Posts
Are We Going to Let John Die?
Health Care Reform
Unfortunately, an emergency room won’t help — indeed, the closest E.R. has told him not to come back, he says. So, for those members of Congress who are wavering on health reform, listen to John’s story.
John is a sawmill worker from Yamhill County, Ore., where I grew up. He was a foreman at a mill, he felt strong and healthy, and he had very basic insurance coverage through his job. On April 18, he was married, at age 23, and life was looking up.
Ten days after the wedding, he was walking in his backyard carrying a neighbor’s dog — and he suddenly blacked out. That led, after rounds of CAT scans, M.R.I.’s and other tests, to the discovery that the left parietal lobe of his brain has a cavernous hemangioma. That’s an abnormal growth of blood vessels, and in John’s case it is chronically leaking blood into his brain.
John began to have trouble walking and would sometimes collapse. He developed spasms and restless leg syndrome, he began to use a cane, and his mind suffered.
“He forgets stuff a lot, he bumps into things,” said his new wife, Esther Brodniak. “But he keeps things light. He jokes about it.”
Perhaps the worst is the pain — blinding, incapacitating headaches that have left him able to sleep only in short intervals. He vomits daily when the pain surges.
“The pain is constant,” John said. “It’s a 7 or 8 on a scale of 10, and then it hits the high peaks and makes me vomit.”
With John unable to work, he lost his job — and his insurance coverage. Esther had insurance for herself and for her two children (from a previous marriage) through her job building manufactured homes. But she couldn’t add John to her plan because of his pre-existing condition.
Without insurance, John has been unable to get surgery or even help managing the pain. When he collapses or suffers particularly excruciating headaches, Esther rushes him to the emergency room of one hospital or another, but an E.R. can’t do much for him. One hospital has told them not to come back unless he gets insurance, they say.
Esther used up her family leave time to look after her new husband. “Then I went back to work, and he fell several times,” she said. “I told my boss that I had to quit. Taking care of John was more important than building someone else’s house.”
That meant that the couple had no income — and no insurance for anyone in the family, including the children. Neighbors have helped, and a community program has paid the rent so that they are not homeless. But bills are piling up, and John and Esther don’t know how they will cope.
The doctors warn that pressure from the growth could lead a major blood vessel nearby to burst, killing him. “They tell me I’m a time bomb,” John said. With a touch of bitterness, he adds, “It sort of feels as if they’re playing for time to see if it bursts, to save them from doing anything.”
I’m not a physician, and I certainly can’t speak to the medical issues here. But I have examined John’s medical records, and they appear to confirm his story.
John says the principal obstacle to treatment appears to be simply his lack of insurance. In August, he qualified for an Oregon Medicaid program, but he hasn’t been able to find a doctor who will accept him as a patient for surgery, apparently because the reimbursements are so low. Doctors tell him that his condition is operable — but that they can’t accept him without conventional insurance. He is increasingly frustrated as he watches his family crushed by the burden of his illness.
“The mill won’t let me go back to work until a doctor gives me a note saying I can go back,” he said. “I tried with several doctors. I said, ‘Just give me a note. ... I’ve got to do something for my family. But they won’t.” John and Esther agreed to tell me their story in hopes that somehow it would lead to medical help.
John’s story is not so unusual. A Harvard study, to be published next month in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests that almost 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a consequence of not having insurance. John may become one of them.
If a senator strolled indifferently by as John retched in pain, we would think that person pitiless. But isn’t it just as monstrous for politicians to avert their eyes, make excuses and deny coverage to innumerable Americans just like John?
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/opinion/29kristof.html?ref=opinion
--
Sunday, November 29, 2009
When It Comes to Enabling the Terrorism of Gun Deaths in America, No One Beats the NRA
When It Comes to Enabling the Terrorism of Gun Deaths in America, No One Beats the NRA
By Mark Karlin
Did you know that the shooter at Fort Hood did not use an army issued gun? No, he bought his weapon legally at a firearms store with the name of "Guns Galore":
Law enforcement officials say a 5.7-millimeter pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting rampage was purchased legally at a Texas gun store.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.
Records indicate Hasan bought the FN 5.7 at store called “Guns Galore” in Killeen, Texas, well before the attack that left 13 people dead. The pistol has been dubbed a “cop killer” by those who have tried to stop its use.
