you know what strikes me as tragic (an attempt to be noninflammatory re: SD fires)

and you'll forgive the melodrama, up front

And let me preface this by saying that my sister and her girlfriend live in SD -- girlfriend's father lost the house to the fire, the house he built with his own hands. So, if you care to call into question my compassion for the people of Socal, kindly save it.

Furthermore, this is not meant to take away from the tragedy there or by any means to compare or marginalize the grief and anxiety the people there must be experiencing -- on the contrary, my aim is to accent those things.

I can't help but to re-experience a familiar grief and anxiety watching the tragedy unfurl in SD, a grief that is just over two years old now. I can't help but remember those horrible and tragic days after the hurricane -- being trapped behind my desk watching the horror unfurl; watching completely lame, ill-advised, opportunistic, "if it bleeds it leads" media whores scramble to get the best clips for the evening news instead of springing into action to do whatever they could to help people, with a few exceptions. Images of people trapped on rooftops, bodies floating in the water, and the deplorable, unbearable scene at the astrodome, the conditions of which we now know were completely misreported by the media.

And *. Strummin a geetar while NOLA drowned. Every other atrocity the man has committed before or since, in my eyes, seem to pale in comparison to his inaction that day. I wanted to slap every talking-head, pundit, "expert" asshole rambling on about the engineering of levees or exactly why FEMA still hadn't sent teams, but * -- well, i'm a peacemaker and I don't easily wish for horrible things to happen to people. But every time I've seen those hollow, soulless eyes and that greedy, insincere smirk since then, I've wanted to...I'll stop there.

People of SoCal, our hearts go out to you and above all we hope you are safe. Let these events remind us of New Orleans tragedy and let's stand in solidarity and never let it happen again.

Equally important, let's make sure that * never forgets how he let a great American city DROWN.

and how the SD people were allowed to leave their disaster (as it should be!). No shots of SD victims pilfering to survive, but two years ago the mediawhores couldn't plaster that stuff on teevee often enough.

It was a national disgrace.

I for one will never let anyone forget that Bush strummed while people drowned.

that's the point of this thread -- NEVER FORGET!!


:mad::nuke::mad::nuke::mad::nuke::mad::nuke::mad::nuke::mad::nuke::mad::nuke:

New Orleans was a below grade city in a flood zone, overwhelmingly populated by the urban poor and lower middle class, and mostly built over 50 years ago when we had the hubris that we could control nature and old man river. (read John McPhee) The fires in SoCal are almost entirely destroying things built in the past two decades on land that everyone knows burns with some regularity. Combine October Santa Anas with dry timber and shrubs, and Malibu and San Diego burn. It happens every year, some worse than others. And every year, we rebuild stuff to burn again. live in a flood plain, you are going to get wet. Live in afire zone, and you are going to get burnet, easily predictable.

natural coastal protection NOLA had to build waterways for oil freighters. Also, the levees were not properly maintained.

It's possible to have a safe NOLA.

Not sure what difference "class" makes in comparing the two cities.

Oh, well. These disasters help the housing economy, don't they?

Just remove all the vegetatio. Of course, the you'll have mudslides.

the class difference is that LA is fairly uncommon in that natural disasters disproportionally affect the well-off. no one lives in Malibu because they have no other reasonable choice. No one lives in the hills because the have no other choice, no one builds public housing in fire country. Every single person who is affected by these fires knew, or should have know, the fire risk, and still chose to live there. You don't see compton or south central burning, do you? What was really destroyed in NoLa? The lower ninth ward, full of people who had no other reasonable choice but to live there.

and no, you can't reasonably make a ZsafeZ NOLA you can mitigate the risk, but at what cost?

of the disasters themselves, i'm drawing the comparison based on how it FEELS to have people's homes go up in flames versus how it FELT to watch the atrocity unfold in NOLA two years ago. I'm not an ecologist and I have no doubt that your analysis are correct -- they are, however, irrelevant to the point of my post which is that we must never forget the Katrina disaster and the SD fires have rekindled that feeling of grief and anxiety for me.

knowing full well the levees weren't stable. Utter bullshit then and it applies just as well now.

Blaming the victim is no way to help them recover.

Excellent post. Now is the time to gear up for the inevitable failure of this administration, not hate on the victims. That's the modus operandi of the other side. We are better than that.

Those pics brought the tears back.

Extraordinary post. K&R.

I found it on iTunes. It's an electronica piece that backs up excerpts from Mayor Nagin's speeches right after the storm. It absolutely makes me cry every time I hear it. The disgust and despair in Nagin's voice is palpable.

You can hear sample of the song here: http://www.emusic.com/label/504-Productions-CD-Baby-MP3-Download/136479.html

When I was in college I was barely holding on to a suitable GPA to stay in school. my mass media class was crucial. Because I cant write well, that was keeping my grade in that class at about C-. doing a report I received a message on my "machine" at the time from a news director of a local tv station as to how they were "Not in the business of Helping people". I had my teacher listen to that, my grade went to an A+. subsequently I graduated. The media really needs to reevaluate their role in our society. Then as Now.

a multimillion dollar house which was right in the path of the fire. The reporter said "this house will probably go up in flames in a matter of minutes. The people have evacuated, but they left their German Shepard". There were about 3 news trucks at the site and I was screaming at my TV "Put the fucking dog in one of your trucks", but the reporter just went on with her report. If she had been smart she would have said "we are going to try and save the dog", but she never mentioned it again. Get the story and that's it. Inhumane.

How can people do that? This makes me sick. Almost literally sick.

not, but if she had wanted to make points with viewers she would have at least said they were going to try and save the dog. I know the news teams are tired and stretched to the max, and the local stations must be losing a lot of money by not having ads on, but, damn, just for once I'd like to see someone do something - drop the damn camera and do something.

when a disaster like this strikes, it will shouldn't be political at all. It really shouldn't matter whether they're Democrats or Republicans, black or white, rich or poor or whatever. They are humans, and they are suffering, so we should all care and sympathize, and to the degree that we can help or support, we should.

Politicizing disasters is for lowlifes like the geetar strummer.

reflecting a similar sentiment at crooks and liars

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/23/la-wild-fires/

for the afternoon/evening crowd

and for all the parallels being drawn between the two events of late...