Wednesday, November 16, 2005

And the Horror Continues

It took me a minute, as I was reading Pandagon, to process the words:
The continuing Shame of America. No respect for the poor and disenfranchised, even when you're dead.

On Anderson Cooper 360 last night there was a report that just makes you sick. I don't know how the clowns in the Bush Admin thought they could convince the public that they found all the bodies after this disaster. When they called off the search in October, there was such an outcry that the effort continued, but folks are coming home and finding the corpses of loved ones rotting in homes. (CNN):
The official search-and-rescue effort was called off October 3, but there was such a backlash, crews resumed searching demolished neighborhoods. They have cleared areas zip code by zip code.

There was no joy for Paul Murphy (ph) in this homecoming. When he walked into his house in New Orleans' Ninth Ward last month for the first time since Katrina, it was shock and anger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I'm thinking that, OK, I was going to come and salvage a few pictures or something. And I walk in here. I found my grandma on the floor dead.

DORNIN: Since November 1, 10 bodies have been found in the ruins of the Ninth Ward. The last area, known as the Lower Ninth, will open to residents December 1. Coroner Frank Minyard worries about what people will find.

(on camera): You're fully expecting that more bodies will come in once they open the Ninth Ward?

FRANK MINYARD, ORLEANS PARISH CORONER: Yes. And I think it's -- it's going to come in for a good while. There's so much rubbish around that they might find people in the rubbish. DORNIN (voice-over): They already have. And there are still many bodies left unidentified and unclaimed.

MINYARD: We have 150 autopsies left to do, all on unidentified people. Hopefully, that -- that will help us identify that person, if we can find a pacemaker or an artificial hip or something. Then we're into DNA.

DORNIN: Susan Eaton (ph) asked if she could send a DNA sample and was told DNA samples were not being accepted. Nearly 80 days after Katrina, not one DNA test has been done.

I want to cry, and throw up, and send more money. I cannot imagine why this would be this way in our country, today.

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