Kathy, thanks so much for the link. I'm going to print up the list of needed items and hit the bookstore, gift shop and ICU/ICN at work on Tuesday to see if they're willing to donate, and I've already talked to my mom, who'll meet me at church tomorrow with some children's books from her store.

A woman in my yoga practice this morning insisted that before the hurricane there were busses all around the city ready to take people to safer ground, but people wouldn't leave the city. They should have done what they were told to do, she insisted, and left when ordered to evacuate because they all could have.

My pacifist, liberal-Berkeley yoga instructor took her aside and verbally smacked her upside the head, telling her that those awful uncharitable thoughts of her has no place in a yoga practice.

namaste, dammit!

Raq, I've been meaning to ask you this because at one point in my life I was flirting with the idea of taking the foreign exam and now I'm flirting with the idea of possibly at some point maybe considering applying for a DODD school position.

Do you find pressure to not badmouth an administration you disagree with when your job or the job of your spouse is to be a representative of the US abroad? I guess what I'm trying to ask is if I were a DODD teacher or in USFS, would I be able to espouse my anti-administration views freely or would there be pressures to not do so openly or even repercussions for doing so?

there were busses all around the city ready to take people to safer ground, but people wouldn't leave the city.

NOLA reports have reached such saturation levels that I can't remember where I read it. But I thought I read that the NOLA busses stopped running Saturday.

I'm not convinced that Bush cares about white people more than black people.

I agree in part with Strega. I don't know about claims of racism, but I'd argue that Bush doesn't care about poor people, black or white.

FWIW, I don't think it's that Bush doesn't care about them because they are black, or because they are poor. They are simply other people, and it doesn't occur to him to care about other people.

Okay, yes. He doesn't actually care about anyone. But when people are rich, he, at least, pretends to care.

"I'm afraid I would have assaulted him."

I heart Clinton.

Halliburton

BWAH. In hearing news reports about Bush's appproval rating dropping, I keep remembering the Vanity Fair article about how second-term presidencys are always the ones with the Big Scandal that shakes the administration.

I keep waiting for Bush's. Maybe it's on the horizon.

The prosecutor is supposed to be wrapping the Plame investigation this fall.

I hope that we'll see something come of that investigation Tom. It seems like most people don't care about it though.

I wish it were more satisfying to see the popularity ratings tanking. The only thing that will satisfy is for them to be gone. The loss of life that could have been prevented if there had been competent leadership watching the weather channel.

And of course Halliburton stock went way the hell up. [link] What % of the windfall do you suppose they will contribute?

I'll watch TDS during the week and perhaps laugh, but it is getting harder to find any humor in this farce of a government. So many lives lost under his leadership.

I can't tell you how many times I type and delete. My level of horror and anger is making it impossible to articulate.

I think I love Viggo Mortensen just about as much as I love Bill Clinton. From here: [link] --

In the often and rightly quoted words of Bill Clinton, "There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." We see now how individuals and groups around the country are acting in any way they can to help their fellow citizens in Louisiana, Mississippi and other devastated places near the Gulf of Mexico. They refuse to stand idly by and wait for President Bush and his morally-bankrupt, pirate administration to respond in an appropriately urgent and compassionate manner to the escalating agony and desperation of our fellow citizens. This agony and desperation was caused in large part by a near complete absence of adequate federal government funding, preparedness, and leadership. We the people will continue to help Americans and non-Americans alike, with or without the participation or approval of George W. Bush and his Neo-Conservative cohorts. While it is true that what is most important right now is to rescue, feed, house, and in any way possible care for those immediately affected by the disaster, it is equally true that in the long run those directly responsible for aggravating the tragic situation must be held accountable. The mounting evidence of the Bush administration's criminal mismanagement of the nation, as well as its consistently arrogant disregard for our planet's people and natural environments must be confronted immediately. Those who voted for Bush last year, or who have continually supported his outlaw administration in its destructively dishonest conduct, including not only extremist conservatives but also politically-calculating democrats, need not hang their heads or avert their eyes now. What they can and ought to do is join the increasing numbers of Americans who are demanding that presidential impeachment proceedings be initiated as soon as possible. Members of the Bush Administration responsible for the blatant lies and self-serving manipulations that have fanned the flames of disaster from Iraq to New Orleans must be prosecuted as our laws require. We must insist on this. Furthermore, we must not allow these disgracefully unpatriotic public servants to be pardoned by any future president as Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon. Please call or write your government representatives and help get the scoundrels out of government and in prison where they belong. Do not allow the subject to be changed, do not be distracted. The time to act is now. Take back your country. - Viggo Mortensen, 1 Sept., 2005

Damn, like he wasn't already on my HOTT list. Thanks Teppy. That's some articulate anger there. It's hard to hold on to any hope that we will take back our country.