BV Buzz news on Kelly Price
 

I hope everyone who will be affected by Rita will be OK. I'm still praying for those affected by Katrina.
------------
Vocalist Kelly Price barely escaped the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. The song stylist was in New Orleans taping an appearance for 'Gospel Dream,' the 'American Idol'-like reality series she judges for the Gospel Music Channel.

"My husband and I could not get out of the city because there were no flights, every rental car had been taken, no buses, no trains -- having money meant nothing. You couldn't buy or sell anything. Even if you had a car, if you didn't have gas you were out of it. Gas wasn't available for at least 100 miles outside of New Orleans," explained Price.

The Atlanta-based artist thanks New Orleans minister Bishop Darryl Brister for making her escape from the city possible. Only a few months ago, Price had sung during a revival at Brister's Beacon Light International Baptist Cathedral, which is now under water.

"It was Sunday morning, and we had already received instructions, there were survival instructions that the hotel had slipped under every occupied room on what to do when the winds got so high they busted your windows open. They anticipated that! We were running water in bathtubs and trying to get our personals and essentials together," she remembered.

Price continued: "The Lord really showed us what it meant to have favor on that weekend! The Lord touched the heart of the man of God, and he called us on Sunday morning and he told us, 'Get your things together and meet me in the lobby of your hotel in 15 minutes.' He put the keys of one of his personal vehicles in our hands and he told my husband, 'Take your wife and get out of the city.' "

Price said their journey from New Orleans to Atlanta wasn't an easy one. "Literally, by the time we got on the road, we were dodging tornados. We had to pull over in Mobile, Ala. and sit for a while because there were three tornados on three different sides of us. The National Weather Service interrupted all radio and said that if you were in a car, to ditch your car and go find a hole and get in it if you couldn't find a building and get in a closet and away from windows. A drive that normally would have taken seven hours took sixteen hours because of evacuation traffic, but God was really merciful to us," said Price.

The singer hopes that fellow hurricane survivors will take this opportunity to strengthen their relationship with God. "They need to know they were spared for a reason. God could have allowed them to perish but He didn't," she said. "My message to the people is that God has not forgotten you! Know and understand that in everything we are to give thanks. There is a greatness that I think is going to come on the back end of this!"

Yes, I think it did rain there last night. Before I left work yesterday it rained off and on most of the day.


Okay. Brister helped Kelly, but what about his CHURCH MEMBERS? His POOR members? Many of them were stuck at the convention center, at their homes...

Don't get me started about the ineffectiveness of the Black choich (I meant to spell it that way) in the NO during this disaster. :rolleyes:

Wonderful, I'm glad you all are okay.

It took my sister and her family over 6 hours to get from SL to here. :o

Honeykiss, don't be embarrassed you're okay. I kind of figured so after I read the whole post when you said, "He did right to withold his name." However, sometimes people don't read the entire post and just scan over them. So while making sure that we were on the same page, I wanted to clarify it for anyone who may have misinterpreted it.;)

Soror Wonderful I left Houston Wednesday around 3 and made it to BR around 11:30 that night. I hate that I may have to fight that traffic Monday or Tuesday if Fort Bend says school is back in Tuesday. I'm happy to hear that you are doing ok.

I'm in the same area and left Thursday morning @ 3 am..didn't make it home (Dallas) until 9 am Friday morning..30 hours of driving..gas so scarce until we got to College Station..but I'm safe..thanks for everyone who has prayed and been concern!!

Girl, I live in College Station! If I had known you were on the road, you could've crashed with me. Glad to know you're safe!

when i first started my trip at a litle bit before 10:00 p.m. on wed., it took me 4 freakin' hours to drive about 10 miles. one of my l.s. and her parents got me through downtown (which was a ghost town) onto another freeway and i met them at their house in spring which is a suburb NE of houston. i had enough time to use the bathroom and eat a sandwich then we headed out for dallas. i got to my parents' house at about 7:40 thursday night! i am absolutely DREADING the drive back!!

Well now thats is over we are all okay. Rita had nothing on Katrina. All of you who left the Houston area, they are letting people in on a schedule so please refer to it. No school until Wen. :D

www.chron.com

Chief of Police resigned: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ew_orleans_hk2

Clarence Page on what Katrina and Rita may have exposed
 

Interesting perspective from a moderate thinker. I love Page and William Raspberry, BTW.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...l=chi-news-col
Poverty IQ: Po' vs. broke
How do you cure loss of hope and a poverty of optimism?
Clarence Page
Advertisement



September 28, 2005

WASHINGTON -- I'm delighted to hear people jawboning about poverty again, even if it took a couple of hurricanes to get us to do it. But sometimes I wonder how many people know what poverty is.