The most powerful type of ammunition for the gun is available only to law enforcement and military personnel. Gun control advocates call it a “cop killer” weapon because that ammo can pierce bulletproof vests, and its use by Mexican drug cartels worries police.
The National Rifle Association has made all this possible, including using its nearly omnipotent clout to forbid the FBI from stopping suspected terrorists from buying guns. That's right, the NRA believes people believed to possibly be terrorists have a "2nd Amendment" right to own guns!
While the right wing nut jubs revel in the politics of paraonia against anyone who is Islamic, the NRA is enabling around 10,000 gun homicides a year in the United States by good 'ole Americans. Now, that's a far larger death toll than 9/11 or Fort Hood.
The NRA represents a fanatical philosophy that is akin to the fundamentalism underlying terrorism, and -- as a result -- is our chief domestic enabler of terrorism (along with the right wing media) by making sure that guns are readily available to just about anyone with the cash to pay for them.
We have become so numb to everyday shooting deaths in America that we focus on tragic and sensational losses, such as Fort Hood, but can't see the forest through the trees. The NRA is so extremist, it even has kept a military sniper rifle on the market that can assassinate a person (public official) from nearly a mile away with accuracy. Given the heightened number of death threats against President Obama, you would think a .50 caliber sniper rifle would be banned for civilian purchase, but not with the NRA around to champion terrorist weapons. (Only the State of California bans civlians from purchasing the .50 caliber sniper rifle.)
Over Thanksgiving, I read of numerous shootings -- as is daily the case in America. There's always one or two that especially stick out, such as this massacre in Florida in which 4 members of a family were shot dead, allegedly by a cousin: "Six-year-old Makayla Sitton didn't get to act in The Nutcracker Ballet. The night before she was to go on stage, she was shot to death with three others in a home in Jupiter, Florida."
There could be effective regulation of firearms in the United States, but the NRA is more dangerous in terms of yearly homicides by resisting logical legislation than any terrorist acts we have experienced thus far in the United States.
The NRA ensures that there is a ready supply of guns that kill about 100,000 Americans in a decade in homicides, and many more in suicides and accidents.
No terrorists can match that figure, and if they tried, they would likely buy arms in the U.S., as the Fort Hood shooter did, not meant for civilian use and capable of either mass murder or an assassination.
When it comes to the terrorist watch list, the NRA -- which fans the flames of armed militia and white male paranoia in the U.S. -- should be at the top of the list.
They are primarily responsible -- along with the gun manufcaturers -- for turning America into a shooting gallery, with a mind-boggling death toll.
More:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9917
--
By Mark Karlin
Did you know that the shooter at Fort Hood did not use an army issued gun? No, he bought his weapon legally at a firearms store with the name of "Guns Galore":
Law enforcement officials say a 5.7-millimeter pistol used in the Fort Hood shooting rampage was purchased legally at a Texas gun store.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.
Records indicate Hasan bought the FN 5.7 at store called “Guns Galore” in Killeen, Texas, well before the attack that left 13 people dead. The pistol has been dubbed a “cop killer” by those who have tried to stop its use.
The most powerful type of ammunition for the gun is available only to law enforcement and military personnel. Gun control advocates call it a “cop killer” weapon because that ammo can pierce bulletproof vests, and its use by Mexican drug cartels worries police.
The National Rifle Association has made all this possible, including using its nearly omnipotent clout to forbid the FBI from stopping suspected terrorists from buying guns. That's right, the NRA believes people believed to possibly be terrorists have a "2nd Amendment" right to own guns!
While the right wing nut jubs revel in the politics of paraonia against anyone who is Islamic, the NRA is enabling around 10,000 gun homicides a year in the United States by good 'ole Americans. Now, that's a far larger death toll than 9/11 or Fort Hood.
The NRA represents a fanatical philosophy that is akin to the fundamentalism underlying terrorism, and -- as a result -- is our chief domestic enabler of terrorism (along with the right wing media) by making sure that guns are readily available to just about anyone with the cash to pay for them.
We have become so numb to everyday shooting deaths in America that we focus on tragic and sensational losses, such as Fort Hood, but can't see the forest through the trees. The NRA is so extremist, it even has kept a military sniper rifle on the market that can assassinate a person (public official) from nearly a mile away with accuracy. Given the heightened number of death threats against President Obama, you would think a .50 caliber sniper rifle would be banned for civilian purchase, but not with the NRA around to champion terrorist weapons. (Only the State of California bans civlians from purchasing the .50 caliber sniper rifle.)
