AddieStan

And so it has come to pass that John Roberts, a charming, accomplished man whose interpretation of the U.S. Constitution defers to the desires of those in authority, has been confirmed Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The vote was 78-22. Among the senators who just voted against Judge Roberts, your blogstress especially wishes to commend Evan Bayh, who hails from the virtually red state of Indiana, where his vote is unlikely to be viewed with tolerance. Also due kudos for their nay votes are Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (Calif.). Given his strong anti-choice stance, your cybertrix found the Reid vote to be a bit of a surprise. Due a lashing (and not that good kind) by your Webwench are, first and foremost, Senator Patrick Leahy (Vt.) of the Judiciary Committee, and both of Connecticut's senators, who all, evincing a waning of certain hormones, voted yes to a Justice Roberts. Lieberman, well, what did your écrivaine expe...

On the heels of Brownie's clueless, blame-laying testimony yesterday before Congress (just as we learned he was still on FEMA's payroll) comes the delicious indictment of one Hammer that seems not to be hangin' so happily this morning. But before liberals commence their happy dance, it behooves us to issue a warning to our own representatives on the Hill, for your blogstress has, alas, too little confidence in the Democrats' ability to use these latest Republican setbacks to their own advantage. Though, combined with the administration's callous and inept response to Hurricane Katrina, the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay should guarantee a Democratic takeback of Congress next year, your Webwench cautions her readers against underestimating the Democrats' lack of political fortitude and competence in embracing the Force, even when it is with them. Given the current set of political dynamics (Republicans revealed--in detailed relief--as the corrup...

This Saturday evening, Washingtonians (and visitors to our fair city) can catch the incomparable J. Scales doin' her thang at the big annual hoo-ha of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Joined by a group of smokin' hot women--including the agile Genny Jam --J will be plucking the bass strings to a tasty mix of jazz, rock, neo-soul and more. (Stick a dollah in her G-string, and ya might get her to sing--a rare treat.) Details found here. (Click!)

Louisiana's new boom town, state capital Baton Rouge, emerged from the winds and rains of Hurricane Rita without loss of life, though plenty of (tree) limbs lay at Rita's feet. You'll recall your blogstress's fears for the survivors of Katrina should Baton Rouge take a bad hit, as the Red Stick is now the staging area for virtually all the hurricane relief efforts taking place in Louisiana. Click here for a report from the Baton Rouge Advocate by Mark Bonner, Vicki Ferstel, David Mitchell and Jessica Fender.

2005 © Adele M. Stan for AFGE Inside the Red Cross staging facility in Baton Rouge. WASHINGTON, D.C.--Having recently returned from a whirlwind tour of southeastern Louisiana in its post-Katrina state, your blogstress has found it difficult to put words to the sights and smells she encountered there, and tonight proves no exception. What your écrivaine can speak of tonight is her anxiety--not a state to which she readily admits--in examining the track of Hurricane Rita and finding Baton Rouge in its path. Though not expected to take the brunt of it, Baton Rouge is expected to receive torrents of rain. What distinguishes the forecast for Baton Rouge from the more dire ones given the coastal cities? Baton Rouge is THE staging ground for relief efforts for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Red Cross operations are centralized there in a giant Wal-Mart warehouse. Most of the Border Patrol and CBP officers who serve as law enforcement for New Orleans sleep in Baton Rouge at night, in acc...

2005 © Adele M. Stan for AFGE Canal Street in New Orleans NEW ORLEANS, LA--Your blogstress wishes that she didn't have all manner of reports to file for her pesky day job, but she promises her readers that she does indeed have tales to tell. There's no cliche that can possibly describe all the things New Orleans is now. It remains, as always, an exceptional and surreal place. Only now, not in that good way. It's an empty city policed by troops of men in fatigues and hired guns in Blackwater caps. It smells like every bad smell you've ever encountered, all rolled up in one. There is no music right now.

