UNDERNEWS

SEP 1, 2005
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source

E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com
1312 18th St. NW #502 Washington DC 20036
202-835-0770 Fax: 835-0779

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WORD
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Nothing is enough to the man for whom enough is too little. - Epicurus

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE SECOND BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Sam Smith

THE SECOND BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS is already underway: a struggle over
how to respond to the greatest natural disaster of our history. It is
far too early to draw conclusions but soon enough for a few questions:

- What will be the iconographic role of this disaster? Will it - as it
should - eclipse 9/11 as the central moment of contemporary history, or
will it be subtly reduced to second place so the business at hand in
Washington - i.e. whatever war it is conducting - can continue to retain
semiotic hegemony? What is the relative importance of 16 acres in New
York City versus tens of thousands in Louisiana?

- How much will we be willing to pay to restore one of our major cities
and its citizens compared to what we have paid to create a manmade
disaster in Iraq or to end constitutional government in the wake of
9/11? Current estimates of pending special appropriations set the number
at something less than 10% of what we are spending annually in Iraq. If
that how we value ourselves?

- Will the meaning of this disaster, like 9/11, be repeatedly distorted
by various parties of interest in a manner that blasphemes the memory of
its victims and perverts its history?

- What effect will the fact that many of the victims of 9/11 were white
and powerful while many of the victims of New Orleans' disaster were
black and so poor they couldn't get out of town alter the story we come
to tell of the event? Does the mayor's decision to remove police from
search and rescue so they could fight looting suggest a demographic
subtext? Is the marketplace worth more than life itself? In what ways
would the response to this disaster have been different if it its major
victims had been lighter and wealthier? If the stranded had been in Palm
Beach, what would we have done?

- If FEMA put a Category 5 hurricane in New Orleans on the same level as
a terrorist attack in New York City or an earthquake in San Francisco,
why did the White House and the Department of Homeland Security only
show substantial interest in, and fund remedies for, the New York
version of potential catastrophe? Does this qualify as criminal
negligence?

- If everyone knew that New Orleans was an accident waiting to happen
why were so few precautions taken? As just one example, why were not
residents encouraged to have or provided inflatable rafts and life
jackets in their homes along with the sort of food supplies promoted
following 9/11?

- Why does the government and the media persist in the notion that a
major disaster requires centralized control - if not martial law -
imposed from Washington? It is clear already that the most competent
response to this disaster came at the local and state level and that the
feds weren't even able to provide food, water, shelter and other
logistical supplies in a timely matter. Both common sense and the 10th
Amendment dictate that in a major disaster control should devolve to the
governors, not to some covertly selected cabal in Washington. It is
interesting to note that while FEMA and the Pentagon were still trying
to get their act together, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell called the
governor of Mississippi to say that 2,500 of his National Guard troops
were on their way. In other words, a Democratic and a GOP governor from
vastly different states got matters coordinated even as the
monolithically incompetent Bush regime was still figuring out what to
do.

- What lessons can be learn from the fact that the Coast Guard was the
best organized federal agency - rescuing 2600 people in few days with
only 4,000 personnel? As Jim Ridgeway notes in the Village Voice, "it
was the Coast Guard commander in New York who organized one of the most
extraordinary operations maritime rescues since Dunkirk on 9-11, pulling
together, ferries, tugs, yachts, and all sorts of other boats to
evacuate half a million people from downtown New York." One explanation:
the Coast Guard is highly decentralized (like local fire departments)
with a lot of authority vested at the local level. It also places a high
emphasis on competence, again like fire departments. When you are in a
disaster your best friends are highly qualified rescuers who can make
decisions without waiting for headquarters to tell them what to do.

- Will we finally learn from this experience that we - despite our
invasions and our Ipods - are still part of nature, and must respect and
work with it rather than ignoring and exploiting it? Or will we continue
to view nature as just another problem for FEMA and the Corps of
Engineers to solve?

- Will we finally suppress the pathological arrogance that has gotten us
into such trouble in recent years and try a little well-founded humility
for a change?

- Will it matter? The first Battle of New Orleans was fought several
weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed. Maybe this battle will prove
too late as well.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
KATRINA
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

WILL BUNCH, ATTYTOOD - The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity
Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which
remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi,
project manager. That project consists of building up levees and
protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi
River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes. The
Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the
president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've
got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to
raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of
settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're
going to have to pay them interest."

