Four months after Hurrican Katrina slammed ashore, the catastrophic destruction of the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf coasts have been all but forgotten by the media (and Wikipedia).

On December 14, the Sun-Herald posted an editorial, Mississippi's Invisible Coast asking for at least some media attention by focused on those outside of New Orleans.

It begins:

As Aug. 29 recedes into the conscious time of many Americans, the great storm that devastated 70 miles of Mississippi's Coast, destroying the homes and lives of hundreds of thousands, fades into a black hole of media obscurity.

Never mind that, if taken alone, the destruction in Mississippi would represent the single greatest natural disaster in 229 years of American history. The telling of Katrina by national media has created the illusion of the hurricane's impact on our Coast as something of a footnote.

The awful tragedy that befell New Orleans as a consequence of levee failures at the time of Katrina, likewise, taken by itself, also represents a monumental natural disaster. But, of course, the devastation there, and here, were not separate events, but one, wrought by the Aug. 29 storm.

There is no question that the New Orleans story, like ours, is a compelling, ongoing saga as its brave people seek to reclaim those parts of the city lost to the floods.

But it becomes more and more obvious that to national media, New Orleans is THE story - to the extent that if the Mississippi Coast is mentioned at all it is often in an add-on paragraph that mentions "and the Gulf Coast" or "and Mississippi and Alabama."

Read the whole thing.

The mainstream media has once again dropped the ball. It is up to us to tell the tale of a battered land and a proud people outside of New Orleans.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:49 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Today marking the one year anniversary of what much of the world knows as the Asian or Boxing Day Tsunami, which took over 200,000 lives in South Asia. Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of roundups on his site.

Please say a prayer for those that never returned home, and for those that were left behind to face a shattered world without them.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:54 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Why, the next thing you'll here is that Bush didn't order the levees blown up.

Against the conventional media wisdom of the day comes this report from the L.A. Times:

New Orleans was the site of most of Katrina's fatalities; the state reported that 76% of storm deaths statewide occurred in the city. Of the 380 bodies from New Orleans that have been formally identified, a moderately disproportionate number are white. New Orleans' population was 28% white, yet 33% of the identified victims in the city are white and 67% black.

"The affected population is more multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural than one might discern from national media reports," said Richard Campanella, a Tulane University geographer who has studied which parts of the city were hit the worst by flooding. His research showed that predominantly white districts in the city were almost as likely to flood as predominantly black ones.

Many of the dead were older and were quite capable of leaving, but made the conscious decision not to evacuate in advance of Hurricane Katrina's impending landfall. They chose... poorly.

Kanye West could not immediately be reached for additional comment.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:30 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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several more to go.

Earlier this week Ward Brewer of Beauchamp Tower Corporation and The Mexican Navy signed the official Document of Transfer Agreement for the transfer of the USS John Rodgers(aka E-01 CUITLAHUAC).

As Ward stated "It should be noted that this is the first time in history that the Mexican Government has donated a ship to a United States organization for a museum and the Mexican Navy takes this donation very seriously--as do we."

And so Ward's transcendence to the top of the Gun Blogging world begins. Sure there are folks with "Commie Cannons" and other large guns, but does anybody have a destoyer? I think not.

With USS John Rodgers is secure, it's time to hammer MARAD for trying to scrap the USS Howard Gilmore before it can be utilized to aid in hurricane relief. YOU can stop them with a call to your Senators and Congress people.

USS Orion (AS-1 left. USS Howard W. Gilmore (AS-16) in dazzle paint on Navy Day Celebration, Hudson River, October 27, 1945.

Our first post about Operation Enduring Service was almost a month ago and the calls you've made have helped. Things are progressing. However someone is standing in the way:

...yesterday I received an overnight letter informing me that we had until January 6, 2006 to tow the USS Howard W. Gilmore out of the fleet or they were going to scrap her. That is two months ahead of our donation hold schedule and only gives us two weeks to move her due to the Christmas holidays. MARAD knows that this is impossible and only offers this time because they know it can't be done--you can't get a tow company that fast during the holidays. This way, they can look like they are "trying to work with us" and still make sure we can't perform.

Individuals at the Maritime Administration (MARAD) are intentionally speeding up the process of trying to scrap a ship earmarked to be donated to a disaster recovery mission that has the stated goal of saving American lives.

Call your Senators and Congress people today.

Be sure to tell your elected representatives. that the men responsible for this travesty at MARAD are William H. Kahill, Deputy Director, Office of Ship Operations (202-366-1875 ext. 2122), and Eugene Magee, Division of Reserve Fleet Chief (202-366-5752 ext. 2112).

Posted by: phin at 10:43 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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...and with the blessings of the U.S. State Department, and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations, delivered back to the United States. The Mexican Navy's E-01 Cuitlahuac will once again become DD-574 John Rodgers, the most decorated surviving Fletcher-class destroyer of WWII in the Pacific.

DD-74 John Rodgers off Iwo Jima, Feb 15, 1945. Source

Did I mention that this entire chain of events took place becuase of the tenacity and hard work of a blogger by the name of Ward Brewer?

Go get the details of Ward's extraordinary story-in-the-making at the Operation Enduring Service weblog, and learn how you can lend a hand to help build what I've dubbed "the Salvation Navy."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:07 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) intends to scrap the USS Howard W. Gilmore before it can be refitted for disaster response. YOU can stop them with a call to your Senators and Congressman.

Almost a month ago, Confederate Yankee got behind Operation Enduring Service, a frankly brilliant plan to convert a small group of mothballed Navy vessels into a state-of-the-art fleet of disaster response ships at absolutely zero cost. As a matter of fact, OES would save American taxpayers roughly $100 million dollars in costs associated with scrapping dozens of ships being sent overseas to be scrapped, and create thousands of shipyard jobs by scrapping and/or refitting those same ships here in the United States.

But someone is standing in the way:

...yesterday I received an overnight letter informing me that we had until January 6, 2006 to tow the USS Howard W. Gilmore out of the fleet or they were going to scrap her. That is two months ahead of our donation hold schedule and only gives us two weeks to move her due to the Christmas holidays. MARAD knows that this is impossible and only offers this time because they know it can't be done--you can't get a tow company that fast during the holidays. This way, they can look like they are "trying to work with us" and still make sure we can't perform.

Individuals at the Maritime Adminstration (MARAD) are intentionally speeding up the process of trying to scrap a ship earmarked to be donated to a disaster recovery mission that has the stated goal of saving American lives.

Call your Senators and Congressman today.

Be sure to tell your elected representatives. that the men responsible for this travesty at MARAD are William H. Kahill, Deputy Director, Office of Ship Operations (202-366-1875 ext. 2122), and Eugene Magee, Division of Reserve Fleet Chief (202-366-5752 ext. 2112).

This must not stand.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The NY Times tattles on the Democratic Party:

It was Thursday, Sept. 1, three days after Hurricane Katrina had ripped across the Gulf Coast. As New Orleans descended into horror, the top aides to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana were certain the White House was trying to blame their boss, and they were becoming increasingly furious.

"Bush's numbers are low, and they are getting pummeled by the media for their inept response to Katrina and are actively working to make us the scapegoats," Bob Mann, Ms. Blanco's communications director, wrote in an e-mail message that afternoon, outlining plans by Washington Democrats to help turn the blame back onto President Bush. [my emphasis]

Hurrican Katrina has ripped though the Gulf Coast less than 72 hours before, New Orleans was largely submerged, part so Mississippi earased, people were trapped and dying in the floodwaters and debris and the primary concern of state and national Democrats was poll numbers?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:17 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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