for the black poor
of the region. Cries of racism will be heard. In every disaster we
have been engaged in we have witnessed a similar sense by the victims
of disasters that they were being singled out, and ignored by their
government, because of their ethnicity, religion or race. The onus is
on government to prove them wrong.
8.) Much more thought needs to be given immediately to the needs
of medical and psychiatric responders located just outside of the
region. The patient flow they are now receiving is minuscule compared
to the tidal wave coming their way, whether they are in Baton Rouge,
Jacksonville or Houston. FEMA and HHS need to get a massive and
steady flow of supplies their way, and coordinate tertiary care needs
according to the skills base in each hospital. If it hasn�t already,
HRSA needs to issue clear waivers immediately for Medicaid coverage
for the poor, so that no hospital in the region, private or public,
has an excuse for turning people away.

Finally, we would like to share with you (see below) a letter that went out
to physicians and scientists nationwide today, from the Infectious Diseases
Society of America (IDSA). If you cut through the acronyms and jargon you
can see the point: they are mobilizing.

Laurie Garrett
Senior Fellow for Global Health
Council on Foreign Relations
58 E. 68th St.
NY, NY 10021
(212) 434-9794 or (212) 434-9749
lgarrett@cfr.org
www.lauriegarrett.com
Research Associate, Scott Rosenstein, SRosenstein@cfr.org

Dear Colleague,

All of us have been shocked and dismayed by the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. We sympathize with those affected and would like to provide assistance and relief both as individuals and as a Society.

Over the last 48 hours, IDSA and HIVMA leaders and staff have been in contact with infectious diseases physicians in the affected areas, with staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), with local
health officials, and with others in order to determine how our Society and
members can be of greatest help in this rapidly evolving situation.
Sections of the IDSA and HIVMA websites (www.idsociety.org and
www.hivma.org) have been set aside to provide current information regarding
opportunities as we learn of them and to provide information on relevant infectious diseases in this situation.
1. Physicians to provide primary care are needed in all of the affected
areas. The websites provide links to the medical societies of the three affected states who are seeking volunteer physicians, as well as to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is also seeking
volunteers. Volunteers should not report directly to the affected areas unless directed by a voluntary agency. Self-dispatched volunteers can put
themselves and others in harms' way and hamper rescue efforts.

2. As the situation evolves, we expect that there will be an increasing
need to provide infectious disease patient consultations. IDSA has offered
the expertise of its members to help in this regard. To do so, Health and
Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has asked NIAID and IDSA to
coordinate provision of a telephone/e-mail ID consult service. NIAID will
be the clearinghouse for calls from consulting physicians, who will then be
linked to ID consultants. If you are interested in participating in this activity, please provide your contact information on the IDSA website.

3. We are evaluating the potential use of the Emerging Infections Network in the affected areas to identify outbreaks of infection early in
their course.

4. HIVMA is working to ensure that persons with HIV/AIDS from the hurricane-affected areas have access to HIV medications and medical care financed through public programs like Medicaid and the Ryan White CARE Act,
without burdensome eligibility or residency requirements. HIVMA will also
be posting information about state and local policies that have been implemented to further these goals.

We will provide additional information regarding relief activities on the
website as it becomes available. Your comments and suggestions are welcome,
as is first-hand information regarding infectious disease and public health
experiences in the affected areas.

Best regards,

Walter E. Stamm, MD

IDSA President
_____________________________
Scott A. Rosenstein, MA, MPH
Research Associate, Global Health
Council on Foreign Relations
58 East 68th St.
New York, NY 10021
http://www.cfr.org
phone: (212) 434-9749
fax: (212) 434-9827
email: srosenstein@cfr.org

-------------------------------------

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

Google Plans To Destroy Unindexed Information: "linolium writes 'Executives at Google, the rapidly growing online-search company that promises to 'organize the world's information,' announced Monday the latest step in their expansion effort: a far-reaching plan to destroy all the information it is unable to index. 'Book burning is just the beginning,' said Google co-founder Larry Page. 'This fall, we'll unveil Google Sound, which will record and index all the noise on Earth. Is your baby sleeping soundly? Does your high-school sweetheart still talk about you? Google will have the answers.''"

