Katrina

Scott Hardie | August 29, 2005
A few weeks ago when Nawlins Week was about to start in the goo game, I realized that FIN was also currently visiting that city, and that I was about to see "The Skeleton Key" in theaters and review it. I wanted to bring up New Orleans here in TC as well to make it a complete tetrafecta for the site, but there simply wasn't a viable topic to discuss. It is with a grimness that the words "be careful what you wish for" now echo in my mind...

Let me be the first to offer the residents of that city my hopes for their safety and quick recovery. They will dwell in my thoughts today. As I write this, the storm has barely hit and there are already three deaths reported during the evacuation. I don't know yet whether the storm will be as devastating as the news media is direly forecasting (can we retire the phrase "of Biblical proportions" already?), but I've read predictions of as many as 50,000 dead. If even a fraction of a percent of that number turns out to be accurate... I don't want to comprehend it. I hope that the news media has done their usual job of over-hyping an impending hurricane and that this turns out to have little effect when it hits; I don't want to check the news this afternoon and read that the city is now at the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain. Here's hoping for the best.

Amy Austin | August 29, 2005
Wow. Indeed.

Jackie Mason | August 30, 2005
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Scott Hardie | August 31, 2005
So the news forecasters were only off by, oh, a factor of 1000 or so. Not to make light of 55 deaths and a city almost completely flooded, but I'm glad for New Orleans that once again the news media has been proven wrong about a hurricane.

As I heard someone put it, "How much of a piece of shit do you have to be to loot a store after a hurricane?" I could maybe understand if you were newly homeless and had nothing else to eat, but that doesn't cover the laundry baskets full of beer and liquor being carried out of unprotected stores.

John E Gunter | August 31, 2005
Those are for the post hurricane parties!

John

Amy Austin | August 31, 2005
Yeah, Scott... geez. ;-)

Jackie Mason | August 31, 2005
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Scott Hardie | September 1, 2005
Anybody interested in chipping in some money to disaster relief on behalf of the site, like a pooled donation between us? I feel like we owe Nawlins something after covering it so much these last few weeks. :-\

Jackie Mason | September 1, 2005
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Scott Hardie | September 2, 2005
We'll try it. As usual during disasters of this magnitude, I get to thinking that the largest amount I could afford to donate wouldn't amount to a drop in the ocean for what these people need. If everybody in the country donated what they could, that would really amount to something.

Michael Paul Cote | September 2, 2005
It's nice to see people that can really afford to help chipping in. I saw that all of the major sport leagues are giving $1 million to the relief effort. Also, Warwick Dunn, a former Tampa Bay Buc and current Atlanta Falcon, is challenging all other players in the league to match a donation of $5000. As a team, the Falcons have already gotten $260,000. If all the players respond, and I'm sure that 5 grand isn't much (they can get fined that much for missing a practice) it will generate a healthy sum.

Scott Hardie | September 2, 2005
Wouldn't it be great to see a major chain like Target donating all proceeds from an entire operating day of business to the relief fund? It ain't going to happen, but it would be great to see. :-)

Scott Hardie | September 2, 2005
Not to keep picking on the news media, but I can't believe that the Aruba kidnapping case is still drawing top headlines in the wake of Katrina. Let it go!

Amy Austin | September 2, 2005
Just curious here, Scott, but why'd you specifically name Target? I mean, I agree that it would be great (and that it probably won't happen), but I just couldn't help but think it funny that you specifically said "Target"... any particular reason?

With all the pot shots that Wal-Mart has taken (here *and* elsewhere), I would think that such a donation could do much for their image (not that they're hurting any, of course) -- or were you just cutting them a break this time? ;-DDD

Lori Lancaster | September 2, 2005
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Amy Austin | September 2, 2005
I guess I should be a little embarrassed to say that I hadn't heard about the Aruba kidnapping until now, but with stuff like this (link) floating about, it's no wonder there's more coverage... ;-DDD

Erik Bates | September 3, 2005
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Scott Hardie | September 3, 2005
No particular reason why I mentioned Target except that such charity just didn't sound like Wal*Mart. (And yes, I know Wal*Mart makes regular donations to community charities.) I briefly shopped at Target yesterday, so maybe it was on my mind.

Kris Weberg | September 3, 2005
Meanwhile, it appears that the National Guard have barred the Red Cross from entering New Orleans on the grounds that their presence would encourage people to stay rather than evacuate.

