It's a cool day here and I haven't done anything except play on my PSP all morning!
My fingers are freezing though, lol.
Autumn is my favourite time of the year!
The days are beautiful, the nights cool enough for a good sleep, the colours and decorations are so pleasing to the eye. And I can begin cooking all sorts of goodies in the oven again...and drool while the delicious aromas fill the house. The kids are back to school, offering some sort of a routine to our lives again after the hectic summer. I get one day a week to stay at home all by myself, no kids, no noise, no lunch if I don't want to make it, lol!!
We haven't started up the woodstove yet, but there have been some nights that were almost cool enough to do just that! I've gotten out some of my fall decorations and along with them the candles that I love to light now that it's getting darker earlier.
I've been spending most of my time doing PSP with a program that a friend sent me from the states. This stuff is soooo addicting that I am spending way too much time on the computer now, even more than before!!
...and boy do I hate getting calls at work!! Because usually that means that something has happened with one of the kids!
And sure enough....
This is his first broken bone, though he has had stitches in his head twice. I got ahold of Mike who went and picked him up and took him to the hospital. All they can do is put a sling on him and tell him not to use it. Ya right!! This son is signed up for band (he plays tuba) and soccer and there will be no more of that for 6 weeks at least. I am having a hard time already getting him not to use it! I just read this article and was wondering what you all thought about it. I in no way meant any disrespect when I made my post about 'refugees', which is what the survivors were being called by the press, but apparently there are those that are offended
By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP ONLINE
NEW YORK (AP) - What do you call people who have been driven from their homes with only the clothes on their backs, unsure if they will ever be able to return, and forced to build a new life in a strange place?
News organizations are struggling for the right word.
Many, including The Associated Press, have used ``refugee'' to describe those displaced by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.
But the choice has stirred anger among some readers and other critics, particularly in the black community. They have argued that ``refugee'' somehow implies that the displaced storm victims, many of whom are black, are second-class citizens - or not even Americans.
``It is racist to call American citizens refugees,'' the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, visiting the Houston Astrodome on Monday. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have expressed similar sentiments.
Others have countered that the terms ``evacuees'' or even ``displaced'' are too clinical and not sufficiently dramatic to convey the dire situation that confronts many of Katrina's survivors.
President Bush, who has spent days trying to deflect criticism that he responded sluggishly to the disaster, weighed in on Tuesday. ``The people we're talking about are not refugees,'' he said. ``They are Americans and they need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens.''
The 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention describes a refugee as someone who has fled across an international border to escape violence or persecution. But the Webster's New World Dictionary defines it more broadly as ``a person who flees from home or country to seek refuge elsewhere, as in a time of war or of political or religious persecution.''
The criticism has led several news organizations to ban the word in their Katrina coverage. Among them are The Washington Post, The Miami Herald and The Boston Globe.
``A number of people - from officials speaking publicly to colleagues here - said the term `refugees' appeared to imply that people displaced from New Orleans ... were other than Americans,'' Leonard Downie Jr., the Post's executive editor, wrote in an e-mail to his staff.
At the Herald, said executive editor Tom Fiedler, ``it began to feel odd, describing people huddled in New Orleans' convention center as refugees. It felt inadequate to the situation. ... It wasn't as precise as `evacuees.'''
And CNN has advised producers that ``evacuee'' is a better word, said spokeswoman Christa Robinson.
The AP and The New York Times are among those continuing to use the word where it is deemed appropriate.
``The AP is using the term `refugee' where appropriate to capture the sweep and scope of the effects of this historic natural disaster on a vast number of our citizens,'' said Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. ``Several hundred thousand people have been uprooted from their homes and communities and forced to seek refuge in more than 30 different states across America. Until such time as they are able to take up new lives in their new communities or return to their former homes, they will be refugees.''
The Times was adhering to a similar policy.
``We have not banned the word `refugee,''' said spokeswoman Catherine Mathis. ``We have used it along with `evacuee,' `survivor,' `displaced' and various other terms that fit what our reporters are seeing on the ground. Webster's defines a refugee as a person fleeing `home or country' in search of refuge, and it certainly does justice to the suffering legions driven from their homes by Katrina.''
Columnist William Safire, who writes the weekly ``On Language'' column for The New York Times Magazine, said he did not see how the term ``refugee'' had any racial implications.
``A refugee can be a person of any race at all,'' he said. ``A refugee is a person who seeks refuge.''
He first suggested using the term ``hurricane refugees.'' After thinking it over, though, he said he would probably simply use ``flood victims,'' to avoid any political connotations that the word ``refugee'' may have taken on in the current debate.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
Well, here we were off to a grand start when the boys' bus was almost an hour late, LOL!! Poor Colin's first year in highschool and he was late on the first day! We are trying to get one of his classes changed, as it was a third choice for him and he really doesn't want it. When I called the guidance counsellor today she thought they might be able to do something with it, so he is going to see her in the morning. He just has a hard enough time with school work, paying attention and such, that for him to sit in a class and really not want to be there, wouldn't be constructive for anyone involved.
It's hard to put into words the feelings one gets
By ALLEN G. BREED, AP ONLINE
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - As the last weary refugees from the Superdome and convention center headed to shelters, New Orleans drew closer to dealing with its dead, a gruesome landscape of corpses expected to number in the thousands.
No one knows how many people were killed by Hurricane Katrina and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating in the ruined city, crumpled in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.
Echoing the mayor's prediction, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Saturday she expected the death toll to reach the thousands. And Craig Vanderwagen, rear admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service, said one morgue alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.
Touring an airport triage center, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a physician, said ``a lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day.''
Most were those too sick or weak to survive. But not all.
