Monday, September 1, 2008
Fox News Thinks This Is Great Television
Posted by Alejandro de los Rios on Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 10:31 PM
Image lifted from WWLtv.com; Photo by Michael Ainsworth/MDN Photo Staff
Really great picture from a great picture gallery over on WWL-TV's Web site. What can you say other than maybe Fox News is looking to get rid of Mr. Rivera? Or maybe the brass over there actually think this is good journalism? I think the people at WWL-TV have figured out best:
Geraldo Rivera of Fox News does stand up over the industrial ship channel during Hurricane Gustav on Monday.
I hear Geraldo Rivera is the Carlos Mencia of terrible telivision.
The merchandising has begun!
Posted by Alison Fensterstock on Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 10:24 PM
On September 1, 2005, I had a mental flash and Googled "Hurricane Katrina T-shirt." Surprisingly, there was nothing yet (though there was, of course, within a week... and Katrina- and recovery-related domain names were already being bought up.)
This time around, the culture vultures are much savvier, and speedier.
Escape from Contraflow (subtitle: Cooper-Young Starbucks, we meet again)
Posted by Alison Fensterstock on Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 10:11 PM
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Our resolve to ride out the gust of Gustav scuttled by a creeping awareness of what it might mean to live in a first-floor apartment two blocks from the Industrial Canal, my boyfriend and I loaded up the dog and headed out at about 3:30 yesterday afternoon. After an hour of sitting in the well-documented misery that was I-59 in the waning hours of contraflow, we got off as soon as we reached an unblocked exit, just past the Mississippi border. Now I'm suffering what I'm going to call contraflow survivor guilt. The road we took - Mississippi Highway 43 - was completely devoid of traffic. As in, we would maybe see another car every half hour, at most. We tore down the two-lane blacktop through scenic rural Mississippi at 65 miles an hour, reconnecting with I-55 near Jackson, and had smooth sailing the rest of the way to Memphis. Our total road time was just under eight hours, only two hours longer than the same trip under normal conditions. I may never drive on a major interstate again. It might be a little late for this advice, but (knock wood) if this ever happens again, use those maps creatively. Or ask Mapquest or your GPS to program your route without interstate highways. It's literally the difference between hell on earth and a nice Sunday drive.
Everywhere we've been, Memphis treats us, oddly, as if this is a reunion of sorts for the events of three years ago. Bartenders are reminiscing about their Katrina evacuees. We're staying wth friends who evacuated here in '05, lost their Lakeview home and never returned. And I'm sitting in the same Starbucks I made home base after Katrina, overhearing conversations from New Orleanians and feeling like I'm sitting through a lame sequel.
Private levee compromised in Plaquemines Parish
Posted by Kevin Allman on Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 9:38 PM
WWL-AM reporting that a private levee has been overtopped in Plaquemines Parish and that anyone left in the Braithwaite and Scarsdale communities needs to evacuate immediately. Water is rising rapidly.
Edit: Seems to be the Caernarvon Diversion Levee. Info hard to get. Folks at WWL-AM getting punch on the air but are trying to gather information about this and about Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes. TV cutting away from Louisiana coverage to show Laura Bush speech at the RNC. Finally CNN back on the story with parish president Billy Nungesser....
AND BLITZER IS CUTTING HIM OFF TO SHOW CINDY McCAIN'S ARRIVAL ON STAGE...
Second edit: Louis Maistros at Humid City saw the same thing and has words for Blitzer that we can't print here. Apparently Wolf put Nungesser ON HOLD. Says Louis:
Someone tell me I am imagining this sh*t.
No, you're not -- they've been diddling about the Gulf Coast all day, trying to create news where there hasn't been much (fortunately), and now that there is news, CNN CAN'T BE BOTHERED WITH IT.
Tornado watch in Jackson, Miss.
Posted by Kevin Allman on Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 9:29 PM
JACKSON, MISS. -- I'm downtown near the I-55 and the capitol building and tornado sirens are going off.
The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reporting that the whole area is under tornado watch till midnight.
Thanks, cable news networks
Posted by Kevin Allman on Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 6:56 PM
David Hammer reports in The Times-Picayune:
State: Some outside media feed false rumor mill
The state communications center in Baton Rouge was thrust into rumor-control mode this afternoon when a Baton Rouge station showed stock footage of Hurricane Katrina flooding and national networks erroneously reported levee breaches, a spokeswoman said.Christina Stephens, spokeswoman at the state's Joint Information Center in Baton Rouge, said communications staffers scrambled when they saw footage on a Baton Rouge television station of flooding in the 9th Ward, only to find out that it was an old file from Hurricane Katrina.
That, along with confirmed images of Gustav forcing waves over the top of floodwalls along the Industrial Canal, helped feed rumors among some national media outlets that levees had been "breached." Stephens said she had to explain to several outlets that water going over the top of walls is not a "breach," in which a section of the flood protection is actually broken.
Please -- turn off the national cable news.
Bring on the Comfort Food
Posted by Ian McNulty on Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 5:16 PM
While the news has been generally reassuring so far, all the waiting and wondering adds up to a queasy anxiety that certainly dampens the appetite.
We're feeling very fortunate to have a range of food options in our evacuation kitchen, knowing that many of our neighbors are in much less comfortable situations right now. Still, it's interesting that all my palate and uneasy belly can comprehend eating at the moment is Louisiana food, something with rice, sausage and lots of seasoning.
This is easy food, and it tastes like home, the place we're thinking of compulsively right now. Jambalaya was one of the last good things I ate in New Orleans, on Friday during a Katrina commemoration gathering at Finn McCool's Irish Pub (pictured above). Soon, I hope, we'll be eating good stuff like this back in our own neighborhoods again soon.
- Ian McNulty
Gambit boys in the city doing fine
Posted by Kevin Allman on Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 5:08 PM
Just got a text message from Gambit staff writers David Winkler-Schmit and Noah Bonaparte Pais, who are riding out the storm in the city. Power and Internet are out, but they say they are fine and will post here when they can.
And they added that Buffa's on Esplanade is open for business.
