Archives for August 2005

CNN has an interesting roundup of their reporters perspectives. Here is a link and a couple of blurbs.

“Shreveport hospital in dire need

_{Posted: 12:36 p.m. ET
CNN’s Deborah Feyerick in Shreveport, Louisiana}

We had a conversation with one family who had left New Orleans. They are desperately trying to get in touch with their sister. She is a college nurse at the Memorial Medical Hospital on Napoleon Street. The story they told us of what is going on at that hospital is quite dramatic.

According to their sister, looters are trying to get into the hospital. There’s no electricity. The nurses, the doctors and their families have virtually locked themselves into the medical center and they don’t know when they are going to be able to get out.

The story they were telling us is that the hospital administration was telling the staff there it would be five days until they might be able to be rescued. They are telling us that people in the hospital are dying because there’s no electricity.

One nurse walked outside to get a breath of fresh air. She was robbed at gunpoint. There were National Guard that was around the hospital, but apparently we are told they pulled out in order to help with the prisoner uprising that happened yesterday.

And according to the story they are telling the people who are in that hospital simply don’t know how they are going to get out. They want their sister to try to meet them in Shreveport. Right now they can’t get in touch with her. We tried to call her. We can’t get in touch with the hospital either. It’s a desperate situation.”

“In New Orleans, there’s no sanitation any longer. The knee-deep water in the hotel lobby is just full of stench. It is a miserable, deteriorating situation in the city and it is growing worse by the hour and the water is rising.

The fact of the matter is this bowl, as they call it, is filling up. The estimates of time that it’s going to take to get the water out of the bowl are three to six months. You could be sitting there in absolutely untenable conditions, in water that is filled with disease and germs, for months to come, walking through it, slogging through it.

With the looting that’s going on and with the deteriorating sanitation conditions, it is a situation where you can’t cover the story because you can’t venture out from the hotel. It’s so dangerous, one, because the water is getting higher, and two, because of the disease factor that is beginning. There’s no food, there’s no water.”

“We have seen looting all day long. We actually went right up to a Walgreens where people were trying on shoes to get the correct size. They were picking out whatever it is they wanted — televisions, just anything they could get. The police have definitely been trying to keep it to a minimum. The police are in boats but there’s really nothing they can do. I don’t know where they would even take anybody. They are taking all the looted material and they are trying to keep the chaos to a minimum.”

I am transfixed by everything that is going on in relation to Hurricane Katrina. It is another sign about how small we are in relationship to the earth. Mother Nature burps and we go running for the hills.

Some of the clips I have read have just held my attention.

“A million people fled the New Orleans area before Katrina arrived. But former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy estimated 80,000 were trapped in the flooded city and urged U.S. President George W. Bush to send more troops.

“We have to send the army to stop this or we will lose New Orleans and we will lose 80,000 people,” Barthelemy told CNN. “If we can spend the monies that we are spending to help the people in Iraq, then we can do the same thing for New Orleans.”

The U.S. military was sending a hospital ship and two helicopter-carriers to assist two other Navy ships already conducting rescues in the area. Governors of the afflicted states mobilized 8,000 National Guard troops.

Amid the looting, gun-toting citizens took to the streets in some areas to try to restore order in New Orleans. Where it was still dry, some store owners sat in front of their businesses, guns in hand.

One had put up a sign reading: “You loot, I shoot.”

I am so curious how the former mayor arrived at that number. I have to imagine that the evacuation created the worlds biggest traffic jam. It must have been so hard to leave not knowing if there was anything to come back to.

And the looters, what the hell are they thinking. Talk about making a bid situation worse. This does not help with my opinion of the general public.

“New Orleans at first appeared to have received a glancing blow from Katrina, but the raging waters of Lake Pontchartrain tore holes in the levees that protect the low-lying city, then slowly filled it up.

Mayor Ray Nagin said 80 percent of the city was submerged in water that was in places 20 feet (6 metres) deep.

Attempts failed on Tuesday to plug a 200-foot gap (60-metre-) in the levee system with 3,000-pound (1,360-kg) sandbags and concrete barriers, but officials said they would keep trying.

“The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it’s like dropping it into a black hole,” Blanco said.

The lake should return to normal levels within about 36 hours, and the water now flooding New Orleans would begin to drain, said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers senior project engineer Al Naomi.

CARJACKINGS

He said the historic French Quarter, the main draw for New Orleans’ huge tourist industry, should escape with only minor flooding because it sits 5 feet (1.5 metres) above sea level.

But Nagin estimated it would be 12 to 16 weeks before residents could return. The floods knocked out electricity, contaminated the water supply and cut off most highway routes into New Orleans.

In hard-hit Jefferson Parish, parish president Aaron Broussard said, “Jefferson Parish as we knew it is gone forever.”

Police said there were dozens of carjackings overnight, by desperate survivors trying to leave town or obtain supplies. Somebody fired at a rescue helicopter Tuesday night, forcing its crew to abandon efforts to evacuate patients from a hospital, a state official said.

Authorities were so intent on rescuing flood victims that at first they let the looting go unstopped, Nagin said.

But he told CNN the situation had escalated and authorities were “bringing it under control as we speak.”

