We’ve read and heard some of the horror stories of what happened inside the Superdome. But that was nothing compared with what it was like for the 15,000 people in the New Orleans Convention Center. Here is some of what The New York Times has reported:
“Gunfire became so routine that large SWAT teams had to storm the place nearly every night. . . . Armed groups of 15 to 25 men terrorized the others, stealing cash and jewelry. . . . Policemen patrolling the center told him that a number of women had been dragged off by groups of men and gang-raped, and that murders were occurring.”
It got so out of control that the Police Department came close to abandoning the convention halls and evacuating police officers by helicopter, a la the fall of Saigon.
“The only way I can describe it is as a completely lawless situation,” said Capt. Winn, the head of the police SWAT team.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Perhaps President Bush underestimated how angry many Americans are with the government’s failure in New Orleans. He spent only a few sentences of Thursday’s speech addressing it before shifting to an optimism that seem to discount the utter devastation surrounding him.
As Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma, said: “He was giving a speech as if the nation were disheartened and worried and had lost its spirit, but that’s not what people were thinking. They were thinking, ‘Why did the government screw up?’ ”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
An Internet photo credited to Eric Muller.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Fewer than half of all New Orleans evacuees living in emergency shelters in Houston said they will move back home, and two-thirds of those who want to relocate planned to stay for good in the Houston area, according to a survey by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.
It looks as if things aren’t working out so well for Barbara Bush.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
The Washington Post counted Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., among those members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who did more talking than listening as they questioned John Roberts this week, noting that Brownback “spoke 3,500 words” in one exchange, leaving Roberts time for only 1,500. Similarly, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, spoke for 12 minutes of a 15-minute turn at questioning, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., for 15 of 20 minutes, and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., for 12 of 20 minutes. Next time, senators, put a sock in it.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The Wichita City Council is going to great, legally complex lengths to try to keep adult video and bookstores and other sexually oriented businesses out of Old Town and the future arena district. Doing so is tricky because of the First Amendment, as it should be. But city leaders are to be praised for initiating zoning changes last week aimed at protecting the public investment in these core districts. There can be a place for such businesses in the community, but that place need not be in the heart of an area so crucial to downtown redevelopment, tourism and quality of life.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Hooray for the jury in the David Wittig and Douglas Lake case. First it found the two former Westar Energy executives guilty of looting the company. Then it required them to return millions of dollars in cash and assets, including Wittig’s Landon Mansion in Topeka. The jury could have — and maybe should have — ordered an even larger repayment. Still, justice was served.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
