21st Century American Fascism

I saw it with my own eyes this past week.

Along with Texas Attorney General candidate David Van Os and civil rights activist Rev. Peter Johnson, I attended a public hearing on the modification of a hazardous waste permit held by the ExxonMobil refinery in Beaumont. Hearings of this type are mandated by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; this one was held at the Jefferson County courthouse Friday afternoon, September 9.

There about twenty or so in attendance; four of us out-of-town citizen activists, a handful of residents of the Charlton-Pollard neighborhood which abuts the refinery, and six representatives of ExxonMobil -- the community relations director and her assistant, three refinery executives, including at least one with the word 'environment' in his job title, and an ExxonMobil corporate attorney. None of whom made their names obvious enough for me to catch.

There were no members of the TCEQ present at the hearing, and no members of the media either (unless I count as one).

For over two hours, the oil company employees tapdanced around every single question posed to them with the most bewildering array of corporate doublespeak and rehearsed spin I have ever personally witnessed.

A couple of examples:

Q: We wrote a letter containing thirteen questions for ExxonMobil to answer at this hearing, and we sent them by certified mail. Did you receive them?

A: And we're here to answer your questions. And the questions of all the residents here.

Q: The first question is, has ExxonMobil conducted any environmental impact surveys in the neighborhood regarding the impact of the refinery's discharge on the residents' health?

A: Exxon Mobil has conducted numerous studies about the environmental quality of the neighborhood. We built the Family Resource Center and the park. We live and work here too, and have a great deal of concern about the neighborhood's environment.

Q: But have you done any studies of the health of the neighborhood's residents?

A: Those aren't environmental studies, sir.

And:

David Van Os : Has ExxonMobil done any epidemiological studies of the neighborhood?

ExxonMobil Community Relations Director : What's that?

DVO: You mean to say you don't know what an epidemiological study is?

EM CRD: No, I know what it means... you might define the word for those in the audience who don't know what it means...

DVO : But they didn't ask. Could you answer the question please?

EM CRD : Would you define 'epidemiological'?

DVO : Could you please answer the question? Yes or no?

And so on and so on, just like that, for two hours.

When a resident described the black dust he has to power-wash off his house every few months, the oil company employees just looked blankly at him. When Rev. Johnson read the results of an autopsy of a female neighborhood resident, which revealed that her lungs were 'as black as those of a sixty-year-old coal miner' (according to her doctor), the ExxonMobil representatives tried hard not to look him in the eye. When another resident described how her three-year-old son had to have a liver transplant, and that benzene poisoning was a suspected cause, the corporate lickspittles studied their manicures.

As I've previously posted, I grew up in this area. I worked in that refinery one summer. I used to come home every evening from working in that refinery and blow black snot out of my nose.

I heard the stories of Lamar University coeds whose nylons dissolved on their legs as they walked across campus (which is a half-mile from the ExxonMobil chemical facility). I smelled the rotten egg scent of sulphur dioxode myself, as a college student, on several occasions. I knew people who lived near the campus who smelled odors inside their homes that would cause them to become sleepy, and when they woke up they would have a splitting headache.

And those stories are twenty-five years old.

There was one thirty-year neighborhood resident in attendance at the hearing, who had his own self-declared respiratory concerns, and he defended ExxonMobil in a sort of resigned way:

"Well, they ain't goin' nowhere, so we gotta try to get along with 'em..."

Let me call attention to the title of this post, and quote no less an authority than Benito Mussolini:

" Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."

And also Franklin Roosevelt:

" The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power. "

On the road with the next AG of TX

As I mentioned back here, I was fortunate to spend a couple of days at the end of last week with the next Attorney General of Texas, David Van Os. I had previously made plans earlier to bring my mother, who lives near Beaumont, to hear David speak at a meeting of the Progressive Democrats of Southeast Texas, but when David's wife Rachel called me and said that David would have to rent a car at Hobby, I delightedly offered my services as chauffeur.

We both had appointments at Lamar University Thursday afternoon; David's was to speak to the Latinos Unidos student group; mine was to meet with some of the alumni officials. We reconvened that evening at the PDSE meetup at Acapulco Mexican Grill.

Before I tell you about our visits, which included a public hearing at the courthouse on a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) matter, let me provide some history about the area called the Golden Triangle, nestled into the corner of Texas next to the Gulf and the Sabine.

