They Really Dropped the Ball.. - Page 47

dissention · #**691** 09-12-2005, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BTFLCHLD

i didnt the first time

Thanks for the belly laugh.

SuzeQuze · #**692** 09-12-2005, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I guess I just do not see how an adult trying to make kids forget for a second is bad. Interestingly, your statement "a poor person wouldn't say that because they would have more empathy and more of a clue what the person might be going through" is awfully presumptous. You mean to tell me you know for a fact that not one poor person has tried to cheer their kid up by using this technique. I cannot believe you all are getting so upset by this when there are far larger things to be upset by. Truth be known it came out of DeLay's mouth and you all want to attack it no matter how patently innocuous it was and no matter how universal his technique is

Are you arguing just to argue? You know he's a tool but you'll defend him anyway even though his statement was insensitive. Why is it wrong to have a strong opinion on what he said? Why do I have to share your opinion? I don't and I won't. I can't even say he's insensitive without getting a lecture on having an opinion that is different from yours.

dissention · #**693** 09-12-2005, 04:03 PM

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1001096643

Public Rates Media Highly on Katrina

NEW YORK - Sixty-five percent of those in a Pew Research Center poll say the media are doing an excellent or good job covering the hurricane disaster in the Gulf.

Eighty-nine percent say television is a main source of news about the disaster, followed by newspapers (35%), the Internet (21%) and radio (17%). The favored network or cable channel is CNN.

For once, I agree.

amber · #**694** 09-12-2005, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

Are you arguing just to argue? You know he's a tool but you'll defend him anyway even though his statement was insensitive. Why is it wrong to have a strong opinion on what he said? Why do I have to share your opinion? I don't and I won't. I can't even say he's insensitive without getting a lecture on having an opinion that is different from yours.

I think he actually just doesn't agree, just like I don't agree. DeLay is still a tool. I just don't think that was excessively tool like behavior. I don't think it was that insensitive in context, either.
No, I'm not arguing just to argue. My opinion is just different.

strandinthewind · #**695** 09-12-2005, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dissention

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1001096643

Public Rates Media Highly on Katrina

NEW YORK - Sixty-five percent of those in a Pew Research Center poll say the media are doing an excellent or good job covering the hurricane disaster in the Gulf.

Eighty-nine percent say television is a main source of news about the disaster, followed by newspapers (35%), the Internet (21%) and radio (17%). The favored network or cable channel is CNN.

For once, I agree.

Me too and even more scary is Fox did a bang up job in the field with Smith of, though I despise him, Geraldo

CNN did a great job as well with Cooper.

strandinthewind · #**696** 09-12-2005, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dissention

Precisely. It's a stupid question.

that is used by millions of people everyday and I feel certain many of the parents and older siblings of the young evacuees - are you saying they are bad for that - or is it just DeLay because you hate him?

strandinthewind · #**697** 09-12-2005, 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amber

I think he actually just doesn't agree, just like I don't agree. DeLay is still a tool. I just don't think that was excessively tool like behavior. I don't think it was that insensitive in context, either . . . .

Exactly

strandinthewind · #**698** 09-12-2005, 04:28 PM

On to bigger and better things bound to cause real fun:

Poll: Respondents dissatisfied with Katrina response

(CNN) -- A majority of Americans surveyed disapproved of President Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina, a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found.

In the survey, conducted September 8-11, 43 percent said they approved of Bush's handling of the crisis, while 54 percent said they disapproved.

Fifty-two percent of respondents agreed that Bush was a strong decisive leader while 47 percent did not.

In a poll conducted August 28-30, 60 percent said he was a strong leader and 40 percent said he was not.

Seventy percent of respondents said they favored forming an independent panel to study the government response to the storm.

The results were based on telephone interviews with 1,005 adults and had a margin of error of +/- 3 percent. Researchers did not try to call some areas of Mississippi and Louisiana that were declared federal disaster areas following the storm.

Respondents asked about the initial response to Katrina gave low marks to everyone involved -- from President Bush to New Orleans residents.

Fifty-five percent said President Bush's initial response was poor, while 44 percent said it was good.

Federal agencies and state and local officials fared worse.

Almost two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) said that federal agencies did a poor job and 36 percent said their initial response was good.

Fifty-nine percent said state and local officials' initial response was poor, while 38 percent said it was good.

More than half of respondents (57 percent) said that New Orleans residents' initial response was poor, while 39 percent said it was good.

When asked about the response "in the last few days," the results were almost reversed.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said that Bush's response was good in recent days, while 40 percent said it was poor.