Basically, poverty is a profound lack of money.

Or, as my father used to put it, "po'," which apparently meant that you were too poor to afford the "O" or the "R."

"Are we po'?" I asked the old man.

"Naw," said the principal breadwinner of our household. "We're not po'. We're just broke."

What was the difference?

"Po' folks don't know when they're gonna eat again," he said. "I have a job. When I get paid, I won't be broke no mo'."

For this we were so thankful that, when the Sunday school plate was passed for a "missionary offering," my parents always reminded me to drop in something "to help the po'."

I must have been in college before I discovered that, according to sociologists, our family was "the po'"! And yet, we were rich in spirit.

I might not have had hole-free socks to wear to school every day, but I went to school so that, as Mom said, "someday you can buy yo' own socks."

I had loving, hard-working and dependable parents at home, which meant I was blessed. We had an optimism about our future that kept us from feeling poor.

Optimism or a lack of it separates the "po'," the long-term poor, from those who are "just broke."

President Lyndon B. Johnson declared "unconditional war on poverty in America" in the 1960s. Two decades later President Ronald Reagan ridiculed Johnson's challenge with, "Poverty won."

Fortunately, Reagan was wrong. We've won many victories, thanks to some anti-poverty reforms from both political parties, but poverty doesn't quit.

The poor declined sharply as a percentage of the population from 22.4 percent in 1959 to a low of 11.1 percent in 1973, according to the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan. After a few years of minor fluctuations, the poverty rate rose steadily in the 1980s to 15.1 percent in 1993. Poverty then declined to 11.3 percent by 2000. Since then it has risen to 12.7 percent in 2004, according to the most recent figures available.

Overall, we've made a lot of progress against poverty since the 1960s, thanks to a combination of government and private-sector reforms. The reforms include new job and education opportunities for blacks and other minorities, increased help for the elderly and the Earned Income Tax Credit, a break supported by the right and the left that effectively gave an income raise to low-wage earners.

Yet, after Hurricane Katrina made America's usually invisible poor visible again, I've heard people repeat Reagan's glib pronouncement, as if Americans fighting poverty had not scored any victories at all. We need to give ourselves more credit than that.

The poverty challenges that we face now are not quite the same as those we have faced in the past. What program, public or private, can prevent those who are merely "broke" from sliding into the predicament of becoming long-term poor folks?

Folks on the left want government to spend more time and money on our urban poor. Folks on the right want the poor to produce fewer out-of-wedlock babies. As Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review, has suggested, these do not have to be opposing values. In a new anti-poverty war, such values could be the makings of a grand left-right coalition of the willing.

We have needs.

- We need to set realistic goals for further progress in liberating the poor from dependency and find realistic ways to achieve those goals.

- We need to avoid stereotyping all of the poor as looters, snipers, drug addicts and out-of-wedlock welfare cheats.

- We need to give special attention to the way our young males of all races are failing academically and economically at a faster rate than young females.

- We need to encourage teachers, preachers, social workers, neighborhood associations and others who have worked directly and effectively with teenagers and their families.

We who have succeeded in life need to be divinely dissatisfied with tax breaks and other government policies that widen our rich-poor divide to a canyon that resembles a Third World country. And we African-Americans, I might add, need to transfer some of our alarm about the racial divide, which has narrowed in recent years, over to the class divide, which has widened between the haves and have-nots within our own communities.

Then maybe the poor won't have to be so po' no mo'.

----------

Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board. E-mail: cptime@aol.com


Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

CLawwwwwwdHammmmercy!!!! Do I need to go hit the slots???

Katrina Evacuee Wins $1.6 Million

OPELOUSAS, La. - After more than a month of living with dozens of displaced relatives in Opelousas, Jacquelyn Sherman, an evacuee from New Orleans, told her niece she was depressed.

That all changed when she won $1.6 million — before taxes — playing a slot machine at Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino.

"When it happened, I didn't know what was going on," Sherman said. "I had just put in my $20 in the "Wheel of Fortune" machine when it hit. My feeling about this win is better than being blessed. Thank you, Lord."....


entire article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051006/...na_millionaire

GOOD FOR HER!

Let me do my happy dance for her, 'cause I'm convinced - my blessing is on the WAY!

