Recently in Hurricane Katrina Category

by Mark Adams

I remember it almost like it was yesterday, trying to outdo other bloggers with cute little names for the guy I called Scotty McManequin: Scott-bot 3000, McClellatron, Scottie McLiar, McClerrator -- good times.

Today, Politico's Mike Allen bypassed the embargoed publication of McClellan's tell-all book by (get this) buying it in a Washington DC bookstore a week before its scheduled release date and documents the atrocities Scotty lays bare in "whacking" Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby and the whole merry band of criminal conspirators who "propagandized" us into war, lied about outing Valerie Plame, and twiddled their thumbs "in shock" for a week during the Katrina mess (much like Bush did upon learning the news of planes crashing into building as he sat stupidly in that classroom).

McClellan also skewers the mainstream press.

"If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.

"The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

Next thing you know, Scottie will be referring to the Beltway establishment as Villagers. Funny how some decidedly non-mainstream media folks, my favorite rhetorical bomb throwers The Young Turks, were on this story six months ago, as was Shakes and a few other easily dismissed libs.

I love these guys. Figures that they're not even on Air America anymore. What a shame.

(cross posted on Daily Kos)

When most people talk about the destruction of New Orleans, they think of Hurricane Katrina.

But it wasn't the hurricane that did it: it was the failure of the levees. And what happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere. After all, the federal government and the US Army Corps of engineers designed and built the levees in over 100 locations around the country, including New Orleans.

This land is our land. Don't we all deserve levees that work?

Please visit www.levees.org and join us to make sure this doesn't happen to any of us ever again.

• Bush at 28%. Old School: invoke Truman's name. New School: freedom's just another word...for nothing left to lose.

• Sarkozy wins, vowing to out-poodle The Poodle. And why not? After all...he's French!

• An Iraqi blogger visits New Orleans and is shocked at how much it reminds him of home...but not in a good way. Adding insult to injury, he observes that, after the 1991 Gulf War, the despised Saddam rebuilt the infrastructure of Iraq within months.

• Speaking of rebuilding, the reconstruction of Greensburg, Kansas, destroyed by tornados last week, likely will be delayed because a lot of the needed equipment is in...(wait for it)... Iraq.

• Religious fundamentalist murderer Ayman al Zawahri releases a tape...and the White House (and Brit Hume) agrees with what he says. Gosh, in the good old days, they at least made a show of disagreeing with him.

• John Aravosis meets John Kasich. Interesting on so many different levels.

• The reaction to Tenet's book has been interesting. So far, Douglas Feith and Bob Woodward have reviewed it in the WSJ and the Washington Post, respectively. Not surprisingly, they've been pretty critical of Tenet's account as well as his performance in office. But then, they have an agenda, no? Feith wants to deflect blame and Woodward wants to sell his own account of what really happened -- including the now infamous "slam dunk" quote from Tenet.

• Attention gamers: you are now officially middle class and you suck like the rest of us. Why? Because you can now earn World of Warcraft gametime when you use your World of Warcraft Rewards Visa card.

by Mark Adams
Cross-posted and KOS-Posted

Well, maybe not in my neighborhood, but certainly my fellow Kossack Konspirator, Ara's neighbors should be taking notice of this:

As part of his ongoing efforts to fight poverty in America, Senator John Edwards will travel to New Orleans on Friday, May 4th, 2007, to draw attention to the struggles of the community and to help with recovery efforts. Edwards announced his candidacy for president in New Orleans and last spring traveled to Louisiana with 700 college students to help with rebuilding efforts.

Later in the day, Edwards will travel to Baton Rouge to speak at the National Conference of Black Mayors' 33rd Annual Convention.

Josh has all the details if you happen to be in the area.

The Republicans used tort reform and smaller government as a way of firing up their base. So if the Democrats need an issue to fire up their base, insurance reform would be my first pick.

Here's just the latest two examples of what makes my blood boil:

[State Farm Insurance,] the nation's largest residential insurer said Wednesday that it would stop selling new homeowners and commercial policies in storm-damaged Mississippi because of lawsuits and legislative saber-rattling over the company's handling of claims from Hurricane Katrina.

The decision ... is the latest by a major insurance company to reduce its risks by retreating from the nation's coastlines. Allstate Insurance has canceled or weakened coverage, or refused to write new policies in more than a dozen coastal states including Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Texas.

"We've reluctantly come to the conclusion that it is no longer prudent for us to take on additional risk given the uncertain legal and business climate" in Mississippi, said Fraser Engerman, a spokesman for the Bloomington, Ill.-based insurance giant.

Translation: we're getting sued big time and the legislature is about to force us to pay up. So we're taking our ball and going home. So there.

This is part of an ongoing trend of insurance companies cherry picking the easiest, lowest-risk accounts in order to maximize their profits. And not only that: they have ALWAYS dragged their feet when it is time to pay a claim. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita we had to nag and nag and nag our insurance company to come up with a settlement that would actually make our home whole again -- and then they raised the rates as though it was a shock to them that hurricanes happen in Lousiana.

Hel-lo? What is insurance for anyway? Don't they have any actuaries who can actually, you know, read a weather table?

Then there's this:

United Health Group, its United HealthCare and Oxford subsidiaries and several United and Oxford executives, including former United CEO William Maguire, are accused of violating the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in a law suit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court...by Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and Flushing Hospital Medical Center.

The hospitals...accuse United Health Group...of implementing a “rogue business plan” on a “national level” that, for more than three years, “has contributed to UHG’s profits, which, in turn, have been utilized in attempts to justify outlandish compensation to Maguire and to enhance the value of illegally backdated options for UHG stock” which were given to Maguire, other UHG senior executives and to managers of its business units.

[...]

David Rosen, president and CEO of both hospitals, said: “UHG, United and Oxford have clearly established and refined a pattern of deceitful practices and myriad means to improperly retain money they owe to service providers, and to arbitrarily and unjustifiably deny payment for their members’ medical services under their plans.

This is why I believe that the government should be the sole provider of health insurance for everyone: at least you have a voice in how the system gets run. With insurance companies, the best you can do is be a shareholder and then it's one share equals one vote. The big guys control the system and dictate who gets covered and who doesn't. It's all about the bottom line and devil take the hindmost.

I'd be happy to see Medicare for all and an end to all health insurance companies. Period.

P.S. Read more on the United Health lawsuit.

NPR Commentator Chris Rose captures what it's like living in New Orleans one year later.

And, although I have no idea if Ry Cooder has a New Orleans connection, I love this performance of Jesus On The Main Line so much that I'm including it here. It's from the Catalyst In Santa Cruz, c. 1987, with Jim Keltner (dr), Van Dyke Parks (key), Flaco Jimenez (acc), George Bohanon (tb), and who knows who else. Check out that tiny guitar!

For extra credit: Read about the history of the "Main Line" and the "Second Line" in New Orleans lore.

I won't be able to hear the wind again, here in Baton Rouge, without thinking of the day Katrina hit Louisiana.

I shot this video in my back yard at about 7:30 am on August 29, 2005. Less than half an hour later, one of these trees came down on top of another one, snapping it off about 5 feet from ground level, making a loud cracking sound like a massive gunshot. The broken tree then fell on the power lines taking them all down. We were without power for five days after that.

In the front yard, an 80 foot water oak tree popped out of the ground and fell parallel to the house. When it came down we felt the impact come across the floor, up through the soles of our feet, causing our stomachs to bounce in a sickening way. It crushed the sidewalk, demolished our neighbor's cars and took out part of his carport. Somehow, no one was injured.

The tree lay in the driveway blocking our way out. Miraculously, we were able to get a man to come out nearly right away and cut a pathway for us. The rest of the tree, including its 10-foot diameter root ball and 4-foot diameter trunk, lay in the front yard for many days. We became quite the tourist attraction, as cars would stop and people took snapshots and videos. I told my neighbor we should make postcards and sell them at the curb for $1 each. Eventually, the rest of the tree was cut up and moved to the street where a truck with a giant claw came and took it away, but not before we got a chainsaw and cut ourselves a season's worth of fireplace logs.

The worst part? Rita hit us less than a month later, causing even more damage. A couple of trees hit the back of the house damaging the roof and burying the backyard in tree limbs. More on that another time -- I'm exhausted just remembering it all.

