friday

Five days since Katrina hit and people are still suffering and dying.

I feel really, really horrible. Stupid PBS programmers put on a Barney with a Barney-fied version of 'When the Saints go Marching In' and I started crying. There are just too many questions that need to be loudly asked about this.

Where was the planning? If Harry Connick Jr was able to (in his words) easily drive a car load of supplies in to the Convention Center, why are these people still starving? Why all the hype over 'extreme violence' when the actual people on the ground are saying that there is actually very little of that? What would the recovery look like if those stuck in New Orleans were rich white Republican constituents?

I'm not really hot on the idea of impeachment, since the best it'd give us is Cheney (unless he eats a few french fries, then it'd be Frist), but I say we should have a vote of no confidence and mid-term elections. Get that guy out before he kills more people.

I've been calling the local Red Cross, trying to get information on donating blood and volunteering at the Fairgrounds shelter, but I was only able to leave my number in the hopes of someone calling me back. Anyway, we're going on a long-planned trip to southern Arkansas this weekend to vist family. Would rather conserve gas, but it is family, I guess.

If you're a Mothering mama and would like to offer a room to a displaced/homeless MDC family, please check out this thread and pm me.

Lastly, a couple more bits of choice reading...

How the Free Market Killed New Orleans

Besides, to have accepted foreign aid would have been to admit the truth---that the Bushite reactionaries had neither the desire nor the decency to provide for ordinary citizens, not even those in the most extreme straits. Next thing you know, people would start thinking that George W. Bush was really nothing more than a fulltime agent of Corporate America.

Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!