Some much needed skepticism

I wasn't going to put up anything about Katrina (Kogelman, my next door neighbour when I was 6), but I found this article at the Boston Globe which I thought was pretty essential, especially since pundits have been crapping on about the Lord of the Flies even before establishing if the stories of looting, rapes and gunfire are true or not. (I'm sure there was crime, of course, but as the Globe article points out, "there are five murders there a week in ''normal" times, among the highest per capita rates in the country".) For those of you who can't be arsed getting a free Globe subscription, here's the most relevant bit:

Are these scholars the equivalent of Donald Rumsfeld when he said television created the appearance of looting in post-invasion Baghdad by running and re-running the same footage of one man stealing an urn? It's possible, but already, as journalists like Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune and Matt Welch of Reason magazine, have pointed out, many widely reported rumors have proved false or are at least unconfirmed.

''We don't have any substantiated rapes," the New Orleans Police superintendent Edwin Compass told the British newspaper The Guardian, speaking of the situation at the Superdome. Nor have any bodies of victims of foul play turned up there. The Federal Aviation Administration and military officials have cast doubt on the story of the rescue helicopter that came under fire outside Kenner Memorial Hospital on Aug. 31.

Anyway, continuing this blog's committment to a total lack of originality, here's two obligatory Katrina links.



The Legendary K.O., George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People
I love this. It works as music, it works as poetry, it works as politics, it works as storytelling.




Threadless will donate $10 US for every $10 "Regrowth: Katrina" t-shirt bought. If you're Australian like me it works out at about $23 to buy the shirt and have it posted to you, but it's a nice shirt. (They were donating $20 up to a limit of $50,000, but reached it in 2 days! Told you it was a nice shirt.)