Beyond Katrina

SoCal earthquake has everyone a-Twitter

oh this is a good one from the Los Angeles Times...

Twitter was first on the scene again when an estimated 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck near Los Angeles today. Tweets started rumbling nearly as soon as the ground stopped shaking. That's a lot of Twittering on the Richter scale. "So, now people tweet first and then run for safety?" one amused onlooker commented on Feedalizr. Continue here>>>

and this one from C/Net news...

Los Angeles earthquake chokes phone calls, not Twitter

Truly I don't know how we social media types keep up with it all. Does anybody actually work these days?

A Firestorm, a Deluge and a Sharp Political Dig

Bravo to The New York Times for taking on the issue of the comparisons that are being made between the "well-coordinated evacuation effort" during the California wildfires and "the chaotic memories of  Hurricane Katrina" in this article.  I have been hearing a lot of buzz re this issue from citizens of Louisiana as well as folks writing about in the blogosphere. The comparisons that are being made are inflaming people here and  reopening wounds that have never quite healed to begin with.

Politics aside, here are some facts :

1,875 homes destroyed by the California wildfires vs.  300,000 homes were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by the storm.

In California, fires consumed roughly 475,000 acres; more than 52 million acres were affected in the Gulf Coast.

Early estimates for the California fires are about 2% of the damage wrought by hurricanes Katrina and Rita - 91 billion vs. 2 billion!

Death toll - 2, 000 for Katrina, 11 for the California fires

I think many around the nation (press and politicians included) still aren't able to wrap their minds around the magnitude, scope, scale and breadth of the Katrina disaster. 

Sally Forman press secretary to Mayor Nagin told the NYT “I think you’re comparing a paper cut to an amputation. ” hmmm...well put!

My bottom line - The response to Hurricane Katrina was a  failure at local, state, and federal levels and the issues were/are systemic. The sheer magnitude of the disaster - an entire region was impacted afterall - was a major factor and it overwhelmed the infrastructure of every public agency involved. Two years post-Katrina I find that I continue to be annoyed at the ongoing blame game. Political squabbles do nothing to coordinate a unified effort to move rebuilding forward. The call now is to heed the lessons of the past and take action to ensure that this nation is prepared for the next large scale disaster which is surely coming down the pike.

Here are some of the reactions around the blogosphere:

Compassionate Conservatism - using suffering for bi-partisan advantage (People Get Ready)

Feasts for Fires; Famines for Floods

Tale of Two Cities (Man Sized Target)

 

DiCaprio's The 11th Hour - Rwanda is so hot right now

courtesy, Warner Independent Pictures

As Leonardo DiCaprio's new film The 11th Hour opens this week, media critics take on the hypocrisy of eco-celebrities  whose excessive lifestyles and consumption negate the very message they are attempting to communicate- Here. 

According to the press releases at the Warner  website, “The 11th Hour” is about the important issues that challenge our planet and the  last moment when change is possible. The film explores how we’ve arrived at this moment -- how we live, how we impact the earth’s ecosystems, and what we can do to change our course.

BTW, the film weaves in footage from Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters. I plan to go see it, in spite of its criticism---and I wouldn't want to miss the opp to gaze into DiCaprio's baby blues. :)

Indigenous Landscapes Post-Katrina: Beyond Invisibility and Disaster

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

The American Indian Culture and Research Journal is now accepting manuscript submissions between 15-35 pages (including notes) for a special edition focusing on the current status of American Indian Nations, tribes, and communities impacted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Articles should focus on tribal invisibility during the mainstream media's news coverage of the Hurricane on television and in newspapers, the support of American Indian Nations and organizations during and after the Hurricane, the preservation of cultural traditions post-Katrina (i.e., white oak and rivercane basketry, weaving palmetto, weaving Spanish moss, sacred corn feasts, Mardi Gras regalia making, etc.) including sacred and historic sites (Natchez mounds, Marksville mounds Congo Square, etc.), the history of tribes in the Gulf Coast Region and the struggle for recognition, the re-building process in states such as Louisiana and Mississippi, personal family narratives, the economic impact on indigenous communities, including, but not limited to the displacement of the Houma, Tunica-Biloxi, Chitimacha, Choctaw, and Mardi Gras Black Indians, interracial group relations, and the current status of tribal and community sustainability and recognition.

Specific area themes for the journal are:

The Invisibility of Race and Place

Displacement and Recovery

Preserving Cultural and Historical Traditions

Personal Narratives Pre and Post-Katrina

Economic and Environmental Implications

The Status of Tribal Sovereignty Post-Katrina

Please send submissions to:

Andrew Jolivette, Guest Editor AICRJ
American Indian Studies Department
College of Ethnic Studies, EP 103
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA. 94132

Please follow the AICRJ style guidelines available at:

http://www.books.aisc.ucla.edu/AICRJ_Style_Guide.pdf

Submission deadline: August 15th, 2007

Please send 3 hardcopies of the submission and a CD with the article in
Microsoft word format.

When disasters strike…

“Disasters work like the magnifying glass of a society. They magnify what is good and what needs sincere help. Disasters do not affect everyone equally. Who you are and what you do determine your fate. The strong and the weak stand out. This is true for gender issues as much as for other issues.” (Civil servant, India) Continue Here.