sorry to have missed Rio.

RIO!!!!!!

Wow. I'm watching a clip of Bill Maher take Bush apart.

"You govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes. On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the city of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So yes, God does speak to you. And what he's saying is 'Take a hint.'"

The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.

That’s not just happening in Oklahoma. I have a friend in the Nashville area who said that the local Red Cross person is imposing a lot of restrictions like that on locals who want to help some evacuees who will be staying in her town. He/she was turning away job offers, etc. for the evacuees and generally giving the impression that they are to be feared rather than helped.

I guess there will always be a number of narrow-minded "officials" who are -- because of their own prejudices -- in effect sabotaging the relief process.

Narrator, are you all whupped, lately?

Yea.

I'm not convinced. It has been so easy for various individuals to demonize the residents of NO post-hurricane: "why didn't they leave?" "why are they looting?" "why are they shooting at EMS?" that I cannot imagine race not playing a role beforehand.

To be clear, I have seen a lot of racism in the analysis. And I probably want to take back my statement that class had nothing to do with the lack of response. I do think if something of this scale had happened in some place like Aspen or Hilton Head, we'd have seen a more efficient and immediate federal response. To some extent race and social class are too tied together to separate, anyhow, particularly in an urban setting. And expecting city people to even have cars they can hop in for a quick escape ignores huge chunks of any big city, regardless of race.

Dana,

I saw that. Maher was pretty good!

I guess there will always be a number of narrow-minded "officials" who are -- because of their own prejudices -- in effect sabotaging the relief process.

Gah, I hate hearing these stories. On a happier note, I saw a piece yesterday about a "youth leadership camp", some church related thing, that's being used as a shelter outside Atlanta. They've brought in lots of work/career counselors, but also regular camp counselors to try to give the kids an experience that's more like summer camp than refugee camp. And they have a large number of people who are already employed and finding apartments and stuff.

Narrator, are you all whupped, lately?

Yea.

*pet pet*

Today always makes me think of you, you know, and that's not a tease. I saw your posts first at Vanessa's, informing us of the plane(s) hitting the twin towers. I think EverDawn might have posted first, but I saw your post, first.

This American Life had a couple of the people from the EMS convention talking about being turned away from that one bridge by cops with guns. Finally they (white couple with rolly luggage and a few other people) got let in, but the rest of the people with them were still turned away. It just doesn't seem like stuff that would happen in 2005 in the US.

I'm watching Tommy Lee in college instead of doing my own homework. It's way more fun, I tell you what.

Timelies

Is it me, or is it that the zoo people are hiring the wrong directors to film Panda porn?

How much money goes into finding out what Panda's find hot? i mean, are these video boring? Its there something the scientists missed? Is the porn really bad? How do you tell if you made bad Panda porn? And my final question, is there someone out there who makes GOOD Panda porn?

Kara says thank you for the birthday wishes. She was very pleased to have them read to her.