Beaumont-Port Arthur, the mid-county cities of Nederland, Port Neches, and Groves, and Orange -- the easternmost point of the Triangle; as far as you can go without being in Louisiana -- are home to the highest concentration of refineries and chemical plants in the state of Texas. And not just a lot of them but some of the largest petrochemical operations in the world; when I lived there, their names were Gulf and Texaco and DuPont and Allied, but the names have all changed. I was raised in a union household; Mom was a professor in the college of business at Lamar, Dad was OCAW, employed by the Mobil (now ExxonMobil, of course) refinery in Beaumont. I worked at the coking unit of that plant during the summer of 1980, graduated from Lamar that winter, and started my first career at the Beaumont Enterprise-Journal as an advertising salesman that spring.

Politically speaking, the Golden Triangle has been Yellow Dog Democrat country for almost all of the time I've been around, and for a long time before. They elected and re-elected liberal stalwarts like Jack Brooks, Carl Parker, and Charlie Wilson, but they've also had temporary lapses of sanity with right-wing fools like Steve Stockman. And like most of the rest of Texas, they fell in love with Ronald Reagan in the Eighties and haven't yet managed to fall completely out of love with the current iteration of radical religious Republicanism.

History lesson over.

About sixty SE Texas Progressive Dems assembled for David's stump speech, and the crowd included Jefferson County party chair Gilbert Adams, state representative Joe Deshotel, and a handful of local candidates, but mostly citizen activists and kindred spirits. Here's a summary of what he said:

“News commentators, industry representatives, politicians, and other voices of the corporate-political-media establishment are somberly telling the rest of us to expect more increases in gasoline prices as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

However, I have some questions for the political-corporate elites and their friends in the media punditry. Who gave the big oil companies an unalienable right to profit off tragedy? Do the oil companies have a God-given right to forever maximize their profits? Why shouldn’t the oil companies and their silk-stocking executives be expected to do their part to assist in relief efforts? Why shouldn’t the oil companies be expected to show some public spirit and reduce their profit expectations at this time of national distress? Where are our public servants who should be calling on the oil companies to do their part? Are our public officials too beholden to corporate industry to exert moral leadership on this matter?”

About the amendment on the ballot to outlaw gay marriage in Texas:

“I take it as a personal offense and an affront to my citizenship that forces of bigotry are seeking to enshrine hate into the Texas Constitution. You know, the Declaration of Independence of 1776 grants every United States citizen the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; it is inconceivable that Texans would put something in our state constitution that would be a giant step backward from the achievement of that vision. The very idea of what the 'unreligious wrong' is trying to do is a disgrace, it is inhumane and it sure isn’t moral ... Morality means everyone is equal under the law. All of us as Texans are entitled to public servants who will serve the people and do everything in their power to defend the constitutional rights liberties of all the people equally."

And specifically addressing members of the GLBT community throughout Texas, as quoted in the Dallas Voice:

“Just keep on fighting for liberty, keep on fighting for equal justice under the law and keep on fighting for the kind of society and world you want to live in,” Van Os said. “Fight 'em 'til hell freezes over, and then fight 'em on the ice.”

There's more, but you get the picture. David was pretty well received, as you might imagine.

Friday morning, Van Os appeared on News Radio FOX 1340 (check out the 'fair and balanced' syndicated program lineup) for an interview with local drive-time personality Dominick Brascia, who was obviously and genuinely impressed with David's credentials and stands on the issues.

We had lunch with the attorneys from the Adams law firm, then went to the Jefferson County courthouse to attend the aforementioned TCEQ hearing on a modification to the hazardous waste permit held by the ExxonMobil refinery.

Since this post is getting long, I'll continue in the next.

My experience volunteering (at the Astrodome and the GRB)

Last Friday, September 2, I finally couldn't stand watching the televised tragedy any longer, and having caught up with all my clients and prospecting, decided to go down to the Astrodome and do something.

I packed the car with some clothes that belonged to us and to my mother-in-law -- she has end-stage Alzheimer's and we've already begun the rather painful process of disposing of some of her personal effects -- as well as a variety of toilet articles, and dropped them off at Rice Temple Baptist Church (the Dome wasn't accepting donations that morning).

Before my four-hour shift was to begin, I had time for an early lunch, so I went to my neighborhood Vietnamese place and sat behind two green-scrub wearing, twenty-something guys who were discussing their 401-Ks. The television had Fox News on, and the scenes from a helicopter flying over Charity Hospital in downtown New Orleans were being shown. The two young men took note of the horror inside the hospital being described by the reporter on TV, but not in a manner that indicated much alarm.

