http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/opinion/21herbert.html?th&emc=th
America's Open Wound By BOB HERBERT NY Times Op-Ed: December 21, 2006 New Orleans It's eerie. The air is still. There is no noise. Night is falling. The five stone steps in front of me once led to a porch, or maybe directly to the front door of a house. There is no way to be sure. The house is completely gone. All that's left are the five steps, one of which is painted with the address, 1630 Reynes St. The steps sit alone, like a piece of minimalist art, at the front of a small vacant lot full of weeds and rubble. Next door is a house that is completely capsized, fallen over on its side like a sunken ship. Welcome to the Lower Ninth Ward. You won't find much holiday spirit here. In every direction, as far as it is possible to see, is devastation. On another lot, piled high with the rubble of a ruined house, I saw a middle-aged man standing in the front yard weeping. He wore a dirty white baseball cap and he was sobbing like a child. I walked toward him to ask a question but he waved me away. Whatever you've heard about New Orleans, the reality is much worse. Think of it as a vast open wound, this once-great American city that is still largely in ruins, with many of its people still writhing in agony more than a year after the catastrophic flood that followed Hurricane Katrina. Enormous stretches of the city, mile after mile after mile, have been abandoned. The former residents have doubled-up or tripled-up with relatives, or found shelter in the ubiquitous white trailers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or moved (in some cases permanently) to Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and beyond. Some have simply become homeless. "This is a ghostly city, if you ask me," said Sheila Etheridge, a waitress whose home was destroyed and whose three children are staying with relatives near Atlanta. "It gets real spooky when the sun goes down. They let me sleep in the back of the restaurant. But I'll tell you the truth, we don't have too many customers. You see what those neighborhoods are like. They're empty. The people gone." The recovery in New Orleans has gone about as well as the war in Iraq. In mid-September 2005, with parts of the city still submerged and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division on patrol, President Bush made a dramatic, flood-lit appearance in historic Jackson Square. In a nationally televised speech he promised not only to do all that he could to rebuild the Gulf Coast, but also to confront the terrible problem of deep and persistent poverty. "That poverty," said the president, "has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action." Now, more than a year later, the population of New Orleans is less than half what it was before the storm. The federal government has allocated billions for the city's recovery but much of that money has been wasted or remains hopelessly tied up in the bureaucracy. Very little has gotten to the neediest victims, the people who were poor to begin with and then lost their homes and their livelihoods to the storm. Many of the city's hospitals and schools remain closed. Some will never reopen. There is very little public transportation. The politicians have come up with a stunning array of post-Katrina initiatives, but one grandiose recovery plan after another has faltered. The terrible experience of the flood and its aftermath has left an imprint on the minds of most residents that's as distinct as the water lines that stain so many of the city's buildings. A cabdriver's voice faltered as he told me about an obese woman who put pillows under her arms as the floodwaters were rising. She thought the pillows would help her float. "She drowned," the driver said. Emotional and psychological problems are rampant, but there is a drastic shortage of mental health professionals to treat them. People are suffering from severe anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and other illnesses. Doctors told me that large numbers of mentally ill individuals have gone more than a year without taking their prescribed medication. Many of the poor residents in the city feel that they've been abandoned by the government and the rest of America, and that the president broke his promise to help. "We're in terrible trouble down here," said a woman named Delores Goode, who stood outside the Superdome asking passers-by if they knew where she might find work as a baby sitter. "We were all over the television last year. Now we're back to being nobody." *** http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15906.htm What Would Happen If Jesus Were Born In U.S. Today? Infant Discovered In Barn, Child Protective Services Launch Probe Nazareth Carpenter Being Held On Charges Involving Underage Mother 12/14/06 --"Information Clearing House" - Bethlehem, Judea - Authorities were today alerted by a concerned citizen who noticed a family living in a barn. Upon arrival, Family Protective Service personnel, accompanied by police, took into protective care an infant child named Jesus, who had been wrapped in strips of cloth and placed in a feeding trough by his 14-year old mother, Mary of Nazareth. During the confrontation, a man identified as Joseph, also of Nazareth, attempted to stop the social workers. Joseph, aided by several local shepherds and some unidentified foreigners, tried to forestall efforts to take the child, but were restrained by the police. At one point Joseph became confrontational and delusional claiming the child was "God's child". An officer, who used a Tazer device on Joseph, stated,"The man became uncooperative. We feared for his own safety and that of the child so we used a non-lethal weapon and restrained him in handcuffs. This was the same man I detained earlier for attempting to take a donkey on a public highway. At that time he incredibly claimed a 'common right to his conveyance of choice on a public highway' explaining that his donkey only used the grassy portion and was nointerference to the faster vehicles. He showed no identification, said he had no job and claimed to not have a social security number-laughing and uttering some non-sense that it was the 'mark of the beast'. He was cooperative at that time so I let him go with a highway warning and a charge of vagrancy. It's a trend with these types of people: We find that they start in minor trouble like traffic incidents and graduate to more acts of civil disobedience. Eventually they cross-over and break one of the many many laws of and for government. Still, I can't understand why he became uncooperative to the point that we had to use non-lethal force-after all we're just doing the job of the 'consent of the governed'. Don't these people understand that they must submit to authority that is in their best interests?" Also being held for questioning are three foreigners who incredibly allege to be "wise men" from an eastern country. The INS and Homeland Security officials are seeking information about these who may be in the country