Over Thanksgiving, I read of numerous shootings -- as is daily the case in America. There's always one or two that especially stick out, such as this massacre in Florida in which 4 members of a family were shot dead, allegedly by a cousin: "Six-year-old Makayla Sitton didn't get to act in The Nutcracker Ballet. The night before she was to go on stage, she was shot to death with three others in a home in Jupiter, Florida."
There could be effective regulation of firearms in the United States, but the NRA is more dangerous in terms of yearly homicides by resisting logical legislation than any terrorist acts we have experienced thus far in the United States.
The NRA ensures that there is a ready supply of guns that kill about 100,000 Americans in a decade in homicides, and many more in suicides and accidents.
No terrorists can match that figure, and if they tried, they would likely buy arms in the U.S., as the Fort Hood shooter did, not meant for civilian use and capable of either mass murder or an assassination.
When it comes to the terrorist watch list, the NRA -- which fans the flames of armed militia and white male paranoia in the U.S. -- should be at the top of the list.
They are primarily responsible -- along with the gun manufcaturers -- for turning America into a shooting gallery, with a mind-boggling death toll.
More:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9917
--
Facing a sixth trial for the same crime
Facing a sixth trial for the same crime
By Tom Mangold
Radio 4, Crossing Continents
Curtis Flowers, a 39-year-old African-American is to stand trial for an unprecedented sixth time for the murder of four people in Mississippi in 1996. So far, two of his trials have resulted in mistrials and three in convictions that were later overturned.
James Bibbs, also an African-American, was a juror in Mr Flowers's 2008 trial, which ended in a mistrial. He was the only one of the 12 to vote against a conviction.
At the end of the trial, Mr Bibbs was hauled in front of the judge, harangued, threatened, arrested in court, led away in handcuffs, charged with perjury and spent the night in prison.
Mr Bibbs is in his early 60s. He's a retired school teacher, a Vietnam veteran, a local football referee - a patently decent man who was shocked by what had happened.
"The judge got real loud, and he said 'you are lying, you committed perjury'. I was disappointed, all these years you do all these things for the community, then you are called a liar like that out in the public, it was degrading."
The judge's outburst (the perjury charge has since been quietly dropped) came in a case that is extraordinary for many reasons.
Unprecedented
The prosecution of Curtis Flowers casts a sharp light on racial attitudes in America's South one year after the election of the nation's first black president.
He has been sentenced to death three times, only for each verdict to be overturned on appeal because of what the Mississippi Supreme Court described as prosecutorial misconduct. In one further trial, the jury failed to agree after dividing broadly on racial lines.
In the fifth trial, James Bibbs voted for acquittal, and a unanimous verdict was required.
Mr Flowers has spent 13 years on remand in prison.
The local district attorney, desperate to score a conviction in such a high-profile case, has played it dirty to win.
One of his tricks, exposed by a refreshingly impartial Mississippi Supreme Court, was to fiddle the jury selection to exclude black jurors.
Paradoxically, the DA is not generally held to be a racist himself.
Just to complicate matters even further, Curtis Flowers does have a strong case to answer.
He had a motive.
Mr Flowers had been employed by the owner of a furniture store who sacked him. There was a dispute about money owing.
Subsequently someone walked into the store, shot the owner and then coldly massacred three other employees. Mr Flowers has never produced an alibi for that terrible morning.
For his defence, the forensic evidence against him is wafer thin, and some witness evidence is contentious.
Post-racial society
The murders took place in the small town of Winona, in the heart of a state with the worst civil rights record in the US.
Winona is not far from Philadelphia, where three civil rights workers were infamously murdered in the early 60s - a story captured in the film Mississippi Burning.
The lynchings, the cross burnings, the overt violence and discrimination have long since disappeared.
But even one year after Barack Obama and the dream of a post-racial society, the Flowers case shows how short the march away from old attitudes has been.
The local state senator, Lydia Chassaniol has won few African-American hearts by introducing a bill that would widen the jury pool in such a way that critics say would make it easier to select an all-white jury.
