Ponderance: Katrina: The Aftermath, The Politics & Citizen Media (Part 3)

Katrina: The Aftermath, The Politics & Citizen Media (Part 3)

Monday, September 05, 2005

(Continued from Part 2.)

[X] I realised despite listening to the amazingly frank words of Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans a few days ago, I forgot to post a link. This is incredibly raw stuff, and should be heard to understand just how frustrated those on the ground in New Orleans really were (and many still are). [Full Nagin MP3 in AboveTopSecret Podcast] (Also, read the CNN transcript here [Via Omit Needless Words].

[X] Web guru Doc Searls has called for a War on Error since the "federal response to Katrina was (and in many ways remains) as disastrous as the hurricane and the flooding that drowned New Orleans. Citizens in numbers beyond counting are still waiting for help. And dying."

The NYTimes notes that online videoclips regarding Katrina and the media reportage surrounding it, is at an alltime high. Also of interest, in "For Victims, News About Home Can Come From Strangers Online":

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of displaced residents and their relatives [...] have turned to the Internet for information about a home feared damaged or destroyed. Many are using Google Earth, a program available at the Google Web site that lets users zoom in on any address for an aerial view drawn from a database of satellite photos. By the end of last week, a grass-roots effort had identified scores of posthurricane images, determined the geographical coordinates and visual landmarks to enable their integration into the Google Earth program, and posted them to a Google Earth bulletin board

[X] Finally, the Crooks & Liars " New On-Line Virtual Magazine" is doing an amazing job at collecting and distributing important mediaclips and other material in relation to Katrina's aftermath. Here are three more clips worth watching and thinking about:

[1] Senator Mary Landrieu continues speaking frankly, defending the efforts of people already in New Orleans, and decrying a president who takes time for photo ops, but not to organise effective relief efforts. At one point the helicopter Landrieu is being interviewed in flys over the spot of Bush's photo op, and there is just one crane trying to repair the damage at which point she breaks into completely understandable tears: "The President could have funded it, he cut it out of the budget. Is that the most pitiful sight you have ever seen in your life?-One little crane." [Crooks & Liars WMV] [Crooks & Liars MOV] [Putfile Mirror of MOV]

[2] In CBS's Face the Nation, Bob Shieffer calls a Bush a Bush:

"Finally, a personal thought. We have come through what may have been one of the worst weeks in America's history, a week in which government at every level failed the people it was created to serve. There is no purpose for government except to improve the lives of its citizens. Yet as scenes of horror that seemed to be coming from some Third World country flashed before us, official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality. [...] As the floodwaters rose, local officials in New Orleans ordered the city evacuated. They might as well have told their citizens to fly to the moon. How do you evacuate when you don't have a car? No hint of intelligent design in any of this. This was just survival of the richest."