illegally. A source with the INS states that they had no passports, but were in possession of gold and other possibly illegal substances. They resisted arrest saying that they had been warned by God to avoid officials in Jerusalem and to return quickly to their own country. The chemical substances in their possession will be tested. An officer at the scene said the suspicious enclosures for the chemical substances might constitute "drug paraphernalia". The agent for Homeland Security stated that he contacted the IRS under the suspicion that this gold might be linked to a foreign trust method of "under-reporting income". An agent commented: "The presence of paraphernalia, chemical substances, gold, and foreign people without passports is certainly suspicious. Terrorists are known to fund terrorism activities through illegal drug trading. Or these could be part of an illegal-alien smuggling ring from Mexico. In either case the claim that these three are Kings is unsubstantiated as they are not diplomats registered with the Department of State." The owner of the barn is also being held for questioning. The manager of Bethlehem Inn faces possible revocation of his license for violating health and safety regulations by allowing people to stay in the stable. Civil authorities are also investigating the zoning violations involved in maintaining livestock in a commercially-zoned district. The owner of the barn claimed he provided the lodging free hence the guests did not need to register. He was noted to exclaim, "For heaven's sake, its Jesus! Can't we forego government intrusion into our lives for the Christ-child celebration?" Authorities were not amused and demanded his identification and his Inn lodging and restaurant board-of-health certification. The location of the minor child will not be released, and the prospect for a quick resolution to this case is doubtful. Asked about when Jesus would be returned to his mother, a Child Protective Service spokesperson said, "The father is middle-aged and the mother definitely underage. This is suspicious behavior worthy of investigation." When asked who these people were and where they were from, the spokesman replied: "Both parents refuse to provide identification. Both claim no social security number and provided no marriage license. The father claims a license from heaven as a common-law right. They have no birth certificate for the baby Jesus. In this sense they are deemed uncooperative by us and are probably members of some anti-government common-law movement group. I simply can't imagine why parents would not want to register the birth and citizenship of a baby such as Jesus! In America everybody does this--it's for the welfare of the child. Why would they not want to register that baby Jesus as a UNITED STATES CITIZEN and hence leave his real citizenship in question? If they are not hiding something, what do they have to fear? I tried to reason with the father. I asked the father the question as to why he never applied for baby Jesus' social security number explaining that Jesus could have earning's credit's and receive retirement benefits. The father uttered total non-sense about 'rendering unto Caesar', more religious 'mark-of-the-beast' dogma, and retirement in God's kingdom. Frankly I'm flabbergasted by these types of people. It's a trend we wish to stop. They never volunteer and this we view as uncooperative behavior. They never apply for social security numbers, they never register the birth of their children, they refuse to register to vote for our two parties, they don't show us identification when we ask 'for their papers" kindly, they refuse to send their children to public education under a homeschool banner, they claim adherence to God's law and not man's, they claim government harassment as the reason they must be transients, and they protest filling-out voluntary-compliance government forms. Frankly, these types of anti-government people are always uncooperative. We are checking with officials in Nazareth to determine what the legal relationship is between father, mother and baby." Joseph has admitted taking Mary from her home in Nazareth because of a census requirement. However, because she was obviously pregnant when they left, investigators are looking into other reasons for their departure. Joseph is being held without bond on charges of molestation, kidnapping, child endangerment, and statutory rape. The local prosecutor had this to say: "I feel confident that this man is either suffering from a psychological problem or is hiding his uncooperative, anti-social and anti-government viewpoints under the disguise of religious dogma. Everybody is entitled to a viewpoint but the defining line is statutory criminal activity and possible terrorist threats. We will weigh the evidence collected and then decide the extent of the charges and whether to prosecute." A spokesman for the court said this: "We always consider the welfare of people first. If this case is brought to trial we will judge it on the basis of social welfare for the child and criminal activity in violation of law for government. If brought to trial they will be allowed court-determined due process before a jury of their peers to present factual evidence on their behalf. Rest assured, they will NOT be permitted to express their view of the law to the jury-even though they claim to operate under God's law and not man's. This could 'unduly influence' the jury. They will be appointed an attorney free of charge as attorneys are always for incompetents only. Rest assured that even though our incarceration rate is the highest in the world, the People still claim our courts and judges are the fairest in the world. We respect their religious viewpoints however, they will be judged and prosecuted to the full extent of our government statutory law and we will not allow their religious viewpoints to interfere with our government statutory law in the administration of our justice." Mary was taken to the Bethlehem General Hospital where she is being examined by doctors. Charges may also be filed against her for endangerment. She will also undergo psychiatric evaluation because of her claim that she is a virgin and that the child is from God. The director of the psychiatric wing said, "I don't profess to have the right to tell people what to believe, but when their beliefs adversely affect the safety and well-being of others - in this case her child - we must consider her a danger to others. The unidentified drugs at the scene didn't help her case, but I'm confidant that with the proper therapy regimen we can get her back on her feet." A spokesperson for the governor's office said, "Who knows what was going through their heads? But regardless, their treatment of the child was inexcusable, and the involvement of these others frightening. There is much we don't know about this case, but for the sake of the child and the public, you can be assured that we will pursue this matter to the end." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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