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Showing posts from August, 2008
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Mayor Ray Nagin reports that the "storm of the century," Hurricane Gustav, is bearing down on New Orleans. Are we better prepared this time? Time reports : "Stung by the images that flashed across the world, including the photo of an elderly woman dead in her wheelchair, her body covered with a blanket, officials promised to find a better way." I remember that image too – the wheelchair, of course, is what got me. Not only the wheelchair, but also the appalling lack of recognition of disability issues in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I heard reporters talking about race and class and sidestepping the disability issue. I remember another image of a man with no legs on a rooftop. The newscast cut from that image to one of a reporter saying quizzically, "Why didn't some people leave?" The reporter, of course, drew no connection between those crazy stragglers and, say, the lack of legs. So what's the plan for Gustav? "This time, the cit