Federal agencies were handling the storm's aftermath well, according to 56 percent of respondents, while 42 percent said they were handling it poorly.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said that state and local officials were now handling the crisis well while 39 percent said they were still handling it poorly.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said that New Orleans residents were now handling the situation well, while 37 percent said they were doing a poor job.

That section of questions had a margin of error of +/- 5 percent.

Ready for a crisis
When asked if they had confidence in the government's ability to deal with a future natural disaster, about one in five (22 percent) said they had a great deal of confidence, 38 percent said they had a moderate amount of confidence and 40 percent said they had no confidence.

The respondents did not express any more confidence in the government's ability to respond to a terrorist attack -- 21 percent said they had great confidence, 42 percent said they had a moderate amount of confidence and 37 percent expressed no confidence.

Those questions also had a margin of error of +/-5 percent.

Rating the officials
A majority of respondents (54 percent) had an unfavorable view of former FEMA Director Michael Brown, compared to 19 percent who had a favorable opinion and 27 percent who were unsure.

Brown stepped down on Monday after intense criticism of his agency's handling of the storm's aftermath.

Respondents were split on Brown's former boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- 34 percent had a favorable opinion, 33 percent had an unfavorable opinion and 33 percent were unsure.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco had similar numbers -- 32 percent expressed a favorable opinion, 35 percent said they had an unfavorable opinion and 33 percent said that they were unsure.

Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, while 17 percent said their opinion was unfavorable and 45 percent were unsure.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city and lashed out at the slow response to the storm, was viewed favorably by 43 percent of respondents, unfavorably by 34 percent and 33 percent said they were not sure.

The margin of error for those questions was +/- 3 percent, except for the question about Nagin, which had a sample error of +/- 6 percent.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/...oll/index.html

strandinthewind · #**699** 09-12-2005, 04:32 PM

Leave it to ole T Boone:

New Orleans dogs go west

First flight of rescued pets to California homes

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The first major airlift of dogs from the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast left Louisiana on Sunday, carrying about 80 pets to new temporary homes in California.

The Continental Airlines flight from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was chartered for about $50,000 by Texas oil tycoon Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine, in a movement dubbed "Operation Pet Lift."

Some dogs were placed in cages in the cargo section while others rode in the passenger cabin, where they barked and wagged their tails.

"They'd been in cages far too long. We felt like they needed to be free so they sat on our laps, and we played with them the whole way," said Christine Penrod, Madeleine Pickens' sister, who accompanied the animals on the flight.

About half the dogs were headed for San Diego, with the rest bound for San Francisco. Sunday's move was organized by PetRelocation.com, based in Austin, Texas.

"The goal was to help rescue 200 dogs," Pickens' spokesman Jay Rosser said. "They're overjoyed that they were able to rescue 80, but clearly disappointed and dismayed at the bureaucracy, which prevented them from taking the full 200."

Organizers complained that some legal requirements were impractical, such as waiting out a 30-day quarantine before transporting the animals.

Kelly Harrington, director of disaster response services for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said a makeshift shelter for up to several thousand dogs had been set up at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana, about 45 miles northwest of New Orleans.

She hoped additional dogs would be flown out in the coming days, but said the effort was taking time.

"Every animal has to be vet checked, vaccinated and microchipped ... so we can track these animals in case an owner does find them," Harrington said.

Petfinder.com was setting up a database of pet pictures to help reunite owners with lost animals.

Andrew Rowan, executive vice president of operations for the Humane Society United States, said animals must be moved out of the Gonzales facility quickly to make room for "maybe 50,000 or more dogs and cats in New Orleans that need to be rescued."

"There are vans and cars and trucks all over the place," he said. "Dogs are barking, cats are meowing. It's a tremendous logistical operation to provide the care that these animals need."

The Humane Society's Dave Pauli, director of the Gonzales facility, said 200 animals were shipped out Sunday by truck to Houston, but rescue teams expected to bring in about 300 more in the afternoon.

About 200 animals have been reunited with their owners at the facility.

"That's what keeps us going," Pauli said. "Every one of them brings a tear to your eyes and makes these sleepless nights worth it."

