Finding Vs. Looting In New Orleans

This issue came up last night on Hardball. . .what is the difference between looting and surviving? Are the rules of engagement for police different for food and water than luxury items? What if you take five gallons of fresh water from a store? A high-def TV? Ana Marie Cox in her extremely popular and often funny blog, Wonkette may have been the first person to point out these two similar (differing, really, by one critical word) wire stories.

The AP and AFP have a different take on it. It depends what color you are. See the captions below. People on boards and blogs are outraged at the AP. . .and yet, it is the AFP wire that gives the whites the free pass. I don't think most of us would disagree they were all looters?


Tue Aug 30,11:31 AM ET

A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Flood waters continue to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did extensive damage when it made landfall on Monday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Tue Aug 30, 3:47 AM ET

Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.(AFP/Getty Images/Chris Graythen)

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Jerry Garcia, August 1942-August 1995

I can't really let the month of August go by without mentioning that it was ten years ago this month that Jerry Garcia died. Some quotes from Jed:



"Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. "

"For me, the lame part of the Sixties was the political part, the social part. The real part was the spiritual part. "

"I'm shopping around for something to do that no one will like. "

"Nobody stopped thinking about those psychedelic experiences. Once you've been to some of those places, you think, 'How can I get back there again but make it a little easier on myself?' "

"Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. "

"It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness. "

"I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves."

"What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place. "

Update On The Human Zoo In London

The "human zoo" exhibit continued in London until yesterday, provoking amused comments from many visitors, including many expressing disappointment that the the homo sapiens were partly clothed and were not breeding.

The three male and five female Homo sapiens were separated from their primate cousins by an electric fence. The human zoo volunteers have diverse interests, from a chemist hoping to raise awareness about apes to a self-described actor/model and fitness enthusiast.

Chemist Tom Mahoney, 26, decided to participate after his friend sent him an e-mail about the contest as a joke. Anything that draws attention to apes, he said, has his support.

"A lot of people think humans are above other animals," he said. "When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that special."

Actor Brendan Carr, 25, won his place by submitting a spot of anthropomorphic verse: "I'm funky like a monkey and as cool as a cat, talk more than a parrot, up all night like a bat."

"You can tell why some people came here, like the big muscly men who clearly like parading around in thongs," said Damien Largey, 23.



The human captives were kept well-fed and watered by zoo staff, who took care to ensure they did not grow bored. A supply of board games was on hand, and some said they were looking forward to tuning into the England-Australia cricket match on the radio.

Pointing at one heavily muscled and gleaming body on the ledge, a visitor joked that the zoo should consider a breeding program.

Unlike the zoo's non-human inhabitants, they are allowed to go home each night at closing time. The event runs until Monday.


Peter Bohn, 42, saw the "animals" juggling, he stopped and had a good laugh. "It's hilarious," he said. "It turns everything upside down. It makes you think about the humans in relation to the animals."

Melissa Wecker, 21, was disappointed that the humans were wearing swimsuits beneath their fig leaves. "They're not doing anything. It looked lots better on the news," she complained.
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Today In History: Cleopatra Commits Suicide

click image of Caesar & Cleopatra to enlarge

On August 30, 30 B.C. Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, killed herself after the defeat of her forces against Octavian (future first emperor of Rome).

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F*** You, Headmaster! - Language Tolerance In The U.K.

Today, from the London Daily Mail. Click here to read the entire story.


A secondary school is to allow pupils to swear at teachers - as long as they don't do so more than five times in a lesson. A running tally of how many times the f-word has been used will be kept on the board. If a class goes over the limit, they will be 'spoken' to at the end of the lesson.

The astonishing policy, which the school says will improve the behaviour of pupils, was condemned by parents' groups and MPs yesterday. They warned it would backfire.

Parents were advised of the plan, which comes into effect when term starts next week, in a letter from the Weavers School in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.

"Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score," he wrote in the letter. . .

Emmett Till Was Murdered Fifty Years Ago Today -- Songs by Bob Dylan & Phil Ochs

Fifty years ago, on Aug. 28, 1955, Emmett Till, an African-American teenager from Chicago was abducted from his uncle's home in Money, Mississippi, by two white men.

He had allegedly whistled at a white woman. He was found in a river, brutally murdered three days later.

The men charged with Till's murder—Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam—were acquitted at trial.

They later confessed in a magazine article to beating and shooting Till .

Emmett Till's body was displayed in an open casket; it had been monstrously brutalized. The contrast with the handsome kid was appalling. Songs (like the two below, written a few years later, in the early 60's), and plays and articles focused on the death of Till and what it symbolized about Missisippi, the south, and America in general... This had to be one of the early moments that crystalized the civil rights movement.