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for
Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that
the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland
security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay.
Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are
doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue
for us.". . .

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The
Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to
dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be
opposed by the White House. . . In its budget, the Bush administration
proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's
chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth
of what local officials say they need."

Washington knew that this day could come at any time, and it knew the
things that needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans.
But in the tradition of the riverboat gambler, the Bush administration
decided to roll the dice on its fool's errand in Iraq, and on a tax cut
that mainly benefited the rich. Now Bush has lost that gamble, big time.


http://www.alternet.org/story/24871/

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

FRED FELDMAN, CAMPUS ANTIWAR NETWORK - The New Orleans mayor has ordered
police to stop "looting" in a city which he says will be uninhabitable
for at least the next three months. . .

The cops are being given a license to kill, in circumstances in which
the whole black population of the city has been systematically
criminalized by the media nationally. The campaign to scapegoat the
black survivors in the ruined city is likely to reach a bloody new
stage? The victims of the catastrophe -- labeled as "the worst in us" --
are to be sacrificed to the political cover-up of the perpetrators of
the catastrophe (who represent, of course, the best we have to offer).

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

ROBERT D. MCFADDEN AND RALPH BLUMENTHAL, NY TIMES - Chaos gripped New
Orleans on Wednesday as looters ran wild, food and water supplies
dwindled, bodies floated in the floodwaters, the evacuation of the
Superdome began and officials said there was no choice but to abandon
the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina, perhaps for months. . .

With police officers and National Guard troops giving priority to saving
lives, looters brazenly ripped open gates and ransacked stores for food,
clothing, television sets, computers, jewelry and guns, often in full
view of helpless law-enforcement officials. Dozens of car-jackings,
apparently by survivors desperate to escape, were reported, as were a
number of shootings.

On Wednesday night, Mayor Nagin ordered 1,500 police officers, most of
the city's force, to turn from search and rescue to stopping the
looting. "They are starting to get closer to the heavily populated areas
- hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now," he said in a
statement issued to The Associated Press. . .

Hundreds were still huddled on rooftops or isolated on patches of
ground, where they have awaited rescue for two days without food or
water. An armada of small boats was out, rescuing many from flooded
areas in the poorest sections of New Orleans. . . Some perched on
sections of Interstate 10 that were still standing, though much of the
highway had collapsed. Cars shimmered eerily underwater, and basketballs
floated on the surface, along with children's swimming floats, trees and
other debris.

The bulk of the city's refugees were in or around the Superdome, which
has become a shelter of last resort for more than 20,000 people. Gov.
Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana said conditions there had become
desperate, with food, water and other supplies running out, with toilets
overflowing and the air foul, with temperatures hitting 100 degrees and
tempers flaring.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/
la-na-levees1sep01,0,5235285,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

RALPH VARTABEDIAN LA TIMES - Draining the billions of gallons of water
that has inundated New Orleans could take three to six months,
substantially longer than some experts have expected, the Army Corps of
Engineers said.

Col. Richard Wagenaar, the corps' senior official in New Orleans, said
that the estimate was based on planning done as Hurricane Katrina
approached and that it remained the corps' best estimate. He is
directing the agency's recovery efforts. The estimate depends on
favorable weather. Additional rain or other problems could cause more
delays, Wagenaar warned. . .

Walter Baumy, a chief engineer, said that the corps was confronted by
riverbeds clogged with loose barges and debris and that it could not
find contractors able to maneuver heavy equipment into the flood zone. .
.

The city's 22 pumping stations are not operating, and most are
underwater. Not until the city naturally drains a little can the corps
begin restoring pumping capacity, Wagenaar said. . .

Corps officials think water rose over the top of the canal wall and
cascaded down to its base, scouring a hole that undermined the
foundation, said Al Naomi, the corps' senior project engineer in New
Orleans. "It exceeded the design surge," he said. "It just blew out the
wall."

The dirt levees and reinforced concrete flood walls are designed to hold
back an 11 1/2-foot storm surge, not including waves spilling over the
top. The Katrina surge is believed to have been significantly higher
than that. . .

