The Cook Political Report and the Rothenberg Political Report, two respected political handicapping organizations that follow congressional races, rate Wisconsin's 8th district race for Congress as one of the 40 most competitive of 435 House races. Three Democrats and two Republicans are vying for the open seat currently held by Rep. Mark Green, (R). They include:

Democrat Steve Kagen: www.Kagen4Congress.com

Democrat Jamie Wall: www.wallforcongress.com

Democrat Nancy Nusbaum: www.Nancy2006.com

Republican John Gard: www.gardforcongress.com

Republican Terri McCormick: www.mccormickforcongress.com

They are all appearing tonight in Kaukana at a candidate forum hosted by the Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 400 at 7 PM at its training center, 2700 Northridge Drive.

The Southern Italian town of Altamura, Apulia is "breaking the chains" by supporting local businesses. Five years ago, McDonald's Corp. revealed plans to open a fast food restaurant in the town. Area citizens, supported by Italy's Slow Food movement, campaigned against the development by establishing their own group "Friends of Cardoncello" (named after an Italian mushroom).

Despite community opposition, McDonald's built a fast food store in town, but struggled over the next few years, as townspeople shunned the "golden arches" and supported local baker Luigi Digesù and other community restaurants.

Last month, McDonald's closed its doors and left town.

"There was no marketing strategy, no advertising promotion, no discounts," Il Giornale, an area resident commented. "It was just that people decided the baker's products were better. David has beaten Goliath."

Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/btc/slowfood010906.cfm

A 21-year-old grain terminal worker in McFarland, Wisconsin who became buried up to his neck in soybeans was rescued about four hours after he went into a storage bin to investigate what was clogging its auger feed and became trapped in the beans, officials said.

"You know what quicksand is?" Schaller asked. "That's pretty much what it was."

Worker rescued four hours after becoming trapped in soybeans

In Muscatine, Iowa, Dean L. Wooten was fired for greeting Wal-Mart customers with a computer-generated photo in which he appeared to be naked _ except for a carefully placed Wal-Mart bag. Wooten reportedly told customers the store was cutting costs and the bag was the company's new uniform. A supervisor told him to stop showing the photo after customers complained. He was canned when he displayed the photo again.

The Dictionary of Wisconsin History explains more than 8,000 terms (people, places, things, and events) used in writings about Wisconsin history. The Wisconsin Historical Society says, "Help us continue to expand it by adding a term."

Imagine Earths’ a heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No war to kill us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine our daily bread
Shared without a question
Till all the poor are fed.
It’s something we can do,
People seeing Humans
As friends and family

Imagine Earths’ a country,
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
Just love from me to you,
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
In a brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

Imagine no one lonely
I wonder if you can,
No need for crime and violence,
Imagine all the people
Accepting our truths
As we accept those
Whose truths are a mystery

Imagine saving our planet
For generations yet unborn
I wonder if you will
No waste, no squandered riches
That are not really ours to burn
Think of the bounty we leave them,
It’s the only Earth they’ll have


You may say I’m a dreamer;
But, I’m not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And belief and logic will be one.

John Lennon

Another blanketing of fresh snow on Thursday evening that hasn't melted off and the peace and quiet of a Sunday morning caused me to climb up into the attic and break out my skis and boots. I expected to be the first one to ski on the fairways of Peninsula State Park in Fish Creek and I am pleased to report that several other avid skiers beat me to it.

This posting can be considered the first of our regular Door County ski trail and snow conditions reports. You can find local trail maps and individual area reports posted throughout the upcoming ski season at SkiDoorCounty.com. With steady low temps, the 1 - 3" snow cover on any of the numerous golf courses in Door County provides numerous opportunities to get back on the boards...

With two local snowfalls on record before Thanksgiving, this winter promises to be a good one for skiers in Door County. Nonetheless Gannett reports, More cross-country courses turn to man-made snow.

Alpine skiers who want to ski at areas that have made a commitment to improving their environmental impact are now ranked on a scorecard compiled by the Ski Area Citizens' Coalition. Review their criteria and find out the top ten and the bottom ten ski areas on the Ski Area Environmental Scorecard.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan recently accused Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., of "endorsing the policies of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

When some enthusiastic Davison, Michigan residents began to consider asking hometown "hero" Michael Moore to accept a membership in their local Davison Hall of Fame a wave of opposition started to manifest in equal measure. Moore says people will say almost anything to attack him - like Moore secretly owns stock in Halliburton. He explains, "I have never owned a share of stock. If anyone wants to attack me there are enough truly bad things about me they might use instead, like..."

