Notes From Inside New Orleans

This morning's post on Blog for America is a guest entry, Notes From Inside New Orleans written by Jordan Flaherty

In the refugee camp I just left, on the I-10 freeway near Causeway, thousands of people (at least 90% black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal barricades, under an unforgiving sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them. When a bus would come through, it would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of the barricades, and people would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus was going. Once inside (we were told) evacuees would be told where the bus was taking them—Baton Rouge, Houston, Arkansas, Dallas, or other locations.

Click here for the rest.

In one of my posts last night, I linked to Terri in Tokyo's Kos diary, Low-income/People of Color-led/Grassroots Katrina Relief and encouraged any Kos members here to recommend it. This morning, I see that she has crossposted the diary at MyDD, so if you're a member, please click and recommend.

The Sparkplug Foundation (which supports projects primarily in three areas of focus: music, education and grassroots organizing) has a Katrina Relief page, which lists where to donate to organizations who are:

* Organizing at the grassroots level in New Orleans, Biloxi, Houston and other affected areas
* Providing immediate disaster relief to poor people and people of color
* Directed by, or accountable to, poor people and people of color
* Fostering the democratic inclusion of poor people and people of color in the
rebuilding process

Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor

This story is originally from The Nation but appears in Yahoo news. It is my understanding that if you have a Yahoo account, you can help a story get to the front page by using the "rate this story" function, but also by emailing the story. You can always email the story to yourself if you don't want to clog someone else's email.

From Democratic Underground, We know what you did this summer by Nancy Greggs

In this past week of tragedy, anguish and death, Bush & Co. couldn't care less about the people who were living in hell. Well, that's no surprise to most of us. Been there, seen that. Just like they don't care about the soldiers they've sent to die in Iraq, or the innocent civilians there who have had their country turned upside down to the point of civil war. Just like they don't care about the millions of Americans they've forced into poverty, the people who have lost their jobs due to their policies.

So tell us something we didn't already know.

But this week, there was a more than obvious difference to their indifference. In a definite departure from the norm, they didn't even bother to fake it.

Click here for the rest.

CNN's Katrina Timeline Um, the title seems pretty self-explanatory. Just click.

Finally, I see that Corinne already beat me to the punch in posting about Bush's use of firefighters as props. It is just *so* typical of the photo-op president, and so appalling. I don't really have anything of substance to add as far as commentary, so I'll just leave you with this: