Per my annoying, but occasionally accurate sib who was there, they're part of it, but by no means all of it, because there were plenty of people in uniform who went more than a touch power-mad during that time and attacked the crowds unprovoked. As I recall, his recount mapped well enough to what I heard coming out of the local news (not the on air stuff, but reports from the station itself) that I believe it.
The anarchists prodded the police, and the police went bonkers and just started attacking everyone.
The National Guard was very professional during WTO, at least in my experience (my job was at 6th and Stewart). Idiot protestors would walk up and taunt them, and they'd do nothing but tell them to move along. The police, OTOH, were spoiling for a fight. You learned very quickly to give them a very, very wide berth.
If only Lloyd Dobler was organizing these disaster relief efforts. The keymaster wouldn't let us down.
"Mayor Nagin commended Dobler on the success of Operation Dude You Must Chill."
Off topic, but this is the best editorial I've read that argues against teaching "Intelligent Design" in school (and I've read a shit-load of them): [link]
By Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne in
The Guardian.
Man, the Leif sized little boy on the CNN website is killing me.
I think it's fair to say that the federal govenment response has been inadequate and there should be a lot of reevaluation of disaster response after this.
This site has some before-and-after satellite photos of NO - you can toggle between them by mousing over....
[link]
Freaky.
The craigslist postings made me teary.
Also, I really don't understand where people are supposed to live. Because I heard a lot of this "it's your own damn fault for living there" after last year's hurricanes hit Florida. Is there some place in this country that's natural disaster free? (Clearly, it's not any of the places I've ever lived.)
Hell, if I were doing security for Britney freaking Spears, I'd see what I could do to have the person removed.
Would you really throw me out? I only wanted to tell her how much I LUUURVE her!
I've hit the point where I'm not looking at any more reports, photos, or any information, and I'm skimming past posts that quote reports or articles about the situation. I ... I just can't. Getting completely freaked out and upset won't do me or anyone else any good, so I'm concentrating on information about what can be donated and where to do it, and on talking to the pet DJ about getting a fund raiser night going next week.
(This is in NO WAY a
'goodbye cruel internets! I'm taking my toys and leaving!'
post. I just felt I had to say something, before I freaked out any more.)
"It's okay," Dobler told the city, "I've still got your keys."
I can sort of relate to the rioting people. I guess I'm sort of anti-social like that. Or Elmore Leonard(You've never seen us in the same room have you?)
This should NO WAY be understood as thinking that crap is right, mind you.ETA: Kristen, we're pretty close, but we have monsoon flooding, dust-storms, heat stroke, Neo-Cons...so, really nsm.
Sometimes I laugh at the guy in the Hummer in the flooded wash, though, I must confess.
wait, the internets comes with toys?
Haha! msbelle got the bargain-basement version of the internets!
