Sean, Where Are You Buddy?

Just a by the way, did anyone see Sean Penn come *back* from his mission?

Almost a Volunteer

It's no great distinction but we were able to get 5 bags of clothes to
the evacuees before the Armory quit accepting clothes. And I say it's no
big thing because everywhere I look people are clamoring to offer help.
I think wanting to help and giving money is the norm, it's no exception.

And I even looked into whether my skills might be of some use to the
effort. (they weren't) So what I'm doing, I'm just cutting down trees at
random in the "spirit" of pitching in. I have had to be careful in picking
which trees to fell because some of the homeowners in whose yards these
soon to be ex-trees reside have expressed dismay at my volunteerism.
The other, non-complaining, homeowners most likely weren't home at
the time.

Poor Performance

Maybe President Bush did make bad decisions in response to the
Katrina disaster. When Blanco couldn't pull the trigger and authorize
federal control, maybe Bush should have rolled over her and taken
control. [Of course the stupid 13% would have had a ball with that]
Instead Bush let the incompetent state and local team fail first.
From the NYT:

Aides to Ms. Blanco said she was prepared to accept the deployment of active-duty military officials in her state. But she and other state officials balked at giving up control of the Guard as Justice Department officials said would have been required by the Insurrection Act if those combat troops were to be sent in before order was restored.

In a separate discussion last weekend, the governor also rejected a more modest proposal for a hybrid command structure in which both the Guard and active-duty troops would be under the command of an active-duty, three-star general - but only after he had been sworn into the Louisiana National Guard.

Ah well. Let the shrill 13% run off half-cocked. It's evident that the (D) state
and local officials dropped the ball, first by failing to do their best with the
evacuation, then by blocking the Red Cross trucks, then by crying for more federal
aid while at the same time throwing up roadblocks to it's use.

School

I should have known the kid was looking for support when she said, "The music
teacher thought I was talking in class, and she made a mistake, and I was only
singing but she thought it was talking..." [a problem Bob Dylan also had]

So I says, "Gee, I hope we can keep her from making that mistake every week
this year," sorta a joke, really. Anyway, I stuck my foot in it and caused the first
school tears of the year. So I'll have to make some you-know-I-love-you-always
pudding tonight.

Fact? Or another hoax?

Who would make such things up? From the Guardian:

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.
In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.
But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.

It sure was picked up by the media and reported as gospel though.

And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.
Nor has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their bodies, been found.

Could this be another cannabalism story? Was there rioting and unchecked violence?

Similarly when the first convoy of national guardsmen went into New Orleans approached the convention centre they were ordered to "lock and load".

But when they arrived they were confronted not by armed mobs but a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans".....

Here kitty-kitty

All the cute kitty pictures you could ever want.
Would that it were puppies, but cute anyway.

Katrina

Thank goodness, it looks like, with the help of Sean Penn, we've started to make
some headway getting the victims of Katrina to higher ground. What a guy, taking
only one photographer and one assistant so that the boat would have room for
a victim. (and there might even have been one, some places are reporting) Sean said
he spent 9 hours doing it, what a guy. Imagine what the save-count would have been
if he had just been able to start the motor.

I'm just pleased as can be with how our celebrities are handling all this. Travolta,
oprah, penn... pitching in with no thought whatsoever for themselves, selflessly
putting their noses to the grindstone, making sure their good side was towards the
camera possibly, but nose to the grindstone as well.

more..

100_2097, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

Brrrr...

Swimming under the falls

100_2110, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

Cold? You bet. But a nice way to end the last few
days before school. Now it's glue sticks, protractors, and a book bag the size of a healthy buffalo.

Good News Too

Cherenkoff has another round-up of good news from Iraq.
This is the information you can hear about from people who were there. In fact within
three months of us going in, there were good stories to be told. But the people who
make their living bringing us the news have decided that these stories have no value.

Ah well. Now the media will shift their spotlight to trying to blame a hurricane on the
president. Let them blame. They still haven't noticed that he isn't running for reelection.