Barbara Bush Calls Evacuees Better Off - New York Times

Barbara Bush Calls Evacuees Better Off - New York Times: "WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 - As President Bush battled criticism over the response to Hurricane Katrina, his mother declared it a success for evacuees who 'were underprivileged anyway,' saying on Monday that many of the poor people she had seen while touring a Houston relocation site were faring better than before the storm hit."

Gawd

I'm sure SOME are...but I can say that...she on the other hand is suppose to have some diploma for crying out loud! If you havent caught it, turn on the history channel sometime when they're doing the hurricane special, showing footage and interviews of people who've gone through the major storms since the 1920's, pay close attention to the Andrew segment. Mr. Bush Sr. took 4 days to respond to that one, and the folks down there were looting, fighting for survival, no food, no water, total devestation. And Mr. Bush Sr. said "Now is not the time to play the blame game". Sounds earilly familiar doesn't it? As I watched I got goose bumps, because I remembered vividly sitting in my home in Wilmington NC watching CNN all night as that storm tore apart Florida, and seeing the devestation as the sun broke through the following morning... and picking up the phone and beginning a campaign with all the area scouting groups to get out to the grocery stores with lists of supplies needed to hand out to shoppers, filling cars and trucks with these supplies and then loading it all into a semi and sending it off to these people. But it took 4 days for our government to start aide because "They needed the request in writing"

Thank GOD I am an American... because in America I can stand here and PROUDLY scream "My Government Has It's HEAD UP THEIR ASS RIGHT NOW!" Mr. Brown had his head up his ass, but is actually being used as a scape goat, as if he was the soul person responsible. Who put him in charge? That person is responsible too. Who looks into resume`s, why didn't our Congress demand that some things NOT fall under Home Land Security because if it aint broke WHY FIX IT?

GAWD GAWD GAWD I'm angry. I'm angry that anyone can even think this had to do with being poor and black... The floridians were mainly white and hispanic they werent taken care of for 4 days. No it's much more simpler and less diabolical than anything like race and income... it's called LAZY. VACATION. NOT MY PROBLEM. I mean afterall, the guys already been elected, and can't run again, so he wants his vacation time. I'm sure allot of folks feel he deserves his vacation time, but he can have all the vacation he wants after his term is over. It's his job to make sure all of his people are doing their jobs - correctly. Bottom line - The Buck Stops With The Prez.

Pheww... I feel better. I'd feel even better if Donald [Trump] would just tell Bush he was FIRED.

In Remembrance

explocrsh
Originally uploaded by culturekitchen(tm).

September 11th, 2001 - September 11th, 2005

We need to go after the people who caused THIS & get the hell out of Iraq.

Damn

Current Events
Originally uploaded by NC Wench.

All I can tell you is that right now and all day today we've been getting gusts of wind at 27 mph, and it isn't expected to make landfall until late Monday/Tuesday.

But the good news is: It's sitting still, so that pulls all the cold water UP into the warm water, which isnt good for a hurricane. AND, it's drawing in DRY air, which also isn't good for a hurricane.

BUT... if it moves slightly, it gets more warm water from the gulf stream and more moist air. But the projected path brings the eye over Jacksonville, NC, so that puts my house on the lighter side of the storm. I figure Monday morning I'll know if my plywood has to go up. (This is the problem with hurricanes, we never know exactly WHERE they will go until about 12 hours before they make land fall).

Peace

Best Laugh In a LONG Time!

Best Laugh In a LONG Time!
Originally uploaded by NC Wench.

You may not admit it ladies...but we've all done something stupid like this before:

All hair removal methods have tricked us with their promises of easy, painless removal - The epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now...the wax.

My night began as any other normal weekday night. Come home fix dinner, played with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: Maybe I should pull the wax out of the medicine cabinet.

So I headed to the site of my demise; the bathroom.

It was one of those cold wax kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand and then they get warm and you peel them apart press it to your leg (or wherever else) and hair comes right off. No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean I'm no girly, girl but I am mechanically inclined enough that I can figure it out.

*YA THINK!!!*

So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. Cold wax, my rear end! (Oh how this phrase haunts me!) I lay the strip across my thigh, hold the skin around it tight and pull.

OK so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-Ra, fighter of all wayward body hair and smooth skin extraordinaire!

With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet.

Using the same procedure I apply the wax strip across the right side of bikini line, covering the right half of my vagina and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek.
(Yes, it was a long strip)
I inhale deeply and brace myself...... RRRRIIIPPP!!!!

I'm blind!!!.....Blinded from pain!!!!....OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!

Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half of the strip.

S&%T!!!

Another deep breath.......RRRRIIIIPPP!!!!

Everything is swirly and spotted.... Do I hear crashing drums?!?!?

OK, back to normal. I want to see my trophy - A wax covered strip with my hairy pelt, that has caused me so much pain, sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip!

There's no hair on it.

Where is the hair?

WHERE IS THE WAX???

Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip. I touch. I am touching wax.

S&%T!!!!!!!

I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair.

Then I make the next BIG mistake.......remember my foot is still propped up on the toilet. I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down.

S&%T!!!!!!!!............ I hear the slamming of the cell door.

Vagina?

Sealed shut.

Butt??

Sealed shut.

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself.... "Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off"!

Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!!

I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off right???

*WRONG!!!!!!!*

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than what is used to torture prisoners of war or to sterilize surgical equipment - I sit.

Now, the only thing worse that having your nether businesses glued together.... is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub.

In scalding hot water.

Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax.

So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub!! God bless the man that convinced me I should have a phone in the bathroom!!!!!

I call my friend thinking surely she's waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter.

"So, my butt and 'who-ha' are stuck to the bottom of the tub!"

There is a slight pause.

She doesn't have a secret trick but does try to hide the laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located on my bottom.

"Are we talking cheeks or hole or what?!?"

She's laughing out loud by now...I can hear her.

I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box.

YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else's night!

While we go through various solutions. I resort to scraping the wax off with a razor.

Nothing feels better then to have your 'girlie goodies' covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry shaving the sticky wax off!!

By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I slip into glazed donut land.

My friend is still talking with me and my hand reaches towards the saving grace....the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax.

What do I really have to lose at this point?

I rub some on and OH MY GOD!!!!!!!

The scream probably woke the kids and it definitely scared the dickens out of my friend, but I really don't care.

"IT WORKS!! IT WORKS!!"

I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up.

I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair..................................

THE HAIR IS STILL THERE.......................ALL OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

So I shaved it off. Heck, I'm numb at this point.

Next week I'm going to try hair color......

Best e-mail I've ever read...thanks goes to my sis-in-law!

Vow for probe of Katrina aid, funding to soar - Hurricane Katrina - MSNBC.com

Vow for probe of Katrina aid, funding to soar - Hurricane Katrina - MSNBC.com: "Struggle to make up for shortcomings
�...In the coming weeks and months Congress will do whatever is necessary to help make up for the costly shortcomings in the preparations for and the management of the first stages of this catastrophe.� "

Congress will do what ever it takes huh? They'll have to start by fireing themselves because they tied FEMA's hands. They took away so much of FEMA's power and handed it over to big brother err Homeland Security that FEMA was unable to do all it normally could have.

Ok I'm so beyond being pissed it aint funny. I'm heading down to AL & MS sometime soon (Just waiting for the call from FEMA - seriously).

I'll post b4 leaving.
Hang in there America, if we don't do the jobs apparently neither will the Government. (But I'm real proud of us non-gov folks...we've been doing FANTASTIC!)

Where My dad Lives

Where My dad Lives
Originally uploaded by NC Wench.

Click the photo to have a closer look and let me know if you have any info!

Does anyone know how this area fared? (The spot with the star).

I havent found him yet, and I am just looking for word that he and my step mom and sister are ok. They don't have my new phone number and address. So I'm just hoping I can find them listed as safe somewhere. I think they have my great grandfather living with them too.

The New York Times
September 4, 2005
Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
By ANNE RICE

La Jolla, Calif.

WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?

Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?

The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three issues of a little book called L'Album Littéraire. That was in the 1840's, and by that time the city had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields. Thousands of slaves lived on their own in the city, too, making a living at various jobs, and sending home a few dollars to their owners in the country at the end of the month.

This is not to diminish the horror of the slave market in the middle of the famous St. Louis Hotel, or the injustice of the slave labor on plantations from one end of the state to the other. It is merely to say that it was never all "have or have not" in this strange and beautiful city.

Later in the 19th century, as the Irish immigrants poured in by the thousands, filling the holds of ships that had emptied their cargoes of cotton in Liverpool, and as the German and Italian immigrants soon followed, a vital and complex culture emerged. Huge churches went up to serve the great faith of the city's European-born Catholics; convents and schools and orphanages were built for the newly arrived and the struggling; the city expanded in all directions with new neighborhoods of large, graceful houses, or areas of more humble cottages, even the smallest of which, with their floor-length shutters and deep-pitched roofs, possessed an undeniable Caribbean charm.