A mathematical model on storm surges pioneered by Notre Dame University
professor Joannes Westerink increased concern that the levee system was
exposing New Orleans to a major catastrophe in the case of any storm
bigger than a Category 3. "In a slow-moving Category 5 hurricane, the
levees are not going to hold," Westerink said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-levees1sep01,0,7854368.story?coll=la-home-headlines


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

GREAT THOUGHTS OF GW BUSH WHILE FLYING ABOVE NOLA - "It's devastating,"
POTUS said as he watched, according to Scott McClellan. "It's got to be
doubly devastating on the ground."

NY TIMES - They had flocked to the arena seeking sanctuary from the
winds and waters of Hurricane Katrina. But understaffed, undersupplied
and without air-conditioning or even much lighting, the domed stadium
quickly became a sweltering and surreal vault, a place of overflowing
toilets and no showers. Food and water, blankets and sheets, were in
short supply. And the dome's reluctant residents exchanged horror
stories, including reports, which could not be confirmed by the
authorities, of a suicide and of rapes.

By Wednesday the stink was staggering. Heaps of rotting garbage in
bulging white plastic bags baked under a blazing Louisiana sun on the
main entry plaza, choking new arrivals as they made their way into the
stadium after being plucked off rooftops and balconies. The odor
billowing from toilets was even fouler. Trash spilled across corridors
and aisles, slippery with smelly mud and scraps of food.

"They're housing us like animals," said Iiesha Rousell, 31, unemployed
after four years in the Army in Germany, dripping with perspiration in
the heat, unable to contain her fury and disappointment at being left
with only National Guardsmen as overseers and no information about what
might lie ahead.

Once inside the dome, refugees were told that for their own safety they
could not leave - the flood waters climbed four feet up the walls
outside - and many likened the shelter to a prison.

Michael Childs, 45 and a housepainter, went a step further. "It's worse
than a prison," said Mr. Childs, who knew something about the subject,
having spent three months in the Orleans Parish Prison on a
drunken-driving charge. "In prison you have a place to urinate, a place
for other bathroom needs. Here you get no water, no toilets, no lights.
You get all that in prison."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01dome.html

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

JACK SHAFER, SLATE - I can't say I saw everything that the TV
newscasters pumped out about Katrina, but I viewed enough repeated
segments to say with 90 percent confidence that broadcasters covering
the New Orleans end of the disaster demurred from mentioning two topics
that must have occurred to every sentient viewer: race and class.

Nearly every rescued person, temporary resident of the Superdome,
looter, or loiterer on the high ground of the freeway I saw on TV was
African-American. And from the look of it, they weren't wealthy
residents of the Garden District. This storm appears to have hurt blacks
more directly than whites, but the broadcasters scarcely mentioned that
fact. . .

To be sure, some reporters sidled up to the race and class issue. I
heard them ask the storm's New Orleans victims why they hadn't left town
when the evacuation call came. Many said they were broke—"I live from
paycheck to paycheck," explained one woman. Others said they didn't own
a car with which to escape and that they hadn't understood the
importance of evacuation.

But I don't recall any reporter exploring the class issue directly by
getting a paycheck-to-paycheck victim to explain that he couldn't risk
leaving because if he lost his furniture and appliances, his pots and
pans, his bedding and clothes, to Katrina or looters, he'd have no way
to replace them. No insurance, no stable, large extended family that
could lend him cash to get back on his feet, no middle-class job to
return to after the storm.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2124688/?nav=ais

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

REPENT AMERICA - Just days before "Southern Decadence", an annual
homosexual celebration attracting tens of thousands of people to the
French Quarters section of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina destroys the
city. "Southern Decadence" has a history of filling the French Quarters
section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the
public streets and bars. . . On the official "Southern Decadence"
website it states that the annual event brought in "125,000 revelers" to
New Orleans last year, increasing by thousands each year, and up from
"over 50,000 revelers" in 1997. . .

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God
destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael
Marcavage. "From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans
was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of
sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge," he
continued.

New Orleans is also known for its Mardi Gras parties where thousands of
drunken men revel in the streets to exchange plastic jewelry for drunken
women to expose their breasts. This annual event sparked the creation of
the "Girls Gone Wild" video series.