From the incomparable J. Scales comes word of the deliverance of the members of two outstanding New Orleans bands: Zion Trinity and Mother Tongue . The members of both groups, however, have lost nearly everything, and need the help of fellow musicians and music-lovers to make it to the next phase of their recovery. To assist to Zion Trinity, buy their CD , "Eyes on Zion" (featuring the incomparable J. Scales on bass), and/or send donations to: ZION Trinity c/o Melody Friday 2258 Wild Turkey Court Decatur, GA 30035 To help their colleagues in Mother Tongue (Dorise Blackmon, Michaela Harrison, and Tanya), send your contribution to: Fundraiser for Dorise, Michaela, and Tanya c/o E. Christi Cunningham 1335 Jefferson St. NW Washington, D.C. 20011 Click here to purchase Mother Tongue's CD. From a member of Zion Trinity: September 3, 2005 Andaiye [made contact] today after many days of concern and prayer....she's dry and still at her home at 1555 Gentilly in New Orleans....

Your blogstress’s new friend, Wilson Kolb of Seattle, has begun a blog, WillieSnout , chronicling his experience “adopting” a married couple who evacuated New Orleans. Here’s Wilson: This article by Dr. Red Head really hit home. I am here in Seattle and as of last Friday I am one of those well-meaning people who has paid the rent on an apartment for a displaced family of fellow Americans made homeless by the storm. Even before reading her article I had been thinking about the issues Doc Redhead raised and, boy, could I ever use some practical ideas. Meantime, I'm making it up as I go along, and am hoping that a lot of caring and some common sense will get us through. This is a family of five who made it up here in their car. I only met two of them, a husband and wife who I'd say are in their mid-40s. I had learned about them through an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer , and met them at the Central Area Motivation Project (CAMP), which specializes in helping low-income...

Your blogstress asks her readers' forbearance in chaotic times. A family emergency and frenetic activity at her pesky day job have interfered with your ecrivaine 's blogging, and in the interim, she has received many interesting pieces from readers that she has yet to post. Don't give up on the cybertrix--not you, Leigh, nor Wilson Kolb nor the incomparable J. Scales . Your net-tete will do yas right--really. Tomorrow, your Webwench departs for Baton Rouge. Posting may be sporadic.

Well, here’s one way that his administration’s abject failure--its criminal negligence--in its lack of response to the nation’s most devastating disaster is working for it: the president promises that the next time disaster strikes, the federal government will simply take over, with a “much greater role for the armed forces.”

While the president focused his speech on what needs to happen to rebuild the Gulf Coast, he said precious little about the disaspora of Louisianans and Mississippians now dispersed throught the lower 48. Today, the city of Dallas announced it was sick of waiting for the feds to deal with the thousands of evacuees they’re housing in a convention center and an arena, so they’re raising money from private sources to get these folks situated in Dallas apartments. Is it fair to leave this massive undertaking to the efforts of a municipal government? Is it smart? How long before the people of the suburbs and the inner cities begin to resent the newcomers?

Okay, your cybertrix is calming down a bit--at least enough to grock that the president has pledged a lot of dollars and efforts to rebuilding lives and real estate in the Gulf Coast region. Amen to that. And he has admitted that discrimination causes poverty (though he did seem to imply that it was the discrimination of the bad old days that caused the poverty endemic among African-Americans in the South), not that it exists today, n'est-ce pas ?

Your blogstress is willing to bet that George W. Bush wouldn't know John Coltrane from Gary Coleman. Hence her outrage at the closing lines of the president's speech tonight. Invoking the funerals given for jazz musicians in New Orleans, he spoke condescendingly of the joyful strains played by the living on their return from the cemetary--after playing a mournful dirge on the walk between church and grave. New Orleans is still in the dirge phase, he said, but the joy is just around the corner. Yeah, right.

“This is an unprecedented response to an unprecedented disaster,” so the president just said in his address to the nation on the disaster called Katrina. He cited a litiany of efforts and supplies, measured in tons and dollars and numbers of staff, to demonstrate the breadth of his administration’s response. It is actually amazing that he is touting his response without apology up top, without recognition of his failure.

With the nation drowning in the endless tale of Katrina, the disaster that didn't have to happen, it's easy to forget that the Senate is presently going through the motions of advising the president on his pick for Supreme Court Chief Justice. Herewith, your blogstress's latest opinionating at The American Prospect Online on that very subject.