The promo for the upcoming local noon newscast mentioned the shortage of medical personnel and the need for volunteers skilled in that expertise at the Astrodome.

The two men sitting in front of me, wearing green surgical scrubs, having an early lunch like me, about a mile from both the Texas Medical Center and the Astrodome, ordered extra egg rolls.

I finished my pho and headed over to the Dome. I parked, leaving my wallet and cellphone in the car, followed the signs guiding me to the volunteers registration area, and was cautioned again about my wallet, cellphone and jewelry (none of these was allowed to be carried into the Dome by volunteers, for reasons of obvious personal safety). After signing in I endured a short orientation session which consisted of being asked a few questions about my physical health -- could I use a handtruck, lift a heavy box, do some twisting and turning; and my mental health -- did the sight of very ill people bother me, would it upset me to be dealing with upset or grief-stricken folks, etc. -- and finally got an assignment: I'd be unloading some of the donation boxes of clothes, diapers, food, and more.

That's what I did for about three of the four hours; in between shifts with the dolly and the boxes, I and others cleaned the kitchen after lunch had been served. I washed some of the cooking utensils, swept and mopped the floor.

The entire effort itself was haphazard and sometimes frustrating. The volunteers I served with were hard-working, the volunteer coordinators were haggard and occasionally short-tempered but also devoted to the task, and the people we were helping were grateful and shell-shocked and occasionally smelled bad and were overcome with emotion. They frequently quarreled with, and sometimes screamed at, their children, others' children, and each other. They asked questions I didn't know the answer to -- but in subsequent days were answered for everyone: how they could find out about a missing loved one, where to make a long-distance phone call.

I left with a sense of some accomplishment but also a nearly overwhelming sense of despair -- for the state of the New Orleans evacuees, as well as that of our nation.

The next day, Saturday the 3rd of September, the news was that the Dome had too many volunteers, so I went to the George R. Brown Convention Center downtown, which had been opened to accomodate the overflow of evacuees. You may recall that the Astrodome was believed capable of housing 25,00o people, but the Harris County fire marshall had ceased the intake of refugees at about 11,500 on Friday, and there were rumors reported in the media that some buses from Louisiana had been turned away.

The first group who were being housed there, maybe a thousand people, were not the evacuees you are used to seeing on television. They were almost all Caucasian, and were part of the wave of folks who evacuated New Orleans before Katrina made landfall and had been staying in Houston-area hotels and motels, but who had run out of money or had been asked to vacate because of pre-booked registrations. Some were expressing concern about the influx of "those people" coming from the Astrodome.

The GRB was cleaner, the people had more room, the volunteers were everywhere and many of them, like my friend Lyn did the following day, were doing one-on-one assistance. That wasn't the job for me; I would much rather do the physical labor than the psychological.

I'm glad I helped; my conscience feels much the better for having done so, but I hope I never have to do anything like that again. Or have to be on the receiving end of the assistance, either.

==================================

Sunday September 4th, my 79-year old mother and her friend from Lamar University (Mom's retired from there now over a decade) drove over from Beaumont to join us for brunch and baseball. Since we had the outing planned for well before Katrina, we stuck with our plan to have jazz brunch at Brennan's, followed by the 1:05 Astros-Cardinals game at Minute Maid Park.

The dichotomy of what I witnessed in the Dome and the GRB, juxtaposed against the experience of the beautiful restaurant with the French Quarter styled courtyard, the jazz music, the crabmeat omelet on the plate in front of me -- the extremes of class and caste I experienced were simply so significant that words don't do it justice.

When I thought about the people who hadn't been able to eat a decent meal in several days as I slurped up my delicious chicken and andouille gumbo, I felt the remorse of the fortunate. "There but for the grace of God" and so on. As I licked my spoon clean of the pecan pie a la mode, I considered -- all too briefly -- the plight of those just a few miles away who had lost their homes, their jobs, their city, even members of their family.

And as we took our seats in a brand new stadium to watch wealthy men play a child's game, I thought for a moment about the homeless children playing on the field which formerly hosted the millionaire athletes, and was now host to poor men and women with nearly nothing left.

'Dichotomy' doesn't begin to adequately describe it.

And my Merriam-Webster Thesaurus lists no other entries for the word.

Everybody has a story about New Orleans.

And I'm not talking about any of the heart-wrenching ones that have been written in the past ten days.

