ChgoRed, Girl Editor

WWJD

The difference between simply calling yourself a Christian, and actually living as one.

Example #1:

Members of Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church, not content with picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, have announced that they plan to picket the funerals of the Amish girls killed in Pennsylvania.

According to the church, a while back Pennsyvlania Governor Ed Rendell ridiculed them on a news show. Thus, they feel the funerals of murdered children would be the perfect place to express their displeasure over this slight.

Example #2:

From today's Philadelphia Enquirer, a reaction from Catherine Saunders, a registered nurse who assisted at the births of four of the girls who were shot:

""They're not holding it against [the shooter] or against his family. If things go as they always do in this community, they will go to his family and tell them they forgive him," Saunders said.

And bearing that out...

"Susan Johnson, the Coatesville Savings Bank branch manager, said funds collected there are intended for families of the children killed or wounded by Charles Carl Roberts IV, and for Roberts' family*. "People are concerned about the [three Roberts] children," she said. "The people in the community want to help them, too."

Charity + forgiveness in the aftermath of great tragedy = Grace.

*Emphasis mine.

Someone Take Away My "Liberal" Badge

If I were to go downstairs right now, I would get to witness 100,000-something people moving toward Grant Park. My office building is one block from the rally site. I even have a camera in my purse.

But I'm not down there. I'm up in my office, trying to figure out where I fall on this whole issue.

I've thought about it a lot lately. As a child, I was infatuated with the Ellis Island story of my great-grandmother (came over in 1910 from Croatia, was not yet 16, left most of her family behind, didn't speak any English, etc.). I still look for her face in photos and films from then. I used to believe whole-heartedly in Emma Lazarus and her poem.

But I got a little older; my great-grandma and Ellis Island passed into history; and there were these guys who took over some planes one day in September.

I have no problem with people marching; I really don't. I do have a problem with characterizing legislation as though it will sweep all immigrants from the country, when in fact it applies to people here illegally. People whose first steps into this country were in violation of the law. It seems at least suspect to claim that you respect a country so much that you choose to flout fairly reasonable laws to be there.

And really, today, can anyone say they have a true moral problem with making it more difficult to illegally enter and stay in the United States? The idea of a golden door that admits all the world is a lovely concept. But in the age of the dirty bomb, it makes for lousy policy.

I'm not a protectionist or an isolationist, but having seen what happens when people enter legally and then overstay their visas, I really don't have many qualms about making illegal immigration a felony.

Everything’s Just Ducky: Let’s Learn About Bird Flu!

I have been meaning to do this for a while. Today’s article in The Washington Post is what lit the fire under me. In brief, it suggests the bird flu could have been stopped two years ago, while still contained to Indonesia. However, thanks to some poultry magnates who didn’t want business disrupted and a criminally negligent government who didn’t want to scare people, it was never contained. Add in a very handy disease vector—migratory birds—and here we are.

Before we really get started, the good news. You are still relatively safe.  Bird-to-person transmission of avian flu is very rare (there may be thousands of sick birds out there, but only a hundred or so people have been ill). Person-to-person transmission is even rarer. Just keep reminding yourself of that. It’s not here yet, it's not spreading quickly between people at this point, and you can still have turkey at Thanksgiving.

Now, if you’ve heard anything about bird flu, your top questions probably are: Will it be here? Are we ready? And What can I do to protect myself?

Answers: Almost certainly; No; and Beyond washing your hands, not a hell of a lot.

Ironic

Dear Conservatives Who Have Spent the Past Three Days Acting Like George “Trust Me” Bush just Tongue-Kissed Bill Clinton,

Remember last year, when you went on and on about the need for a “faith-based” presidency?  Well, you got it. 

Now do you see what we meant?

Yours,

The Reality-Based Community

The Aiiieees Have It

John Roberts, looking...well...really damn creepy. 

Ganked from Jima, with thanks.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Independent Investigation

No non-Congressional experts allowed, and Democrats are outnumbered.  Fair and balanced, indeed.

From today's Washington Post:

Parties Scramble for Post-Katrina Leverage

With the midterm congressional elections 14 months away, both parties see high stakes in where blame will eventually fall for the government's lagging response to Katrina. Yesterday, congressional Republicans tried to get a head start, announcing the formation of an investigative commission that they can control.

