Fears over climate as Arctic ice melts at record level :
The ice is 20% less than it should be..oh well, let's keep buying those SUVs, and building houses like we live in Versailles and not the desert so that we can use up all the energy humanly possible..and let's not forget to write a sweet note to our grand kids just to let them know why we don't give a damn about the planet they're going to inherit from us..
Yes it's the weekend and I am cranky about the news.
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From The Nation:
A Devil's Dictionary of Business
Funny reading for us who live in a country who's business is business spelled with a c.o.r.r.u.p.t..
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In news related to words starting with c...Are you hearing about the DeLay indictment (the wha?) and not quite sure what it's about? Here is a little Crash Course form the Village Voice...this is news people, read it. And then if you want more go here and here and here..and then you could go here and here and here..Hey, I told you it was news.
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News from the North..(you might be about to join me in cranky town, Ready?)
US troops upload photos of dead Iraqis for porn

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In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.
Camus

LBC's May Chidiac loses an arm and a leg in a car bomb:

مي شدياق تدفع بتر ساقها اليسرى ويدها اليسرى ثمن الحرية في لبنان

Car bomb maims top Lebanese TV journalist

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The real stories behind The Constant Gardener

The true story of how multinational drug companies took liberties with African lives
L’Afrique, cobaye de Big Pharma/Africa, Big Pharma's Guinea Pig

Big Pharma's Free Ride-Salon

A lot of very greedy people : John Le Carre

Today..Saturday the 24th..There is a March on Washington. You can catch it at 6:30pm Kwt time/11:30am EST US time on C-SPAN

Also I'm sure Amy Goodman will have something for you and Air America too..so check in with them if you are interested.

The BBC will probably have something on the London March which is scheduled today as well.

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Soldier's chilling testimony fuels demonstrations against Iraq war
Two years on, protesters back on the streets of the capital

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And the hits just keep coming in New Orleans and Texas..

Evacuees burn to death on bus in exodus gridlock -- This is turning into the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans --

No Exit: Disaster evacuation plans throughout the US assume that people own a car. Too bad for the 23 million Americans who don't

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Kuwait's own Sulayman Al-Bassam had an article printed in the Guardian a few days ago

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Asian workers in Gulf protest conditions

A Daily Star article about the shameful conditions that are the daily lives of expat workers in the Gulf, on whose backs the skyscrapers rise and the country profits..

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I Stumbled upon the following blogs...

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Iraq Blog Count

Full of links to as many Iraqi and Iraq related blogs as you can possibly handle..It's also a blog in itself and has several bloggers contributing...good writing and lots of news and information..

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And thanks to Iraq Blog Count I found:

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الشامل في مدونات اللغة العربية

This is where you'll find most if not all the Arabic language blogs...The list is long..Enjoy.

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Iraq Coalition Casualty Count

It is what it says it is..The number for today is 2,104 dead coalition members..

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(Iraq Body Count has the number of Iraqi civilians killed which is a minimum of 25,884 as of today, not counting the ones who died indirectly from disease, and lack of access to medicines etc..)

The civilian population is protected under the Geneva Conventions and these protections are not affected by the presence of combatants in the population. (Protocol I, Art. 50, Sec. 3)

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Number of journalists killed (so far) in two years in Iraq= 70

Number of journalists killed in 20 years of Vietnam war=63

In 1977, journalists were re-classified as civilians. As a result, reporters who wear civilian clothing and otherwise differentiate themselves from members of the armed forces are entitled to the broader protections offered to civilians. (Protocol I, Art. 79)

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Salon has an award called "The Buffy" which they describe as the 'annual award for the most underappreciated television show in all the land.'...last year's Buffy went to 'The Wire' which is a damn good show..if you want to know which show gets this year's Buffy, go to Salon or the show itself..

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Saw Dark Water..pretty bad film, but the first half hour is worth a watch just to see what raising a child beautifully is really all about...and Jennifer Connelly does not disappoint, even if the film does.

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The poet Sharon Olds (who teaches at NYU) has written a letter to Laura Bush refusing an invitation to attend the national Book Fest. in DC.

Kwtis, read it to see what university programs are offering their communities, and also to read Olds' reasons for declining the invite..it is short and powerful.

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On the same day as the book event above...poeple will be converging on Washington (and other cities) to protest the war..

More on that here.

