[From the diaries by susanhu. Some good news — they’re alive — but amidst horror. Anderson Cooper is on Larry King now — he is deeply upset — duranta refers to him below.] I’m alive. I’m with my sister in Baton Rouge, and my parents, and two sisters. I have four sisters. One is trapped in New Orleans. Her name is Caroline. She is in Mid City with her boyfriend in their two story house, but belive me, they are the lucky ones. MORE BELOW:
They have ample food and water because of their resourcefulness, but they are surrounded by water and the smell of dead animals and possibly dead people, dead creatures in the water. I’m considering hiring a boat to get them out. Don’t believe the FEMA director, who turned down international aid on live TV. All is not well. In fact, it is absurd to consider the notion that there are enough resources in operation to deal with this disaster.
If ya’ll don’t recommend this diary to high heaven I’ll be disappointed. Because the people of New Orleans are sacrificing their lives to deliver you a message: It is time to stop relying on those who’s interests are not the people’s. It is time to stop relying on politicians.
I just heard Anderson Cooper take Mary Landrieu to task for taking her TV time for thanking other politicians. Her face barely cracked. We are talking lizard brains here. Then Anderson Cooper nearly lost it on live TV. He’s basically a good person.
Yea, I’m over-wrought. Not sleeping well. Too much wine tonight, just like the French/Irish family I was born into often indulged in.
I prayed to the virgin Mary today. I don’t do that often. The truth is, that this disaster is happening to warn everyone that until and unless we put people before profits, we are lost.
I hope ya’ll appreciate the sacrifice of the people of New Orleans to alert ya’ll to the fact that the structure of our society is not working. It is not working because there are many who feel their lives don’t matter. There are many who felt this way before Katrina.
It is time to look at the structure of our economy and decide that our so-called free market is not working. It is not working when the help is not getting where it needs to go.
No one paid attention to the homeless before this storm. Now that there is an entire city homeless, including myself, and ya’ll are finally listening.
I hope everyone is checking in to Stu Piddy who is writing for the forgotten, for the discarded.
I feel like BAton Rouge is ground zero for all that is reacting to New Orleans. Let us not forget the Gulf Coast. The same issue is happening there. The poor are stranded and are being ignored because our resources are stretched thin because of Iraq, and, they never cared anyway.
WE ARE THE ONES WHO CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IT WON’T BE EASY. BUT WE HAVE TO TRY. WE MUST BEGIN TO SHIFT THE RESOURCES OF THIS COUNTRY TO THOSE WHO BELIEVE THAT THEIR LIVES DON’T MATTER.
Why do you think this is happening? Do you not think that everything is connected? My eyes are red and swollen but I move with my feelings. My feelings are telling me that the nation must listen and learn from what is happeing in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
We must begin to put people before profits or this nation won’t survive.
Help. Help each other.
Signing out: duranta from Baton Rouge.
I’m glad your family is safe, duranta.
I hope, hope that people will open their eyes, will change, will begin to to put people over profits.
I am afraid though, that as a species, as a country, we have been here before and we never learn. I hope this time it will be different. I hope.
Recommended. For what it’s worth, I think if this country doesn’t heed this wake-up call, we’re lost. As it is, things aren’t looking pretty.
I’m glad your sister is okay…now go get that boat and save her!!!! And keep us posted-you’re all in our thoughts.
Oh, duranta, I’m so glad your sister and her boyfriend are “okay.” But oh, god, the anxiety you must feel! You’re completely right in all the points you make. This horror should cause a revolution, but will it? I don’t know. Heartfelt wishes to your whole family, and please try to take care of yourself.
FRONT PAGE THIS!
Brinnianne, I hope so too. We can hope. I reaLLY FEEL that everything depends on where we put our focus. If we want a truly just and humane society, we must put our focus on our internal resources that will bring us this kind of social structure.
I know that many are thinking: how can she philosophize when so much is happening.
I’m telling you that New Orleans is the calm before the storm. Yes. CAn you believe it. The calm before the storm.
We are showing the world what can happen if we don’t consider that our current social structure is simply not working, not adequate to deal with human needs.
I love Booman tribune for their compassion and coverage of this issue. Ya’ll are leading the way.
From the eye of the storm. I sure as hell hope that this is the one historic event that wakes us from this century long devotion to placing corporations and trusts and shadow governments over people.