"We must help and pray for those ravaged by this disaster, but let us
not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the
wickedness in their city for so long," Marcavage said. "May this act of
God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits, and
bring us trembling before the throne of Almighty God," Marcavage
concluded.

http://www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

ROBERT KENNEDY JR, HUFFINGTON POST - As Hurricane Katrina dismantles
Mississippi's Gulf Coast, it's worth recalling the central role that
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto
Protocol and kiboshing President Bush's iron-clad campaign promise to
regulate CO2.

In March of 2001, just two days after EPA Administrator Christie Todd
Whitman's strong statement affirming Bush's CO2 promise former RNC Chief
Barbour responded with an urgent memo to the White House.

Barbour, who had served as RNC Chair and Bush campaign strategist, was
now representing the president's major donors from the fossil fuel
industry who had enlisted him to map a Bush energy policy that would "be
friendly to their interests. His credentials ensured the new
administration's attention.". . .

"A moment of truth is arriving," Barbour wrote, "in the form of a
decision whether this Administration's policy will be to regulate and/or
tax CO2 as a pollutant. The question is whether environmental policy
still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with
Clinton-Gore." He derided the idea of regulating CO2 as "eco-extremism,"
and chided them for allowing environmental concerns to "trump good
energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years.". . .

On March 13, Bush reversed his previous position, announcing he would
not back a CO2 restriction using the language and rationale provided by
Barbour. Echoing Barbour's memo, Bush said he opposed mandatory CO2
caps, due to "the incomplete state of scientific knowledge" about global
climate change.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/afor-they-that-sow-the-_b_6396.html


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

PAUL SIMAO, REUTERS, BILOXI - The legalization of gambling in Biloxi
created an economic boom in the early 1990s and the city developed a
reputation as a place where a person could get a decent-paying job in
the casino or hospitality business. But not everyone prospered. In the
devastated streets and atop the rubble piles where their homes stood
before Katrina blew through, a bitter refrain is increasingly heard.
Poor and low-income residents complain that they have borne the brunt of
the hurricane's wrath.

"Many people didn't have the financial means to get out," said Alan
LeBreton, 41, an apartment superintendent who lived on Biloxi's seaside
road, now in ruins. "That's a crime and people are angry about it."

Many of the town's well-off heeded authorities' warnings to flee north,
joining thousands of others who traveled from the Gulf Coast into
northern Mississippi and Alabama, Georgia and other nearby states.

Hotels along the interstates and other main roads were packed with these
temporary refugees. Gas stations and convenience stores -- at least
those that were open -- sold out of water, ice and other supplies within
hours.

But others could not afford to join them, either because they didn't own
a car or couldn't raise funds for even the cheapest motel. . .

Resentment at being left behind in the path of one of the fiercest
hurricanes on record may have contributed to some of the looting that
occurred in Biloxi and other coastal communities. A number of private
residences, including some in upscale neighborhoods, were targeted,
residents said.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050901/2005-09-01T021157Z_01_MOL181874_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-BT-WEATHER-KATRINA-POVERTY-DC.html


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

ANN GERHART, WASHINGTON POST - There are four levels of hell inside the
refugee city of the Superdome, home to about 15,000 people since Sunday.
On the artificial-turf field and in the lower-level seats where Montrel
sat sweltering with her family, a form of civilization had taken hold --
smelly, messy, dark and dank, but with a structure. Families with cots
used their beds as boundaries for personal space and kept their areas
orderly, a cooler on one corner, the toys on another, almost as if they
had come for fireworks and stayed too long.

The bathrooms, clogged and overflowing since Monday, announced the
second level of hell, the walkway ringing the entrance level. In the
men's, the urinal troughs were overflowing. In the women's, the bowls
were to the brim. A slime of excrement and urine made the walkway slick.
"You don't even go there anymore," said Dee Ford, 37, who was pushed in
a wading pool from her flooded house to the shelter. "You just go
somewhere in a corner where you can. In the dark, you are going to step
in poo anyway."
. . .

"With no hand-washing, and all the excrement," said Sgt. Debra Williams,
who was staffing the infirmary in the adjacent sports arena, "you have
about four days until dysentery sets in. And it's been four days today."
. . .

Within the skyboxes, on the third level of hell, life was dark 24 hours
a day, a place for abandonment and coupling. Also up there was "a sort
of speakeasy," said Michael Childs, who had some beer in an empty Dannon
water bottle. "You got to know where to go," he said, and grinned. "And
you just put your bottle under the spigot. It is disgusting in here, and
I lost everything I had, and I'm glad to have found a little beer."

On the fourth level, the darkest and highest of all, the lurkers lived,
scary in the shadows. The fourth level, people explained, was for the
gangsters and the druggies. The rumors sprang from there: Two girls had
been raped; one girl had been raped and one killed. Someone was
abducting newborns. A man had jumped from there and died. A murder had
occurred.

"None of that," said Maj. Bush, who had been at the Superdome, along
with about 200 other Guard members and a few New Orleans policemen,
since Monday. An older man did jump to his death, but not from the
fourth level. Two residents died, and two were born, both births
attended by a physician. Bush did not know if either child had been
named Katrina.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102801.html


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

BOING BOING - My friend Ned Sublette passes along an email attributed to
a rescue worker in New Orleans. Ned says: "The poorest 20% of the city
was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious
bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation
plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned
vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners
knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly
black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the
political will -- weren't there to get them out. White per capita income
in Orleans parish, 2000 census: $31,971. Black per capita: $11,332.
Median *household* income in B.W. Cooper Housing Projects, 2000:
$13,263.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/30/email_attributed_to_.html

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

WASHINGTON POST - Nagin also estimated that 50,000 to 100,000 people
stayed in the city of 485,000 despite earlier evacuation orders, and
said they would now be evacuated at the rate of 14,000 to 15,000 a day.
He said the city would "not be functional" for about three months.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083101804.html


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

LINTON WEEKS WASHINGTON POST - Benigno E. Aguirre of the Disaster
Research Center at the University of Delaware has been watching and
reading about looters in Louisiana. "It may look from the outside as if
they are stealing or breaking the law," says Aguirre, "when in fact some
of them are trying to survive." On the other hand, he says, some of the
thieves are garden-variety crooks. "There is always a very small number
of people that are predisposed to crime, and they see a disaster as an
opportunity to act."

There are the disenfranchised who jump at the chance to get even with
those who have more stuff than they do. "Disasters can become
opportunity for class warfare, and that kind of appropriation of other
people's property should be prosecuted," he says,

There are looters, he says, but "people use the concept of looting
without making distinctions."

Many may be people taking drastic measures required by drastic times.
And some, he says, are the in-an-emergency equivalent of
hunters/gatherers, foraging for food, fresh water, medicine, matches,
batteries, everyday essentials that are just not available. Not at home,
not at shelters. . .

Here's a recent exchange between Nancy Grace and Anderson Cooper of CNN:

"It's my understanding," Grace said, "that there has been rampant
looting. In fact, martial law declared in other areas. Have you seen
looting?"

Cooper replied, "I wouldn't call it looting. What I have seen is
desperate people kind of wandering around here in downtown Gulfport.
There are a lot of police here in Gulfport, so you can't get away with
looting. But I have seen people picking stuff up from the wreckage. I
saw a man with two bottles of olive oil. He was hoping to try to cook
something up. He says he has no water. He doesn't really have much of a
place to go. So there are a lot of people just desperately in need."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102681_pf.html


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

SCOTT GOLD, LA TIMES - A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack
vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending
machines smashed by teenagers. . . "We pee on the floor. We are like
animals," said Taffany Smith, 25, as she cradled her 3-week-old son,
Terry. In her right hand she carried a half-full bottle of formula
provided by rescuers. Baby supplies are running low; one mother said she
was given two diapers and told to scrape them off when they got dirty
and use them again.

At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three
people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death,
saying he had nothing left to live for. . .

"There is feces on the walls," said Bryan Hebert, 43, who arrived at the
Superdome on Monday. "There is feces all over the place."

Most refugees are given two 9-ounce bottles of water a day and two boxed
meals: spaghetti, Thai chicken or jambalaya. One man tried to escape
Wednesday by leaping a barricade and racing toward the streets. The man
was desperate, National Guard Sgt. Caleb Wells said. Everything he was
able to bring to the Superdome had been stolen. His house had probably
been destroyed, his relatives killed.