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cartoon/1244.gif

ETA: changed my happy dance!

In Atlanta, the local celebrites are throwing concerts, and letting everyone from the affected areas in free. I know a lot of people are taking advantage of some of the free stuff that is being offered to the real victims. Some people have graduated from those states but still have thier ids from those states and pretending to be a victim, just to get free stuff. That is horrible. :(

Council of Presidents of the National Pan-Hellenic Council

A joint statement to President George W. Bush Members of Congress of
the
United States of America And our fellow Americans

From the Council of Presidents of the National Pan-Hellenic Council

Call for Independent Katrina Commission and "Marshall Plan" Inclusion
of
Minorities

(Washington, D.C.) Oct. 17-On behalf of the nearly two-million members
and
their respective families we represent, we, the presidents of the
nation's
leading African-American Greek-Lettered organizations, are happy to see
that
the president took new steps after delivering his address from New
Orleans
to the nation. However, we believe it is time for the country to find
out
really what happened in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It is time that
we
put the very same effort in this query as we did in the 9/11
attack-with a
truly bipartisan and independent commission. We know that Congress has
oversight duties, but nowhere better was that performed when it used
its
authority to create the 9/11 Commission.

The president, the governors of Mississippi and Louisiana, and the
mayors of
local towns have many answers to provide, but the questions and probe
must
be genuine with no stone left unturned. This is not a Democratic,
Republican, or Independent problem; this is an American problem that
rises
above partisanship, cover-ups, and attempts to avoid what many expect
to be
embarrassment on all sides of the political spectrum.

Every poll taken by legitimate and respected news and research agencies
shows that approximately 75 percent of Americans (black and white; rich
and
poor; Democrat and Republican) want this 9/11-type commission. To
provide a
similar commission in this instance as in the 9/11 situation would go a
long
way in supporting the president's claim that the response and review of
this
country's worst natural disaster is truly color-blind. Most African
Americans believe if the majority of the evacuees were white Americans,
the
response would have been quicker and there would have already been
empanelled a 9/11-type commission.

Whenever we have had national crises or emergencies, the will of the
people
of this great nation has always been respected. President Bush and the
Congress should do no less this time. For example:

-In the 60s, we had two major commissions: the Warren Commission
(formally
called the U.S. Commission to Report upon the Assassination of
President
John F. Kennedy), led by then Chief Justice of the United States Earl
Warren, and the Kerner Commission (formally called the National
Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders), led by then Illinois Governor Otto
Kerner.
President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Commission on July 28, 1967,
while
rioting was still underway, and charged it with analyzing the specific
triggers for the 1965-67 riots in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Newark;
with
determining the deeper causes of the worsening racial climate; and with
identifying potential remedies.

-In the 70s, we had Watergate and all of the transparency that resulted
from
a public magnifying glass on that crisis with true bipartisan review.


-In the 80s, we had the Iran-contra scandal which was at full steam
when
President Ronald Reagan took it upon himself to appoint the Tower
Commission
(formally called the Presidential Special Review Board) to investigate
the
scandal of illegal arms-for-hostages sales.

-Most recently, of course, we had the 9/11 Commission (formally called
The
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States), the
most
expansive independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional
legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002.
It
provided the most full and complete account of the circumstances
surrounding
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for
and the
immediate response to the attacks, and provided recommendations
designed to
guard against future attacks.

Even Republicans have wondered aloud why the White House and certain
factions in Congress have resisted a 9/11-type commission. David
Gergen, a
top advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bill Clinton,
surmised on
CNN after the president's live Jackson Square speech:

". frankly, there's very little accountability here about what
happened. I
mean looking . to a congressional investigation it doesn't come
anywhere
close to what the 9/11 commission did which was very bipartisan, very
fair
and as a result we got one of the best reports we've ever had about an
investigation inside the -- what happened inside of government why we
weren't ready. It's surprising to me the White House continues to
resist
something similar to a 9/11 Commission."

It is surprising to all Americans who want a just and fair exercise in
what
happened and why.

Many of our family members and friends have been terribly hurt and
impacted
by the storm and the aftermath in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and
even
some in Florida. Many have lost homes and many have had traumatic
experiences while staying behind to help those who couldn't help
themselves.
Included among these are a dean of students who stayed with hundreds of
students in a dorm while dodging floating bodies in high water and one
of
our members who is a nurse at Charity Hospital who had to watch
patients
suffer in the dark and feed fellow medical personnel intravenously to
stay
alive while awaiting food and water.

