Saturday, September 17, 2005

The Lights Came on before Bush Arrived, they went off after he left

Back in the Sixties when I worked for LBJs anti-poverty program in Baton Rouge, Louisiana I developed a great respect for the media. They always seemed to be on the side of people who did not have a voice in society.

In recent years I've been less than impressed with the mainstream corporate media.

One of the good things to come out of Katrina is the emergence of several gutsy journalists who tell it like it is. One of these is Anderson Cooper. Another is Brian Williams. Here is some background information that Williams provided on the speech by Bush:

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

Well done, Brian!