kt moxie - news

Too many FUBARs... please not another one with a flu pandemic.

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 15:36:29 -0400

Alright, Mr. President. Here's you're big chance to get something right.

Your own government agencies have planned and reported on the dangers of the bird flu, and the potentials of a pandemic. Governments in Asia are already dealing with the flu now, and they are struggling. Please act NOW. Not after 200,000 Americans have died (no, I didn't make that number up. It's the conservative number from the government's estimate).

And, we already experienced a scare over flu vaccine shortage - and we all already went through the "save the children and old people." So, please don't have a Bushism like "We didn't think people really died of the flu..." BTW... the current death rate for people with the bird flu is 55%. Ouch.

There's currently no vaccine for the bird flu, and only one medicine for treatment. I think we should be working on that, huh? And oh - the US only has 2 million treatments of the medicine on hand. Australia has 3.5 million (and their population: less then 1/10 of ours).

Please, Mr. Bush, I don't want to bury any of my relatives because they died of the flu. Oh, and by the way - talk to with the Center for Disease Control - it's your government's agency. It's called disaster preparedness. Guess what? The next disaster won't be planes crashing into a building or hurricanes destroying a coastline and flooding a city.

Listen and watch this...

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 10:30:00 -0400

The web site Black Lantern has a music video on their page by a group called the Legendary K.O. that is a spin-off of Kayne West's rap song Gold Digger and his quote "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People." Watch it and see what you think:

Click to watch >> (QuickTime) (Windows Media)

While we all might not agree with everything this song has to say, I think it's point resonates with most African-Americans - and others - in this country. I think we should all listen. And really - how fast would Bush have reacted if the people in distress were white, rich and in Connecticut?

Also, Public Enemy's Chuck D has also put out a response in rap: "Hell No We Ain't All Right." Here's how another blogger, Sean Coon, describes it:

"Chuck D's rhymes flow so natural and powerful, they take form within your psyche while you latch onto his beat. That happens because Chuck doesn't twist to the beat of a loop; Chuck's direct, unflinching words twist a beat of their own.

Do you feel him in this latest drop? I follow his words, like "the new world is upside down and out of order," as a flip from the past, as back then he was taken aghast, as the polar opposites were set-up, the Axis of Evil corrupt..."

Katrina quotes...

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 10:24:04 -0400

Some noteworthy things our leaders have said about Katrina...

In chronological order...

"FEMA is not going to hesitate at all in this storm. We are not going to sit back and make this a bureaucratic process. We are going to move fast, we are going to move quick, and we are going to do whatever it takes to help disaster victims." --FEMA Director Michael Brown, Aug. 28, 2005

"I don't want to alarm everybody that, you know, New Orleans is filling up like a bowl. That's just not happening." -Bill Lokey, FEMA's New Orleans coordinator, in a press briefing from Baton Rouge, Aug. 30, 2005 (Source)

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." –President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina (Source)

"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans." –FEMA Director Michael Brown, arguing that the victims bear some responsibility, CNN interview, Sept. 1, 2005 (Source)

"I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water." –Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, on NPR's "All Things Considered," Sept. 1, 2005 (Source)

"We just learned of the convention center – we being the federal government – today." –FEMA Director Michael Brown, to ABC's Ted Koppel, Sept. 1, 2005, to which Koppel responded " Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today." (Source)

"I believe the town where I used to come – from Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself, occasionally too much – will be that very same town, that it will be a better place to come to." –President Bush, on the tarmac at the New Orleans airport, Sept. 2, 2005 (Source)

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." –Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the Hurricane flood evacuees in the Houston Astrodome, Sept. 5, 2005 (Source)

"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" –House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX), to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston (Source)

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." –Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) to lobbyists, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal (Source)

Are we really this ill-prepared? Or we just don't care?

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 16:20:00 -0400

More accounts:

Conference attendees in the French Quarter - Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics frorm California that were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. They talk of survivalist looting - "fondly", absence of any assistance, lies from the authorities, food and water being taken away by the police, and being prevented from self-evacuating.

