- FEMA directed donations to Pat Robertson’s faith-based charity; then tried to hide this after being exposed by Ken Layne.
- Police Chief Eddie Cross: “We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten. Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.”
- WWL blog: Astrodome is now full. 23,000 people estimated to arrive in Houston. Numerous reports of New Orleans police turning in their badges.
- Another report from the Superdome: Reports of lawlesness, disorganization, unbearable stench, long lines, enough to make a new Mel Gibson movie: Mad Max: Beyond Superdome.
- Blanco gets into pissing fight with Dennis Hastert. Hastert’s comments can be found here.
- Local officials incensed: “Some people there have not eaten or drunk water for three or four days, which is inexcusable.”
- More from CNN: No word on where the people not let into the Astrdome will go. One resident pleading for someone with a bullhorn to talk with these people to come in before the National Guard.
- It’s a questionable source, given that weapons were checked upon entry, but British students are saying that inside the Superdome, there were guns, knives, crack cocaine use, threats of violence, racial abuse, and the rape of a seven year old girl in the bathroom.
- First-hand reports from Mongo: “Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint….There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area — Saulet Condos — once they tried to get cars from there… well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed.” These folks are reporting news until the generators go down. Incredible.
- Pictures being posted from the streets of New Orleans: including the first water dropoff in days.
- Salon: “On cable news, our normally buttoned-down blow-dried correspondents, almost all of them white, are cracking under the strain of bearing witness to the suffering and even death of the people who weren’t looting, who did the right thing and headed to the Superdome, only to find a worse hell awaited them. “
- More reports from inside the Superdome from a more legit source: It’s being run like a concentration camp and two children have been raped. Confirmation of seven year old girl being raped as well as eight year old boy. Indeterminate others raped.
- Tourists fleeced of money, told to wait for buses that never arrived. “The tourists here are an afterthought.”
- Anderson Cooper tears Landrieu a new one: “Senator, I’m sorry… for the last four days, I have been seeing dead bodies here in the streets of Mississippi and to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other.” (Transcript ) (Video link)
- Bush says, “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the levees.” He was wrong. Mr. Bill did back in 2004.
Katrina Headlines XXV
– September 2, 2005Posted in: Katrina
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (