Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself

Gretna, Louisiana -
Demographics
Population - 17,423
Caucasian - 75.1%
African-American - 12.3%
Hispanic - 12.5%

New Orleans, Louisiana -
Demographics
Population - 484,674
Caucasian - 28.05%
African-American - 67.25%
Hispanic - 3.06%

Distance from the Ernst N Morial Convention Center, New Orleans to Gretna -
2500 feet (give or take a few).

Number of New Orleans storm survivors allowed into Gretna -
0

Directly across the banks of the Mississippi from the now infamous convention center in New Orleans lays the town of Gretna, Louisiana. After Katrina passed, Gretna officials organized a bus caravan to transport 6,000 New Orleans storm victims to another evacuation center, located 16 miles away, and far from Gretna. However, upon hearing word of a small fire and looting at the mall serving as the bus pickup point, Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson Jr. switched gears. Rifle bearing officers with police dogs were sent to guard the bridge between New Orleans and Gretna, effectively shutting off an escape route for the victims. No further New Orleans citizens would be allowed to cross.

"They had been told in New Orleans, they were looked in the face and told, "There's something over there for you,' " Lawson said. "Then they got mad at us when they got here and realized there wasn't. It was promised as a land of plenty, but it wasn't. We were in disarray."

Mayor Ray Nagin told reporters, "When we allowed people to cross the Crescent City Connection because people were dying in the convention center, that was a decision based upon people. Now, if they made a decision based upon assets, to protect assets over people, and to have attack dogs and armed people with machine guns, then they're going to have to live with that."

I cannot begin to represent the level of desperation experienced by those in the convention center. Children were separated from their parents, while others died amongst them. Reports of crime filled the cable news networks for days after the catastrophe. Much as would be expected in any major city in the United States, some citizens suffered from drug withdrawals. Unable to get their "fix" and without fear of the police, (what day did they arrive at the convention center, anyway?) this drug filled rage came out against other Katrina victims trapped in this ungodly situation, unable to leave the building.

The pictures we saw on television were primarily those of the elderly, children, the infirm, and the poor. They are the weakest members of our society, whom our government's sole responsibility is to help, not hinder. The government failed to help its people to protect the assets of a few. To think of these people being herded from one part of New Orleans to another, only to be stared down by dogs and police officers at the border to the next town flashes back to a much darker period in our nation's history.

If a crisis were ever to happen upon the people of Gretna, should their actions today dictate the help they receive tomorrow?

Do unto others...

Senate Republicans nix Katrina investigation

Washington -

An investigation into the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the emergency response to the disaster was voted down yesterday in the senate along strict party lines, with Republicans opting not to form a bipartisan independent panel to investigate the tragedy.

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) proposed the investigative panel be enacted but failed to find any republican support for such a venture.

In a CNN/USA Today Gallup poll taken Sept. 8-11, 70 percent of those surveyed supported an independent panel to investigate the government's response to Katrina.

On `Fox News Sunday", Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) said he would give "the entire big government organized relief effort a failing grade, across the board." But, he added that state and local governments shared in the blame, too.

The final vote in the senate was 54 republicans against, 44 democrats for, with Vitter abstaining.

This reminds me of the days before another independent investigation.

Politics dictating truth produces neither good politics, nor reliable truth.

AP: Democratic leaders vow quick action on stem cell bill

By Steve LeBlanc, Associated Press Writer March 2, 2005

BOSTON -- Democratic leaders in the House and Senate said Wednesday they expect to pass a bill by the end of the month legalizing embryonic stem cell research, and predicted they will have the votes to override an expected veto by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney.

House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, D-Boston, told supporters of the bill that he wants to get the legislation to Romney by the end of March.

The bill would clarify existing state law, making it legal to conduct research using embryonic stem cells in Massachusetts. The bill would also specifically ban any research aimed at reproductive cloning.

Senate President Robert Travaglini, D-Boston, predicted the two-thirds majority will be in place to override Romney's veto.

