No, I'm not live blogging from New Orleans. I am simply alive, have completed the 12-hour-long, 250-mile evacuation, and have a dial-up connection. I am privileged: people who care, car, enough money, nice place to stay.
Once I was awake this morning and brave enough to face it, I caught one CNN news cycle on New Orleans. The points were presented in the following order:
1. The updated path and intensity of the storm.
2. A clip of Ray Nagin's statement that all "looters" will be sent directly to Angola.
3. An assurance that federal assistance will be provided to Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana.
One: Muth-er-fuck.
Two: The CNN mannequin anchor as well as the people surrounding Nagin when he made this statement were positively gleeful. Let me be more specific: Their expressions ranged from extremely smug to so turned on that they were ready to get naked right there.
Three: Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of federal assistance to people. But a Category 4 is about to blast through Louisiana.
Where are ya'll?
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8 comments:
Oklahoma City is where I be.
My personal fave headline on CNN so far is in relation to the RNC in St Paul: "Gustav: Party-Pooper"
Ummm, not just for the GOP, idiots.
I'm glad to hear from you, leigh c. I know it, the GOP acts like the storm is their debutante ball.
N.O. folks originally evacuating here were too scared to stay so close and went on to Austin, and thought I should go, too, but I was too lazy.
The police presence and fear of "looting" was hyped up even here. They were really getting off on it. Nagin is disgusting.
Hi, Profacero -- I thought about you when the storm appeared to be heading westward.
Are we two of the 12 or so people who think all the hype over "looting" is terrible? Here, the grocery stores and pharmacies were surrounded by National Guard by Saturday. Though we did not drive past WalMart, we speculated that it was probably surrounded by Blackwater.
I've been trying to find out (i.e. asked a couple of people) whether Blackwater were there. They didn't seem to know, or too realize what Blackwater is, which surprised me.
What is really scary about it is that nobody I know (and a really good journalist was staying with me after Katrina) knew that Blackwater was here after Katrina. Over a year later, a perfectly normal-seeming guy told me a quite bizarre story of having catered, for excellent pay, for these "contractors" (not the National Guard) who he claimed had killed a *lot* of people for "looting" or sometimes for just for walking, and storing their bodies in these massive coolers. His story was SO sci-fi- movie sounding that I wondered as he told it if he had been having paranoid delusions. Then I read the book about Blackwater and its N.O. presence post-Katrina and the guy's story did not seem so paranoid anymore at all.
A friend of mine was broke and therefore working for one of those hotels downtown, with vertical evacuees, during Katrina, and with FEMA/Blackwater afterwards. Apparently every FEMA worker had a guard, with big per diems, and included in my friend's job was finding prostitutes for them. Said friend now has a decent job thank God.
Good God! Your poor friend. I'm glad she emerged from that nightmare. Those poor prostitutes, too -- I cannot imagine how scary it would be to take a call from a Blackwater mercenary.
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