Our organizations have always been at the forefront of national issues
affecting mankind. Whether it was with Thurgood Marshall leading the
effort
in Brown v. Board of Education to eradicate racism and discrimination
in
American society, with Martin Luther King Jr. working to end poverty
and
promote equal access to the ballot box, or whether it was sending
African-American men and women off to fight for the "American Way" in
every
war since World War I through the current conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan,
our groups have never turned away from a crisis. That is why we step
up and
call for a Katrina Commission inquiry now and ask every similar
organization
to make the same plea to our Congressional representatives and the
Executive
Branch of our government.

We also call for an inclusive rebuilding effort of the Gulf Coast and
New
Orleans. This will take time, a lot of money, and must include
African-American and other minority groups participation at all levels:
from
the morticians used to prepare the deceased victims for dignified
burials to
construction companies who will build the "New New Orleans," to the
telecommunications firms that will re-link the gulf coast towns to the
rest
of the world.

In June of 1947, Europe was still devastated by war when Secretary of
State
George C. Marshall spoke at Harvard University and outlined what would
become known as the "Marshall Plan." It took six years (to 1953) for
the
plan to work, and after the United States pumped in $13 billion, Europe
was
back on its feet again. No less of a commitment should be done here and
now.


Further, that the Katrina aftermath tore off the mask of poverty that
still
exists in poor and mostly colored communities, it is essential that
these
communities are a part of the rebuilding effort to help eradicate the
poverty that claimed so many lives when the storm and the flooding
happened.
We should hire these citizens at prevailing wages, not slave wages. We
should offer minority-owned businesses (small and large) real,
meaningful
contracts, not piecemeal work to satisfy the look of inclusion.

Like the Marshall Plan, the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf
Coast
will benefit the American economy. The $200 billion-plus dollars (some
already appropriated by Congress) will be used to buy goods from all
over
the United States. We say, and rightfully demand, that those who need
the
work and the contracts get their share. We call on Congress and the
president and the governors and local officials to ensure this happens.

We call on the president and the Congress to quickly authorize a
national
independent commission just as it did in the 9/11 attack and a plan
that
authorizes full and equitable participation in the rebuilding of the
storm-damaged communities. Anything less than that would be
un-American.

The leaders and their organizations undersigned hereon support and
endorse
this call for action:


Linda M. White of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.


Darryl R. Matthews, Sr. of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.


Louise A. Rice of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.


Barbara C. Moore of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.


Steve T. Birdine of Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc.


Samuel C. Hamilton of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.


Mynora J. Bryant of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.


Paul L. Griffin of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.


George H. Grace of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.

FEMA Officials to Discuss Big Easy Rebuilding at Rainbow/PUSH Confab
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives this week will discuss with Rainbow/PUSH the role of blacks and disadvantaged people in rebuilding the Gulf Coast, a region still struggling to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath.

The FEMA presentation will be part of a three-day Rainbow/PUSH Creating Opportunity Conference in Atlanta, salted for today through Friday, November 5th. The theme this year is “Leveling the Playing Field in Civic and Economic Life."

read the rest here:
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site....wnews/fema1103

Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke

Will anyone be watching? I need to get HBO.:o I am looking forward to seeing it. Another article I read that interviewed New Orleans natives who saw it last night, one native said it was cleansing for her to see it.

Premieres in 2 parts on August 21 and August 22
All 4 hours on August 29

From an email:

Many of you will watch Spike Lee's documentary on HBO tomorrow night. Please remember that for many, both the images and the experience was real. The rate of depression and suicide is at an all-time high in the City. Even those such as myself who suffered minor to no loss of personal property or employment are still affected in some manner.

The upcoming period of continued observances is causing tremendous anxiety for all in some form or another, but there can be no "Katrina fatigue" here if there is to be a full recovery.

On Aug. 29, bells will ring all over the Gulf Coast in remembrance of the tremendous loss of life and devastation to property. Thanks for remembering us in your own way.



For Whom the Bell Tolls, is taken from "Meditation XVII" of Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, by John Donne

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Let me get my tissue ready while I set the VCR because I KNOW that I will be crying harder than I did after watching the Notebook. Let me not forget my aspirin because my head gets to hurting when I cry too hard.

Katrina stories + Spike Lee joint = deep = RD crying like a baby....

