It is now being widely reported that the corruption investigations begun two years ago have finally resulted in an indictment on conspiracy charges (also available as a PDF) against Tom DeLay himself. If convicted, the penalty will be six months to two years in prison, and up to a $100,000 fine. The current Republican struggle seems to be to make sure that he is treated better than everyone else going through the legal system when he is fingerprinted and photographed.

I'm not sure whether I should be impressed or repelled by the tenacity of human lust, but it seems like one of the first businesses in New Orleans to re-open will be a strip club. What customers are there to be had in the ruined city? Military and law enforcement... some of whom are driving drunk.

Reuters reports that the Canadian search-and-rescue team was rescuing people in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans, a full five days before the U.S. military got anyone in.

It's so hard not to take any one of a number of cheap shots after that headline.

To be fair, the U.S. military probably did the right thing by focusing their resources on New Orleans proper, considering the way that the place degenerated, but this does underscore just how badly undermanned the area is, putting lie to the claims that FEMA didn't need more help, and that there were enough National Guard units in the area that it didn't matter that half of them were off in Iraq.

Hat tip to Tennessee Guerilla Women.

Jacob Applebaum has been documenting the attempts by a number of people working with CUWireless to set up a low power, FCC-approved FM radio station to provide information to the people taking refuge in the Houston Astrodome; currently, the only way the evacuees have of getting news is via newsletters or the PA system, and the PA system isn't really suited for continuous information updates on things such as job updates, food, housing, or other information useful for getting people back on their feet and productive. (For more information on what the radios were to provide, see here.)

Two paramedics, Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, have written a first-hand account of how they were trapped in New Orleans... by police from Gretna, the nearest city, who deliberately trapped them there so they couldn't cause problems in Gretna, and then harassed them so they wouldn't be visible to the media once they organized a camp visible to passing aircraft.

In news showing the better side of humanity, three sophomores from Duke University posed as reporters to get inside New Orleans last weekend and rescued two families. They were turned aside a couple times until they came up with the idea of faking Associated Press badges. The impassibility of the roads turned out to be a myth; they got in with a two-wheel-drive Hyundai.

Normally, I'd have said that doing this sort of thing was a bad idea, because you risk getting in the way of a coordinated relief effort. That presupposes, however, that there is a coordinated relief effort. As it was, they got out seven people who might not have been able to wait for official relief and brought water to others who needed it, while FEMA and the National Guard stood around preventing access.

Hat tip to Pandagon for starting a Heroes of Katrina thread, where I found this. My first suggestion was Jabbar Gibson.

This is a different bus from the one Jabbar Gibson took, but the first-hand perspective of someone who first decided to stay in New Orleans despite the warnings of authorities and then decided to leave New Orleans despite the actions of authorities is a fascinating one.

The first bus full of refugees from New Orleans to arrive at the Reliant Astrodome in Houston was not the result of FEMA work... but the work of an 18- or 20-year-old man (the stories are somewhat conflicting) named Jabbar Gibson. It was covered both in the Houston Chronicle and by Houston's Newschannel 5, (Update: that page has been removed, possibly out of standard expiration policies, so I have set up a mirror) but there is quite a remarkable difference in tone between the two. Although described as "renegade refugees" by the Houston Chronicle, the survivors are otherwise treated sympathetically by the article... but their escape was described as "an extreme act of looting" by Newschannel 5, which then went on to point out:

Hilzoy at Obisian Wings has written an excellent essay on what it's like to be someone who loves the United States with open eyes. It's the answer to all the people who think that those that criticize the policies of President Bush hate America, and explains why his detractors are so passionate.

Link credit to Pharyngula, which is not where I expected to find such a link, but am glad I did.

Now back to packing...

Jeanne over at Body and Soul has written a remarkable essay on the contrast between the perspectives of Joseph Ratzinger and Oscar Romero. It encompasses the concepts of honesty (to oneself and others), the need to oppose evil, futility, courage, and moral failure. It articulates better than I can many of my own rambling thoughts and concerns about the nature of the new Pope, and there is little more that I can add.