For a moment, let's just reminisce about the bon temps.

This is a good one:

I stepped off the Braniff flight from Tulsa, Okla., at Moisant Field on Jan. 12, 1973, with $34 in my pocket and the promise of a job as a Bunny at the New Orleans Playboy Club. I was 19, with big, proud titties suitable for framing, and wearing enough Maybelline to sink a barge in the Industrial Canal. I didn't know it yet, but I would spend the next seven years in the City That Care Forgot. By the time I escaped its humid clutches, the Big Easy would fill me up and wring me dry.

I would marry a cop of easy virtue, pose nude in Hef's magazine, appear in some of the worst movies ever made and lie on the AstroTurf floor of the Superdome with former football star Paul Hornung, wondering why he had such bad cigarette breath.

When I was in college in the late 70's, one spring break six of my fraternity brothers and sisters all piled in a '57 Chevy and headed for New Orleans, with a stopover in Baton Rouge at one of the guys' father's house, a huge plantation-style home where we had a crawfish boil for about twenty-five. We met some brothers at Loyola University, secured some plastic tubing from the chemistry department, proceeded to Pat O'Brien's and drank six of their large vat-sized hurricanes (using the tubes to run down to the bottom of the glass so we didn't miss a drop). We stayed all in one room at the Hyatt, the one right there across from the Superdome, and one of my buddies succeeding in getting with the girl I had angled for all weekend.

Ten years later, shortly after my wife and I were married, we went back to New Orleans with her parents and stayed downtown at the Doubletree on Canal, shopped at the mall along the river, and did all those newlyweds-vacationing-with-the-in-laws kinds of things.

Mrs. Diddie and I last visited the Big Easy one December a few years ago. It was surprisingly cold, nearly down to freezing during the day; the Saints were playing the Lions in the Dome, and R. L. Burnside was appearing at the House of Blues. We stayed right in the heart of the Quartah, at the Hotel Provincial. We would step out of our room, walk down the hall, take a turn down the stairs, go through the bar/coffee and beignets store, and pop out on Decatur Street looking directly at the French Market. To the right, half a block away, was Cafe Du Monde; to the left about two blocks, Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville restaurant.

Over the long weekend, in addition to all that, we jumped a streetcar up to the Garden District and took a ghost tour in Lafayette cemetery, went past Anne Rice's home, ate lunch at Commander's Palace, had Sunday brunch at the Court of Two Sisters...

Besides the tremendous toll of suffering, besides the outrage at the failure of those whose responsibility it was to protect the people and avoid the suffering, it simply makes me sick to think of the great places where we all had good times and good food all gone, some of them never to come back.

Some of it will, of course, come back, but we also -- all of us -- know the Crescent City will never be again what it once was. New Orleans has suffered the modern-day fate of 1900 Galveston, a fine city with both its grand past and future suddenly wiped away like a spilled drink on a bar counter.

It's not nearly as big a tragedy as all of the lives that were lost, but it's a sadness nevertheless.

Apologies for being struck dumb

for the past couple of weeks. My loyal three dozen regular visitors have grumbled about the paucity of postings; today and tomorrow I'll be catching up.

On Saturday August 27, a carload of us traveled to Crawford and Camp Casey for the final weekend of Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside George W. Bush's famous dirt farm there. We were hardly alone; at the press conference late in the day near the Crawford Peace House, I heard McLennan County Sheriff Larry Lynch and Crawford Police Chief Donnie Tidmore estimate the crowds who came and went during the day at 8500, with approximately 1500 of those being anti-Sheehan protestors collected mostly near 'downtown' Crawford.

We arrived at about 11 am, and that was too late to park at any of the assembly areas near Crawford; the caravan was diverted to a hotel in nearby McGregor, where we were shuttled in to Camp Casey in groups of five or eight. There were perhaps a hundred or so ahead of us waiting for shuttles, and that grew quickly during our hour-or-so wait. One of our friends, spending her second weekend as a volunteer, had rented a gashog SUV to serve as a shuttle driver. About 12:30 pm we finally arrived at Camp Casey, and immediately on disembarkation were greeted by the media. My wife did an interview en Espanol for Telemundo; a young man wearing Washington Post credentials approached me and began asking me questions (I later learned he was Sam Coates). We had barely gotten started when I noticed he was quite obviously about to suffer some physical distress from the blistering Texas-in-August heat. So we went under the tent just as Joan Baez started singing "The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down". Sam went to get ice water; I headed for the front of the stage.