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This is weird:

"British troops used tanks last night to break down the walls of a prison in the southern Iraqi city of Basra and free two undercover British soldiers who were seized earlier in the day by local police." Guardian

The soldiers were arrested for killing Iraqi police...

Storming the prison? Wain ga3deen?? Oh yeah, occupied Iraq...

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Wait that's not all, Look:

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British forces smashed a prison wall with an armoured vehicle to free two undercover soldiers in Basra, south Iraq, but discovered they were being held elsewhere and released them, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. Reuters

Some news:

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An asylum seeker in the UK who was going to be deported back to Angola hanged himself so that his son would not be deported back with him -- A Nation piece called Left Behind: Bush's Holy War on Nature is worth a read--- There is an article in NYRB about Hugo Chavez called "Don't Cry For Me Venezuala", which has some more on his TV appearances ... a topic I just can't seem to get enough of...it is something for a president to 'talk' to the country so often and invite guests etc..strange but true and kinda beautiful in this world where leaders hide behind ghost writers and glossy images or just plain hide like some big guys out there---

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MP George Galloway and Christopher Hitchens had a debate last week moderated by the indefatigable Amy Goodman (this is some lady)...it was called things like the "grapple in the Apple" (debate was in NYC) or simply "Galloway v. Hitchens" and they both wiped the floor with each other...who did it better or worse depends on personal opinion...but here are some highlights..
And by highlights I mean the down and dirty..for the more polite fare you'll have to listen to the rest of the show..

Galloway: "What you are... What you have witnessed since, is something unique in natural history. The first ever metamorphosis from a butterfly back into a slug...the one thing a slug does leave behind it, is a trail of slime....with your Goebbelian leaflets, full of selective quotation, half-truth, mis-truth, and downright untruth, and the comments you made in your last two minutes of this speech.... People like Mr. Hitchens are ready to fight to the last drop of other people's blood, and it's utterly contemptible, utterly and completely contemptible ..but you're not ashamed of yourself at all. It's true, I praised you. You were a butterfly. You're now a slug. You did write like an angel, but you're now working for the Devil, and damn you and all your works....You know, Hitchens, you're a court jester. You're a court jester...Not a, not at Camelot, like other ridiculous other former liberals before you, but at the court of the Bourbon Bushes."

Hitchens: "There are probably some people among you here who fancy yourself as having leftist revolutionary credentials, as far as I can tell that you do from the zoo-noises that you make... And the scars that you can demonstrate from your long, underground, twilight struggle against Dick Cheney. But while you're masturbating in that manner..." .From Seixon

To watch the whole thing go here (almost 2 hours) to watch an excerpt go here

Arts:
An article about Munch called "The Devil Inside"

The Nation has a scathing review of Zadie's new book..I haven't read anything by her yet..I don't want to judge either way..but the review is a refreshing hammering of a novel that has so far been very boringly praised in exactly the same way by everybody..."oh, homage to Howard's End"..blah blah..I still want to read one if not all her novels...But reviews like this remind you that writing is not easy.

An interesting article on gender/feminism/pop-culture..called " What We Owe Xena"..since a new planet is even going to be named after the hero..and if you have Showtime there is no way you didn't watch Xena at least once...they played the show non-stop for much of 2004..Read it, you'll learn a little more than just about Xena.

Xena" is credited by many, including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon, with blazing the trail for a wave of female action heroes: Buffy, Max of "Dark Angel," Sydney Bristow of "Alias," Starbuck in SciFi's new "Battlestar Galactica" (in which Lawless guest-starred last week) and the Bride in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." (Tarantino is an enthusiastic "Xena" fan: He talks about his love for this "really cool show" in an interview on the DVD of "Double Dare," a recent documentary about Hollywood stuntwomen featuring "Xena" and "Kill Bill" double Zoë Bell.) Salon

Need comic relief? This just may be it...but then you might want to break something when the bigger picture comes screeching down at you...

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Thank you Rachel Maddow for this news..

And as always, the news is tragic in Iraq...Again, it happened in 3urooba Square..and hasn't that always been the case, ya 3arab?

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Wars I

when i was torn by war
i took a brush
immersed in death
and drew a window
on war’s wall
i opened it
searching for
something
But
i saw another war
and a mother
weaving a shroud
for the dead man
still in her womb

.
By The Iraqi Poet Sinan Antoon

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And it gets worse and worse...