Charles Womack, a 30-year-old roofer, said he saw one man beaten to death and another commit suicide at the Superdome. Womack was beaten with a pipe and treated at the airport center, where bodies were kept in a refrigerated truck.
``One guy jumped off a balcony. I saw him do it. He was talking to a lady about it. He said it reminded him of the war and he couldn't leave,'' he said.
Three babies died at the convention center from heat exhaustion, said Mark Kyle, a medical relief provider.
But some progress was evident. The last 300 refugees at the Superdome were evacuated Saturday evening, eliciting cheers from members of the Texas National Guard who had been standing watch over the facility for nearly a week as some 20,000 hurricane survivors waited for rescue.
On Sunday, utilities planned to send trucks into the city to assess storm damage for the first time since Katrina struck. Morgan Stewart, a spokesman for electricity provider Entergy Corp., said the National Guard would escort the company's vehicles.
The convention center was ``almost empty'' after 4,200 people were removed, according to Marty Bahamonde, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Earlier estimates of the crowd climbed as high as 25,000.
Thousands of refugees dragged their meager belongings to buses, the mood more numb than jubilant. Yolando Sanders, who had been stuck at the convention center for five days, was among those who filed past corpses to reach the buses.
``Anyplace is better than here,'' she said.
``People are dying over there.''
Nearby, a woman lay dead in a wheelchair on the front steps. A man was covered in a black drape with a dry line of blood running to the gutter, where it had pooled. Another had lain on a chaise lounge for four days, his stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.
By mid-afternoon, only pockets of stragglers remained in the streets around the convention center, and New Orleans paramedics began carting away the dead.
The exact number of dead won't be known for some time. Survivors were still being plucked from roofs and shattered highways across the city. President Bush ordered more than 7,000 active duty forces to the Gulf Coast on Saturday.
``There are people in apartments and hotels that you didn't know were there,'' Army Brig. Gen. Mark Graham said.
The overwhelming majority of those stranded in the post-Katrina chaos were those without the resources to escape - and, overwhelmingly, they were black.
``The first few days were a natural disaster. The last four days were a man-made disaster,'' said Phillip Holt, 51, who was rescued from his home Saturday with his partner and three of their aging Chihuahuas. They left a fourth behind they couldn't grab in time.
Tens of thousands of people had been evacuated from the city, seeking safety in Texas, Tennessee and many other states.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry warned Saturday that his enormous state was running out of room, with more than 220,000 hurricane refugees camped out there and more coming. Emergency workers at the Astrodome were told to expect 10,000 new arrivals daily for the next three days.
In Washington, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced that more than 10,000 people had been flown out of New Orleans in what he called the largest airlift in history on U.S. soil. He said the flights would continue as long as needed.
Thousands of people remained at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where officials turned a Delta Blue terminal into a triage unit. Officials said 3,000 to 5,000 people had been treated at the unit, but fewer than 200 remain. Others throughout the airport awaited transport out of the city.
``In the beginning it was like trying to lasso an octopus. When we got here it was overwhelming,'' said Jake Jacoby, a physician helping run the center.
Airport director Roy Williams said about 30 people had died, some of them elderly and ill. The bodies were being kept in refrigerated trucks as a temporary morgue.
At the convention center, people stumbled toward the helicopters, dehydrated and nearly passing out from exhaustion. Many had to be carried by National Guard troops and police on stretchers. And some were being pushed up the street on office chairs and on dollies.
Nita LaGarde, 105, was pushed down the street in her wheelchair as her nurse's 5-year-old granddaughter, Tanisha Blevin, held her hand. The pair spent two days in an attic, two days on an interstate island and the last four days on the pavement in front of the convention center.
``They're good to see,'' LaGarde said, with remarkable gusto as she waited to be loaded onto a gray Marine helicopter. She said they were sent by God. ``Whatever he has for you, he'll take care of you. He'll sure take care of you.''
LaGarde's nurse, Ernestine Dangerfield, 60, said LaGarde had not had a clean adult diaper in more than two days. ``I just want to get somewhere where I can get her nice and clean,'' she said.
Around the corner, a motley fleet of luxury tour buses and yellow school buses lined up two deep to pick up some of the healthier refugees. National Guardsmen confiscated a gun, knives and letter openers from people before they got on the buses.
``It's been a long time coming,'' Derek Dabon, 29, said as he waited to pass through a guard checkpoint. ``There's no way I'm coming back. To what? That don't make sense. I'm going to start a new life.''
Hillary Snowton, 40, sat on the sidewalk outside with a piece of white sheet tied around his face like a bandanna as he stared at a body that had been lying on a chaise lounge for four days, its stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.
``It's for the smell of the dead body,'' he said of the sheet. His brother-in-law, Octave Carter, 42, said it has been ``every day, every morning, breakfast lunch and dinner looking at it.''
When asked why he didn't move further away from the corpse, Carter replied, ``it stinks everywhere.''
Dan Craig, director of recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said it could take up to six months to get the water out of New Orleans, and the city would then need to dry out, which could take up to three more months.
A Saks Fifth Avenue store billowed smoke Saturday, as did rows of warehouses on the east bank of the Mississippi River, where corrugated roofs buckled and tiny explosions erupted. Gunfire - almost two dozen shots - broke out in the French Quarter.
In the French Quarter, some residents refused or did not know how to get out. Some holed up with guns.
As the warehouse district burned, Ron Seitzer, 61, washed his dirty laundry in the even dirtier waters of the Mississippi River and said he didn't know how much longer he could stay without water or power, surrounded by looters.
``I've never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this,'' he said as he watched the warehouses burn. ``People are just not themselves.''
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
I really would love to have
