Driving Dogs, Mark Wahlberg & Katrina Aftermath

I am not usually a fan of the "sports themed" movie, but I think that I will go and see Mark Wahlbergs new film, Invincible. I have become quite a fan of his in the last few years. I never thought much of his acting until I saw him in a great movie, although violent, Four Brothers. He plays a very good role and does a good job. Even though it is violent it is one of those films where that is just an important and vital part of the story that is being told. There are a few others, that he has done where the titles escape me right now, but I am a fan.


Coming in under the category of, "Are you crazy?", we find this article about a woman letting her dog drive because he liked to get behind the wheel.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/29/ap/strange/mainD8JPOG481.shtml

I have enough to worry about with my 16 year old driving to even begin to think about letting my dogs behind the wheel!!





Articles in USAToday reported that depression and other mental illnesses are on the rise following Katrina, not that that is a surprise, but what is so troubling is that while the numbers are increasing the hospitals are stretched to their limits. They estimate that maybe 50% of the 2,000 doctors have returned, and even fewer nurses. Paramedic Jed Tate said,"All the hospitals are overwhelmed.They just can't accept patients, they are booked solid." A loading dock has been turned into a makeshift emergency room and a former Lord & Taylor department store has been converted, by the city, into another emergency room.

About 200,000 people are estimated to be suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety and other forms of mental illness.

"I just want the trash picked up", said Bill Hines, an attorney. Every other week, he says, the trash haulers don't show up on his Uptown street near Tulane and Loyola Universities. "That's a sign that the wheels have fallen off. It's like the Third World. I just want the place back to normal. I am tired of explaining it away". In neighborhoods all over the city, 80% of which flooded, houses still sit empty.

The stories go on and on and on. The lack of responses, the lack of funding, the inept work by FEMA. There is just so much that went wrong and has not been rectified. I am sure that there are things that have gone right, I don't want to bash everyone and everything, but it is hard to believe, when you see entire neighborhoods still looking like they did the day the water was gone and that people can not get help and have to just leave and make a new life somewhere else. People who can't afford to pay more to rebuild than their homes were worth. It is a sad, sad story. A sad, sad mess.