Ok a little something about some movies coming up this fall...I have regained some amount of focus and a longer attention span (thank you walnuts and flaxseeds and salmon) so I can actually sit through films again...and so here is what I found is coming up:

1- Jarhead with Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard and Chris Cooper...( I want to hug whoever did the casting)...and directed by Sam Mendes...yup it gets that good.. anyway...if you haven't read the book I would recommend it..It's about a marine's experience of the 1990-91 Gulf War..and it is an interesting and easy read...If you need more convincing or if you don't do books (what?) then look at these reviews here, and here.

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Also, catch Jake G in Proof and Peter S. in Flightplan...I don't know much about these movies..yes these guys are the only reason I am recommending them..Ok I know a little about the films but I don't need to say anything..

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There is The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which is based on a true story..and stars Laura Linney as a Lawyer, enough said..The whole 'double interpretation' Linney talks about in the article is sort of like reading Henry James' 'The Turn of The Screw'..I recommend, yes.

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For Buffy fans, Joss Whedon is directing Serenity..

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Fran McDormand is in North Country based on a true story about a a woman (C. Theron) who battles against sexual harassment at the mining company she works in..what is as good as the topic and Fran's acting is that it's directed by Niki Caro who made 'Whale Rider'..which is one of the most beautiful films I know..

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Keira Knightly and her big mouth appear in Domino..which is based on the life of Domino Harvey the model turned bounty hunter...there is controversy over the fact that the movie has opted to depict Harvey as heterosexual, which upset her...we'll have to see it to know if they have ignored a part of her life that she thought was important..

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Ok that's enough films for today..

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Are you a hopeaholic? Gloria Stienem lists some things she hopes, like:

.

I hope that spirituality overwhelms religion. I say this because spirituality links, religion ranks; spirituality sees God in all living things, religion rations out God to some more than others; spirituality celebrates life, religion celebrates life after death.

and

I hope that men break out of the masculine prison that: a) justifies males dominating females; b) separates men from the full circle of their human qualities; and c) cons the many men at the bottom into endangering their lives to protect the few men at the top.

Sounds good to me

Articles to read for a day like today:

Teaching 9/11 Jon Wiener (The Nation)-An overview of how the event is taught in school textbooks..similar questions could be asked about how schools here are teaching the 1990-91 Invasion/War...which perspective is emphasised, and how much information is provided..
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Dusted - Kristen Lombardi (The Village Voice)-The EPA said the dust from 9/11 was safe, now people who worked cleaning up the area walk with canes and are disabled by the very same 'clean dust'..Fear about the remaining contamination and its effect on people living, working and going to school in the area is bringing more criticism down on the EPA..
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September 11: The View from the West Jonathan Raban NYRB- Can't say anything except, read it.

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Let The People Rebuild New Orleans Naomi Klein (The Nation)
Learn how after the Tsunami the coast was being given to tourist ventures by a council of businessmen who were put in charge..the victims were losing their land..A similar thing is being planned by wealthy folks in New Orleans to 'gentrify' the area, even though the money is for victims not for a handful of businessmen that want to make more money than they know what to do with..There is a group trying to get the victims and residents of New Orleans to rebuild..the article is short, but important..

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Cornel West Exiles from a city and from a nation
Professor West paints a picture of poverty and neglect in New Orleans..and America..
"They shot brother Martin dead like a dog in 1968 when the mobilisation of the black poor was just getting started. At least one of his surviving legacies was the quadrupling in the size of the black middle class. But Oprah [Winfrey] the billionaire and the black judges and chief executives and movie stars do not mean equality, or even equality of opportunity yet. Black faces in high places does not mean racism is over. Condoleezza Rice has sold her soul.
Now the black bourgeoisie have an even heavier obligation to fight for the 33 per cent of black children living in poverty - and to alleviate the spiritual crisis of hopelessness among young black men." The Guardian

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An article for bloggers and others who like their freedom
Access denied
"This is the golden age of the internet, a time of glorious anarchy where information is free and anyone, rich or poor, can blog their views to the world. But government and big business are moving in - the clampdown has started."Rafael Behr, The Guardian
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Headlines that need no introduction:

Powell Calls U.N. Speech a 'Blot' on His Record--Glenn Beck called hurricane survivors in New Orleans "scumbags," said he "hates" 9-11 families (??!!)--Cover-up: toxic waters 'will make New Orleans unsafe for a decade' -- 'Racist' police blocked bridge and forced evacuees back at gunpoint -- --Foreign Office failed tsunami victims (UK) -- Loyalists shoot at police as riot hits Belfast--Chemicals found in perfumes and cleaning products can cross the placenta and reach the baby in the womb

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Headlines we need more of:

Official: Neanderthal Man was not a hairy oaf but a sensitive kinda guy

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Listen to Ani's Self Evident for a day like today..

