The bad news: There was yet another mass shooting, one of the victims being a 10-year-old girl who was grazed and thankfully is in good condition. The good news: There were no deaths.
Happy Mother’s day:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Gunmen opened fire on dozens of people marching in a Mother’s Day neighborhood parade in New Orleans on Sunday, wounding at least 17 people, police said.
Three suspects were seen running from the scene. Raw video at the link.
Sadly, yesterday, there was another shooting of one small child by another. Via TPM:
A five-year-old boy in Denton, Texas was left in critical condition after he was shot in the head by his eight-year-old friend Saturday morning. According to the Denton Record-Chronicle, the police said the two boys were alone in the bedroom when the older child found a .22 caliber rifle, pointed it at the other boy, and shot him.
Congratulations on the opening of your library. Now maybe you’ll go inside one. [...]
[A]s a resident of post-Katrina New Orleans, the one decision point that really has me fired up is how your library represents the choices you faced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. [...]
Looting was the big problem?
As much as 80% of the city was flooded. Nearly a thousand Louisiana residents died, many in their own homes, drowned by storm surges that breached inadequate federal levees. Many thousands more were trapped in the Superdome and Convention Center for days without food, medicine, water, electricity, or working bathrooms.
And you were trying to figure out whether or not to quell an insurrection? These people were Americans, Mr. President. [...]
I am glad that you are slowing down, catching your breath and finding a way to live life to the fullest. In the meantime, tens of thousands of New Orleanians are still trying to find a way home, still displaced by the policies of your administration, still reeling from the failures of your decisions.
As the inimitable Garry Trudeau continues his wickedly satirical story arc about the George W. Bush “lie-bury”, Melissa Harris-Perry didn’t hold back either. She hosted The Rachel Maddow Show last night, and full-on skewered W in this segment:
What is the Decision Point that the Bush library asks you to confront when it comes to Hurricane Katrina? A disaster in which nearly 2,000 Americans died, many in their own homes. What’s the Decision Point that’s laid before you at the Bush library?
“Officials in New Orleans are overwhelmed. The president can send in troops, but those troops would serve in supporting roles and state efforts and would not have law enforcement powers unless the president invokes what’s called the Insurrection Act. President Bush had to make a choice: One, rely on the National Guard and local police. Two, send in federal troops in a supporting role with no law enforcement authority.
Three, invoke the Insurrection Act and send in troops to restore order.”
Excuse me, restoring order was the problem when it it came to Hurricane Katrina, seriously? The main dilemma faced by President Bush when it came to the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina was quelling disorder?
The Bush library takes you through this whole scenario about how to deal with the problem of looters and how to restore law and order in New Orleans. That is the Decision Point. No mention at all of, you know, search and rescue.
Eight years later, the people of New Orleans, who were basically left to starve and dehydrate and die in our city, mostly elderly people and children, eight years later, these people are memorialized at the Bush library as public enemies, not as citizens who were in need of relief….
So it should be noted that the level of urgency that’s on display inside Decision Point Theater was not so much on display when it came to the decider himself.
This was President Bush, the morningthat Katrina made landfall, sharing a cake with John McCain in Arizona! This was after his administration had already been informed that levees in New Orleans had been breached. This was President Bush on Day Two of the disaster, yukking it up with the country music star in Southern California.
That night as the situation was growing worse and worse in New Orleans, George W. Bush decided to return to his ranch in Crawford, Texas to finish up his vacation.
When he finally headed back to D.C. the next day, President Bush got an aerial view of the damage in Louisiana and Mississippi.
But by Friday, five days into that disaster, his aides at the White House were putting together DVDs of news coverage to convince President Bush how bad things were in New Orleans. During those five days,
President Bush was not “on the edge of his seat” as the Bush library would like you to believe. He was basically checked out. That’s the real history.
The truth is, the American people have already decided how they felt about President Bush’s leadership during Katrina, and while his approval ratings before Katrina weren’t that impressive, they never recovered afterwards.
15 months after the failed response, Democrats took control of the House. They took control of the Senate. and they took a majority of gubernatorial seats across the country. The public has already decided.
But, hey, if you’re in Dallas this weekend, you’ve got some time, go see how President Bush “saved” a city from disaster, and “restored a sense of calm” in all of the disorder.
How incredibly smart and sensible. Give the kids food they eat every day for lunch, and MAYBE they’ll freaking eat it. Kudos.
At 10:59 a.m., the doors to the cafeteria at Sophie B. Wright Charter School swing open and hungry sixth-graders file rapidly in, sniffing the air and jostling in line. It’s the first lunch shift at the Uptown school, and chef Pete Riley and his crew are ready and waiting, the serving line loaded with Creole-baked catfish, garlicky cauliflower-broccoli-carrot mix and yellow rice.
The lunch program is a point of pride at Wright, meeting federal guidelines with healthy, New Orleans-flavored food. Neighbors of the Napoleon Avenue school chow down at the cafeteria’s annual food festival during Carnival parades. Touro Synagogue, a school partner located around the corner on St. Charles Avenue, orders a seafood-free gumbo for some of its special events. And while most of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, faculty, staff and even the UPS delivery man gladly pay $3.50 for Riley’s lunch.
When Principal Sharon Clark was choosing a meal program after Hurricane Katrina, she opted for a personal touch, reasoning that if children liked the food, they would waste less of it.
“Instead of hiring a service or subcontracting out to a food service, I decided to hire a chef,” Clark said. “Mr. Riley came aboard, and he’s been cooking for us for six years.”
(snip)
He’s also a nutrition-conscious stickler for fresh foods who grows tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers in his Carrollton back yard, and enjoys a salad for breakfast.
Riley is a bit of a workaholic, showing up without fail at 6 a.m. “This man has never missed one day of work or been tardy for one day of work,” said Clark. “Every now and then, we give him an award.”
“I just love what I do,” Riley said. “I love working with kids. It makes me feel good when I see them enjoying the food.”
When Riley was hired, Clark wanted to make sure that students ate lunch and that federal nutrition guidelines were followed. The chef complied with a menu that’s full of local flavor but tweaked with brown rice, salads, greens, steamed vegetables and seafood.
Allow me to introduce you to the Bible-thumping Rev. Grant Storms:
NEW ORLEANS – The Southern Decadence Festival, a gay celebration that begins Friday in the French Quarter, is expected to draw more than 100,000 people to the city for the annual event. But on Monday, a Christian conservative leader announced his own plans for a parade and rally.
The Rev. Grant Storms said his parade… will take place Friday while the festival is in full swing. Storms and his group don’t want Southern Decadence in New Orleans, and they believe their presence will prove a point.
The Rev. Grant Storms, a Christian fundamentalist best known for his bullhorn protests of the Southern Decadence festival in the French Quarter, was arrested for allegedly masturbating at a Metairie park Friday afternoon.
The bigger the hypocridiots, the harder they fall.
We have a new ad (YEAH!) at the top on the right, so check it out and see what they want you to know. We also have a link up tonight to Amazon at the right for the new book by the President for children. If you are planning to buy it for a beloved child, if you bought it thru that link it would be appreciated. If you wish to support independent bookstores, look here. You can also always make a donation through the PayPal button to the right to help us out or choose to make a monthly donation, and if you are thinking of buying anything from Amazon, just using one of our links gets us a couple pennies a transaction
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