'We're already at two-thirds,' he said. 'We're going to have to override a gubernatorial veto. He (Romney) has made it abundantly clear that he is going to veto the bill."

--snip--

If Democratic leaders are correct, this represents a large victory for American medical research. Boston is home to some of the worlds finest research centers and academic institutions. Depriving these organizations the ability to research stem cells causes innovation to stagnate and allows other countries to gain a strategic advantage in the field of future medicine.

The ethics of human cloning no longer part of the argument in Massachusetts, the stem cell debate inevitably returns to the even more polarizing debate of women's reproductive rights. Those opposed to stem cell research do not want the existence of embryos to facilitate the process. The argument against abortion is the desire to save life. If embryos exist as a result of abortion, they may still be able to save life; by treating and curing illnesses that cannot be healed with current medicine.

The passion invoked by the abortion argument spills incorrectly into the stem cell research debate. Unless our country returns to the dark age of criminalized abortions, and even then, until the last very stem cell was used, why not examine to see what promise the stems cells hold?

Are stem cell opponents afraid of living longer, happier lives?

Or are they afraid of being wrong?

Original Boston.com article can be found here.

US Lawmakers examine indecency on Cable, Satellite

Washington, D.C.

Free speech is again found under attack at the highest levels of American government. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, has expressed interest in censoring cable tv and satellite radio, services adults choose to pay to bring content into their home. Obviously concerned with the amount of indecent material these people are being exposed to on award winning shows such as The Sopranos and Queer as Folk, Congress is finally ready to spring into action.

Your elected officials would like you to know that this is not an attack on free speech. No, its done with the spirit of fairness in mind. Rep. Barton said, "It's not fair to subject over-the-air broadcasters to one set of rules and subject cable and satellite to no rules".

Rep. Joe Barton will be pleased to know that rules in existence today are there to protect children from the evil found on pay entertainment services. He should note that the children's names do not appear on the monthly invoices for pay for these services; it is likely an adult who has made the decision to bring this content into their house.

The government has already demonstrated a multiple personality disorder in monitoring the content contained on broadcast radio and television - free sources of information - from the hours of 6AM to 10PM.

It is unlikely that additional oversight into this area will be a positive move forward for the country. But Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, would like Americans to know that he doesn't want to censor material coming into your home. "There has to be some standard of decency," he said, "but no one wants censorship."

There is no such thing as decent censorship. Soon though, there may be nothing decent on television, either.

Victory for Death Penalty Opposition

Washington, DC.

The US Supreme Court today voted 5-4 to abolish the death penalty for juvenile offenders. This marks the second consecutive victory handed down by the High Court in death penalty related cases; the last, a 2002 decision where mentally retarded offenders were also found not competent enough to be executed by the government.

Voting to strike down death penalty and bring our country in line with established laws in the rest of the world: Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Stevens, and Souter. Speaking for the majority, Justice Kennedy admitted, "the overwhelming weight of international opinion" was a leading cause for today's decision.

Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O'Connor, Thomas, and Scalia dissented. In an inflamed dissent, Justice Scalia disputed that a "national consensus" exists and said the majority opinion was based on the "flimsiest of grounds." The appropriateness of capital punishment should be determined by individual states, not "the subjective views of five members of this court and like-minded foreigners".

This decision saves the lives of the 72 inmates sentenced to death for their crimes as children, 29 of them in the state of Texas alone. All current death sentences will be commuted to life in prison.

1999 saw the highest number of executions, 98, in the United States. The trend has been a consistently lower number each year. 2004 saw 59 total executions.

David Dow, an anti-death penalty lawyer at the University of Houston. When asked if he believed the end of the death sentence in America was near, Dow replied, ""Let me put it this way: I have a 4-year-old boy. By the time he's ready to go to law school, I don't think we'll have the death penalty any more."

In the current era of the death penalty in America, twenty-two people have been executed for crimes they committed while juveniles.