(Via Slashdot.)

POLITICS: Religious Idiotarians Weigh In: "I just knew some of the world’s religious idiotarians would not be able to resist using Hurricane Katrina to prove to everyone else once again what moral cretins they are. For starters there is Franklin Graham: ‘This happens when we take God out of our schools and God out of our society.’



Actually, this is what happens when storms form over large bodies of warm water in summer and smash into populated areas near that warm water. Hurricanes are older than Christianity. They are older than human beings.



Anyway, I'd like to ask Mr. Graham why he thinks Katrina struck the south, which is the most God-fearing part of our country? Why didn’t God send an earthquake to Portland, Oregon, which is known as the ‘least churched’ city in the United States?



My favorite, though, is from Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi in Kuwait. He wrote an article called The Terrorist Katrina is One of the Soldiers of Allah, But Not an Adherent of Al-Qaeda. What a card that guy is.

‘As I watched the horrible sights of this wondrous storm, I was reminded of the Hadith of the Messenger of Allah [in the compilations] of Al-Bukhari and Abu Daoud. The Hadith says: 'The wind is of the wind of Allah, it comes from mercy or for the sake of torment. When you see it, do not curse it, [but rather] ask Allah for the good that is in it, and ask Allah for shelter from its evil.' Afterwards, I was [also] reminded of the words of the Prophet Muhammad: 'Do not curse the wind, as it is the fruit of Allah's planning. He who curses something that should not be cursed - the curse will come back to him.'



'When the satellite channels reported on the scope of the terrifying destruction in America [caused by] this wind, I was reminded of the words of [Prophet Muhammad]: 'The wind sends torment to one group of people, and sends mercy to others.' I do not think - and only Allah [really] knows - that this wind, which completely wiped out American cities in these days, is a wind of mercy and blessing. It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire. Out of my absolute belief in the truth of the words of the Prophet Muhammad, this wind is the fruit of the planning [of Allah], as is stated in the text of the Hadith of the Prophet.

Hey, Muhammad. Remember when we liberated your country from Saddam Hussein’s atheistic totalitarian regime back in 1991? You're welcome.

(Written by: Michael_J_Totten)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

Connect the Dots: "

Thursday Sept 1, 2005
Posting a little out of phase due to Labor Day holiday, and will return on Tuesday, but some things worth commenting on about the aftermath of Katrina.

People are emailing me to ask is this the start of the Long Emergency?

It is certainly an event of great significance. The effects of damage to our oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico is already being felt in rocketing gasoline prices and a burgeoning supply crisis, especially in the southeast. The home heating situation is becoming a crisis before householders even turn their furnaces on. Half the houses in America are heated with natural gas, which is now clocking in at $12 a unit (1000 cubic feet). It was $3 a unit in 2003. It could go to $16. Connect the dots.

The crisis at the gasoline pumps will thunder through the economy, most ominously in the bubble suburban sprawl-building sector, which adds up to over 40 percent of business activity in the US. How many people will now contemplate buying a new McHouse 32 miles outside Atlanta (or Dallas, or Kansas City, or Washington), and what will happen in the production home-building industry as a result?

What will happen in the financial sector when the no-money-down-interest-only mortgage racket ceases to generate ever more hallucinated tradable debt? What will happen to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two federal governments sponsored entities at the center of that racket, and to their sponsor, whose treasury certificates are held by nervous foreign investors? And finally what happens to a dollar hammered by high energy costs and repatriated treasury certificates?

Turning to New Orleans. . . viewing the hurricane damage on TV, it is hard not to conclude that most of the building stock in the city is irreparably ruined. One can't help feeling that the city we knew and love is really gone forever. Some kind urban settlement will remain, but New Orleans' downtown of hotel towers and megastructures may be the first comprehensive ruin of the Modernist city. Much of the stuff just outside New Orleans, and along the Gulf Coast, was largely post-war suburban fabric -- collector boulevards with their complements of fry pits, malls, muffler shops and subdivisions. We'd hope that the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana will not undertake to rebuild them they way they were. The era of easy motoring is over now, and to rebuild suburban sprawl would be a double tragedy.