From your blogstress's favorite pen-pal, Studley Do-Right at Delusional Duck , comes this little gem : Commanders Ordered Not To Fire Gays Until War's End Santa Barbara, California--Scholars studying military personnel policy have discovered a document halting the discharge of gay soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized. source: Gay.com

From your blogstress's homegirl radio station in Newark, New Jersey, comes this story on the Web site of WBGO-FM , perhaps the best jazz station in the world: Dr. Critty Hymes has been a staff physician with the Charity Hospital in New Orleans for the past 27 years. She evacuated the city early Sunday morning just before the storm hit. From a family members home in Houston she watched in horror as her home town filled with water and thousands of people were left to fend for themselves. "I know a lot of these people were my patients from Charity Hospital." As soon as evacuees were bused to the Astrodome, she went with her medical credentials to volunteer and was stunned to be turned away at the door. "I'm a doctor. I have 27 years of experence in OBGYN and all I wanted to do was help." After visiting the Red Cross, entering her name and credientials on an internet medical volunteer database and getting a call from officials at the Astrodome , she has yet to b...

Media hit by grain of truth. Thanks to St. Jacques du Fenway for sending along the image, and to the chiron tech who wrote the screen caption for Sky News. If you can't see the image, right-click your mouse and click "Show picture."

From your blogstress's dear friend, Spirit Guide, comes this first-hand account from a clinical psychologist who has been working as a volunteer with evacuees housed in the Dallas Reunion Arena and the Dallas Civic Center. Until permission is received to call her by name, she will be known on this site as "Dr. Red Head". Your écrivaine here posts only snippets of her missive, so long and harrowing it is to read in its entirety. For the whole account, click here . Among the most mortifying aspects of Dr. Red Head's story is her tale of jockeying for position among medical professional assigned to work with the evacuees: Turf wars have already sprung up. In the name of "I know better than you do," chaos and wasted energy are multiplying. The Red Cross was initially in charge of certifying the credentials of the helping therapists. After Oklahoma City and the pretenders who arrived there, this seemed like a wonderful clearing house. Everyone who wanted to hel...

Among the many inexplicable hold-ups, tie-ups, and frig-ups committed by incompetent government responding to Hurricane Katrina comes this report, as shown on Tuesday's Countdown with Keith Olbermann , from NBC's Lisa Myers, on the contribution of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to the boondoggled evacuation of New Orleans. MYERS: One huge bottleneck in the evacuation, the New Orleans Airport. (on camera): Officials say flights were delayed while screeners and air marshals were flown in to comply with post-9/11 security requirements and then further delayed because screening machines were not working. Finally, someone at Homeland Security signed an order to allow evacuees to be screened by hand. What makes this all the more remarkable is the decision, made just a week or so before the storm, to change TSA guidelines to allow a range of small weaponry aboard passenger aircraft. In the Washington Post , Sarah Kehaulani Goo reported : An agency panel has reco...

Short of the knock-knock jokes told by a brilliant five-year-old who goes by the handle, Fire Dragon, your cybertrix's favorite form of funny is the ubiquitous light bulb joke. From our friend Bassman, via the Fabulous Frankie G. (your blogstress's partner in musical crimes), comes this latest shot 'round the internet: How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb? > > 1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed > > 2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb > needs to be changed > > 3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb > > 4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret stockpile of light bulbs > > 5. One to give a billion dollar, no-bid contract to Halliburton for > the new light bulb > > 6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, > standing on a step ladder under the banner: Light Bulb Change ...

From the Fabulous Frankie G., your blogstress's partner in musical crimes, comes this thought: The great state of Texas; The land of MILLIONS and MILLIONS of acres of luxury "ranchions" (ranch-mansions), and they cannot take in any more refugees from Louisiana. Perhaps they're thinking, who needs African-Americans when you've got Mexicans (who work much more cheaply)?