Through this all, black culture never declined in Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans became home to blacks in a way, perhaps, that few other American cities have ever been. Dillard University and Xavier University became two of the most outstanding black colleges in America; and once the battles of desegregation had been won, black New Orleanians entered all levels of life, building a visible middle class that is absent in far too many Western and Northern American cities to this day.

The influence of blacks on the music of the city and the nation is too immense and too well known to be described. It was black musicians coming down to New Orleans for work who nicknamed the city "the Big Easy" because it was a place where they could always find a job. But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed.

Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.

Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.

And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely - home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs.

Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste - with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii.
•

I share this history for a reason - and to answer questions that have arisen these last few days. Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"

Then as conditions became unbearable, the looters took to the streets. Windows were smashed, jewelry snatched, stores broken open, water and food and televisions carried out by fierce and uninhibited crowds.

Now the voices grew even louder. How could these thieves loot and pillage in a time of such crisis? How could people shoot one another? Because the faces of those drowning and the faces of those looting were largely black faces, race came into the picture. What kind of people are these, the people of New Orleans, who stay in a city about to be flooded, and then turn on one another?

Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.

And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.

And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question.

I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

Anne Rice is the author of the forthcoming novel "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Anyone heading into Gulf Port?!

Yes, I'm Back - Better Than Ever!
Originally uploaded by NC Wench.

I've been looking daily at the lists of people who have survived and still cannot find my dad's name, his wife or my half sisters name listed anywhere.

So... I'm looking for Jack, Sylvia & Helen Marie Treasure. Last I heard from them they were in Gulf Port MS. I do not have their home address, because it was lost in a move. I know they are still living in GP, but do not know if they got out for the hurricane.

If anyone is heading down that way, pass the word to them that people are wanting to know they are ok! (Give them this URL at least)

Thanks

Bush lands in eye of the storm (More like the eye of the People's storm!)

bush lands in eye of the storm
Originally uploaded by villany.

Argentina's Clarin
Katrina had more than the power of the wind and water, because, now, when they have subsided, it can still reveal the emptiness of an era, one that is represented by President George W Bush more than anyone.


Spain's El Pais
Up until Monday, Bush was the president of the war in Iraq and 9/11. Today there are few doubts that he will also pass into history as the president who didn't know how to prevent the destruction of New Orleans and who abandoned its inhabitants to their fate for days. And the worst is yet to come.


Spain's La Razon
Proving that even the gods are mortal, it is clear that the USA's international image is being damaged in a way that it has never known before. The country will probably be able to recuperate from the destruction, but its pride has already been profoundly wounded.


France's Liberation
Bush had already been slow to react when the World Trade Center collapsed. Four years later, he was no quicker to get the measure of Katrina - a cruel lack of leadership at a time when this second major shock for 21st century America is adding to the crisis of confidence for the world's leading power and to international disorder. As happened with 9/11, the country is displaying its vulnerability to the eyes of the world.


France's Le Progres
Katrina has shown that the emperor has no clothes. The world's superpower is powerless when confronted with nature's fury.


Switzerland's Le Temps
The sea walls would not have burst in New Orleans if the funds meant for strengthening them had not been cut to help the war effort in Iraq and the war on terror... And rescue work would have been more effective if a section of National Guard from the areas affected had not been sent to Baghdad and Kabul... And would George Bush have left his holiday ranch more quickly if the disaster had not first struck the most disadvantaged populations of the black south?


Ireland's The Irish Times
This is a defining moment for Mr Bush, just as much as 9/11 was. So far his reputation for prompt and firm crisis management has fallen far short of what is required.


Saudi Arabia's Saudi Gazette
The episode illustrates that when the normal day-to-day activity of society disintegrates, the collapse of civilisation is only a few paces behind. We all walk on the edge of the abyss.


Musib Na'imi in Iran's Al-Vefagh
About 10,000 US National Guard troops were deployed [in New Orleans] and were granted the authority to fire at and kill whom they wanted, upon the pretext of restoring order. This decision is an indication of the US administration's militarist mentality, which regards killing as the only way to control even its own citizens.


Samih Sa'ab in Lebanon's Al-Nahar
The destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina... has proved that even the No 1 superpower in the world is helpless in facing nature's 'terrorism'.


Pakistan's The Nation
To augment the tragedy, the government of the world's richest nation defied the general expectation that at the first sign of the storm it would muster an armada of ships, boats and helicopters for the rescue operation. For nearly three days it sat smugly apathetic to the people's plight, their need for food, medicine and other basic necessities.


Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po
This disaster is a heavy blow to the United States, and a lesson which deserves deep thought... [It] is a warning to the Bush administration that the United States must clear its head and truly assume its responsibility to protect nature and the environment in which humankind lives.


Hong Kong's South China Morning Post
Even if our money may not be needed, at the least we should be offering moral support. Our skills in dealing with storms may be useful to help Americans prevent other such tragedies. We should be offering this help rather than shrugging off what should be our humanitarian duty.


Ambrose Murunga in Kenya's Daily Nation
My first reaction when television images of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans came through the channels was that the producers must be showing the wrong clip. The images, and even the disproportionately high number of visibly impoverished blacks among the refugees, could easily have been a re-enactment of a scene from the pigeonholed African continent.

These were copied from a conversation thread in the Hurricane Katrina group on flickr.com and though I don't agree with some of the countries statements, I am embarressed that the world has to see us with our pants down - AGAIN.

Great Countries Seem To Last Only 200 Years B4 Idiots Start Crumbling The Empires.

Hurricane Katrina - Biloxi Lighthouse, Flag
Originally uploaded by Deep Fried Kudzu.

Aren't you embarrassed that once again the world is seeing America as a week pathetic country?

At this time, most of us are watching the television and asking ourselves "who's fault is this really?" Well... really it's Mother Natures. BUT, the scale of this disaster is directly attributable to Bush. For as long as anyone can remember, the purpose of the National Guard is to take care of situations exactly like this. We have hurricanes all the time and the evacuation, feeding, clothing, and defending of the population is handled by the National Guard. They supply virtually all of the support engineering and maintenance of the levee system! Had our National Guard been here doing what they are meant to do instead of being deployed to the other side of the globe because some spoiled, ignorant drunk decided he wanted even MORE oil (and if you don't recognize that as a fair description of Bush and if you aren't outraged - you aren't paying attention!) then maybe the levee on Lake Ponchatrain wouldn't have burst; maybe the water level wouldn't have risen 20 feet; and most likely hundreds (or thousands!) of people would still be alive! There is no one who deserves more blame for this fiasco than George W Bush.

If your sitting there now asking me "Could Clinton have done this better?" Well he was president through 4 hurricanes I rode out and he was surveying the destruction within 2 days. The National Guard was there within 24 - 48 hours after the strikes. New Orleans was NOT the only city hit, and reporters are screaming "Where's the help?" Well where the hell is the help anywhere? The National Guard didn't get to Gulf Port any sooner than N.O. I really don't believe it's a color barrier, I believe it's a Southern Barrier. Suppress the poor of the south, grab the riches, and get out. I hope the politicos wake up soon and realize that the south is being over run with all their northern retirees. Maybe that will make a difference soon. It is almost laughable that Bush seems to always be on vacation or doing something that is not as important as watching over the nation when disaster strikes our nation.


People, I realize how important it is to all of us to believe that help is on the way, and that our leaders actually care whether we live or die, but it just isn't so. Those who say we should quit complaining and support our president are forgetting that massive public pressure is one of the only things our leaders do respond to, and it’s the surest way to get these fat cats off their asses to do something about this tragedy. Oh, and I remember how after 9/11 we were all supposed to shut up and "support our troupes" and not criticize the president, and look where that got us. This president cares as much about poor people staggering around the muck as he does about freedom for the Iraqi people. Give me a break. We need to make the hard realization that our country is run by looters who are robbing the world blind while people die, here there and everywhere. Let's just stop kidding ourselves for one moment. It's not all Bushes & the Republicans fault, no, the Democrats suck ass too. But Bush so richly deserves blame this time - out loud, because he's been allowed to escape it all in the past.

Human survival trumps property rights any day. Do you think Wal-Mart is going to re-sell that stuff people are taking? But that said... survival is not a flat screen TV, or a DVD player. We all know the differences. The people who are truly acting badly are the exception, and I can understand how a desperate situation pushes marginal people over the edge. But every thug with a weapon has the blood of hurricane victims all over them for stopping the relief efforts. Let's remember that many people are too poor to leave, and these people should have been evacuated not left to fend on their own and for this we have to lay the blame at the mayor of N.O's. feet. He knew who his people were, he knew how poor they are. So if you're hopping mad about looters today, remember that the real enemies wear suits and own about 80% of the country. Do you think Exxon profits are up or down? Remember also that we working people are in this together whether we like each other or not.

Now I've had my rant and I have one more thing to add...have you contributed any help yet? Go to the American Red Cross and Donate. If not money, then blood, if not blood, then your time. Donate to help our people and let the rest of the world see that we can pull ourselves up each and every time and come together and make things work out!