"We had to chase him down," Wells said. "He said he just wanted to get
out, to go somewhere. We took him to the terrace and said: 'Look.' "
Below, floodwaters were continuing to rise, submerging cars. "He didn't
realize how bad things are out there," Wells said. "He just broke down.
He started bawling. We took him back inside."

The soldiers — most are sleeping two or three hours a night, and many
have lost houses — say they are doing the best they can with limited
resources and no infrastructure. But they have become the target of many
refugees' anger.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-superdome1sep01,0,2041291,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

AUDREY HUDSON, WASHINGTON TIMES - About 4,000 Coast Guardsmen are
helping with relief efforts. . . With only a skeletal fleet of 25 rescue
helicopters based in Louisiana and Alabama, three-man crews, including
rescue swimmers, are flying nonstop and have rescued more than 1,250
victims in the flood-swollen region. [Now up to 2600- TPR] The highly
trained swimmers are using axes to break through roofs before pulling
soaking wet victims to safety, who are then airlifted to hospitals for
medical care or to the closest dry patch of land. "Unfortunately, in a
situation like this, you're seeing the Coast Guard do what it does best
-- saving lives," Petty Officer 3rd Class Larry Chambers said. "The
importance of life is job one for us. "When they see the orange and
white bird and those guys in orange uniforms coming down for them, they
feel a lot better," Petty Officer Chambers said. . .

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050831-102439-6981r


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MORE ECHOES OF NEW ORLEANS
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

MORE ECHOES OF NEW ORLEANS

[Thanks to various readers]

Whippoorwill's singing, on a soft summer breeze;
Makes me think of my baby, I left down in New Orleans,
I left down in New Orleans;
Magnolia, you sweet thing, you're driving me mad
Got to get back to you, babe;
You're the best I ever had;
You're the best I ever had;
You whisper "Good morning," so gently in my ear;
I'm coming home to you, babe;
I'll soon be there;
I'll soon be there.

- John J. Cale

NOLA

It's not so much the relentless photographs of floods, the debris of our
lives smashed and scattered, or even the obsession I have developed to
read something - anything, about Lessepps Street where Lee Grue lives.

Kalamu ya Salam made it to Houston, is mostly off line, Ahmos ZuBolton
died last year, so it's not personal ties or the memories I have of the
Big Easy, or the story this morning about the Crescent Hotel in the
Quarter that brought up generators one last time to cook a hot breakfast
for everyone, anyone, a piano player performing Stormy Weather.

It's not sweet memories -- eating Eggs Benedict at Brennans when I was
ten. My parents took us on a long car trip from Illinois to California
then down through Texas, across to New Orleans and then back home
through the Smoky Mountains, America the Beautiful, and now devastation,
or walking into a perfume shop and buying a bottle of White Shoulders
which lasted well into my teens because Mother insisted it was just for
special events, like church, weddings, graduations, funerals. . . -
Susan Bright

http://earthfamilyalpha.blogspot.com/2005/08/nola.html

Back water rising, coming in my windows and doors
I leave with a prayer in my heart: back water won't rise no more

[Attributed to Blind Lemon Jefferson]


||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ECOLOGY
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

SOME GREAT APE SPECIES MAY E GONE WITHIN A GENERATION

BBC - Some of the great apes - chimps, gorillas, and orangutans - could
be extinct in the wild within a human generation, a new assessment
concludes.
Human settlement, logging, mining and disease mean that orangutans in
parts of Indonesia may lose half of their habitat within five years.
There are now more than 20,000 humans on the planet for every
chimpanzee. . .


"All of the great apes are listed as either endangered or critically
endangered," co-author Lera Miles from the World Conservation Monitoring
Centre near Cambridge told the BBC News website. "Critically endangered
means that their numbers have decreased, or will decrease, by 80% within
three generations." One critically endangered species is the Sumatran
orangutan, of which around 7,300 remain in the wild.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4202734.stm

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FIELD NOTES
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

STRIKES AND BOYCOTTS OF MAJOR HOTELS AROUND THE COUNTRY
http://www.hotellaboradvisor.info/hotelguidestrike.asp