Yes, there is more going on in the world than the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but your blogstress finds it difficult to focus on anything else, for nothing illustrates the dire straits in which the whole nation finds itself better than the administration's callous and craven response to this disaster. As the water recedes, along with the bodies of New Orleans' beloved, perhaps the American people will find themselves staring the corpse of their own republic in the face. Note to the American people: This is not your country. It belongs to to the corporations and their largest shareholders. You pay the freight for the pleasure of living under their hand. And the saddest part of all this? This is still one of the best places to live on earth. So imagine the hell lived by far too many of the earth's people, all for the beast's feeding pleasure. In today's Washington Post , we find an amazing piece by Elizabeth Williamson that tells of aid offers ignored by th...

WASHINGTON, D.C.--If anyone had any doubt of the deep corruption and criminality of the Bush administration, your blogstress suggests that the reader consider this series of news stories in combination: Red Cross Turned Away from New Orleans FEMA turns back water trucks, diesel fuel; cuts emergency communications lines, says Jefferson Parish president Halliburton gets Katrina contract, hires former FEMA director Houston Finds Business Boon After Katrina Brown pushed from last job: Horse group: FEMA chief had to be `asked to resign' Via Evan Derkacz at AlterNet’s blogs , we learn of the American Red Cross being turned away from the devastated birthplace of jazz, a city awash in bodies, water-borne disease and stranded people still clinging to life. Here, direct from the Red Cross’s own Web site, we find this under the headline, Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans? * Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we ...

The incomparable J. Scales reports that Andaiye of the New Orleans singing group, Zion Trinity, has been found--safe and sound so far.

WESTFIELD, N.J.--Tonight as your blogstress ponders news of the death of William Rehnquist, chief justice of the Supreme Court, she finds it difficult to avoid stumbling on the possibility that the apocalypse may just be at hand. On the heels of the destruction of the Gulf Coast and the administration's callous response--or virtual lack thereof--the political dynamic is itself one of chaotic and unpredictable outcomes. The currents are swirling against each other, and who knows what may emerge from the chiascoros. The incomparable J. Scales writes of a musician friend still stranded in her New Orleans home, awaiting rescue. Her name is Andaiye, member of Zion Trinity , to which J. has lent her trademark basslines. J. is still awaiting word of another member of the group. Your Webwench's new friend, Mr. Furley, has recommended some somber listening that has now become your écrivaine 's soundtrack for this challenging time--two tracks by Bob Marley: "Natural Mystic...

Via DavidCorn.com we learn of possible collusion between Bush's FEMA and the religious right: The website sploid.com noticed that FEMA (which has been decimated by the Bush administration) has been directing concerned Americans to make Hurricane Katrina relief donations to Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing. At one point, Robertson's outfit was listed second on a list of suggested recipients, right under the Red Cross. I doubt Hugo Chavez will be clicking on that link. And maybe if the Mafia sets up a relief organization, FEMA will endorse it as well.

For those of her readers perplexed by the slow response of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the disaster on the Gulf Coast, your blogstress suggests a look at a prescient piece of journalism done nearly a year ago by Jon Elliston in the Orlando Weekly. In his article, Disaster in the Making , Elliston reported: [L]ong before this hurricane season, some emergency managers inside and outside of government started sounding an alarm that still rings loudly. Bush administration policy changes and budget cuts, they say, are sapping FEMA's long-term ability to cushion the blow of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornados, wildfires and other natural disasters. Among emergency specialists, "mitigation" – measures taken in advance to minimize damage caused by natural disasters – is a crucial part of the strategy to save lives and cut recovery costs. But since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed a...

Although there is no shortage of Bush administraton shenanigans on which to report, your blogstress finds it impossible to do in the wake of Katrina's gruesome destruction of the birthplace of jazz. Jazz is not just a form of music, it's a kind of people--of which the people of New Orleans are the progenitor. People descended from a blend of Yoruban Africans and American Indians--with a dash of French European--gave us our national classical music, however neglected and unappreciated by its nation it may be. Today those people are drowning in the neglect of a government that looked away from their imminent doom, just as it has turned its back on nurturing the art form their ancestors gave us. Shame on us--all of us. And let the dirge begin.