Gitmo prisoners are promising to die unless conditions in the camp become compliant with the Geneva Conventions...
They have been on hunger strike for 5 weeks..

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From declassified statements inside:

He said: "The administration promised that if we gave them 10 days, they would bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva conventions. They said this had been approved by Donald Rumsfeld himself in Washington DC. As a result of these promises, we agreed to end the strike on July 28.

"It is now August 11. They have betrayed our trust (again). Hisham from Tunisia was savagely beaten in his interrogation and they publicly desecrated the Qur'an (again). Saad from Kuwait was ERF'd [visited by the Extreme Reaction Force] for refusing to go (again) to interrogation because the female interrogator had sexually humiliated him (again) for 5 hours _ Therefore, the strike must begin again." Guardian

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One of the most famous instances of prisoner hunger strikes is the 1981 Irish Hunger strike ..The Republican prisoners were striking to have the British government give them "political status", to call them political prisoners and give them the same treatment as prisoners of war..separate treatment from criminals..There has been a film made about the strikes called Some Mother's Son ..

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Read Bobby Sands' Diary while on hunger strike, he was the most prominent figure in the Irish hunger strikes..

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Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons have gone on hunger strike, like the one last year where thousands went on hunger strike for reasons documented here...Israeli officials considered barbecues and other smells to try to break their will..

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Gandhi was one of the most famous people to go on hunger strike for a cause

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The English Suffragettes in the early 20th century went on prison hunger strike...Some died as a result of being force fed by the authorities..

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Recently in Iran Akbar Ganji a journalist went on strike to protest his imprisonment..

Books:

• The Hunger Artists: Starving, Writing, and Imprisonment By Maud Ellmann..She takes her title from-Franz Kafka's A Hunger Artist.
• Ten Men Dead: The Story of the 1981 Irish hunger Strike By David Beresford
• Hunger An Unnatural History by Sharman Apt Russell

The neighbours were chopping down a healthy tree that was growing in front of their new garage..and there I was inching by on my way out of the house this morning just watching this tree, which took years to grow and branch out and turn a beautiful green and offer us it's shade and cleaner air, I was watching it die...wondering why they couldn't transplant it instead of carve it's body up and toss it away, just because it happened to live where they moved in...

Suddenly this huge beautiful dragonfly started flying next to my car..following me down the road...so I stopped just to look at it and it flew up in front of me and then slowly and very gently kissed my windscreen, then it did a little dance and flew away...so I said 'sorry my people kill your friends, but thank you for that act of peace'...the world is so beautiful...we should help keep it that way...

You can take a look at the frontpages of newspapers all over the world at newseum.org

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Iraqi assembly lashes out at Arab reaction to stampede
Reuters
Baghdad: Iraq's parliament criticised fellow Arab states on Sunday for failing to mourn 1,000 Shiite pilgrims crushed in Baghdad last week, while some had found time and money to help Americans hit by Hurricane Katrina.

To help Iraqi victims see here

Kuwait donates 12 tons of medical aid to Iraq for victims of bridge incident

UN health agency rushes medical, psychological aid for stampede victims

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Katrina

To help out go here

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Jonathan Freedland sees a country waking up to injustice and high-level incompetence

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Warnings went ignored as Bush slashed flood defence budget to pay for wars
Funding for flood prevention was slashed by 80 per cent, work on strengthening levees to protect the city was stopped for the first time in 37 years, and planning for housing stranded citizens and evacuating refugees from the Superdome were crippled "

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Watch Kanye West on ifilm

The L.A. Times criticises NBC for censoring Kanye

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News

Indonesia jet crashes into city--Bomb threats target 11 Tokyo hospitals- --Venezuela convinced of US invasion---Iraq sets date for Saddam trial next month --3rd Fire in immigrant housing projects in Paris--Kuwait Pledges $500M for Hurricane Relief--Singer Macy Gray Volunteers at Astrodome

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I was looking for a poem by Auden last night when I stumbled upon this one...which felt somehow in it's place among these September days..It is called September 1st, 1939...but we can change the years..the words remain heavy with meaning..sadly.

