Current TV is running some amazing footage from Hurricane Katrina today. They have five segments, adding up to an hour long program, filmed by Doug Kiesling, a freelance Weather Journalist. My wife and I watched it from 7-8 AM. It is next on at 11 AM (then presumably 3 PM, etc.).

This diary was originally written once the lessons of Hurricane Katrina had sunk in a bit. This week is the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Two years ag...I remember watching on the weather channel as a category 5 hurricane was bearing down on the Gulf Coast and thinking, "THAT is going to be really bad."

But no one in the Bush Administration seemed to think that. They thought about celebrating John McCain's birthday, buying shoes in NYC, vacationing...while one hell of a hurricane was bearing down on America's Gulf Coast.

The people of America's Gulf coast didn't matter to the Bush Administration. Those people we watched die of neglect in New Orleans died because Republican America considered them insignificant...worthless...useless.

It is two years after Hurricane Katrina and what has become President Bush's emblematic war on the poor and black of New Orleans.

The anniversary is remembered by Walter Mosley, writing in The Nation:

We are coming up on the two-year mark since the Katrina debacle in Louisiana and Mississippi. I hesitate to call this date an anniversary because the word implies, in some way, a celebration, a birth. What we are scratching on the calendar is more like a notch on a raw gravestone, a count of the days and years that have passed without a reckoning for those who died, those who lost loved ones and for a city that is still in critical condition.

Not only did our government fail to answer the call of its most vulnerable citizens during that fateful period; it still fails each and every day to rebuild, redeem and rescue those who are ignored because of their poverty, their race, their passage into old age.

UPATE: Thursday MSM links after the jump.

You can help focus this issue politically . The Jewish Funds For Justice

The global warming "debate" is not what the right wing portrays it as. Long ago a solid, overwhelming consensus was reached among scientists that a.) global warming is happening, b.) that humans are contributing to warming, and c.) warming will seriously impact our civilization in the near future...maybe already is.

The debate among scientists has shifted to details. Will there be localized cooling in the North Atlantic? Where will there be droughts and where flooding? How rapidly and how bumpy will the changes be? But the main question for all of society is whether it is too late to do anything. THAT is the new global warming debate. I have two answers to this: we sure had BETTER be able to do something about it and YES, WE CAN!

I have been aware of global warming science for at least 25 years. The science goes back even further, to the 1960's when measuring carbon dioxide levels and the observation that carbon dioxide was increasing were first done by Roger Revelle. Way back then, Revelle noticed changes and predicted that temperatures would rise as a result. When I became aware of global warming some 25 years ago, many predictions were made: increased storminess, Northward migration of tropical diseases, increased variability of temperature extremes, etc. What has astonished me as I read about current global warming science is just how many of the predictions of 25 years ago are coming true. In science the value of a theory is in its predictive value. From what I can tell as an informed, though not professional, observer is that the predictive value of the global warming models has been good. Details may be inacurate, but the general predictions have come true.

I just posted a rant about the government's use of "the weather" to clear themselves of any responsability over at culturekitchen. My pet peeve? The refusal to link the freakishly hot and stormy weather to any environmental upheavals caused by the last hurricane season, including Hurricane Katrina.

I mean, if Puerto Rican's and countries all across the Caribbean have created preparedness plans for not just the before and during of a hurricane but particularly the environmental upheavals that come after it, why can't U.S. Americans? Do y'all really believe the U.S. is above any laws of nature?

This is a little essay that has been brewing in my mind since hurricane Katrina, and which I put together in honor of Martin Luther King, jr.'s birthday, though it applies to all of us.

This last week was Martin Luther King jr.’s birthday. I happened to watch some old All in the Family episodes that day. For those who are too young to remember, this was the Sit Com that broke all the rules so that all modern Sit Coms could do what they do. In fact it broke so many rules it probably would be unacceptable today now that reactionaries have taken away so much. It directly faced such previously forbidden topics as racism, sexism, rape, addiction, etc. All in the Family was one of the most pivotal TV shows in the history of the medium.

One episode I watched on Martin Luther King, jr.'s birthday struck me. Archie Bunker’s niece went out on a date with Lionel. Again, for those who don’t remember, Archie was a racist (though a well-meaning one!) and Lionel was one of the first serious black characters in TV history. Young, proud and intelligent, Lionel was the opposite of the racial stereotypes that dominated television. The very concept of a mixed race couple was practically unacceptable on TV at the time and it took a show like All in the Family to confront America with it’s racism. The episode focused on both Archie Bunker and Lionel's uncle taking the young couple to task for betraying their race. The old generation, black and white, could not take the idea of a mixed race couple. The younger generation in essence told the older generation to mind their own business.