Doctors from Georgia there to help - Dr. Jeffrey Orledge and his medical team provided care in New York City after the 2001 terrorist attacks and in Florida last year after Hurricane Ivan. None of that prepared them for the bedlam of the past week, he said on Sunday.

Absurdity in the tragedy.

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 15:25:00 -0400

Ok. It is making me sick to find out how poorly we have treated our own. As if they are not worth saving. And, yes, race is an issue. Yes, poverty is an issue. If you were poor and black in New Orleans, then you were much more likely to be one of the refugees left behind in the flood. Anyone trying to ignore that is pretending that we are in a color blind egalitarian society. And we are not.

I thought this comic makes an interesting - and humorous point.

Katrina - Personal accounts

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 15:48:22 -0400

If you are interested, here's a couple of personal accounts from the disaster:

Bill Quigley, law professor at Loyola New Orleans

Superdome Survival - Yolanda Harris's Hurricane Story

Need to do something...

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 15:23:11 -0400

I'm in awe of the tragedy taking place on the gulf coast as we speak. I think we all are aghast to know that Americans are actually facing such desperate conditions after a natural disaster.

Considering that John and I just visited New Orleans in February of this year - and found a beautiful city with a beautiful history - it pains me to think that people I might have met are in dire straits now.

It is surreal that a pro-football sports arena is now a squalor, putrid place housing refugees with little or no civil control. Within days of the event, average people have turned into desparate looting thugs and spacey eyed refugees. No more "it doesn't happen here."

I have made my donation to the Red Cross, and I hope you do the same. I hope there is more I can do. I'm just not sure what that is.

Photo of note - vote wisely Detroit!

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:30:00 -0400

Let us bow our heads and pray that the citizens of Detroit will choose wisely today in the primary elections....

Update: We can all breathe a brief sigh of relief. Kwame came in a distant second behind Hendrix. Now Hendrix just has to beat him again in the regular elections.

A personal account from Iraq...

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:45:00 -0400

Wow. This is the latest entry from Khalid Jarrar's blog. He's an Iraqi Engineering student in Baghdad who has a blog that I've been reading for the last couple of months. It was crazy to be reading someone's blog, then find out that he has been "taken." His family did not know where he was for days. His father was checking the morgues.

The entry recounts his arrest, interrogation, "confession", court case, and release. His family was able to secure his release from their wealth and connections - and lack of evidence in the case. His arrest came because he was viewing another Iraqi's blog - Raed in the Middle (I also read this blog) - on a public computer. He also recounts the other inmate's stories and experiences of torture.

If these "guards" are the ones that our US troops have supposedly "trained," I don't see how we can ever leave...

George W.'s old tales...

noreply@blogspirit.com (Kristen Truong) — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:20:00 -0400

I was perusing the White House's website, and found an old speech (February 23, 2003) from W. Here's an excerpt, with a few "comments" inserted on my part:

Across the world, we are hunting down the killers one by one. We are winning. Wow. If we were already winning in 2003... And we're showing them the definition of American justice. Yep. Torture. Detention. No lawyers. No charges. And we are opposing the greatest danger in the war on terror: outlaw regimes arming with weapons of mass destruction. Oops! No WMDs here!
In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world -- and we will not allow it. All those WMDs… hidden under rocks! This same tyrant has close ties to terrorist organizations and could supply them with the terrible means to strike this country -- and America will not permit it. I'm seeing it now - Osama and Saddam sitting together, playing with Saddam's invisible chemical weapons ... […]
The current Iraqi regime has shown the power of tyranny to spread discord and violence in the Middle East. A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. […] Yes! I see now! There is peace, and hope, and harmony in the Middle East.
The first to benefit from a free Iraq would be the Iraqi people, themselves. Today they live in scarcity and fear, under a dictator who has brought them nothing but war, and misery, and torture. Scarcity, fear, war, misery, torture… Ouch. It’s like words pulled from the headlines about Iraq today. The Iraqis would be first the benefit – wow… […]
Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime's torture chambers and poison labs in operation. Well, we didn't find any poison labs, but we did take over the torture chambers! Any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than the nightmare world that Saddam Hussein has chosen for them. Who’s nightmare is it now?

So, was he lying? Propagandizing? Ignorant? Manipulated? Just really misguided?