.

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

...

Mismanagement and grief:

We must suffer them all again

..

All I have is a voice

To undo the folded lie,

The romantic lie in the brain

Of the sensual man-in-the-street

And the lie of Authority

Whose buildings grope the sky:

There is no such thing as the State

And no one exists alone;

Hunger allows no choice

To the citizen or the police;

We must love one another or die

The entire poem is here

Updates on helping

6 days later and people are still not fully evacuated from the devastation...More than 10,000 feared dead..

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Go here for information, emergency telephone numbers, links to up to the minute news and blogs, relief agencies you can give money to, timelines for what happened, maps...

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Just found out that Amazon.com is doing a one click donation to the American red Cross for Katrina victims...so if you are an amazon member it will take you less than a minute to give those in need..

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Moveon.org has a project called hurricanehousing.org...if you have space for a refugee family from the Katrina stricken areas..you can sign up here to shelter them...these people are homeless now..

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The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) has a disaster recovery fund you can contribute to..

This is important because the easiest thing in the world to do is to give a few KD/Dollars away and think 'that's it, work over'...but the NAACP is going :

"2) to advocate for equitable distribution of money and resources from Federal, state and local government and other relief agencies to those hardest hit by this catastrophe. "

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Because a lot of the time the money you think is going to go to the most needy actually doesn't.. That's why it's important to take steps beyond just giving money and actually start asking questions like Why? Where? How? and Who? when disasters like this take place. We can't just puff up our feathers and say we shouldn't ask or wonder or question..we should only give and feel proud of ourselves...giving is easy..especially when you are safe and comfortable in your own home with your loved ones around you and people are suffering so savagely right in front of you..it's the very least we can do...but to hopefully prevent suffering, questions have to be asked, people like the NAACP have to advocate for fairness and responsibility and we have to try to stop the attitude of 'I'll fix it only when it's broken', and instead ask things that are painful so that next time something this broken doesn't have to happen.

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Teamrescue is set up by rapper Master P and his wife Sonya Miller

I got the last two links from this very blood-curdling article which also has other places you can help..

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If you are in the states or intend to go you can volunteer at any of these agencies that accept volunteers..

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Today is International Blogging for Disaster Relief day..

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It's a month before Ramadan starts and that means it's around the time people think about giving to those in need ..and since it was the anniversary of horrors like Beslan this week, and it was also a terrible week for Iraq (more terrible than usual that is) and also is a time of suffering for those in the Southern US..I will just put down a couple of links that might be helpful..

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As I mentioned in my previous posts on Katrina the most dependable place to donate money for that disaster is The American Red Cross...There is also the Salvation Army...Save the Children has a children's fund...and if you want advice and info there is FEMA

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To help in Iraq where the recent tragedy is just the latest in their years of suffering you can go to:

Red Cross/Red Crecent

Save the Children

Oxfam

Ockenden International

Women for Women

CARE: They closed down operations in Iraq in 2004 so that Margaret Hassan would be released by her hostage takers..she was murdered.

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To help the victims of Beslan:

UNICEF Russia

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Many areas in Africa need our help:

Niger Crisis:

CARE

Doctors Without Borders

Southern Africa Food Shortages:

Oxfam

Sudan (Darfur)

CARE

DR Congo

Women For Women

The Tsunami hit areas still need our help:

Habitat For Humanity

UNICEF

Red Cross/Red Crecent

Ricky Martin Foundation

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Doctors Without Borders is a good place to help out because they provide medical assistance to places where some other charities will not go.

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In Kuwait there is the charity Shop Artisana which is in Zahra Center...You can find out what their next charity event is if you pass by there..

Also there is the Kuwait Society for the Handicapped

and there is KACCH ,for children in hospitals.