"I attend weekly meetings and I am a member of an organization that seeks to cover up sexual abuse by some of its members... the Catholic Church. I am a Catholic," confesses Michael Moore.

"I also spent four years working in an institution that researches and perfects weapons of war... the University of Michigan. And, I support a cartel that has killed more Americans than any other group on Earth... the McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Belle, Colonel Sanders fast food cartel."

Moore went on to say that he believes that when the final reckoning comes everyone will be asked, "Where you an American? And did you support the war?"

"In 1776 we had a dictator and we overthrew that dictator ourselves. We didn't ask anyone to invade our country. Imagine in 1776 if the French just invaded our country, and then told us we were free... It wouldn't have worked. It wouldn't have worked back then and it's not working now." Moore recently told an audience in Flint, Michigan.

"Have you ever heard the name of a suicide bomber in Iraq? In Israel, right after a suicide bomber attacks, the name of the Palestinian bomber is announced. Right after 911 the names of the attackers were announced. Have you ever wondered why you never hear the name of a suicide bomber in Iraq announced over the news?" Moore explained "It's because they are Iraqi people fighting for their independence."

"I went to Mass this morning in Davison," Moore says. "The gospel was about Jesus explaining how you get into Heaven." After explaining the details Moore, says it simply boils down to, "You cannot get into Heaven without a permission slip from the poor." He explained that the priest closed the gospel saying, "We ask dear Lord that you remind the people who run Delphi that we need those jobs here in Flint."

You can hear Michael Moore's entire speech rebroadcast on C-SPAN tonight at 7 PM Central time. It's listed as Wellstone Memorial Dinner Democratic Party, Genesee County, MI Michael Moore.

When Utah Valley State College announced that liberal filmmaker Michael Moore would speak on their campus two weeks before the 2004 election a media frenzy erupted as angry community members and religious leaders shouted protests, pointed fingers, and quoted Mormon scripture. Attempting to calm the outrage, the college invited FOX News pundit Sean Hannity to speak a few days before Moore. But the controversy continued to explode into a full-blown war of political and religious differences… This Divided State, is the next film in the Compass Coffeehouse Cinema Series on Saturday, November 26 at 7 PM.

Ask State Assemblyman Garey Bies if he's still a dues-paying member of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Recently a couple of staffers for People for the American Way went undercover to a conference of the ultra-conservative American Legislative Exchange Council. Here's what they discovered: Creating a Right-Wing Nation, State by State by Joshua Holland.

It is the connective tissue that links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax activists and corporate money. ALEC is a public-policy mill that churns out "model legislation" for the states that are unfailingly pro-business. The organization fights against civil rights laws, as well as consumer, labor and environmental initiatives.

According to the National Resources Defense Council, corporations "funnel cash through ALEC to curry favor with state lawmakers through junkets and other largesse in the hopes of enacting special interest legislation -- all the while keeping safely outside the public eye."

Madison attorney Mark S. Zimmer and Willem (sometimes also known as xickx), a computer programmer and lifelong Beethoven-lover in the Netherlands met on the Internet. Together they have created UnheardBeethoven.org, a collection of over 600 previously unrecorded works on vinyl or CD.

Both of them had over the preceding years developed an obsessive desire to accumulate recordings of all of Beethoven's works. Through the miracle of the internet, they were able to compare notes and see where each had been missing various items. But still, there were a multitude of works which sounded intriguing but which were unavailable on record or CD. Indescribable was their shock and horror upon learning the sheer quantity of works that really did exist but were quite inaccessible such as the Hess-list (containing 335 unknown works). Their shared frustration over the many works which had not been recorded was vented at about the same time as reasonably good computer soundcards became readily available.

Suddenly, the fog lifted, and they saw that they didn't need to wait for others to record and release the many missing pieces; they could, through creation of MIDI files, make their own "recordings" of these unheard pieces. Now they could hear these pieces, and in the process learned that there is indeed a wealth of interesting material amongst the unheard Beethoven. Willem and Zimmer assiduously began ferreting out these many mysterious pieces, with the tireless support of Patricia Elliott-Stroh, curator of the Ira F. Brilliant Beethoven Center at San Jose State University, and set to work on turning these scores into MIDI files.