He said 3,500 National Guard troops were being sent to New Orleans. Louisiana state police were sending 40 troopers and two armored personnel carriers.”

I understand desperate situations. I survived the LA Riots and the Northridge earthquake. That picture is of a parking structure at the university I attended. Eleven years later there are still some places that were never rebuilt,homes and businesses that were lost, perhaps forever.

But this is different. The size of the storm and the number of people affected is vast. I expect that New Orleans will be rebuilt, but some of the smaller towns that were hit, what will become of them.

Some of the long time fixtures are now just gone and I don’t know if they will ever be replaced.

When my grandfather was a much younger man he worked in the carnival business. They used to spend the winters in New Orleans. I grew up hearing some amazing stories about that city. And from what I heard from people who lived/visited there it sounded like some of the haunts he used to frequent were still there.

I had wanted to visit and to have a drink or two in some of the places I heard about. I thought that it would be kind of cool for me to hang out there 70 some odd years later. Now I wonder if that will even be possible.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not bemoaning the opportunity to share a beer. The tragedy of this far outweighs and overwhelms my small desire.

As I said, I cannot help but be amazed by all of this. My best wishes go out to those who were most severely impacted. I hope that the repair, return and recovery is as fast as possible.

Yes ladies and gents, the world renowned Tomatina has just been completed. Although I should say that I have a burning desire to participate in a large pie fight. You can blame that upon the Three Stooges.

BUNOL, Spain (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people armed with 100 tonnes of plum tomatoes took part in the “Tomatina” on Wednesday, joyously splattering each other in the Spanish town of Bunol.

The town hall of Bunol, which lies just inland from Valencia on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, spent 24,960 euros on the fruit and dumped it the streets for the chanting masses.

Five truckloads of vitamin C and fiber were soon pureed on El Cid Street, the ripe redness smeared over walls and people.

“I feel like I connected with a lot of people today,” said Karina Evans, 21, of Australia.

Frenzy erupted around the dump trucks and competition for the edible missiles was fierce. Whole tomatoes on the ground were treasured like ruby Easter eggs.

Kate Monroe, 28, and Ryan Altman, 31, both of San Diego, California, reflected the general lack of inhibition by rubbing their barely clad, pulp-slathered bodies against each other.

Some gave a moment’s thought for the less fortunate.

“We were just talking about (famine in Africa). We thought we should get some garlic, make pizza and send it off,” Altman said.

The origin of the tomato fight is disputed — everyone in Bunol seems to have a favorite story — but most agree it started around 1940, in the early years of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

“There are several versions, but the most important thing is that it was started by the people,” said Eusebio Carrascosa, 66, a member of the Tomatina commission.

Like the weeklong celebrations held throughout Spain in the summer, the Tomatina encourages all-night public revelry and behavior that’s frowned on for the rest of the year.

“This is even better than the running of the bulls in Pamplona,” said Australian Sandy Koch, 25, referring to another one of Spain’s famous events.

Not everyone in Bunol joins the party.

“These are human degenerates. This isn’t culture,” said Pilar Masmano, 81, peeking out on the messy aftermath from her front door. “I’m going back inside.”

You probably cannot tell, but there a few things that are missing here and they are starting to aggravate me. These are not major issues, but little nagging details that just prick me hard enough to sting.

But sooner or later I’ll figure it out and Blogger will have to concede defeat.

It has been a while since I felt the need to write about this, but it is time to sit down and share my thoughts about the enormous amount of information that is available online. It may sound a bit like a lecture and somewhat self-righteous but if you choose to continue to read you are forewarned.

I wander far and wide throughout the blogosphere and the Net in general. In my travels I come across sites that promote political thought, education, historical fact, general rhetoric, pornography and more.

I am a seeker of information and I expose myself to quite a bit. Some of the things that I have seen have been quite shocking and at times quite upsetting. I watched the film of Daniel Pearl’s murder. It was a terrible sight, made worse because I have seen so many films it didn’t look real to me. I had to force myself to remember that it was. Or maybe it was just the shock of it all.

After all we grew up in the same area, went to the same high school and even though I never met him it is fair to say that we spent time in some of the same places. If nothing else I can not only claim a common heritage but I came very close to becoming a professional journalist so it was easy to see myself in his shoes.

I watched the video because he was so very alone when he was murdered and in some twisted and perverse way it made me feel like I was there trying to give strength or maybe this is all a lot of B.S. I am not so sure, but I know that this much is true. It upset me terribly.

Above and beyond that video I have come across other items that I found to be terribly distressing, but I dealt with them. I dealt with them in the respect that I processed them and moved on which leads me to the real point.

All too often I think that people set aside their common sense and accept the written word at face value. Too little time is spent considering the validity and legitimacy of what is written. Too little time is spent verifying that the claims made are accurate, that the information that was presented is indeed fact.

And that concerns me because it provides a golden opportunity to engage in manipulation of minds and opinion. It worries me that so many people are willing to shut down their minds and just accept being spoonfed information.

People should get into the habit of confirming information. They should spend a few minutes considering what they are being told and determine if it makes sense. Take a moment to try and verify the claims and use a little common sense.

Educate yourself, you”ll be forever grateful.