Have you read the Rolling Stone article on Katrina?

[johnnie]

Someone at the office brought it in for me this morning and it is a very interesting account of the journalist's experience in New Orleans. I stopped my subscription a long time ago so I didn't see it until today.

"Apocalypse There
A journey into the nightmare of New Orleans
By MATT TAIBBI"

<Snip>

"From the moment we arrive it is clear that the now-famous bitter dispute between state and federal rescue agencies has already reached an advanced stage. What is even more evident (and more troubling) is that no one really knows who is in charge -- not only of the New Orleans operation but of the OEP building itself. We are standing in the middle of a historic, and historically lethal, bureaucratic fuck-up.

Congressman Charlie Melancon, a Louisiana Democrat, is standing outside the entrance to the OEP building with a red face and gritted teeth, telling anyone who will listen that the federal government had senselessly dicked around for days after Gov. Kathleen Blanco's original request for troops and aid. The federal response was so weak, Melancon says, that when he himself visited Plaquemines Parish (the New Orleans county that covers the mouth of the Mississippi) the day before, he was the first federal presence in the region since the day of the storm.

"The sheriff was not smiling when I got out of the car," he says.

He goes on to tell a story about standing with the sheriff shortly afterward and seeing a white car pull up.

"Two guys stepped out of the car and flipped up a badge, and they're like, 'We're from FEMA,'" Melancon says. "I don't want to say everyone burst out laughing, but it was close."

Melancon is hot. He is in that rarest and most dangerous of states for a politician, when righteous anger overpowers calculation at the very moment a crowd of journalists has gathered.

"Look, this is a disaster," he hisses. "You shouldn't have to ask. They're treating this like a game of Mother May I. You ask for permission, but you can't move unless you say, 'May I?'"

Shortly after Melancon's aides finally pry him away from reporters, Republican Sen. David Vitter emerges from the building. Normally Vitter looks like the quiet second dentist of a local family practice, but on this day he looks like the angriest family dentist in the world; in fact, he is wearing the same face as Melancon -- that of a man who's just had his car stolen. I ask him if he agrees that the government response has been inadequate.

"In terms of the state bureaucracy and the federal bureaucracy, I would have to say yes, it was highly inadequate," he says. "And I promise you" -- here he puts an index finger in my shoulder -- "I promise you, there will be hearings about this."

<snip>

"Nearly 100 years ago, after the great Mississippi flood of 1927, white business leaders in New Orleans pressured the state to blow a levee, flooding mostly black areas in the Delta and forcing the rural poor into the cities. Thus part of what gave birth to the vast ghettos of black poor that Katrina wiped out was a man-made disaster in the distant past. Can something like this be remembered in the genes?"

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7661196

[pearl]

1. I read it online just a few days ago

Well worth the read.
It did break my heart and comfort me at the same time.

[GumboYaYa]

2. I did. there are several good articles about NOLA in that RS.

I really liked the interviews with Aaron, Dr. John, Allan Touissant etc. The account from Hunter Thompson's funeral was awesome too.

RS has some of the best political writing and investigative journalism out there.

[no name no slogan]

3. Taibbi is an excellent writer

He's been published in a number of left-leaning pubs, including The Nation, IIRC.

[Lisa]

4. amazing ...

A perceptive and eloquent piece.


"America is a country that has been skating for ages on its unparalleled ability to look marvelous on the outside. We've long had things arranged in such a way that our public exterior is always shimmering and clean -- our airports, our food courts, our anchormen, our chain restaurants, our fleets of bombers and our warehouses full of nick-free products in polymer-coated packaging. For most of the uglier things that are under the surface -- the bitterness, the rancor, the greed, the selfishness, the loneliness, the isolation we feel from each other, our inability to communicate and empathize -- we've found ways to keep these things out of sight."


"But no one was ready for Katrina. He was ridiculed for saying it, but George Bush was absolutely right -- painfully if unintentionally honest -- when he said that "I don't think anyone anticipated" this disaster. New Orleans falls into the sea; whose ass do we kick now? When that isn't an option, we're just left staring at each other. And that's what really hurts."