Of the desperate behavior seen in New Orleans this week, I don't have much to say right now. The significance of it is largely self-evident. The suffering of the people stuck in the Superdome is very impressive, though. One wonders at the failure of FEMA to airdrop water and food to those stuck on highway overpasses and in high-rise buildings such as Mercy Hospital. On the agenda next, I'm sorry to say: cholera and typhoid fever. I'll be back here on Tuesday.

"

(Via Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler.)

FW: [IP] It's not as though nobody knew it was coming

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Date: Friday, Sep 2, 2005 6:31 am
Subject: [IP] It's not as though nobody knew it was coming

Begin forwarded message:

From: George Sadowsky <george.sadowsky@attglobal.net>
Date: September 1, 2005 11:57:25 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: It's not as though nobody knew it was coming

Dave - for IP if you wish.

http://www.hurricane.lsu.edu/_in_the_news/houston.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Houston Chronicle December 1, 2001

KEEPING ITS HEAD ABOVE WATER
New Orleans faces doomsday scenario

By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Science Writer

New Orleans is sinking.

And its main buffer from a hurricane, the
protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly
eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously
close to disaster.

So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the
Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the
potential damage to New Orleans as among the three
likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing
this country.

The other two? A massive earthquake in San
Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist
attack on New York City.

The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the
deadliest of all.

In the face of an approaching storm, scientists
say, the city's less-than-adequate evacuation
routes would strand 250,000 people or more, and
probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city
drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of
refugees could land in Houston.

Economically, the toll would be shattering.

Southern Louisiana produces one-third of the
country's seafood, one-fifth of its oil and one-
quarter of its natural gas. The city's tourism,
lifeblood of the French Quarter, would cease to
exist. The Big Easy might never recover.

And, given New Orleans' precarious perch, some
academics wonder if it should be rebuilt at all.

It's been 36 years since Hurricane Betsy buried
New Orleans 8 feet deep. Since then a
deteriorating ecosystem and increased development
have left the city in an ever more precarious
position. Yet the problem went unaddressed for
decades by a laissez-faire government, experts
said.

"To some extent, I think we've been lulled to
sleep," said Marc Levitan, director of Louisiana
State University's hurricane center.

Hurricane season ended Friday, and for the second
straight year no hurricanes hit the United States.
But the season nonetheless continued a long-term
trend of more active seasons, forecasters said.
Tropical Storm Allison became this country's most
destructive tropical storm ever.

Yet despite the damage Allison wrought upon
Houston, dropping more than 3 feet of water in
some areas, a few days later much of the city
returned to normal as bloated bayous drained into
the Gulf of Mexico.

The same storm dumped a mere 5 inches on New
Orleans, nearly overwhelming the city's pump
system. If an Allison-type storm were to strike
New Orleans, or a Category 3 storm or greater with
at least 111 mph winds, the results would be
cataclysmic, New Orleans planners said.

"Any significant water that comes into this city
is a dangerous threat," Walter Maestri, Jefferson
Parish emergency management director, told
Scientific American for an October article.
"Even though I have to plan for it, I don't even
want to think about the loss of life a huge
hurricane would cause."

New Orleans is essentially a bowl ringed by levees
that protect the city from the Mississippi River
to its south and Lake Pontchartrain to the north.
The bottom of the bowl is 14 feet below sea level,
and efforts to keep it dry are only digging a
deeper hole.

During routine rainfalls the city's dozens of
pumps push water uphill into the lake. This, in
turn, draws water from the ground, further drying
the ground and sinking it deeper, a problem known
as subsidence.

This problem also faces Houston as water wells
have sucked the ground dry. Houston's solution is
a plan to convert to surface drinking water. For
New Orleans, eliminating pumping during a rainfall
is not an option, so the city continues to sink.

A big storm, scientists said, would likely block
four of five evacuation routes long before it hit.
Those left behind would have no power or
transportation, and little food or medicine, and
no prospects for a return to normal any time soon.

"The bowl would be full," Levitan said. "There's
simply no place for the water to drain."