They rejected Democratic appeals to model the panel after the Sept. 11 commission, which was made up of non-lawmakers and was equally balanced between Republicans and Democrats. That commission won wide praise for assessing how the 2001 terrorist attacks occurred, and for recommending changes in the government's anti-terrorism structure.

House and Senate GOP leaders announced the "Hurricane Katrina Joint Review Committee," which will include only members of Congress, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats by a yet-to-be-determined ratio. The commission, which will have subpoena powers, will investigate the actions of local, state and federal governments before and after the storm that devastated New Orleans and other portions of the Gulf Coast.

Speechless

You know, after reading the 9/11 commission’s report last year, I was deeply disappointed in our government. But this past week has been worse.  Forcing firefighters to sit through classes on FEMA's history?  While Americans who footed the bill were suffering?  How is that management?  Terrorists will always find a way, but the idea of masses of people dying preventable deaths simply due to mismanagement… I can’t even put my disgust into words.

From Salon today:

FEMA puts firefighters to work -- as props for Bush

From all across the nation, local fire departments have sent firefighters -- many of them trained in emergency medicine and search-and-rescue techniques -- to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Federal Emergency Management Agency requested the help. But when the firefighters arrived in Atlanta, loaded down with the firefighting gear FEMA told them to bring, they were sent to a hotel to wait. Some of them have been waiting for three or four days now. Some have been assigned to sit through an eight-hour class on topics that included sexual harassment. And some have been dispatched to the disaster area to work as human props behind George W. Bush as he toured the destruction.

We've said this before lately, and we'll say it again: We're not making this up.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, "Hundreds of firefighters who volunteered to help rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina have instead been playing cards, taking classes on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's history and lounging at an Atlanta airport hotel for days. 'On the news every night you hear [hurricane victims say], "How come everybody forgot us?"' said Joseph Manning, a firefighter from Washington, Pa. 'We didn't forget. We're stuck in Atlanta drinking beer.'

" Well, not just drinking beer. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that FEMA put a team of 50 firefighters on a flight to Louisiana Monday morning. Their mission: Stand beside Bush as he toured the devastation -- just possibly not the best use for highly trained emergency workers, and a job we thought was obsolete in the digital age anyway.

FEMA defends the use -- or nonuse -- of the firefighters, saying that their chiefs knew they were being sent to the Gulf Coast to work as community-relations officers for FEMA. Apparently, that job entails working as human props and passing out FEMA's phone number. "There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter told the Tribune.

On Monday, the Tribune says, some firefighters began to take off their FEMA-issued T-shirts in protest. A FEMA spokesman responded by questioning the firefighters' willingness to help in a time of need. "I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak told the Tribune.

Stop the Presses: FEMA Tries Its Hand at Actual Management

From today's LA Times (subscription required):

KATRINA'S AFTERMATH

FEMA Wants No Photos of Dead

From Reuters

NEW ORLEANS - The U.S. agency leading Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts said Tuesday that it does not want the news media to photograph the dead as they are recovered.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected journalists' requests to accompany rescue boats searching for storm victims.

An agency spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats.

"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman said in an e-mail.

The irony is that, had they shown this much concern for getting the living into rescue boats, there might be fewer dead people.

And the Bad News Keeps Coming

Caution: This is not pleasant or easy to read. But it's exactly what they meant when they said the news would get worse. From Nola.com:

Mayor says Katrina may have claimed more than 10,000 lives

Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center

By Brian Thevenot Staff writer

Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.

"Don't step in that blood - it's contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he's an old man."

Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man. "That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut."

He moved on, walking quickly through the darkness, pulling his camouflage shirt to his face to screen out the overwhelming odor.

"There's an old woman," he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. "I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death," he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair.

Brooks and several other Guardsmen said they had seen between 30 and 40 more bodies in the Convention Center's freezer. "It's not on, but at least you can shut the door," said fellow Guardsman Phillip Thompson.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse

From Nola.com:

Children's Hospital under siege

Tuesday, 11:45 p.m.

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.

Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond.

Meanwhile, in the Superdome, the toilets aren't working, there is no A/C, the stench is said to be horrendous, two people have died and one may have been assaulted. And now there is a report on the same site--unconfirmed as of yet--that they have run out of food. Let's pray this isn't true.