Comments on: “god destroyed a wicked city”

by: ali

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 17:31:59 +0100

No, that last sentence is not my motto. It advertantly got cut and pasted.

by: ali

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 17:27:10 +0100

Those two or three men in a small helicopter don’t own the helicopter. They work for someone who is paying them for staying in the helicopter and recording everything they can. I saw interviews with this crew and everytime they would see a person in distress they would radio that location to the rescue authorities. I think that is more efficient than trying to make a life risking landing in a weak roof to pick one person up and transport them to a hospital. They are not trained or equipped for a rescue. If they don’t kill themselves trying to get down, they will certainly miss covering a lot of area and finding more survivors on rooftops.
D, with 6 billion people on earth that I don’t know, the value of that one animal of a nearly extinct species is greater than a human. Perspective.
I agree with calling Bush out on the delayed federal response. His inept appointee at FEMA for instance dropped the ball big time. But I have yet to see a non-partisan finger point out the local govt. The city and state have democratic heads of govt. They were warned of the magnitude of the threat in advance. Yet they seem to have had absolutely no plans. The mayor had a large number of emergency responders awol. Why not house their families 50 miles out in a motel in advance of the storm. Then have your police and fire departments at full strength on duty. The governer controls the state national guard. She should have had them mobilized and ready to move in at a moment’s notice before the hurricane hit not two days later. In contrast look at the orderly and timely evacuation of Galveston, TX. I would raise hell about the stupid mayor of new orleans who wanted the people to move back in. The have only patched the wall. It would need to be thoroughly repaired and strengthened before people should move in. Wouldn’t you know the city floods again with rain from Rita.
A hundred years ago these were wetlands. That is a microsecond in earths’ life. Nature will try to take it back. Smart money move to Baton Rouge. Stupid money invest in rebuilding New Orleans.
Toora, I didn’t know about this Karachi immolation case. But glad to hear that the reporters got off. If there were a few reporters there, than there must have been hundreds if not thousands of bystanders at the scene too. Half of them were probably women. All of them stood by and watched. But it is easy for a prosecutor to find the men with the cameras. Besides why should you be charged for trying to prevent a person for killing themselves. They want to die, let them. Good riddance. Save the saving for people who want to live. With 15 million people Karachi is not going to miss this deranged woman. Save the saving for people who want to live.

by: toora

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 09:57:25 +0100

The New Orleans pastor and his Muslim Counterpart would have us believe that that all of the catastrophies are god’s clean-up system. If they want to put across their insensitive and stupid comments, they should do it on their own without trying to drag in god in bw. Who has asked them to take upon the responsibility of being god’s media spokes person.
Ali bhae regarding this media responsibilty issue i recall this incident in karachi some years ago when a woman self-ignited herself on fire on a protest of some kind. While her body burned up,(the clothes got burnt to reveal a naked body that began to get charred) a few reporters where there to make second-by-second pictures of that. The last shot was of a man who was trying to extinguish the fire by trying to drape a jute bag over her. She died in the hosiptal. The reporters where then put on trial for fulfilling their duty as reporters but neglecting their duty as human beings. They were released later but with a warning.

by: D

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 05:08:39 +0100

I did`nt know about the single chopper giving all the coverage. i guess being pissed off means lower perception. But i disagree with you about the journalist reporting all facts. That does’nt seem to happen ever, mostly because of what you yourself have stated. Just like there can be a do-no-wrong person only in movies, there can be a 100% fact journalist only in movies and very rarely in real life. And we all know what the reaction to the pictures showing natural devestation is. why should a journalist let events take their course? Lets say a reporter is telling us about a decision by congress about Importing cars. State the facts, go home. Now, Katrina happened, and look at….. What i dont understand is how a reporter’s actually physically helping a sick man will hurt the impact of the news. Forget Bush’s lame reflexes regarding emergencies. These are people we are talking about, on Cable TV, not National Geographic telling us about poachers and the diamond back congo based gorrilas. All i am saying is that in some cases, if one man can’t be the hero, then he can at least try to be a man.

by: ali

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 15:57:20 +0100

D, don’t be pissed at them for something they have little control over. it is my understanding that the authorities allowed only one media chooper in the air. All the news services and tv channels got their coverage from this one helicopter crew. They rest of the airspace was reserved for rescue operations.
The job of the journalist is to report the facts of the news and leave the reaction to the audience. I agree with this ethic 100%. No matter what, they should let events take their course and just report as complete a picture as they can. Maybe one person can be a do-no-wrong hero in movies but in real life people should keep things simple and just do their assigned job to their best ability.

by: D

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:55:24 +0100

The only thing that pissed me off about Katrina were the journalists and news agencies giving us beautiful live pictures of the dead lying on streets. Yet none of them brought supplies nor tried to help the devestated (that i know of). They did bring cameras and crews and reported LIVE and about the dead and dying and how the bush admin failed to react. i dont understand, if your helicopter can hover over a roof, and show hungry people with their starving dog taking refuge from nature on the caving in roof. Drop a hotdog dude. A pack of cigarettes, a gun for mercy’s sake. No but the Bush admin failed to react…woohoo now we have something to report, a sort of I WAS THERE thing. At least Bush would have been worried about his ratings which rightly fell a bit, but i am sure that the board members at CNBC, CNN and the likes were really pissin their pants for the lives that Katrina disrupted (the ones that stayed home to watch the news…LIVE)

by: rocky

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 20:21:53 +0100

i agree that people never change…the ones who hurled insults at the old blog did so while remaining anonymous and they do the same here.

yawn.

do come back when you want to make a REAL point; this looks like the same kinda whiny bs that i used to get, back at the old blog.

by: anonymous

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 16:15:12 +0100

people never change. what made you think that switching blogs would also change your content. same yammering, same pseudo-intellectualism: fake trees are juiceless.

by: ali

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 01:26:20 +0100

Our favourite evangelical has been at it again. According to his loonyness rev. Pat Robertson, Katrina was god’s message to the Hollywood elite for letting Ellen host the Emmys. She is from NO. So the city, with such a religious history that it is divided into parishes instead of districts, gets slammed by the merciful almighty because a lesbian comedian called it home once. He went on to blame her for 9-11 and a few other incidents by linking them to events in her career and life.

by: Red Baron

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 16:21:25 +0100

Ali, I think you have a point about short-term thriving in the Shia and Kurdish communities but I think that is rather fragile.

The Kurds have had a degree of autonomy even under Saddam Hussein the recent war simply enshrines that but the Turks are not happy about this at all and the Turks are growing in influence, so this may be a problem from the North.

The Shia communities are divided as to a democratic secular state or an Islamic one under shariah law, the latter being favoured by those in Iran, also Shia. The US will not tolerate a pro-Iranian religious state in Iraq as it would make their oil supply too volitile. So this is a problem from the East.

Then of course there is Syria, I don’t know what ethnicity the Syrians are but I do now the US doesn’t like them, I suspect the US doesn’t know their ethnicity either tho! Any regime in Iraq being pro-Syria would also be seen as a threat so that could constitute a potential problem from the West.

Leaving the South, now there is little doubt that the US would have no problem in a pro-Saudi regime in Iraq but such a regime would hardly have human rights at the forefront of its agenda.

I don’t think anyone is in any doubt that the Iraq war was based on the US desire to control the oil supply, after all so was Afghanistan, (you didn’t think that was all about the Taliban did you?!) the debate is whether this is a policy that the international community should allow.

Funny that many people see the US as saving Iraq from Saddam, when it was of course the US that put him in there in the first place.