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Catastrophes

  • Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    3 comments

    By ANNE RICE La Jolla, Calif.
    WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?
    Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?
    The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three (…)

  • Helping the Blind to See - Venezuela’s People First Policies
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    by Charley Allan - Morning Star
    The contrast between the calls from a wealthy bible basher to assassinate Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and the south American country’s people-first policies in the region and beyond could not be larger.
    So, US televangelist Pat Robertson has ordered his million-strong "brownshirt" army to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
    This powerful Bush ally, who sells "miracles" on live TV to people who really believe that he has a hot-line to God, may (…)

  • The U.S. Needs to Start Over Failing at War, Peace and Dignity
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    7 comments

    By DAN LA BOTZ
    Hurricane Katrina’s blow to New Orleans and the failure of the government to respond have shown the United States to be a failed state.
    The George W. Bush administration focused all of its resources on war and the Department of Homeland Security, yet when a major American city was attacked, albeit by the forces of nature, the government failed to respond leaving at least hundreds, probably thousands, to die, others to suffer in illness and injury, and many more thirsty and (…)

  • Hurricane Diary: Don’t Let New Orleans Die!
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Jordan Flaherty
    Its been a day since I evacuated from New Orleans, my home, the city I love. Today I saw Governor Blanco proudly speak of troops coming in with orders to shoot to kill. Is she trying to help New Orleans, or has she declared war?
    I feel like the world isn’t seeing the truth about the city I love. People outside know about Jazz Fest and Bourbon Street and beads, and now they know about looters and armed gangs and helicopter rescue.
    Whats missing is the story of a city (…)

  • Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Joseph R. Chenelly
    Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
    “This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. (…)

  • RESIGN
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    14 comments

    by Wayne Madsen
    "Team Bush" still refusing international aid. Russian rescue crews on four cargo planes with helicopters on board sit idle at an airport near Moscow waiting for green light, Cuba has 1500 doctors with 26 tons of medical supplies and Bush is refusing them entry to U.S., Venezuelan disaster rescue teams wait for a "go," Dominican Republic crews with hurricane recovery experience wait and wait and wait. It’s the same scene at airports around the world. Meanwhile, FEMA turned (…)

  • Bush criticism is widely reported
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    8 comments

    Fierce criticism of President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina dominates Tuesday’s papers, amid reports of ongoing suffering among storm victims.
    The Daily Mirror condemns the response as amazingly inadequate, pointing out that the richest country on Earth needs aid from poorer nations.
    And the Guardian says many evacuees at a Louisiana church centre visited by Mr Bush were unimpressed by the president.
    Meanwhile, the Sun likens New Orleans to a medieval wasteland.
    Hurricane (…)

  • Editorial blasts federal response
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) — The Times-Picayune of New Orleans printed this editorial in its Sunday edition, criticizing the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina and calling on every FEMA official to be fired: An open letter to the President
    Dear Mr. President:
    We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."
    Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise (…)

  • New Orleans : prisoners fell on barbed wire in bid to find water
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    New Orleans prison inmates desperate to get water fell out of cell windows onto razor wire where they hung for hours waiting to be rescued, according to a sheriff’s deputy.
    Luis Reyes, who guarded a prison during Hurricane Katrina and the days after, said that some detainees drowned in their cells as flood waters rose.
    In an interview with AFP, Mr Reyes said many prisoners broke out of their cells because there were just not enough guards to control the Community Correctional Centre (…)

  • The Superdome: Monument to a Rotten System
    6 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    There is nothing “unnatural” about the disaster of New Orleans. When politicians
    by Dave Zirin
    http://www.opednews.com
    Nowhere is this personified more painfully than in a monument to corporate greed that has rapidly become the earth’s most damnable homeless shelter, the Louisiana Superdome.
    The Superdome is perhaps the most unintentionally appropriate name since Mr. and Mrs. Cheney looked at their newborn son and said, “Dick.” It was birthed in 1975 with pomp and bombast, as the (…)