I can't wait to see this as well. They were talking about it on the TJMS the onther day when they interviewed Spike, and they were all saying how good it was. I just have to remember that part 2 comes on tomorrow...I need to set a reminder. It is going to be hard to watch this, because it was hard watching it while it was happening, and I remembered that it got to a point where I just couldn't watch anymore.....but I know Spike did this justice.

I gave away my ticket for last week's premiere. I'm DVRing the episodes. I am NOT ready to watch it.

Watching it now...

Me too. I don't know if I can watch it. Don't know if I can take that type of crying right now.

I'm only 25 minutes in and I'm crying already....

And I thought I was sensitive...it's definitely educational...

Educational yes, emotional yes but I'm ticked off. Please don't show the babies and bodies or I will flip out. :( :mad: (those are my thoughts for right now)

OMG....looking at the bodies laying in the water...that broke me...

Two sad stories...the son with the elderly mother who died in his presence...& the other one w/ the kids who's mom needed oxygen and who died and now they are motherless...

I cried SOOOOO hard when I saw that girl hanging from the ceiling, waiting to be rescued. Knowing my own fear, I felt the terror that she had....

Sorry, I can't share too many sentences at once. I'm unstable right now.

ETA: I'm have overcome sadness and have entered anger. In fact, it's teetering on rage.....

(((Garland Robinette))) It's good to see him....

Air Force One looks like an apartment!! :eek:

That N.O. 'hood attitude! Gotta Love IT!

Those who know me know ALL about that attitude! :D

ETA: Dead bodies.... sad again.... :(

This was very hard to watch.
 

I agree. This is BEYOND sadness. This is anger. :mad: Four days??? I can't imagine! :(

Acts I & II have brought me through EVERY emotion that one can experience. This documentary is..... unexplainable. I appreciate Spike Lee SO much for this. He has captured so many of the emotions felt by those affected. He has also done a good job of attempting to present all sides of the story. I wanted to turn this off SOOOOOO many times and have cried so many tears, but I had to watch it.

Aside from hearing ol' girl buck on the airport security, there were a few other highlights tha made me throw my head back in laughter:

* When Michael Knight (9th Ward resident) said they dropped water on his boat like they were trying to sink it. He said, "I bet I won't ask no mo'!"

* Fred (Johnson?) stating "I ain't 'bout that leavin'!"

* "Swamp Thing" talking about he had never seen any boats in the projects He said that the boats were looking like cars.

Can't wait for Acts III & IV.

Ditto what everyone has said...
 

I, like many, was unsure of whether or not I wanted to watch the documentary. Even though it didn't affect me "directly", it affected so many of my family members. In a way, it's like a personal 9/11 (my best friend can't/won't watch 9/11 movies...too personal for *her*...that's Katrina for *me*). But, I'm glad I tuned in. I couldn't watch the dead bodies montage near the end; I still can't stomach that (but, it needed to be shown). As someone mentioned earlier, Spike *did* do justice by this horrific event. I will be watching the conclusion Tuesday night, and recording it next Tuesday on the 1st anniversary.

(ETA: How ironic that, as I'm watching, there's a thunderstorm here in Monroe. :( )

i agree with everything you've said.

you know, i talked mad isht afterwards about the violence and the looting. this is the first time i've heard about the police chief trumping up the situation. and after really looking and hearing what those people of all races had to say, i'm like "shiiii you want some jordans, that is the LEAST of worries."

i knew about the slow response and i knew about the ball being dropped but watching this made it all too real. my eyes hurt right now from crying.

one of my colleagues at work is a former N.O. resident and just 2 weeks ago, he was telling me about hurricane betsy and about the levees being blown up and to see it all on screen is like "whoa!"

can you tell i'm having a hard time putting what i watched into words right now?

literally, i wanted to vomit during the dead bodies montage. also, i wanted to vomit, LITER-EFFIN-ALLY when watching the part about the federal govt. response to everything.

oh, and the black man who came in and handled the biz (i can't remember his name) had me cheering! "Drop those cotdam weapons!" CLASSIC

I watched the first hour. I went through emotions as well. Michael Knight brought a smile to my face. While I did shed some tears, overall this made me PISSED off that our own American people were treated like this. :mad: I am glad there will be no Bush supporters at work tomorrow because y'all might hear about an angry black woman in Syracuse. This would come frm my coworker who love to argue about 'racial' issues with me.

Lt General Honore

I watched it at a Soror's house tonight and my word, my word. I watched most of the coverage last year but this all at once took the coverage beyond another level.

Spike Lee, you did a phenomenal job putting this together.