Search the works, download and enjoy them for free at UnheardBeethoven.org. They also have a great set of links to more on their favorite composer.

If you get hooked on classics... you may enjoy searching through more free music at ClassicalArchives.com.

Research report from Trout Lake Station...
More than 80 years ago, two University of Wisconsin-Madison biologists opened a rustic research outpost on Trout Lake, deep in the heart of Wisconsin's pristine northern lake region. Their goal was to unlock some basic mysteries of freshwater lakes, from their chemical makeup to their elaborate circle of life.

Today, research at Trout Lake is thriving more than ever, but a great deal of the focus has shifted to the developmental pressures that threaten what people cherish most about recreational lakes. An online news package by University Communications science writer Paroma Basu, based on a summer visit to the station, takes a fresh look at Trout Lake research projects that monitor species diversity, land use practices and other lake health issues.

The Scalito Threat...
Amanda Griscom Little of Grist Magazine sheds some light on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's Enviro Past:

"The most troubling skeleton in Alito's judicial closet, according to Sierra Club senior attorney David Bookbinder, is the dissent he wrote in U.S. v. Rybar in 1996. Alito advocated striking down a federal law banning possession of machine guns on the grounds that, in some instances, it exceeds congressional power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. He argued that, as in-state machine-gun possession is not interstate economic activity, such authority should be conferred to state governments alone. This kind of reasoning strikes fear in the hearts of enviros, as the Commerce Clause is the basis for nearly every major federal environmental law in the U.S.

"If he is willing to find that Congress doesn't have that sort of authority over possession of machine guns, it makes you very concerned he will apply the same logic to Congress's authority over interstate pollutants," said Bookbinder.

"This is particularly concerning to enviros given that three weeks ago, the Supreme Court decided to review Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. Army Corps of Engineers, two landmark cases that challenge the reach of the Clean Water Act and call into question state-level versus federal authority to protect the environment. "The stakes are enormous," said Kendall. "If the federal government loses these cases, millions of acres of waters and wetlands could be left unprotected. And an adverse ruling would also call into question a much broader array of environmental safeguards."

Peg Lautenschlager meet Mr. Floatie...
"After a year of failed negotiations aimed at averting litigation, Wisconsin's state Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager said Tuesday that she would sue the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District for dumping about 1.5 billion gallons of untreated storm water and sanitary waste into local waterways in May 2004."

Canadians are contending with an even greater disregard for the effects of municipal sewage dumping, but their cleanup candidate, Mr. Floatie, a sewage activist, was wiped clean off the B.C. ballot recently.

People Opposed to Outfall Pollution (POOP) says, "Watch for him to keep popping up to talk about Victoria's ongoing dumping of raw sewage into the ocean," as they continue their ongoing efforts to build greater public awareness.

Just think what Bruce Hill and a handfull of very Repuglican Egg Harborians who are against permitting unrestrained freedom of speech might be forced to do if Mr. Floatie decides to pop up in next year's Egg Harbor 4th of July Parade. Things could get ugly.

Magnum In Motion editors blend powerful Magnum photography with audio commentary, text and graphics to create an immersive, engaging multimedia experience. Photographer commentary guides the viewer through the photo essay, while text and graphics provide additional information and enrich the viewing experience.

How's this for a healthy promotion...

766 people participate in Madison's 3rd Annual 2-Week Car-Free Challenge
(September 22 – October 5, 2005)
Total vehicle miles reduced: 52,191 miles or 2.1 times around the Earth!

Together they effectively removed 136 cars from the road (driven 10,000 miles per year). Every 6 car-free challengers removed 1 car. They saved 2,088 gallons of gasoline and $6,263 in two weeks. If participants kept up this behavior for a year, they would save 54,279 gallons of gasoline. Each participant would save $213.

They reduced 41,753 pounds (21 tons) of carbon dioxide emissions the equivalent of planting 21 trees in two weeks. If participants kept up this behavior for a year, together they would reduce: 543 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

They reduced 188 pounds of nitrous oxides (NOx) and 120 pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), the precursors to ground-level ozone.