I have been so used to seeing mixed race couples, both in NYC and Los Angeles, for at least 20 years. Without realizing it at the time, I witnessed the transition from mixed race couples being almost too unacceptable to comprehend to being accepted at least in big cities. That is progress. And, as I observed a year ago in a similar essay, I think there is no question that Barak Obama’s easy Senate win also shows how far we have come since the death of MLK.

But there is no question that equality has not yet been achieved in reality even if there is nominally legal equality. Mixed race couples are acceptable in the circles I have been used to for 20 years, but some places even in NYC would still be hostile to the sight. And I still hear fools ask the question, “Is America ready for a black President?

I am publicizing this from Daily Kos...that OTHER site. This is from Democracy for NYC.

Calling NYC area Kossacks. BFAer ChrisNYC's sister has rented a big truck and is going to the gulf this weekend, so Chris posted this request over at Blog for America this afternoon:

Democracy For NYC Volunteers Are Going to
The Eye of The Storm

Bringing Urgently Needed Supplies, Donations, and Volunteers to Ocean Springs, MS

Please help.

We are working directly with the Mayor and the Emergency Operations Center Command Post Director for this town, which was hit by the eye of hurricane Katrina and has been underserved by the large relief organizations. Departure for the Gulf Coast scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

Donated Supplies can be dropped off:
Wed.-Fri., Sept. 14-16., 3p.m.-1a.m.
[Sat., 9/17, noon-3 p.m., must call to confirm]:
The Kettle of Fish, 59 Christopher Street
--a great and giving bar, just east of 7th Ave., one block south of 10th St.--

To donate $$ for us to buy the supplies or pay for our gas & vehicles, to get help dropping off big batch of goods, for questions, or to volunteer! Please call 917-628-6016 or 212-924-6942

SUPPLIES URGENTLY NEEDED, SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED BY THE TOWN
(sorry, no clothing)

Highest Priority

-work gloves, all sizes
-batteries, esp. sizes D & C

I have been known to bitch publicly and privately about Al Sharpton but, DAMN! Sharpton absolutely nails it over the head.

[via NY1: Top Stories]:

"We need a mayor that's strong enough to bring us through 9/11 but compassionate enough that if Katrina hits he'll make sure that poor people aren't the scapegoats of a natural disaster," Sharpton said. "I've been disturbed by some things he's done, but his overall record has warranted support.

[...]

"It seems like the Democratic primary is winding down to him and Mr. Weiner," Sharpton said Saturday of Ferrer and Congressman Anthony Weiner. "I think that Mr. Weiner has performed well in the debates, but I can't forget that he is a pro-Iraq War Democrat."

All my endorsements are coming in separate posts. Use this though to ask any questions or vent any doubts about the candidates.

The Republicans are well known for underfunding America's infrastructure, and that is one reason why New Orleans was flooded so badly. Everyone who live in NYC knows how badly funded our subways, roads and schools are. We know that on all levels of government--Bush at the top, Pataki below him and Bloomberg locally--the Republicans who are supposed to represent us fail to fund public works projects. But when it comes to pork in Republican districts, Republicans wallow in it. The city of Ketchikan, Alaska, with 14,000 residents, are building a bridge to Gravina Island, with a population of 50. Don Young (R-AK) pushed for and got Federal funding to build that bridge. Yet levees in New Orleans were neglected year after year. It is absolutely disgusting.

But at least most Republicans realized that after the fact they had to show sympathy. So Congress overwhelmingly passed, and Bush signed, a bill giving aid to the victims of Katrina. But 11 particularly cold-hearted Republicans couldn't even bring themselves to be this generous. These 11 Republican Reptiles voted to leave those affected by Katrina on their own. We have to make these bastards pay by forcing them to defend their callousness when they are up for re-election. Some try to excuse these 11 Republicans, claiming that there are flaws in the bill. But there is one thing that is VERY clear. Only Republican ideologues voted no. No Dem voted against this bill. I think something really stinks about the "no" vote of the Katrina 11.

"God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price"

I completely forgot to repost this from c u l t u r e k i t c h e n. I've been livid over this whole relief fiasco. My husband unglued my fingers from the keyboard yesterday and so we spent the day at the West Side Highway Waterpark with the kids.

The night before we had listened to the mayor of New Orleans break down and cry after one of the most viscerally honest interviews any man could have had after finding himself in the middle of hell : CNN.com - Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses' - Sep 2, 2005

My little one softly told me, "Mommy, I'm going to have nightmares."

Well, they're living the nightmare in New Orleans while Bush was posing for compassionate conservative' photo ops.

Mayor Nagin's sobs at the end ... it tells you all.