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Too Many Martyrs
by Phil Ochs

In the state of Mississippi many years ago
A boy of 14 years got a taste of southern law
He saw his friend a hanging and his color was his crime
And the blood upon his jacket left a brand upon his mind


CHORUS:
Too many martyrs and too many dead
Too many lies too many empty words were said
Too many times for too many angry men
Oh let it never be again

His name was Medgar Evers and he walked his road alone
Like Emmett Till and thousands more whose names we'll never know
They tried to burn his home and they beat him to the ground
But deep inside they both knew what it took to bring him down

Chorus

The killer waited by his home hidden by the night
As Evers stepped out from his car into the rifle sight
he slowly squeezed the trigger, the bullet left his side
It struck the heart of every man when Evers fell and died.

Chorus

And they laid him in his grave while the bugle sounded clear
laid him in his grave when the victory was near
While we waited for the future for freedom through the land (*)
The country gained a killer and the country lost a man

Chorus
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan

'Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago walked through a Southern door.
This boy's fateful tragedy you should all remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I disremember what.
They tortured him and did some things too evil to repeat.
There was screamin' sounds inside the barn, there was laughin' sounds out
on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a blood red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screamin' pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it was no lie,
Was just for the fun of killing him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful
crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the mornin' papers but I could not bear
To see the smiling brothers walking down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it
must refuse to flow,
For you'd let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we give all we could give,
We'd make this great land of ours a greater place to live.
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The Human Zoo, Or, I Am An Admitted Homo Sapien

Homo sapiens, London Zoo's newest exhibit are seen in their enclosure in London, Thursday Aug.25, 2005. "The four day exhibit made up of volunteers runs from 26-29 August and highlights the spread of earth's most adaptable species."

Naturally, they were hot-looking, buff homo sapiens in bathing suits, thongs, and fig leaves.
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Painting: Land Ho!: Alien Landing Party No. 2

click painting to enlarge...

I created the background, sky, and mountains in Terragen--an application I mightily struggle with. The band of aliens I created for a poster I did for a department at my office. The flying disc is a scan I made a couple of years ago of the "classic" UFO flying saucer.

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More Wisdon From Rev. Pat Robertson

"Lord, give us righteous judges who will not try to legislate and dominate this society. Take control, Lord! We ask for additional vacancies on the court."

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians."

"Well, I totally concur." [Agreeing, after the Sept. 11 attacks, wit Jerry Falwell, who said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say: "You helped this happen." ]

"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."

"That was never in the Constitution, however much the liberals laugh at me for saying it, they know good and well it was never in the Constitution! Such language only appeared in the constitution of the Communist Soviet Union." [re: the constitutional separation of church and state]

"Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up" [on "nuking" the State Department]

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More All This Is That Navel Gazing

This chart shows which continents All This Is That readers hail from. . . at least over the last two days.
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The Reverend Robertson: "I Didn't Say That." "Oh Wait. I Did. But I Didn't Really Mean It."

Reverend Robertson has this week either broken or advocated breaking two of the ten commandments--so far. And those are just two he broke openly. . .there's no telling what goes on behind closed doors, considering the kind of half-witted, hateful gibberish he's willing to talk about publicly.

Facing a firestorm of excoriating criticism and abuse from the liberals, middle-of-the-roaders, and his fellow evangelical Christians, conservative broadcaster Pat Robertson apologized Wednesday for calling for the assassination of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

The apology could well mean that the 700 Club is being hit hard in the collection plate.

Not only did he apologize, he initially denied ever using the word "assassinate."

On his television program, Reverend Robertson said his words had been misinterpreted by The AP; he never spoke of assassination. "I said our Special Forces should 'take him out,' " Mr. Robertson told his audience on "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network. " 'Take him out' could be a number of things, including kidnapping."

The video of Monday's 700 club, available on hundreds of internet sites, put the lie to this whopper. The Reverend can be clearly seen and heard: ". . .if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

The World Evangelical Alliance issued a statement saying: "Robertson does not speak for evangelical Christians. We believe in justice and the protection of human rights of all people, including the life of President Chávez."


Following are a few of the other public comments Rev. Robertson has made in the last few years:

''I think (federal judges) are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together. ... The gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than, than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.''

''When lawlessness is abroad in this land, the same thing will happen here that happened in Nazi Germany. Many of those people involved in Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals -- the two seem to go together.''

''I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face.''

"[widespread gay activity] will bring about terrorist bombs. It'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.''

"[the] 'feminist agenda. . .is not about equal rights for women. . .it is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.''

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poem: Tetuan - "No Paranoia, My Friend"

The moon's in tune,
Stars turn on
And clouds drape themselves
Around the sky.

Terra cotta sebsis sizzle
With Rif Mountain leaf.
The muzzein and the night's prayers
Buzz in the mosque.

Fog drifts into the room.
His anxious heart echoes
The drumbeats from the medina
As his brain unfolds.

A circle of swallows
Spins outside the window.
The air thickens with fiction
And sorcery.
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