I was outraged at some parts. OUTRAGED!!!!:mad: :( :mad:

He really did. Kudos Spike for showing what happened in an unbiased manner.

Even though for the first hour I was interrupted by my crazy neighbor with her million issues, I'm glad I got to see what I did. Like RedefinedDiva said, I wanted to turn so many times, but I couldn't. I was sad and angry at the same time. There are just no words. I loved the woman at the end though!

Hi All

Me and Mr. Starfish watched it last night...we both were beyond words. When they were showing the part about the people being put on planes and not know where they were going I thought this is slavery in 2006 with the splitting of the family units again. Then when M. E Dyson came on and said it and put it into words where I could not. People are still scattered, not knowing where their loved ones are. There are bodies waiting to be identified. This should not have happened on American soil.

When they showed Condi getting her shopping on I almost died...she will never live that down.:mad:

Lt. General Honore is the MAN! What I wanted to know were those soldiers actually going to shoot the people? (figuratively speaking). These are Americans!!!WTH were you thinking man?

And people wonder why Kanye said what he said....:eek:


This cannot ever happen again. EVER!


Can we exile Bush & Co after his azz gets out of office? Like a deserted island in the middle of nowhere?

Sistergreek,
I feel the same way. My husband, mom and I were watching it together and just remembering what frame of mind we all were in last year. It seems like it just happened yesterday, especially if you go to the East and lower 9th ward. I have a physical reminder of just how long ago Katrina was, which is my baby boy. For those of you from New Orleans, I was in Metairie at East Jefferson Hospital on strict bedrest (had been there since June 10th) and rode out the storm there with my husband and 2yr old son. The Thursday after the storm I was evacuated to Baton Rouge and had him at Womans Hospital exactly two weeks after the storm. So, he is my "Katrina Baby". I just say this because I do love my city and I am BLESSED that all of my family were found safe and sound. Ya'll (my southern drawl) we can never forget what happened here. Too many times I have read how people think that everything is moving along just because we did have Mardi Gras and it's not(at least not in the neighborhoods, there are some people back though). You can still see the water lines on the houses and some busy streets are quiet. Rebuilding is still an issue,because people haven't been given the funds they need, but that's another issue all together. Those of you that do watch all the documentaries, and there will be plenty as the anniversary approaches, just keep us and everyone that was affected in your prayers.

Sistergreek,
I feel the same way. My husband, mom and I were watching it together and just remembering what frame of mind we all were in last year. It seems like it just happened yesterday, especially if you go to the East and lower 9th ward. I have a physical reminder of just how long ago Katrina was, which is my baby boy. For those of you from New Orleans, I was in Metairie at East Jefferson Hospital on strict bedrest (had been there since June 10th) and rode out the storm there with my husband and 2yr old son. The Thursday after the storm I was evacuated to Baton Rouge and had him at Womans Hospital exactly two weeks after the storm. So, he is my "Katrina Baby". I just say this because I do love my city and I am BLESSED that all of my family were found safe and sound. Ya'll (my southern drawl) we can never forget what happened here. Too many times I have read how people think that everything is moving along just because we did have Mardi Gras and it's not(at least not in the neighborhoods, there are some people back though). You can still see the water lines on the houses and some busy streets are quiet. Rebuilding is still an issue,because people haven't been given the funds they need, but that's another issue all together. Those of you that do watch all the documentaries, and there will be plenty as the anniversary approaches, just keep us and everyone that was affected in your prayers.

Yes. Spike Lee did a spectacular job with capturing every detail of what went on during that time. I was emotional during the entire movie. I remember being on the phone with my best friend and listening to the man (I forgot his name) speak of how he and his mother (who was in a wheelchair) were discussing whether or not they could handle the storm and later preparing to leave their house. He talked of how he moved her to the street so she could be one of the firsts on the bus (which didn't come for days later :mad: ) I remember saying to my friend "If he says at the end of this movie that his mother died, I'm just gonna put the phone down, ok?" (She knows I'm very emotional when it comes to issues like these) Sure enough......
Very, very heart-wrenching for me. I cannot imagine leaving my mother's body on the street corner and being forced to hop a bus and leave the state. Like you all, I wanted to turn the television SO MANY times.....but I refused, because this is exactly what America needs to see. :mad:

I believe the first two acts are going to be the hardest part to watch out of the entire set. I think the second half (last two acts) are going to focus more on the reconstruction of New Orleans and FEMA's response after the hurricane. Can't wait to watch the last two acts tonight.