New Orleans

George Bush gave a speech yesterday detailing his plans for the future and rebuilding of New Orleans and any who has read my writings here know that I am no admirer of this president.  However; in this case I have inexplicably decided to take him at his word and to believe there is a remote chance he has been converted into a liberal.  His plan seems on the whole to be reasonable and comprehensive if followed through on with thoughtful determined action and good faith.
 
One thing that has often appalled me with George Bush is his ability to turn a word on it's head. Like clear skies, Healthy Forests and etc. to refer to bills which are harmful to both those desirable ecosystems.

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11:50 AM Sept. 4, 2005

    Celine Dion is a wonderful person. I saw her tonight on a special Larry King Show on CNN - How You Can Help - to aide the the people of the world in figuring out how they can help New Orleans. She cried. She sang a song. She donated a million dollars to the Red Cross. She also strongly expressed her rage with 'them' - whoever it is who failed in their responsibility to provide for the welfare of the all the people in New Orleans.
 
    Maybe it was unknowable that the electricity would go out. Maybe it was unknowable that the water would stop and toilets wouldn't flush. I rather think those things were highly predicatable in a worst case scenerio. However, that isn't what outrages me.
 
    Someone put over 20 thousand persons into the SuperDome without provision for food. And this one thing was absolutely knownable. All those people sent to the SuperDome would require food. This one over-sight alone proves to me not just poor planning. It proves to me gross incompetence. And it probably proves to me (if anyone asks me to decide) criminal negligence.
 
     I further think it time we all take a look at what our government has in store for us in the case of some great emergency. I doubt any of us wants to end up in a SuperDome - or worse.
 
'Screaming' Ray 'Get off Your Asses' Nagin, irate Mayor of New Orleans, deserves some credit for calling the cat black. One might call him a 'whistle-blower'. Instead of following the political safe road of wringing his hands and saying in the collective 'we', 'We are doing everything that is humanly possible ... ', Ray Nagin called bullshit bullshit and put it out in the open where it belongs, stinking up the place like it should, and hopefully splashing back on those dumping it.
 

Cindy Sheehan lays seige to vacationing president's Crawford ranch.

A brave young soldier who was killed April 4th 2004 on the dusty streets of Baghdad.  He was on a voluntary misssion to rescue fellow soldiers pinned down by insurgent fire.  It was was the soldier's second tour of duty in Iraq. He died performing the very duty he had told his mother he had to return to Iraq to do.  He was defending his fellow soldiers.  He was just 24 years old.
 
     By anyone's reckoning or standards that soldier, Casey Sheehan died a hero.
 
     On Saturday Aug. 6th 2005 Cindy Sheehan, the outraged mother of Casey Sheehan, arrived in Crawford, Texas and pitched herself a small pup tent in a ditch that runs along the road there leading up to George Bush's 1,583 acre Prairie Chapel Ranch (also know as White House West and announced to the world she was staying encamped there, sleeping nights in her tent, until the president of the United States George W. Bush came out to talk to her face-to-face, commander-in-chief to angry mom, and explain why the nation was lied to during the build-up to the war in Iraq, about both reasons for and about the urgent necessity of it.     Cindy's message.
 
Four days later, On Wednesday Aug 10th the president acknowledges at a press conference he is aware of Cindy's encampment ( which has come to be referred to as 'Camp Casey' ) at his gate.

"I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan," Bush says. "She feels strongly about her position, and she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America. She has a right to her position, and I thought long and hard about her position. I've heard her position from others, which is: Get out of Iraq now. And it would be a mistake for the security of this country and the ability to lay the foundations for peace in the long run if we were to do so"

 No mention is made of Cindy's accusations of administrative deceit leading up to the war and no indication is given by the president he intends to meet with Cindy ever.  That evening a rumor runs through Camp Casey that the protestors, now numbering around 50, will be arrested at midnight but the night passes without incident.
 
     By Friday Aug 12 the stable population of Camp Casey nears 100 and During the day Veterans For Peace members from southern California install a replica of the Arlington West memorial along the side of the roadway near Cindy's camp. It consists of almost 1000 white crosses bearing the names of soldiers killed in Iraq since President Bush declaired an end to the 'major hostilities on board a battleship on March 1st, 2003.
 
 That afternoon George Bush's motorcade passes within 100 ft. of Cindy Sheehan on his way to a 2 million dollar republican party fund raiser at a nearby neighbor's ranch.  No report if the president saw either Cindy or the crosses. Cindy's husband Patrick Sheehan also files for divorce back in Calf. siting 'irreconcilable difference'.
 
Next day, Wednesday 13th. Cindy is Front Page News
 
Cindy has been joined by more Gold Star moms.