Society: August 2006 Archives

Bush is travelling to Mississippi and Louisiana this week to capitalize on all he's supposedly doing to help the victims of Katrina. It wasn't, isn't, and probably never will be enough. Basically, according to the New York Times, he's more worried about his image than anything else. Which, to be honest, I can't disagree with, as much as I wish it wasn't true. Can't this guy - for one damned day at least - try to be president of *all* Americans, instead of just the rich, white, racist ones?

Yahoo! has a decent catch-all page for stories on the anniversary, as does NPR. Shouldn't we come up with another word for such things as commemorating a disaster? I like to think of anniversaries as a good thing. Anyway.

ThinkProgress has a timeline of events pertaining to Katrina and the thing the government calls it's response since the hurricane. ABC is carrying a story regarding the effectiveness of charities in the aftermath of the storm, whereas National Geographic covers the role of pets and the awful response to their needs (plus another story courtesy of Yahoo News.

In the end though, it comes back to people. People who went through hell and are still waiting for help. NPR tracks where the refugees went and how many still remain away from New Orleans. Weekend America has an audio interview with some Katrina victims they have been following over the past year.

Kuro5hin is carrying a post by a Gulf Coast resident that is pretty telling about how much was lost in the region.

In case you forgot that the culture of fear and authoritarianism that BushCo brings to table can't affect you, a few stories.

In the UK, 12-year old children can be arrested and DNA tested for what heinous crime against society? That's right, climbing a tree and breaking a couple branches. Next they'll be lopping off hands for trying a grape at the grocery store.

Here in the States, Slashdot is carrying links to a couple incidents involving photographing police activities. Apparently, they can film us all they want, but not the other way around.

In the not-so-friendly skies, on top of dealing with TSA folks - some good, some a tad Gestapo - now we have air marshals filing false surveillance reports on random citizens. Why, you ask? Because they have a quota. Hey, I get it. If I HAVE to find one suspicious person a month, I'm gonna file the paperwork. I don't blame the marshals as much as I do their idiot bosses who make them report otherwise innocent citizens in order to keep their jobs.

Incidentally, while posting I had a thought. If Bush and Blair are some kind of political comedic duo like Martin and Lewis, does Bush get points for being a drunk like Deano or an insipid moron like Lewis?

I'll take your thoughts on the subject via comment or email.

On a more sordid note and on the subject of police states, China is trying to quell the outbreak of rabies in some of it's provinces. Which would sound good if they were insituting some kind of pet vaccination program. But being Red China, they aren't. Instead, they are running around the country clubbing up to 50,000 dogs to death. And not just strays, but yanking dogs away from their owners and killing them in front of them.

Disgusting.