Furious and ashamed (long)

This is long, so click the “more” link to read all of it (I just didn’t want it taking up all the front-page real estate). So many times in the last day and a half I’ve wanted to post my anger and frustration, but 1) I don’t have lots of time, and 2) I was holding out to see if things were going to get better, if the President and federal officials were going to keep to their word and provide the help in an immediate way. Instead, what I see (other than the footage of death and destruction) are talking heads of FEMA, and the director of the bloated federal hydra, Homeland [In]Security. This is the gem that the FEMA director had to give in this ongoing crisis when asked about the death toll:

Unfortunately, that’s going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings…I don’t make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. Now, I don’t want to second guess why they did that.

How insensitive and/or detached is this?! From the very person who is leading the rescue efforts?! This is the voice of our federal government; this is the ineptitude that is Homeland Security showing time and time again the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and blaming the people who don’t need to be blamed. Most of the people who didn’t evacuate couldn’t leave if they wanted to, being too poor or too sick to make a short-term evacuation. Terry Ebbert, New Orleans’ homeland security chief, told WWL-TV that he thinks FEMA’s response to the disaster has been an “embarrassment.” And that’s their own employee!

Almost no one in the media has mentioned race in this crisis. Almost universally, the faces of those in New Orleans left stranded are Black and poor. You can’t convince me in a million years that if there were dead, bloated bodies of Caucasian women floating in fecal-contaminated water behind a TV journalist that aid wouldn’t get there lighting fast. Don’t believe me? Congress came back on a Sunday night during a holiday within 24 hours to pass legislation for the sole purpose of re-instating Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube. Congress can move within 24-48 hours for one comatose woman’s feeding tube–a pitiable White woman–but needs a presidential order to come back four days after the devastation is made real for thousands dead, millions without power, and many thousands more to die in the coming days and weeks from secondary health issues.

New Orleans is 67% Black and as a state has 30% unemployment. These people shouldn’t be judged for having stayed; they had nowhere to go (the Superdome required everyone to have 3 days of food and water before they could let you in — a lot of good that did) and the city provided no coordinated transportation for those who couldn’t leave. Is it the city’s fault? Of course not, but it certainly isn’t theirs, either.

Time and time again, the #1 people are asking for is “What’s going on? When is someone going to help us?” You don’t need 10,000 armed troops to communicate. You can do flyovers with a little crop duster and a sign attached to the tailfin which reads, “US Govt Aid is on the way–please be patient and stay strong!” Hire 3-4 of those to fly over areas where known clusters of people are waiting on rooftops. You can fly over areas of town, blasting information from a bullhorn rather than just survey the damage from in sterile, detached fashion. The Berlin Airlift was done during WWII. We have the technology to guide bombs with surgical precision to its target with microwave or laser, and you’re telling me that food and water can’t be simply dropped by parachute? That hospitals with existing helipads can’t get direct drop-offs of food and supplies?

There are gangs shooting at doctors and raping women in the streets in broad daylight. The conditions of lawlessness are the direct result of inaction by administration officials. Yes, at least one prison’s inmates escaped. But quite frankly, the conditions are so bad and you are dealing with a population that was already on the brink, it was a powder keg ready to explode. Of course, arch conservatives will blame the people without looking at these factors, such as Bush when he said there would be “zero tolerance” for those breaking any laws. Rape, attempted murder, of course. But this quote was on day three before gang violence erupted in response to simple looting from abandoned stores.

On the subject of looting, of course it’s wrong, and there are people of a ‘bad element’ who are doing it just because, the smiles of crimes unpunished on a few faces. However, these are the minority. Let me tell you, if I were stuck in a house with floating fecal matter, no potable water, no shoes, no change of clothes, etc. and I see an abandoned Wal-Mart across the street, its inventory just going under and under, you bet your ass I’ll be in there grabbing all I can get. In fact, I’d probably head down to Lawn and Garden first to get a wheelbarrow, since I’m the planning type. Seriously, I would. This is about survival.

The shame and embarrassment I feel is overwhelming.

Houston stepping up even more for students displaced by Katrina

More kudos go out to Houston and my alma mater for opening its doors and waiving the out of state fees for these students (in-state tuition in Texas is cheap compared to most states!).

Also the AAMC updated its page informing Tulane students that the deans of the medical schools in Houston (Baylor College of Medicine, UTHSC-Houston and perhaps UTMB-Galveston) are in communication with Tulane administration to help work out a deal for their med students.

Is Texas the only state stepping up to the plate to this degree? I’d like to know others are doing the same, but the only exception that I know outright is U.Alabama Birmingham helping with PICU babies from New Orleans. I hope there are more, even if it’s not reported–just as long as it’s done.