I moved to Baton Rouge about a year before Katrina; I've lived here a year since Katrina. And I have to say Wil Haygood gets it mostly right:

If the hurricane forever changed New Orleans, it has also permanently transformed Baton Rouge. Katrina has demanded realignments, shaken this city's sense of order and left it struggling to cope with a range of new, daily problems.

The traffic jams are unbelievable; but that is only a small part of the picture.

UPDATE: Apparently Anya Kamenetz resents what Baton Rougians have to say about New Orleans:

A more assertively provincial, narrow-minded, anti-progressive, anti-New South place you could not hope to find. The people who choose to occupy its many lifeless, cookie-cutter subdivisions are defined by the fact that they hate New Orleans and everything that it represents: crime, culture, city life writ large.

Actually, I'm not sure but I think she also resents the Post for quoting so many negative comments from so many negative Baton Rougians. Or something.

In any case, Miss Julie wrote a response to Kamenetz which I posted using my HuffPo account. Go look for it...it hasn't appeared yet, but it'll be there soon, I guess, once the moderator checks it out.

Here is a partial listing of some of the TV programming about Katrina that will be airing on network and cable TV. All times are Eastern Time:

Aug 21-22 & repeat on Aug. 29 - "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," 9-11 p.m. Monday, Aug. 21, and Tuesday, Aug. 22, HBO. This Spike Lee film will then be repeated from 8 p.m. to midnight Aug. 29, the anniversary of Katrina.

Aug. 24 - "Hurricane Katrina Babies," 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 24, Discovery Health.

Aug. 25 - Dateline NBC, 8 p.m., Friday, Aug. 25, In-depth report documenting how Katrina affected the Lindy Boggs hospital staff, NBC.

Aug. 27 - "True Life" episode focusing on four young storm survivors, returning to their lives, 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 27, MTV.

Aug. 27 - "Postmark Katrina," 8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 27, Weather Channel. That's followed at 9 p.m. by the "It Could Happen Tomorrow" episode that was made prior to Katrina, then shelved after the real storm.

Aug. 27 - "Surviving Katrina," 9-11 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 27, Discovery.

Aug. 28 - "Katrina: The Long Road Back," 8 p.m., Monday, Aug. 28, Brian Williams hosts a commercial-free documentary culled from network coverage that captures images of the hurricane and its devastating aftermath.

Aug. 29 - "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," 8 p.m. to midnight, Aug. 29, HBO

Aug. 29 - "Katrina: Send in the Guard," 8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 29, History Channel. (Previously announced as "Katrina: 7 Days in September.")

Aug. 29 - "Assembly Required: Operation Home Delivery," 9 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 29, DIY Network.

Aug. 29 - "Saving Jazz" 9 p.m., "In the Sun: Michael Stipe and Friends" 10 p.m., focusing on a fundraising six-song record) and "In His Own Words: Brian Williams on Hurricane Katrina" (11 p.m.), all Tuesday, Aug. 29, Sundance Channel.

(Cross posted at Daily Kos)

Proceed with caution: emotional hotspots ahead...

Digby:

The Republicans are counting on the fifth anniversary to remind people of Bush's Bullhorn moment, which was sold as a moment of potent muscular leadership when in fact it was what he had been training for since his days on the sidelines at Andover prep ...

That brings us to the other big pageant this fall. A few days before 9/11 we are going to memorialize another day of national horror: the death of a huge swathe of an American city, while the president and John McCain shared a few laughs over birthday cake.

Yes, of course, but what is the lesson? What is the point? That Republicans are uncaring, incompetant, uncompassionate hypocrites? Duh.

Besides, you have to be careful here because the dueling anniversaries will inflame that part of the Republican base that believes that the lives lost to a hurricane in New Orleans are, in fact, less than the lives lost to turban-wearing terrorists. After all, everyone knows that those people were too stupid to get out of the way, right? Serves 'em right. Every man for himself. If you rely on the government, you deserve what you get.

Oh and by the way: "macaca." Vote Republican.

No, the real lesson is that we're all residents of the state of Louisiana because when the next disaster hits, y'all be just as vulnerable to it as we were, even now, five years after 9/11.

So go ahead and bang the drum slowly, Republicans. Enjoy the dirge. As for the rest of us, it is time to rise up and throw the rascals out because if we don't, we're just sitting ducks, waiting for the next disaster.