She has joined a local chapter of the right-wing Council for Conservative Citizens and addressed their annual conference.
"I'll talk to anyone who wants me to talk to them," the senator told me, stressing her role as official tourist booster for the state.
But meet members of the council, as I did, in a modest motel outside Winona, and the nature of this rump of the red-neck, good 'ole white boys, confederate-flag-wavers is striking.
Their hatred of inter-racial marriage, homosexuals, liberals (aka communists) identifies an atavistic streak that still remains 150 years after slavery.
As one of them told me: "It's all right for them (non-whites) to practise their culture but they should not take ours away from us. We are probably the most discriminated race in the country."
Mr Flowers faces a sixth trial next June. In Britain, natural justice would have made it likely that the prosecution would be dropped after the second mistrial.
But this is Winona, Mississippi and a black man accused of a quadruple murder will not be allowed to walk away.
Black president or not, the state and its judicial servants are not ready for that yet.
Crossing Continents: Mississippi Smouldering is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, 26 November 2009 at 1100 GMT and repeated on Monday, at 2030 GMT.
You can also listen to Crossing Continents on the
or subscribe to the
.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8377236.stm
Published: 2009/11/26 13:03:46 GMT
By Tom Mangold
Radio 4, Crossing Continents
Curtis Flowers, a 39-year-old African-American is to stand trial for an unprecedented sixth time for the murder of four people in Mississippi in 1996. So far, two of his trials have resulted in mistrials and three in convictions that were later overturned.
James Bibbs, also an African-American, was a juror in Mr Flowers's 2008 trial, which ended in a mistrial. He was the only one of the 12 to vote against a conviction.
At the end of the trial, Mr Bibbs was hauled in front of the judge, harangued, threatened, arrested in court, led away in handcuffs, charged with perjury and spent the night in prison.
Mr Bibbs is in his early 60s. He's a retired school teacher, a Vietnam veteran, a local football referee - a patently decent man who was shocked by what had happened.
"The judge got real loud, and he said 'you are lying, you committed perjury'. I was disappointed, all these years you do all these things for the community, then you are called a liar like that out in the public, it was degrading."
The judge's outburst (the perjury charge has since been quietly dropped) came in a case that is extraordinary for many reasons.
Unprecedented
The prosecution of Curtis Flowers casts a sharp light on racial attitudes in America's South one year after the election of the nation's first black president.
He has been sentenced to death three times, only for each verdict to be overturned on appeal because of what the Mississippi Supreme Court described as prosecutorial misconduct. In one further trial, the jury failed to agree after dividing broadly on racial lines.
In the fifth trial, James Bibbs voted for acquittal, and a unanimous verdict was required.
Mr Flowers has spent 13 years on remand in prison.
The local district attorney, desperate to score a conviction in such a high-profile case, has played it dirty to win.
One of his tricks, exposed by a refreshingly impartial Mississippi Supreme Court, was to fiddle the jury selection to exclude black jurors.
Paradoxically, the DA is not generally held to be a racist himself.
Just to complicate matters even further, Curtis Flowers does have a strong case to answer.
He had a motive.
Mr Flowers had been employed by the owner of a furniture store who sacked him. There was a dispute about money owing.
Subsequently someone walked into the store, shot the owner and then coldly massacred three other employees. Mr Flowers has never produced an alibi for that terrible morning.
For his defence, the forensic evidence against him is wafer thin, and some witness evidence is contentious.
Post-racial society
The murders took place in the small town of Winona, in the heart of a state with the worst civil rights record in the US.
Winona is not far from Philadelphia, where three civil rights workers were infamously murdered in the early 60s - a story captured in the film Mississippi Burning.
The lynchings, the cross burnings, the overt violence and discrimination have long since disappeared.
But even one year after Barack Obama and the dream of a post-racial society, the Flowers case shows how short the march away from old attitudes has been.
The local state senator, Lydia Chassaniol has won few African-American hearts by introducing a bill that would widen the jury pool in such a way that critics say would make it easier to select an all-white jury.
She has joined a local chapter of the right-wing Council for Conservative Citizens and addressed their annual conference.
"I'll talk to anyone who wants me to talk to them," the senator told me, stressing her role as official tourist booster for the state.
But meet members of the council, as I did, in a modest motel outside Winona, and the nature of this rump of the red-neck, good 'ole white boys, confederate-flag-wavers is striking.