I just fear how powerful those forces are, and how utterly content and disinterested the masses in this country are. I hope. But, I fear.
Glad you are safe.
Spread the word…Boston Joe…so that this sacrifice form the people of New Orleans is not lost. Thank you.
I sure as hell hope that this is the one historic event that wakes us from this century long devotion to placing corporations and trusts and shadow governments over people.
…and over nature too, while we’re listing the charges. If we don’t heed this warning as far as our relationship with nature goes, climate change will bring us a string of Katrinas this century.
you speak with the voice of humanity, one voice calling out for compassion and justice. The sad fact is that this is the first disaster and too many will take this disaster as distant, remote from them.
My thoughts and prayers are with you. Keep that voice strong.
What can we do to help? Put us to work.
I’m glad you and your family are safe.
Care for those near you. We can start a movement to care for each. To care for those near us. It is the only way. Are there homeless in your area? Go and talk to them about their plight. Thank you for your concern.
I’ll take any good news I can get today and knowing your safe is it and will be waiting to hear more about your sister and her boyfriend.
I haven’t paid any attention to the Fema director for several days and his ‘reports’ today seemed completely unconnected to reality of what is happening.
If this isn’t the wake up call to people to start paying attention to what the government is doing I guess it will be all over for the country and the corporations will have won.
Again, please update us when you can about your sister.
Been calling and calling the White House and Senators Boxer and Feinstein. I DEMANDED they tell what I can do. NONE had an asnwer.
Tomorrow some relief package of $10B blah blah.. but TONIGHT people are dying.
Time to FIRE these fuckers
Hey Politicians!!! We’re taken down names and we’ll be demanding you leave… after we try to save the South.
Oh and FUCK YOU BUSH! HOPE RICE’S SHOE SHOPPING WENT WELL – What a SNATCH she is.
Susan Hu..thank you. I can’t stop crying right now. Sorry guys. Really though, everyone been pretty sweet here. Stu piddy, how are you?
Fema director criticized people for not evacuating. He is in denial. Denial is dangerous. Denial is the death of our soul. We can’t afford it anymore.
The people of the beautiful city of New Orleans decided to sacrifice her people to send ya’ll a message: things can’t continue the way they are going.
Cindy Sheehan is right: we must stand up for our truth. And our truth is a basic human premise: we must love and care for each other, or…we will all suffer the fate of those in New Orleans and the Gulf coast.
I love Booman tribune for its attention to this. CNN is actually waking up it’s soul, but I haven’t been listening to anyone else.
If I could spit in Mary Landrieu’s face I would, but she is only par for the course. WE MUST CARE FOR EACH OTHER.
I know most of ya’ll have donated to…someone for this effort. But…the most important thing is to look in your own communities and care for those near you. Look around.
Those in your communities need your help and attention. There are homeless in your communites. Listen to their stories.
I’ll tell you a story. Of a homeless man who came to our coffeeshop in uptown New OrleaNS. His name is Frank. I hope he is okay. His plight is everyone’s plight. His plight is the plight of the human race. We are all homeless until we find the heart to help each other.
Our home is the earth, and we must save her and each other.
Jan England, the UN humanitarian relief chief, is someone I’ve respected for his ability to lead on various emergency humanitarian efforts and to shame countries to donate resources for those efforts.
But something he said today has given me cause to wonder whether he is just another one of the pseudo-aristocrats in the political world.
Today he chose to characterize the gulf coast devastation from Katrina as a worse disaster than the tsunami last year, based on economic costs. Now,cost wise I’m sure he’s right about this, but, the fact that he apparently prefers to define “disaster” in economic terms rather than in human terms I think is a shameful representation of how virtually all of the politicians and officials in this country will wind up seeing this whole thing.
For them, the money comes first, then the lives after. This is why both state and federal governments have failed so completely in the rescue and relief effort; because their response is based on economics, their ability to deal with human element of this disasteris hopelessly flawed. they’re incapable of getting it right, (just like they’ve proved to be incapable of getting it right with Iraq). This is why the Bush regime has utterly failed the country on all fronts. This is why our political system is failing. Because money and power are so important to them that there’s no room left in their self-absorbed psyches for compassion and empathy for their fellow man.