Estimates for pumping the city dry after a huge
storm vary from six to 16 weeks. Hundreds of
thousands would be homeless, their residences
destroyed.

The only solution, scientists, politicians and
other Louisiana officials agree, is to take large-
scale steps to minimize the risks, such as
rebuilding the protective delta.

Every two miles of marsh between New Orleans and
the Gulf reduces a storm surge -- which in some
cases is 20 feet or higher -- by half a foot.

In 1990, the Breaux Act, named for its author,
Sen. John Breaux, D-La., created a task force of
several federal agencies to address the severe
wetlands loss in coastal Louisiana. The act has
brought about $40 million a year for wetland
restoration projects, but it hasn't been enough.

"It's kind of been like trying to give aspirin to
a cancer patient," said Len Bahr, director of
Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster's coastal activities
office.

The state loses about 25 square miles of land a
year, the equivalent of about one football field
every 15 minutes. The fishing industry, without
marshes, swamps and fertile wetlands, could lose a
projected $37 billion by the year 2050.

University of New Orleans researchers studied the
impact of Breaux Act projects on the vanishing
wetlands and estimated that only 2 percent of the
loss has been averted. Clearly, Bahr said, there
is a need for something much bigger. There is some
evidence this finally may be happening.

A consortium of local, state and federal agencies
is studying a $2 billion to $3 billion plan to
divert sediment from the Mississippi River back
into the delta. Because the river is leveed all
the way to the Gulf, where sediment is dumped into
deep water, nothing is left to replenish the
receding delta.

Other possible projects include restoration of
barrier reefs and perhaps a large gate to prevent
Lake Pontchartrain from overflowing and drowning
the city.

All are multibillion-dollar projects. A plan to
restore the Florida Everglades attracted $4
billion in federal funding, but the state had to
match it dollar for dollar. In Louisiana, so far,
there's only been a willingness to match 15 or 25
cents.

"Our state still looks for a 100 percent federal
bailout, but that's just not going to happen,"
said University of New Orleans geologist Shea
Penland, a delta expert.

"We have an image and credibility problem. We have
to convince our country that they need to take us
seriously, that they can trust us to do a science-
based restoration program."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-------------------------------------http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

FW: [IP] more on Katrina and lessons from abroad

Comparative government...

-----Original Message-----
From: "David Farber" <dave@farber.net>
Date: Friday, Sep 2, 2005 9:53 am
Subject: [IP] more on Katrina and lessons from abroad

-----Original Message-----
From: "Paul Saffo"<psaffo@iftf.org>
Sent: 02/09/05 9:37:40 AM
To: "dave@farber.net"<dave@farber.net>
Cc: "Paul Saffo"<psaffo@iftf.org>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Katrina and lessons from abroad

Dave-
There is a very good interview on The World ( www.theworld.org ) with
Georg Schulz (sp?), a senior minister in the Ministry of
Transportation,Public Works and Water Management in Delft, the
Netherlands about dikes. He points out that the 1952 event changed
they way they thought about their dikes. Schulz is delightfully Dutch
-- utterly direct and pragmatic. Do listen to the entire interview,
but here is an excerpt to whet your curiosity:

--------------
"If you look at the dikes in New Orleans... the safety level of the
dikes in New Orleans is for a once in 100 year event ... But... our
sea dikes have a 1 in 10,000 year safety level. A safty level about
100 times those in New Orleans..."

When asked about the cost of the Dutch dikes, he replied,
"If you look at the economic damage you have, then the investments
in the dikes are easily justified..."
----------------
So utterly, crushingly obvious...
-p
On Sep 2, 2005, at 3:17 AM, David Farber wrote:

>

[Message truncated. Tap Edit->Mark for Download to get remaining portion.]

-------------------------------------
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

Krugman for President. The debates alone would be interesting.


I also think it has come time that we hire a stunt president. Sometimes (2001-current) you have a situation where the person you have hired just isn't up to the task, or you really need somebody that can just go in and get the job done without risk to the one you hired.

Taking nominations now...

Also, a big shout out to my compadres in Eastern Europe.