Their hatred of inter-racial marriage, homosexuals, liberals (aka communists) identifies an atavistic streak that still remains 150 years after slavery.
As one of them told me: "It's all right for them (non-whites) to practise their culture but they should not take ours away from us. We are probably the most discriminated race in the country."
Mr Flowers faces a sixth trial next June. In Britain, natural justice would have made it likely that the prosecution would be dropped after the second mistrial.
But this is Winona, Mississippi and a black man accused of a quadruple murder will not be allowed to walk away.
Black president or not, the state and its judicial servants are not ready for that yet.
Crossing Continents: Mississippi Smouldering is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, 26 November 2009 at 1100 GMT and repeated on Monday, at 2030 GMT.
You can also listen to Crossing Continents on the
or subscribe to the
.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8377236.stm
Published: 2009/11/26 13:03:46 GMT
Hitting the Brakes on Afghanistan
http://www.fpif. org/fpifzines/ wb/6599
Hitting the Brakes on Afghanistan
By John Feffer
Foreign Policy in Focus: 11/23/09
Imagine finding yourself in the driver's seat of a car heading directly at a
brick wall. You panic: What to do?
Fortunately, there are three people in the car with you, and they all have
very firm advice. The person in the passenger seat tells you to push the
pedal to the metal. Right behind you in the back seat, your friend is urging
you to accelerate only modestly. And the fourth person in the car recommends
that you maintain your current speed.
You might be thinking: These are my only choices? I'll hit the brick wall
either really quickly, rather quickly, or pretty darn soon. The end result
will be the same. The car will be destroyed and all four of you will be in
the hospital.
Since these are the choices now being presented to President Barack Obama
for his Afghanistan policy, who can blame him for being slow to make up his
mind? His top general is telling him to send 40,000 troops. His vice
president is telling him to send 10-15,000 troops. And his secretary of
state and Pentagon chief are urging the middle course of 30,000 troops.
Isn't anyone out there telling the president that he has more levers at his
disposal than simply the gas pedal? Isn't anyone pointing out the obvious?
The brake, Mr. President, the brake!
Frankly, the car metaphor isn't precise. It's actually a bus heading toward
that brick wall. A really, really big bus. And we're all on board, the
entire U.S. population. The president's advisors are all clustered up at the
front. Their voices are pretty loud. But we can all make our voices heard if
we all shout together from the back of the bus.Call the White House at
202-456-1111 and keep the message simple: Don't send more troops to
Afghanistan, Mr. President.
Peace groups around the country are coordinating this call-in campaign in
these few days before Thanksgiving so that the president knows, before the
expected announcement of his Afghanistan policy next week, that there are
other choices. Here's a link to some additional talking points about
different congressional options.
"It is unlikely that we will soon have another president with the moral and
rhetorical force to talk us out of a foolish commitment that cannot be
sustained without shame and defeat," writes Garry Wills in The New York
Review of Books. "If it costs him his presidency, what other achievement can
match it? During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he would
rather be a one-term president than give up on his goals. Here is a goal no
other president we can imagine would have a possibility of reaching.
Presidents who just kick the can down the road are easy to come by. Lost
lives and limbs are not."
The crash can be avoided. But we must call the White House and let the
driver-in-chief know that we're here, we're clear, and we don't want this
war no more.
***
Hitting the Brakes on Afghanistan
By John Feffer
Foreign Policy in Focus: 11/23/09
Imagine finding yourself in the driver's seat of a car heading directly at a
brick wall. You panic: What to do?
Fortunately, there are three people in the car with you, and they all have
very firm advice. The person in the passenger seat tells you to push the
pedal to the metal. Right behind you in the back seat, your friend is urging
you to accelerate only modestly. And the fourth person in the car recommends
that you maintain your current speed.
You might be thinking: These are my only choices? I'll hit the brick wall
either really quickly, rather quickly, or pretty darn soon. The end result
will be the same. The car will be destroyed and all four of you will be in
the hospital.
Since these are the choices now being presented to President Barack Obama
for his Afghanistan policy, who can blame him for being slow to make up his
mind? His top general is telling him to send 40,000 troops. His vice
president is telling him to send 10-15,000 troops. And his secretary of
state and Pentagon chief are urging the middle course of 30,000 troops.
