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Ed Blinn responds: (From the Times-Picayune breaking news weblog) “Almost 50 Slidell and Pearl River area residents made homeless by Hurricane Katrina’s devastation were evacuated over the weekend on two big tour buses with the promise of a new start in the Midwest. The promise – guaranteed jobs and free apartments for up to six months – was made by Ed Blinn, a Marion, Ind., businessman who owns three used car lots and almost 100 apartments.”
Jesse Jackson believes evacuees should be housed in barracks on military bases so they can work on re-building New Orleans.
I believe when you have hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals, you need all options available. Some people may want to live near New Orleans on a military base. Others may want to relocate temporarily to other parts of the country if hosts there are making available living quarters, jobs and schooling for their kids.
Give the evacuees-survivors-refugees all the options possible. Let them decide what to do.
Thinking of you, Nick: My thoughts and prayers are with Nick Bradbury tomorrow. Take care, buddy.
History responds: “Yet, from every quarter comes that word of cheer and encouragement, of sympathy and friendship, that is so helpful in times of distress, so typical of the American character.” (”The Earthquake & Fire in San Francisco,” 1906)
(From: the other Paul Allen)
Miami-FSU football game spectators respond: They contributed an estimated $1 million to the Red Cross relief fund on the way into the game tonight.
Update: Also, it’s a heck of a game.
Kuwait responds: Kuwait offers $500 million for relief efforts. Earlier, Qatar pledged $100 million.
17th Street Canal breach repaired: (From the Times-Picayune breaking news weblog) “With assistance from the Army Corps of Engineers, repairs have been completed to the breech breach (they’ve now corrected the spelling to breach from breech, however, for obvious reasons, this is in no way a suggestion by me that blog posts be judged on spelling or grammar) at the 17th Street Canal, responsible for the post Hurricane Katrina deluge into New Orleans, the state Department of Transportation and Development announced during its mid-day briefing.”
Observation: Who now will step forward with brilliantly creative ideas for pumping the water out at a pace much faster than currently predicted? Why should we accept the conventional wisdom that it will take months to remove the water. Aren’t there pumps used for a wide array of industrial and agricultural purposes that can be transported to New Orleans to augment the pumps that are there?
A.C. Kleinheider thinks I’m wrong: I guess I made an offer of a suggestion he could easily refuse.
He’s right, of course: fish gotta swim, bloggers gotta blame.
I promise, however, that A.C. will not wake up with a horse-head in his bed.
Update: Jeff Jarvis agrees with A.C.. For the record: I didn’t call for a moratorium on being outraged at inaction and incompetence. My “plea” was in response to posts I read from right-wing bloggers using satellite photos of busses as an attempt to prove Nagin’s incompetence and from left-wing bloggers using out-of-context comments and rumors to prove Bush’s incompetence. However, at the same time, I’m seeing inspirational responses to this tragedy by bloggers that are displaying to me that the blogosphere can have a much higher calling and role than serving as a real-time platform for pinning blame.
(via: Nashville is Talking)
tags: katrina, nashville
Rescue stories we’ve missed: Because we’ve witnessed the aftermath of Katrina primarily through the eyes of cable news reporters tied to specific locations, we’ve likely missed many amazing stories of how thousands of individuals were rescued in a fashion that reminds me of Operation Dynamo, after the Battle of Dunkirk. (Note: Despite what some people might suggest, I’m not old enough to actually remember Dunkirk — I just read lots of history.)
tags: katrina, katrina rescue, katrina response
 Finding people: (Update: If you are looking for Katrina survivors, go to Katrinalist.net)
Inspired by Staci Kramer, I’ve been encouraging anyone with the tech savvy necessary, to develop a means to pool data from all the Katrina survivor databases springing up.
The Katrina Peoplefinder Project, which I learned about from David Weinberger, is doing that using volunteers to scrape data and merge it into an interchange. (Sorry if I’m not describing it correctly.)
Here is the HTML to put the button on your page:
<a href=”http://192.122.183.218/wiki/index.php/PeopleFinderVolunteer”><img src=”http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/wp-content/katrina.jpg” title=”Katrina” alt=”Katrina” /></a></p>
Technorati Tags: katrina survivors, katrina, katrina people finder project
Katrina & small business: (Gannett News Service) “More than 110,000 businesses in Louisiana have been destroyed or severely impacted. Numbers from Mississippi and Alabama have not yet been estimated. Once all the damage is assessed, including that to home-based businesses, these numbers will surely climb.
I will be following this thread more in coming days.
More: SBA girds for rush of applications from stricken firms
tags: katrina, small business, katrina response, katrina aftermath
What Dave said: “If we have to blame anyone, let’s take the blame ourselves. We thought we could get by without getting involved. If ever it was obvious that we must get involved, now is that time.”
I guess I’m one of “those people,” (however my voting record is clearly bi-partisan), but when it comes to fundamental and foundational convictions, I guess Dave and I prove that political persuasions, like the earth, can be round. When it comes to philosophical or political arguments, two people can head in opposite directions and go as far away from one-another as can be imagined. But when they share certain fundamental convictions regarding character and responsibility and mutual-respect, they often find themselves meeting up with one other on the opposite side of their perceived differences.
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