Just a bit of background: we’re traveling, hanging out, and helping my little mommy celebrate the big 9-0. We had a blast today at the party, but I started the day feeling a bit… rocky. As this is likely to be a really gross and offensive post in which graphic descriptions of alarums and excursions in one’s personal innards play a major part, the following disclaimer is offered as a public service. If you have delicate sensibilities and a weak stomach for yucky detail, perhaps this picture of nice bunnies and kitties from Hulk’s Diary will please you. If you…
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David told me about some of these stories, and I ran across some of them today and decided to stick them all together. NPR : Reporters Give Voice to Post-Katrina Desperation Others are also pressing senior public figures for specific answers. On National Public Radio Thursday afternoon, Robert Siegel questioned Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about the dire conditions for thousands of people who were not allowed into the New Orleans Superdome but were directed instead to the city’s convention center. Chertoff said aid workers were confronted by a “double catastrophe” – a hurricane followed by a flood that complicated…
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My travel client has heard from his son in a roundabout fashion – the son and some other people with him were rescued and are being transported to a shelter. My guy got the word via one of the many online forums that’s been set up for people to leave word on missing family and friends. This particular happy ending was made possible by the heroic efforts of the Times-Picayune, which is somehow publishing online, reporting the news, and providing neighborhood and parish community forums for people to get in touch… all after being evacuated from their newspaper offices the…
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Profile In Blurrage When President Bush left Texas for Washington DC, he left just as storm refugees were set to arrive at the Houston Astrodome, which has been turned into highly organized emergency housing. Very convenient timing – he gets away from Cindy Sheehan and her supporters, and also gets away from all those icky refugee people who might make him look like he’s not helping very much. He can certainly do more from Washington, can’t he? If this were 1977, Jimmy and Rosalind would have been in N’Awlins for 3 days already, coordinating relief efforts and handing out food…
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But it’s turning to twilight now, and I was looking at pictures, and writing. I got some pictures back in the mail: mom, just before she died, when she was that awful nursing home, in the last photo anyone took of her. Dad, in his awful tam o’shanter. The miles and miles of empty highway under that pewter Iraqi sky. I read how Iraqi women are basically going to be put under the thumb of the sort of people that we’re supposedly determined to defeat. and I just thought: I helped to do that. I helped do that to other…