Isn't anyone out there telling the president that he has more levers at his
disposal than simply the gas pedal? Isn't anyone pointing out the obvious?
The brake, Mr. President, the brake!
Frankly, the car metaphor isn't precise. It's actually a bus heading toward
that brick wall. A really, really big bus. And we're all on board, the
entire U.S. population. The president's advisors are all clustered up at the
front. Their voices are pretty loud. But we can all make our voices heard if
we all shout together from the back of the bus.Call the White House at
202-456-1111 and keep the message simple: Don't send more troops to
Afghanistan, Mr. President.
Peace groups around the country are coordinating this call-in campaign in
these few days before Thanksgiving so that the president knows, before the
expected announcement of his Afghanistan policy next week, that there are
other choices. Here's a link to some additional talking points about
different congressional options.
"It is unlikely that we will soon have another president with the moral and
rhetorical force to talk us out of a foolish commitment that cannot be
sustained without shame and defeat," writes Garry Wills in The New York
Review of Books. "If it costs him his presidency, what other achievement can
match it? During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he would
rather be a one-term president than give up on his goals. Here is a goal no
other president we can imagine would have a possibility of reaching.
Presidents who just kick the can down the road are easy to come by. Lost
lives and limbs are not."
The crash can be avoided. But we must call the White House and let the
driver-in-chief know that we're here, we're clear, and we don't want this
war no more.
***
Irish Priest Admits Abusing 100 Kids
Irish Priest Admits Abusing 100 Kids
By Daniel Florien on November 28, 2009
The Pope Looking EvilA new report is out showing the Most Holy Chaste Catholic Church has been covering up child sex abuse for decades:
Following a three-year investigation in the Dublin Archdiocese, the country’s largest, the report concluded that four archbishops routinely protected abusers and failed to inform police of the allegations. One priest admitted to sexually abusing over 100 children, while another confessed that he had abused on a fortnightly basis over 25 years.
“The volume of revelations of child sexual abuse by clergy over the past 35 years or so has been described by a Church source as a ‘tsunami’ of sexual abuse,” said the report….
The judicial probe discovered that the archbishops did not report abuse to police until the 1990s as part of a culture of secrecy and to try and avoid damaging the reputation of the Church.
The report said: “All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities”.
It found children who complained “were often met with denial, arrogance and cover-up and with incompetence and incomprehension in some cases. Suspicions were rarely acted on”.
Some of my Catholic friends boycott large companies because they have donated to gay rights or pro-choice organizations. Yet they give their money and loyalty to an organization that has been abusing children and covering it up for decades (though it’s probably been more like 1,700 years). It’s mind-boggling.
source:
BBC - Prisoners Of Katrina
BBC - Prisoners Of Katrina
The shot of thousands of orange-clad prisoners, murderers and rapists among them, crouching on a broken bridge, held at bay, at gunpoint by a few overstretched guards, was one of the iconic images of the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina. But who were those prisoners? ‘What about the prisoners in the jail?’ the Sheriff had been asked as city leaders ordered the people of New Orleans to flee the hurricane heading their way. “The prisoners will stay where they belong” he decided.
This is the untold story of almost 7,000 inmates, some never even charged, who found themselves in Orleans Parish Prison as it flooded. A year after the hurricane, find out what happened inside the jail as panicked inmates, left without food or water, rioted and broke out. Olenka Frenkiel reports on a justice system, already near to collapse - and on its final tipping point - Katrina.
Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563503/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563512/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563509/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563504/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.004
The shot of thousands of orange-clad prisoners, murderers and rapists among them, crouching on a broken bridge, held at bay, at gunpoint by a few overstretched guards, was one of the iconic images of the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina. But who were those prisoners? ‘What about the prisoners in the jail?’ the Sheriff had been asked as city leaders ordered the people of New Orleans to flee the hurricane heading their way. “The prisoners will stay where they belong” he decided.
This is the untold story of almost 7,000 inmates, some never even charged, who found themselves in Orleans Parish Prison as it flooded. A year after the hurricane, find out what happened inside the jail as panicked inmates, left without food or water, rioted and broke out. Olenka Frenkiel reports on a justice system, already near to collapse - and on its final tipping point - Katrina.
Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563503/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563512/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563509/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/313563504/Prisoners.Of.Katrina.XviD.avi.004
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