The scene was electric to me -- the penultimate folk singer reprising history; singing a protest song she had first sung nearly 50 years previously against the last immoral war waged by the United States against a shadowy enemy.

Later we reconnoitered with several other online activists near the back of the tent, ate some barbecue, and listened to Cindy Sheehan say:

"I finally found out what the noble cause my son died for was. George Bush has to kill more American soldiers because he's already killed so many."

And the truth of that statement hit me like a sledgehammer: George Bush will never leave Iraq, and the primary reason is that he is simply too goddamned stubborn to admit his mistakes.

Russell Means followed Cindy, and also said some seminal things; he pointed out that the reason why Camp Casey was so organized was because women were running it. And as I thought of the woman I had met six weeks previously in Houston at the After Downing Street meeting -- the woman who was now running Camp Casey, Ann Wright, the lieutenant-colonel-turned-diplomat who resigned after twenty years of government service because she opposed the invasion of Iraq -- Russell Means expanded his premise by explaining the role of the matriarch in Native American society. That in a family, the mother is the only member who cannot be replaced. That women live longer than men, they can stand more pain, they have more endurance, more patience, more empathy. Matriarchy, Means said, is not fear-based. Each gender is praised for its respective strengths, and control is shared. That America, as a patriarchal society, is ruled by lonely, fearful men; men with something to prove to other men, men who require constant reassuring but never acquire reassurance.

I've told everyone within earshot for years that I thought we ought to elect more women to political office. And the best reason that my theory needs to be put into action is because women aren't war-mongers (well, except for Ann Coulter, anyway).

We managed to catch an air-conditioned bus over to the Crawford Peace House, and there was Brad Freidman broadcasting. He had just completed an interview with Randi Rhodes, but we missed that (and her). We sat down anyway, had some lemonade and cookies, listened to the Brad Show live for awhile, and while there we were interviewed on camera by a documentarist, visited with a police officer who came over looking for a rabble-rouser but stayed for a cold drink, and chatted with two transgendered students from UNT, whom we had barely gotten to know when they responded to a call for volunteers to direct parking lot traffic.

We caught a shuttle back to Camp Casey, stayed there until nearly 7 p.m., then caught another back to our car. On the ride back someone said that the hurricane which swept across southern Florida had strengthened and was turning toward New Orleans.

That's the subject of the next post.

Traveling with David Van Os

Yesterday I met Texas Attorney General candidate David Van Os at Hobby airport and we traveled to Beaumont for his two speaking engagements there; one to a group of Latino students at Lamar University, and the second at the Progressive Democrats of Southeast Texas. There were about sixty in attendance at the PDSE meeting, including Jefferson County Democratic Party Chair Gilbert Adams.

David had a radio interview this morning and will attend a hearing at the Jefferson County courthouse regarding an environmental quality matter this afternoon. We'll return to Houston this evening for an informal gathering of citizen activists and supporters before he flies back to San Antonio.

I'll have a more extensive report later on these events, along with some thoughts that have been gathering dust regarding Camp Casey, Cindy Sheehan, Hurrican Katrina, the Astrodome, and our wonderfully compassionate conservatives.

MSM is going on lockdown

Voluntarily, and involuntarily. NBC anchor Brian Williams, from New Orleans:

While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (the Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.

Emphasis mine.

Last week for a moment I sensed a shift; a breakthrough. Even Shepard Smith on Fox was screaming.

This week, Rove seems to be retaking charge of the message.

If somebody in the media with clout --somebody like a network anchor -- can't break this down, it can't be broken. And if that's true, then democracy is as dead as a poor black person in New Orleans.

By the numbers

These are from yesterday's Astrodome news conference:

• 16,000 hurricane victims are living in the Dome (down from 17,500 from Monday)

• 4,500 in the Reliant Arena (up from 2,300)

• 2,400 in Reliant Center (down from 3,800)

• 2,500 in the George R. Brown Convention Center (up from 1300)

• 40 new arrivals last night, 51 this morning

• 300 cases of the Norwalk virus.

• 0 cases of cholera despite rumors to the contrary.

• 0 curfew violators (implementation of 11 p.m. - 6 a.m. curfew postponed a day to get the word out).

• 37 arrests, from disorderly conduct to public intoxication.

• 2 reports of sexual assaults; one proven to be false and one still under investigation.

