Oklahoma Senator Cries Justice

Freshman Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma cried during his opening remarks at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for John Roberts, which you can see on C-Span (RealPlayer link), right around the time he delivered this passage:

The opportunity to sit on this committee at this time in our nation’s history will be among my most important tasks as an elected official. When I ponder our country and its greatness, its weaknesses, and its potential, my heart aches for less divisiveness, less polarization, less finger pointing, less bitterness and less mindless partisanship, which, at times, sounds almost hateful to the ears of ordinary Americans.

Coburn's an odd bird in the Senate, a practicing family physician and rigid social and fiscal conservative who once used his Judiciary Committee seat to tout breast implants:

If you have them, you're healthier than if you don't. That is what the ultimate science shows. ... In fact, there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and, in fact, they make you healthier.

I don't know what he has to cry about, with two seats on the Supreme Court in the easy reach of the Republican majority in D.C. Unless Roberts forgot to tell anyone he murdered a series of drifters along the Potomac in the '80s, the guy seems like a lock for the chief justiceship.

My fellow Democrats are the ones who should be crying.

2005/09/12 · 10 COMMENTS · Link

C-Span has begun podcasting on a trial basis, offering three weekly programs: The current events interview shows American Perspective and Q&A and the Book TV interview show After Words.

The copyright notice for the podcasts makes note of something that's often misunderstood about C-Span -- the programs are not in the public domain:

Except as specifically permitted by this policy, C-SPAN's RSS feeds and audio files may not be used for any political, commercial or otherwise unauthorized purpose. Any posting, retransmission, sale, public performance or other unauthorized duplication of the audio files is strictly prohibited.

C-Span is produced by a non-profit corporation set up by the cable industry that receives no government funding. All of its content is protected by copyright and the network explicitly forbids redistribution on the Internet.

Politics · Podcasting · Journalism · 2005/09/12 · Comment · Link

Reports of Euthanasia in New Orleans

The international press is reporting today that some doctors in New Orleans overdosed critically ill patients with morphine during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, believing they couldn't make it out alive during a hospital evacuation.

A doctor, whose identity was protected by the paper, explained the decision:

We divided patients into three categories: those who were traumatised but medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying. People would find it impossible to understand the situation. I had to make life-or-death decisions in a split second. It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity.

The only source named in the article, William "Forest" McQueen, was mentioned earlier in other British accounts as the husband of a British woman. From the way he's described in various articles, he appears to have been working for power companies clearing downed electric lines north of Lake Pontchartrain.

2005/09/12 · 20 COMMENTS · Link

Ophelia has moved away from Florida and taken all of our storm clouds, leaving behind a picture-perfect Saturday in Jacksonville. I played softball this morning, pulling muscles in my back I didn't even know I had.

The storm's latest projected track appears to foretell a Tuesday landfall in North Carolina as a category 2 hurricane, according to Jeff Masters:

As usual, all this is subject to a high degree of uncertainty. South Carolina is still at high risk, and Georgia still at some risk. Remember that a hurricane is not a point, and the effects of this hurricane will be felt over a wide area.

Today marks the halfway point of the hurricane season, which is expected to bring another three major hurricanes of category 3 strength or higher.

I'm thinking about starting a new ecommerce site selling "The End is Nigh" signs.

Florida · 2005/09/10 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

A columnist for the Orlando Sentinel ponders the political impact of having so many New Orleans-area voters living in other states, perhaps permanently.

Even while carrying the state in 2004, Bush lost Orleans Parish by almost 110,000 votes out of fewer than 200,000 cast. Without Orleans Parish, Landrieu would not be in the Senate, and Blanco's election could have been very, very close.

Hurricane Katrina · Politics · 2005/09/10 · 1 COMMENT · Link

Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans

As the situation grew steadily worse in New Orleans last week, you might have wondered why people didn't just leave on foot. The Louisiana Superdome is less than two miles from a bridge that leads over the Mississippi River out of the city.

The answer: Any crowd that tried to do so was met by suburban police, some of whom fired guns to disperse the group and seized their water.

Around 500 people stuck in downtown New Orleans after the storm banded together for self-preservation, making sure the oldest and youngest among them were taken care of before looking after their own needs.

Two San Francisco paramedics who were staying in the French Quarter for a convention have written a first-hand account that describes their appalling treatment at the hands of Louisiana police, a story confirmed today by the San Francisco Chronicle, UPI, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

When buses charted by the group to escape New Orleans never showed up, they camped out beside a police command center on Canal Street, believing it was the best place to get aid, protection, and information. They were told they could not stay there and should leave the city on foot over Highway 90, which crosses the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the suburb of Gretna, a city of 17,500 people.

Running out of food and water, they walked to the bridge, growing in number to around 800 people as word spread of a safe way out:

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City.

In an interview with UPI, Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson confirmed that his department shut down the bridge to pedestrians: "If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."

The increasingly desperate group set up camp on the New Orleans side of the bridge, where they were seen by several media outlets, until they were chased off at gunpoint by Gretna police:

Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The paramedics believe that race played a factor in the decision to block evacuees on foot. Gretna's population is 56 percent white and 36 percent black, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.

Politics · Hurricane Katrina · 2005/09/09 · 324 COMMENTS · Link

Help Hurricane Victims with Modest Needs

Modest Needs, a charity that helps people with short-term emergencies, has begun a relief program for two groups that are being overlooked after Hurricane Katrina: Gulf Coast residents who evacuated themselves and the people who took them in.

"While FEMA might eventually be able to help persons who evacuated on their own, that help is going to be some time coming," Modest Needs founder Keith Taylor told me in e-mail. "We're receiving applications from families across the country who've taken in as many -- no kidding -- 25 refugees from this storm."

The organization works like a charitable EBay, matching up individuals seeking help with people who want to help them. They verify applicants and often pay bills and other expenses directly. Taylor shares the details of one recent application from a family in Ruston, Louisiana:

My wife and I are housing and feeding four adults, one toddler and four cats who were evacuated from their homes as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Red Cross has yet to issue food vouchers to evacuees in the state of Louisiana, so they cannot buy food or clothing. In our efforts to assist them, our electric, gas and grocery bills have increased (we opened our home to them on Sunday August 28, 2005). We are currently unsure of the amount of time the evacuees will need to stay with us; we are estimating one month. We will appreciate any assistance you may be able to provide.

Donors can fund an application like this directly or donate to the charity.

Modest Needs is a small organization with low expenses that are covered by a private grant, so 100 percent of the money donated to hurricane relief is being given to recipients. The charity, which took off in popularity after being linked on MetaFilter in 2002, doesn't spend any money on self-promotion, so it's utterly dependent on bloggers to get the word out.

Hurricane Katrina · 2005/09/09 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

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