We miss you, and miss you bringing home the bacon [fat roasted over an open fire to the sounds of wolves in the distance with the milky way overhead].

Also, you have missed Firefly.

Lo siento mucho.

Detroit offering to take in people from Katrina Affected areas.

Enough about this being ironic.

I hear though there are plenty of empty lots...

Nice Work.

Mr. Bush, don't let New Orleans become another Iraq.

I saw one of the Averatec laptops at CompUSA. It looks really nice, and note the internal CD drive for that small of a machine - very Apple of them. Now if they can just make it in a black or metal casing...

Averatec 3700 12-inch notebook under $1000: "

Averatec is expanding its ‘thin-and-light’ notebook line with the 3700 laptop model, designed with a sleek new look
at 1-inch thick and 4.2 pounds. Standard configurations will have 512MB base memory, a 60 or 80GB hard drive,
integrated media reader, 802.11b/g, and a built-in DVD burner or combo DVD+CD-RW optical drive, and will start under
$1,000.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
© 2005 Weblogs, Inc.

"

(Via engadget.com.)

Charlie Stross on Katrina economic impact questions: "Xeni Jardin:
Snip:

The actual estimates for insured structural damage caused by Hurricane Katrina are currently around US $25-30Bn. The current loss of life estimates are in the hundreds (although I'd be unsurprised if the eventual death toll does not eventually top 9/11 by quite a margin). But the economic damage from closing the Port of Southern Louisiana for up to three months is huge -- plausibly equal to 5% of the US balance of trade with the rest of the world. I can't put a figure on that total, but I'd be surprised if it isn't an order of magnitude more than the $25-30Bn insurance costs, and possibly even higher than the cost to date of the Iraq war and occupation ($200Bn). A couple of hundred billion here, a couple of hundred billion there -- pretty soon we're talking real money.

What are the likely consequences (locally and globally) of blowing a 5% of GDP sized hole under the waterline of the US economy?

Link

"

(Via Boing Boing.)

The age of prosthetics solely to replace lost limbs and organs is fast coming to an end...

Alcoholics will much appreciate this.

How much do you want to bet this involved research with fetal tissue?

Science: Australian Science Makes the Regenerating Mouse: "FruFox writes 'Australiam scientists have created mice which can regenerate absolutely any tissue excpet for the tissues of the brain. Heart, lungs, entire limbs, you name it. This is the first time this has been seen in mammals. The potential implications are positively mammoth. I thought this warranted attention. :)'"

(Via MirrorDot.)

Gas Prices shatter the $5 mark.

Paging Julian Simon...

Wait, he's dead.

Orhan Pamuk may go to jail in Turkey over comments about the Armenian Genocide.

His My Name is Red is one of the best books I have read in the last decade (there were four).

Damn you Turkey...

AP & Reuters headlines

AP & Reuters headlines
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

Below the fold on the NYT just now.



Well, _I_ found it amusing...

I think now is a good time to book tickets for Mardi Gras.

Kt mentions Burning Sky, skydiving at Burning Man.

Wow.

The Chinese finally understand democracy in their version of American Idol.

CULTURE: Pop Idol - Vulgar, Also Democratic: "The Chinese version of Pop Idol has a great name - Super Girl 2005, which just gets better when you hear the full version - Mongolian Cow Sour Yoghurt Super Girl Contest 2005. It's popular with the people, but not so much with some factions of state media.



snip

The China Daily asked: ‘How come an imitation of a democratic system ends up selecting the singer who has the least ability to carry a tune?’

(Written by: dem_z)

"

(Via SuicideGirls: News Wire.)

Chines Dumplings HOWTO

WTC Memories

WTC Memories
Originally uploaded by satmandu.

I found this at a store in Chinatown this afternoon. A perfect combination of tastelessness and the American Dream.

New Orleans via the NYT:

"The real issue - that I don't think the nation is paying attention to - is that through the city of New Orleans, through the Gulf of Mexico, we probably deal with almost a third of the nation's domestic oil that is produced. And that will most likely be shut down," Mr. Nagin said.

"So, this can have a significant impact on oil prices going forward," he added.