The Houston Chronicle's DomeBlog has proven to be the best source for this information (and a lot more).

Update: The numbers are going down fast. I think that's a good thing.

Sort of scary, all right

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhlemed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (chuckle)--this is working very well for them."

-- former first lady Barbara Bush, speaking from Houston on Monday

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Well, there's your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.

-- Keith Olbermann

From the Astrodome

I have several of my own experiences to relate, but it's still a bit raw -- and frankly, I am having trouble finding the words to describe it. I did ask for the observations of others, and they follow.

From an account posted here Saturday a.m. 9/3:

Just got back from the dome and I was overwhelmed by the shere numbers of folks they have put in there. The media was complaining that its not the 23,000 promised but in actuality there is probably close to 100,000 here throughout the Houston metroplex. It made me think of a modern day Hoovervile, by the sadness and magnitude of the trauma but the living conditions here seemed wonderful. I spent only an hour or so in the dome where around 17,000 people are living(its virtually a small US city) and was told they had just opened up the Astro Arena and that 3,500 new folks had been set up there. It felt more personal to be connecting with a mere 3500 folks. A pittance of people where I felt more comfortable. There are huge trucks rolling in with food, baby supplies and clothing and every conceivable medical supply. There are plenty of sick people but I din't sense the horible coughing and general sickness I expected to see.

For about 2 hours I got to play Santa Claus( and that's really something special for a Jewish guy) with my shopping cart of stuffed animals and small toys that seemed to light up the eyes of these kids who didn't seem to know what was going on before finally running out. The evacuees seem orderly and polite and appreciative of the help. I spoke with numerous young men who were in construction and ran small business operations(not the so called trash folks the media seem to be fixated on) and who's home were totally gone who told me they would be staying in Houston and relocating they just couldn't stand to return. There were men wearing the same dirty socks for 5 days that appreciated fresh socks and underwear and my trying to match their shoe sizes.

Anyways the medical units set up were overwhelming. There were dozens of doctors, nurses, and residents who had arrived just when I walked in, who had been instructed by the local hospitals to volunteer 20 hrs per week there and were giving these folks top notch care. I have psychologists friends who are consulting with these folks about their emotional trauma. There were xray machines, dialysis, and chemo going on and everyone was instructed to be given vaccinations, tetnus shots I believe.

A Friday (9/2) e-mail:

I don't know where to begin, how to describe what we saw last night. It's not total chaos inside, but about 2 steps from it. The smell meets you before you walk through the doors. Besides a name tag, there was little volunteer organization. 'Help wherever you can' was the order. We tried bringing food down from the upper levels, but made it back with very little. Everywhere people would stop us asking for the food, water, a cot, a blanket, clothes, phone...everything.

There was little food: only Doritos, some ham sandwiches and a little fruit. There was LITTLE clothing. We distributed what we had, but quickly ran out. People are walking around in clothing soaked in sewage. Many don't have shirts or shoes. There is a medical triage station. Many people needed medical care. Bryan came across a refugee leaning against a rail, close to passing out. Bryan discovered he was a schizophrenic w/ a heart condition and hadn't had his medication in 5 days.

There is a Lost Children section for kids who are alone and have been separated from their families. There was a good police presence. They did a great job of fanning out over the Dome. I was not concerned about safety.

My high school football team won the State Championship on that Dome field. Today, that field is covered w/ thousands of ppl desperate for just a clean pair of socks.

Friday evening:

I volunteered at the Astrodome today. It was heartbreaking to see everyone sitting on cots that are packed in so tight you can't walk between them. People were walking around shellshocked. As I walked in the Dome, I stopped to hug a woman standing outside crying.

It was a bit chaotic, but I guess I can understand. I basically just went in and registered. When I asked a Red Cross volunteer where they needed me, she said "just walk out there and someone will come up and ask you a question." I helped a little girl get some shoes. I tried to answer questions as best I could, but some I didn't know, such as "where do we find the FEMA area?" and "when can we register our children for school?" I would ask someone from the RC and they didn't know either. I do have to admit that it was nice to hear that wonderful NOLA accent and slang.

Two little boys asked me if I had any toys, so I found some for them, even though there aren't enough. Everyone seemed to have food and snacks. People were distributing drinks. I stood at a Miller Light bin loaded with soft drinks and water and handed these out to anyone that wanted it. Most people wanted ice, which we had, but no cups. I've asked friends here in Houston to donate toys and plastic cups.

More later.