Total miles bicycled: 13,001
Total miles walked: 1,359
Total miles bussed: 10,402
Total miles carpooled: 27,872

The extra miles biking and walking add up to 100 extra calories burned per person per day, the equivalent of jogging a mile a day!

Madisonian Pam Schwarzbach dropped in the Coffeehouse and we started talking cycling...

"50% of kids used to ride bikes to school, now it's down to only 2%, but don't quote me on those figures..." says Pam. "There's grant money available to get kids back on bikes by developing safe routes to schools."

"A generation ago, most schoolchildren walked or biked to school, while today fewer than one-third of those who live within a mile of school arrive on foot or bike," said Lee Kokinakis, director of Michigan's Active School Environments for the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness. Over 200 elementary schools in Michigan recently promoted a Walk to School Day.

Brits pointing the way: Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity, works on practical projects to encourage people to walk, cycle and use public transport for health, safety and environmental reasons. Our aim is to create a Safe Route to School for every child in the UK.

The Bicycle Friendly Community Campaign is an awards program that recognizes municipalities that actively support bicycling. A Bicycle-Friendly Community provides safe accommodation for cycling and encourages its residents to bike for transportation and recreation.

"A couple weeks ago I was joking with some friends and saying that when gas goes over $3 a gallon, I won't pay it, I'll refuse to use my car," said Janelle Gunther, 35, and a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

The next thing she knew, she was leaving her Toyota Camry in the driveway and peddling the five miles to the lab. She figures she is saving about $40 a week. She usually showers and changes at work, although more than once she has found herself scurrying into an early morning meeting still clad in her Lycra cycling gear. "No one bats an eye," she said.

According to the most recent national figures, Jenelle's helping to up the numbers in the 2000 census that measured only 489,000 Americans who pedal to work, compared with 97.1 million who drove solo. But those numbers are starting to take a dramatic shift says Alex Williams in a recent NY Times article.

Several years ago Door County Chamber Chair, Karen Raymore was peddling a slide show that depicted the Swiss model of completely integrating bicycles with automobiles in roadway planning. In "theory" and in the law, drivers of either form of transportation are considered to have equal rights. The Swiss model reinforces that ethic giving cyclists greater consideration at intersections and stops. Back then I envisioned a turning point for the entire cycling movement in Door... but that enthusiasm faded.

Now Chris Hornung, the chief executive of Pacific Cycle in Madison - the largest distributor of bicycles in North America - says that a boom is occurring with sales of multigear adult cruiser bikes with medium-wide tires and cushy seats, "the sort commonly associated with commuting, jump(ing) off the Richter scale," rocketing 20 percent in the week of Sept. 7 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the spike in gas prices.

For a number of reasons, some of which are economic affordability, Door County seems to be slipping in popularity. It seems that many local business people are starting to see the flaws in trying to marry the groom of golf with the wild bride of unspoiled nature. Discussion might now begin to include marketing Door County as a mecca for bicycling and healthy family recreation. With gas prices said to rise like a rocket and sink like a feather, there is no reason to expect them to ever fall below $2.50 a gallon. A campaign to promote Door County as the cycling capitol of Wisconsin could do no harm, especially if it starts to develop that Swiss-style of peninsula bike trails that once looked so promising.

Dr. Steve Kagen is the real thing... a man who wants to get elected to Congress because he has a mission to accomplish - No Patient Left Behind. Kagen is a native of Appleton, Wisconsin, triple Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Allergy and Immunology, but now he feels compelled to work for a broader community, starting with the 8th Congressional District in Wisconsin. Here's an impressive portion of a speech in which he presents his summary beliefs:

"Together, we will create a healthy and secure America, everywhere in these United States. In this democracy, and at this time in our history, people rightly demand that its leaders join together to defend our national security, to end the War in Iraq, to attract high wage jobs for those able to work, to balance our budgets, to secure equal opportunity and gender equality for all, to bring an end to special privileges for the few, and to preserve each and every one of our hard won civil liberties.

And by defending our national security, we mean to correctly include the protection of our quality of life, everywhere in these United States, by guaranteeing the ongoing success of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and by vigorously defending our Environment, as we seek to become an Energy independent nation.

Securing our future begins by solving our American healthcare dilemma, with No Patient Left Behind. I strongly believe together, we will."

