The horns are sounding for a second night

[Image link here]

It is not often that Marseille France makes it into the international news aside from the constant chatter about the local soccer team, Olympique de Marseille [google: marseille]. Yesterday was an exception as striking sailors hijacked a ferry, bound for Corsica, blasting the horns all the way out to sea at 2 AM.

By the next morning French military commandos regained control of the ship, just outside of Corsica, by dropping in by helicopter.

Read a story here in the LA Times: French Commandos Regain Control of Hijacked Ferry

So again tonight in Marseille, this time at 9:30 PM, you can hear the horns blasting every thirty seconds or so. I do not know what is happening down at the ferry port right now. Maybe another ferry has been hijacked?

Workers are striking because of the governments bid to privatize the ferry industry and in the process cut jobs. The ferries go from Marseille to Corsica, Tunisia, Algeria and other North African destinations. To politize the strike even more, the sailors' union have aligned themselves with the Corsican nationalistic movement. A movement that has waged a long and often violent seperatists struggle against France.

I've often walked down to the point of land on the Mediterranean in downtown Marseille where the ships pass through a narrow channel. It is fun to go there in the evening as the overnight voyages begin, you see people staying land-bound emotionally wave to their sea going friends and families going sea bound (also waving).

Houston Astrodome

Photos of the situation in and around New Orleans are finally starting to come into flickr. Mostly from the Houston Astrodome (do a multiple tag search for houston astrodome).

Here are some flickr users who are posting:
slightclutter (beautiful shots)
euphoriadev
balzen

And in the normal sillyness of the good old USA, people have been asked NOT to take photos of people in the astrodome. Or so says gecampbell. I have complete respect for peoples privacy who have been forced into this. But a policy of no photos? What if someone wants their photo taken?

Looting versus finding, racism in the media?

The urban legend website or I should say database at Snopes is always one of my most favorite and respected sites. They have a short list of new stories coming out of Hurricane Katrina and it is sure to grow in the coming weeks.

An interesting post that debunks a claim that the media is racist because it uses the word 'looting' when the subject is black and 'finding' when the subject is white. I have no doubts that there is all sorts of racism in the media but this is a good example where the claim was a rumor that was spreading and just wasn't factual. You gotta keep your facts straight before hitting the forward button to hundreds of people.

Others of interest are: a prank name 'Ablohmie' appeared first on the list of a CNN site to aid finding people, false gas supply rumors, false food stamp rumors, and true (but only for one day) gas prices at over $6 per gallon.

random notes while addicted to katrina web browsing

Some random notes while addicted to browsing the web for information about hurricane Katrina. This is too long and disorganized, it reflects the chaos of the week.

1) The media is so good with juicy and sometimes questionably biased titles.

Death and despair in New Orleans
Shots fired at blackhawk helicopters
50-60 thousand people rush to be evacuated
New Orleans a shambles
Growing Despair
Fear and looting in New Orleans
Fats Domino is missing
Fats Domino found
Charity hospital haults evacuation after they come under fire.

2)

Progress in Biloxi. Harvey and his two dogs rode out the storm on his rusted out boat and ended up 1/2 mile inland on top of a destroyed house.

3) The military BEGAN deployment on Thursday Sept 1, why not on Sunday August 28th when we knew it was really bad? Who is in charge here? I have to guess that president Bush once again simply did not listen to the experts who have his ear. Why was food and water not air dropped earlier? Right away, for example? Has Psy-Ops ever been deployed domestically?

Who was in charge of the federal disaster relief operation prior to 9/11? It is now the department of homeland security. Such a horrible name for a humanitarian arm of the government.

4) Why didn't the people at the Astrodome and the Convention center just walk away? Ok if you have small children or are old then stay put, otherwise just walk away.

5) Idea, stop looting stupid things like sneakers and hit the abandoned casinos. That said, I am impressed with this response. In line with the proper type of response to a situation of this magnitude is the response of the casinos in trying to aid their employees. Never thought I would say a casino did good. Within 48 hours of the storm hitting, the Beau Rivage Hotel and Casino did the following things:

-Established a call center in Las Vegas to communicate with Beau Rivage employees and customers to answer their questions with the latest available information;

-Made arrangements to waive restrictions on medical and prescription drug coverage so employees and their family members can access needed services wherever they are;

-Begun working with employees individually to provide coordination to help them locate immediate medical services.


Follow the link, they did a lot more like make sure their employees got paid.

6) Govenor of LA asks for no less than 40,000 troops. Is she kidding. That is what the generals asked for to go to Iraq. Do you think Bush is going to listen to this request? No way.

The mayor of New Orleans is pissed, listen to this radio interview (scroll down and look on the left) or read the transcript. He really says 'I am pissed' and basically says that if God is watching that Bush is going to pay for not helping these people. I love it when one person condemns another person to hell.

How many troops did the military initially request for Iraq? How many troops did Bush initially send to Iraq?

7) Is this true? The city turned off gas, electricity, and water to residential homes forcing people out of their homes and into the superdome and convention center. Where they were not provided with anyhting for 5 days. Where is the logic here?

8) Michael Moore has an open letter to President Bush, here

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

9) There is such a difference to the reaction time of the government on Sept 11, 2001 and this week in response to Katrina. Both are bad but one involved 3000 dead, the other involved an entire city being evacuated and abandoned?

10) In the mindset and logic of the Bush administrations rhetoric, I say: Mr President, why was the support and aid of those left homeless in New Orleans so slow in coming? This created a desperate situation which led to more tragedy and chaos. My question is, doesn't this show America to be a weak country as it can't even care for its own people? Doesn't this make the terrorist think they can attack us because we are so weak?