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/11/kat....ap/index.html

strandinthewind · #**700** 09-12-2005, 04:33 PM

FIRE AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Published on Thursday, September 8, 2005 by the Wall Street Journal

Old-Line Families Escape Worst of Flood And Plot the Future
by Christopher Cooper

NEW ORLEANS - On a sultry morning earlier this week, Ashton O'Dwyer stepped out of his home on this city's grandest street and made a beeline for his neighbor's pool. Wearing nothing but a pair of blue swim trunks and carrying two milk jugs, he drew enough pool water to flush the toilet in his home.
The mostly African-American neighborhoods of New Orleans are largely underwater, and the people who lived there have scattered across the country. But in many of the predominantly white and more affluent areas, streets are dry and passable. Gracious homes are mostly intact and powered by generators. Yesterday, officials reiterated that all residents must leave New Orleans, but it's still unclear how far they will go to enforce the order.
The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By yesterday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline.
Despite the disaster that has overwhelmed New Orleans, the city's monied, mostly white elite is hanging on and maneuvering to play a role in the recovery when the floodwaters of Katrina are gone. "New Orleans is ready to be rebuilt. Let's start right here," says Mr. O'Dwyer, standing in his expansive kitchen, next to a counter covered with a jumble of weaponry and electric wires.
More than a few people in Uptown, the fashionable district surrounding St. Charles Ave., have ancestors who arrived here in the 1700s. High society is still dominated by these old-line families, represented today by prominent figures such as former New Orleans Board of Trade President Thomas Westfeldt; Richard Freeman, scion of the family that long owned the city's Coca-Cola bottling plant; and William Boatner Reily, owner of a Louisiana coffee company. Their social pecking order is dictated by the mysterious hierarchy of "krewes," groups with hereditary membership that participate in the annual carnival leading up to Mardi Gras. In recent years, the city's most powerful business circles have expanded to include some newcomers and non-whites, such as Mayor Ray Nagin, the former Cox Communications executive elected in 2002.
A few blocks from Mr. O'Dwyer, in an exclusive gated community known as Audubon Place, is the home of James Reiss, descendent of an old-line Uptown family. He fled Hurricane Katrina just before the storm and returned soon afterward by private helicopter. Mr. Reiss became wealthy as a supplier of electronic systems to shipbuilders, and he serves in Mayor Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority. When New Orleans descended into a spiral of looting and anarchy, Mr. Reiss helicoptered in an Israeli security company to guard his Audubon Place house and those of his neighbors.
He says he has been in contact with about 40 other New Orleans business leaders since the storm. Tomorrow, he says, he and some of those leaders plan to be in Dallas, meeting with Mr. Nagin to begin mapping out a future for the city.
The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.
The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
Not every white business leader or prominent family supports that view. Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, points out that the evacuees from New Orleans already have been spread out across many states far from their old home and won't be able to afford to return. "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.
Calvin Fayard, a wealthy white plaintiffs' lawyer who lives near Mr. O'Dwyer, says the mass evacuation could turn a Democratic stronghold into a Republican one. Mr. Fayard, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, says tampering with the city's demographics means tampering with its unique culture and shouldn't be done. "People can't survive a year temporarily -- they'll go somewhere, get a job and never come back," he says.
Mr. Reiss acknowledges that shrinking parts of the city occupied by hardscrabble neighborhoods would inevitably result in fewer poor and African-American residents. But he says the electoral balance of the city wouldn't change significantly and that the business elite isn't trying to reverse the last 30 years of black political control. "We understand that African Americans have had a great deal of influence on the history of New Orleans," he says.
A key question will be the position of Mr. Nagin, who was elected with the support of the city's business leadership. He couldn't be reached yesterday. Mr. Reiss says the mayor suggested the Dallas meeting and will likely attend when he goes there to visit his evacuated family
Black politicians have controlled City Hall here since the late 1970s, but the wealthy white families of New Orleans have never been fully eclipsed. Stuffing campaign coffers with donations, these families dominate the city's professional and executive classes, including the white-shoe law firms, engineering offices, and local shipping companies. White voters often act as a swing bloc, propelling blacks or Creoles into the city's top political jobs. That was the case with Mr. Nagin, who defeated another African American to win the mayoral election in 2002.
Creoles, as many mixed-race residents of New Orleans call themselves, dominate the city's white-collar and government ranks and tend to ally themselves with white voters on issues such as crime and education, while sharing many of the same social concerns as African-American voters. Though the flooding took a toll on many Creole neighborhoods, it's likely that Creoles will return to the city in fairly large numbers, since many of them have the means to do so.

© 2005 Dow Jones & Company

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0908-09.htm

SuzeQuze · #**701** 09-12-2005, 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amber

I think he actually just doesn't agree, just like I don't agree. DeLay is still a tool. I just don't think that was excessively tool like behavior. I don't think it was that insensitive in context, either.
No, I'm not arguing just to argue. My opinion is just different.

Yeah, I was just feeling b*tchy I guess.