Steve Kagen has already been elected, by his peers as one of the "?Best Doctors in America," and spent seven years as CNN's allergy consultant. He teaches at Medical College of Wisconsin, lectures around the world, is known for his research work discovering new causes of asthma... and now he wants to work for you in Washington DC.

With the Constitution shot full of holes, the Geneva Conventions battered and bruised, scientists being attacked by dim-bulb legislators who seek to suck up to the religious right, soldiers and innocent civilians dying and getting wounded every day in an unjustifiable war, FEMA asleep at the wheel, a phony MBA cheerleader party-boy president, a Halliburton employee as VP in charge of awarding no bid contracts and over 45 million Americans with NO health insurance... "Is there a doctor in the House?" Not yet, but I think we can send one in 2006!

Kagen4Congress.com

From EMSNetwork News Your best source for EMS News.
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EMS & Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences
By Parmedics Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky
Sep 6, 2005, 11:59

Their tale in just one of this type now appearing in many newspapers, online and with listservers. The fact they are paramedics is largely irrelevant to the tale, however, there are many EMT/Paramedic personal accounts online - some even more incredible. Please do not write to us for permission to reprint, interview, etc. They do not work for EMSN. Their story is a reprint they disseminated. Contact them through Socialist Worker

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New

Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of

New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City. The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot. Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist.

There was more suffering than need be.

Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics from California that were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans. Larry Bradshaw is the chief shop steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790; and Lorrie Beth Slonsky is steward, Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790.[California]

It's amazing to trace the path of a thread as it evolves, turns and forks. ZabaSearch is a new search engine that was quietly unveiled on Feb. 28, 2005 without any marketing or publicity. All traffic since then has been exclusively through word of mouth. Back in April San Francisco Chronicle's David Lazarus explained, "It's impressive, scary to see what a Zaba search can do."

If E-bay is the global equivalent of a yard sale then ZabaSearch represents a new low, the globalization of gossip, with the addition of a new blog feature that lets anyone mark up your personal listing without restriction. They also invite you to, "Monitor Your Identity for Free," with ZabaAlerts! "Instantly be notified by e-mail or text message when new public information is found about you."

"For every 5 mph a motorist drives above 60 mph, the gas wasted is the equivalent of shelling out an extra 15 cents a gallon. So streaking along at 75 mph is like spending an extra 45 cents a gallon," says Baltimore Sun's Frank D. Roylance in Speeders wasting big bucks on gas.

Here's to a very full moon shining down over the Door County, fondly known to many locals as the Open Air Asylum...
Where rumors of the Naked Man on Spring Road keep friends and neighbors ever watchful. With temps in the 90s he could just be the Burning Man, seeking some basic form of relief but, talk, talk abounds - naked man seen jogging down Spring Road, naked man seen cycling through the Fish Creek condos. But, the best tale, the one that brought the sheriff... naked man reported standing in yard surrounded by mirrors.

This search for the naked truth (and the soaring heat), as well as the difficulty of gaining proper press coverage for certain types political events like the (Downing Street Minutes) that question power is urging me to consider the possibility of exposing the issue in a similar manner.

A little Googling led to discover that the infamous West Marin, California women's group that made the naked PEACE and NO WAR protest photos starting in fall of 2002 have evolved, becoming an official organization with a Web page Baring Witness. The project was created and organized by a different Sheehan... a tall, willowy blond, 72-year-old self-described eco-artist, Donna Sheehan. She too gained instant notoriety and a ton of publicity by simply asking other women to pose for peace with their clothes off. Sheehan says the idea of posing people in the nude came to her in a dream.

"Have you ever dreamed that you were naked? I think everybody has. It's a very primal statement, and it's something we can all do," Sheehan says. "We are trying to seduce our leaders and bring them off their ego path of killing and destruction. No blood for oil."

A little more Googling and ogling led me to discover that before 1934 full-body swim attire was the norm and it was a group of men that broke the ban, going topfree at a crowded New York public beach, despite the threat of arrest. The Topfree Equal Rights Association (TERA) now exists to help women attain the same privilege. Underlying their immediate request for equality lies a collection of bare breasted politics that uncover everything from breast cancer and public breast feeding to Janet Jackson spoofing the FCC on Saturday Night Live.