The Katrina disgrace just gets worse and worse...and now to deflect attention away from the money that was diverted away from protecting the city...to deflect attention away from the lack of preparedness exhibited by the gov't....to deflect attention away from the fact that with all the money and resources that went into 'homeland security' now it's clear that if there had been an attack on the country the gov't would not have been able to handle the injured and the refugees and the damage...because an attack would have been much worse than slowly rising water..to make you forget all that and that victims are still dying in the flooded waters, the biggest story is suddenly 'looting'??
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A station reporter also posted a message saying: "Stories of armed, roving gangs going around town looting every business they come across have been exaggerated by the national media."Science Daily
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When people who have had everything they own sink and disappear the national guard is told to SHOOT TO KILL people who are taking things from stores...these people have been hungry for 4 days now...have we forgotten that when Iraqis were looting and going into museums and hospitals and taking tv sets and fridges and cultural artifacts etc...that the administration said that that 'stuff happens'
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"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said."CNN
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What are the hurricane victims supposed to do, start eating their own arms?? How 'bout a shoot to kill policy for white collar criminals who stole billions of dollars from the American People.. Is a bottle of water for a thirsty victim more of a crime than a fat cat getting millions more than he needs..pffft
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Of course there will be people who take advantage of the situation and commit robbery and theft...but poverty in America is a cruel thing...and remember when the Rodney King riots took place? The press kept focusing in the 'looting', so you would forget the bigger story which is the disgrace of the LAPD and the racism and the poverty and bitterness that holds huge numbers of American citizens hostage..

Airamericaradio.com this morning quoted a survivor who said she walked up to a cop and asked for help and he told her to 'go to hell'...Of course many rescue workers and police are also doing a damn fine job considering their lack of funding, lack of staff and lack of preparedness..
Bush is finally touring the region today..
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"A year ago the US army corps of engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken" Sidney Blumenthal
--
"On Thursday, President Bush told Diane Sawyer, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." Not true, at least according to a pre-9/11 FEMA assessment listing a hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three biggest threats facing the United States. "
The Rachel Maddow Show
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Be sure to visit DailyKos--The Gurdian's Photos--Democracy Now

And if you watch anything watch Anderson Cooper lose his temper at the Senator Landrieu who shamed herself in these desperate times for the victims by using the interview to thank other politicians and the president as if she were at the Oscars..

Katrina

Mississippi counts over 100 dead, Louisiana stopped counting because they have too many people left to rescue...They expect the dead to be in the thousands though...The beautiful Big Easy is still under waters which are still rising...thanks to levees that broke and let water come in from the river..New Orleans is a city that lies below sea level..Photos

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From the Rachel maddow Show:
"New Orleans didn't have the financial means to reinforce the levees before Katrina hit because that money was taken to fund the war in Iraq. "
read the link, you will want to tear your hair out.
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Over 20,000 people are sheltered in the Superdome, which is hot, has broken toilets, and rising water...they are to be evacuated to the Astrodrome in Texas...where they might stay TILL DECEMBER...

The national guard have been trying to plug up the levees and help save people..but they are short handed thanks to their people having been sent to fight and die in Iraq..
"Speaking for the Mississippi National Guard, Lt. Andy Thaggard said: “Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people.” According to the Washington Post, the Mississippi National Guard “has a brigade of more than 4,000 troops in central Iraq” while “Louisiana also has about 3,000 Guard troops in Baghdad.” Norman Solomon
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Imagine the disease causing mix of bodies, building material, chemicals, gas, dead animals, rotting food from supermarkets and homes, all the electric equipment in all the buildings, toxic waste and medicines from the flooding hospitals and the hot summer New Orleans weather...all that is wrapping itself around every piece of furniture every wall or every house..every person that is walking through it..

City prepares itself for health crisis as floodwater becomes 'toxic soup'
---
UK's Chief Scientific Advisor: Global Warming May Be to Blame
Sea temperatures rise, and Hurricanes become more powerful..so yeah smart idea to keep burning fossil fuels and all that stuff..nature is just waiting to get back at us..
Hamish McRae: Hurricane Katrina gives us a taste of things to come in an oil-hungry world

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Tax paying, working men and women, citizens of the richest country in the world...with all that money having been spent on weapons and wars and champagne dinners and Bush still has the audacity to smirk (watch BBC) when he tells the victims that they will get over this and "new communities will flourish"...the old communities didn't have to be destroyed did they??
People have had their lives ruined, have lost their homes, probably their jobs...they won't be able to go home for months, if ever...what the hell is there to smile about?..
Please read this eyewitness account from a rescue worker linked from Wonkette..
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Watch Democracy Now's report on Katrina..
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The Red Cross is the place to donate money if you want to help out...