Amy Austin | September 3, 2005
Yeah, that's great -- never mind that most of them can't afford to evacuate! What kind of bullshit is that, anyway -- to not "encourage people to stay"... WHERE THEY FRICKIN' LIVE?!?!?

Once again, I can't help but credit Bill Maher for his pointed wit when he talked about the "unintentional racism" going on here... with reference to a quote about people being warned to evacuate and staying instead: "It's just so hard for Bush and his friends to imagine people not packing up their Range Rovers and driving to their summer homes!" (I may have paraphrased here, but that's essentially what he said... and it was funny, sad, and true, all at the same time.)

Scott Hardie | September 4, 2005
As I read it, the Red Cross was barred from entering because there are limited points of entry into the city right now and they're all being used for evacuation efforts. The Southern Baptists would like to use helicopters to get their mobile kitchens into the city, but even their director acknowledged that it was preferable to get the people out first and feed them second. With people still dying in the streets from lack of medical supplies and food, that sounds crazy to me, but I figure someone in that position wouldn't say it unless they knew it was true. :-\

Kris Weberg | September 5, 2005
Except, of course, that these "limited points of entry" seem open enough that Harry Connick, Jr., vast numbers of newspeople, and the like can get in unimpeded.

Erik Bates | September 5, 2005
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Scott Hardie | September 5, 2005
It doesn't compare with your badass-ness, Erik. Happy 25th today.

Erik Bates | September 5, 2005
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Amy Austin | September 5, 2005
You mean I missed one?!?! Well, I'm not really "johnny-on-the-spot" when it comes to the goo lately... and I'm obviously losing my edge -- and my ass -- to Mr. Russ Wilhelm, who is blowing this round out of the water. Clearly, it's his game this time!

Happy Birthday, Erik!

Scott Hardie | September 5, 2005
Ouch. The Times-Picayune published a scathing editorial on this subject. (The limited-points-of-entry thing, not Erik's birthday.) (link)

Lori Lancaster | September 6, 2005
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Amy Austin | September 8, 2005
Just wanted to throw a bone to Wal-Mart here, after our earlier discussion about Target & Wal-Mart:

... Wal-Mart, for instance, a company that is often under fire from the left for the way it treats employees, was widely praised for the efficiency and unusual generosity of its response. The firm donated $23m to the relief effort; promised jobs in other Wal-Marts for all employees dislocated by Katrina; and proved far more adept than the Feds at getting supplies quickly to where they are needed.

Erik Bates | September 8, 2005
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Amy Austin | September 9, 2005
The firm donated $23m to the relief effort...

While $23m may be only a drop in the bucket of total damage costs, it's still not exactly "chump change"... even to a mega-chain like Wal-Mart. Scott had mentioned the donation of "all proceeds from an entire operating day of business" from just such a chain, along with the distinct unlikelihood of such a thing happening... but here it is! Granted, I don't know how close to the proceeds of an entire operating day of business this figure really is, but don't forget about the stores in New Orleans itself -- where they apparently did not pitch any fits about "looters" helping themselves to whatever "necessities" they felt like (also don't know if that was already figured into that amount as "donations").

Furthermore -- while it may only have been taking advantage of the opportunity for some really great PR and "free advertising" on the broadcast news -- Wal-Mart's convoys of tractor trailers have been some of the only inbound traffic of actual tangible importance to make it back into the "unreachable" city... so how is that? Did they have Harry Connick, Jr. and Sean Penn driving some of those rigs... or is Wal-Mart far more sinister than any of us could ever have imagined, monopolizing relief efforts to the exclusion of even the Red Cross and our own militia??? Hmmm...

Jackie Mason | September 9, 2005
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Amy Austin | September 9, 2005
As a matter of fact, Jackie, I am starting to think it only confirms that MLB is home to some of the greediest pro athletes around!

Lori Lancaster | September 9, 2005
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Scott Hardie | September 11, 2005
Today I mourn for Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, who was already dying of cancer but for whom the stress of fleeing Katrina was too much. (link) I haven't heard one note of his music, but I know how treasured he was by the people in his community, and what he represented as a pure American musician. He inspired Nawlins Week in the goo game. (Speaking of which, his death yesterday makes his the shortest lifespan of any published goo, even shorter than Johnny Cash's.)