Bart’s linktrawl brought me to Jacob Appelbaum’s weblog, who took some pictures of the grave of a marked-for-recovery body today. Something about his pix looked familiar, and he does not appear to be aware that the rough dirt grave and plywood marker in the image looks as though it must be the desecrated remains of Vera Smith’s temporary tomb, possibly the most moving and remarkable single image that the New Orleans disaster left the nation.
There lay Vera. God help us. Let’s hope she gets home to Texas, as her family have requested.
I mean, really, that is fucking ridiculous! The body WAS MARKED. I suppose I could be wrong, if Jacob’s photos were taken a week or more ago – but it certainly appears as if a body recovery team destroyed the tomb and replaced it with the spray-painted sign. Geez, guys, couldn’t you have just checked and then leaned the sign up against the bricks or something?
I agree with you mike, it’s amazing that they would do that to the grave, although the damage could have been done by anyone, even maybe dogs…but it does show the ham-handedness of the gov. on this…you know I have the most intense views on this hurricane, but at the same time I have to say something kinda irked me a little about mr. appelbaum’s blog. the slight knee jerk lefist views got to me a little when he used ms. smiths grave to grind an axe about how he wondered if the grave was the grave of an unerclass person killed by vigilantees or police for “looting” or whatever….I mean, the person in the grave is a human. that person was apperently killed by completer accident. and if she was murdered there is a far more likely chance she was killed by crack addict thugs than by national gaurdsmen (to my knowlege, no one was actually killed by national gaurdsman or police who didn’t shoot at them…I’m not saying the cops and gaurdsment didn’t are perfect…but to sling the charge of murder at them unfounded is not going to help anyone. )
however, I will gauruntee you with no doubt that many murders were made by thugs. it’s important to understand that these thugs were created by a certain set of social conditions. yet, they do exist, and they are in fact thugs. when one comes up to you in the aftermath of katrina and holds a gun in your face you can tell him how you understand and want to change the social conditions that made him a thug, but that’s not going to stop him from robbing, and then killing you. sorry to be straight up, but this is the truth.
here is what I tried to comment on that guys’ blog, but it wouldn’t let me log into it..
the photolooks like the grave of vera smith, who was hit by a car in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. I’m suspecting that ms. smith was probably not a member of the underclass, as this picture was taken uptown next to a rather wealthy area. (but as with the rest of new orleans, working class and wealthy were more mixed than most american cities)
I myself am so angry at the response to katrina and what all of this has shown about our country.how anyone can look at the footage on t.v. and not have an ounce of compassion for those people at the superdome or convention center, I don’t understand. and how someone (80 percent of white americans by one poll) can look at the footage and say thay race had no part in this problem is living in a fantasy of a color blind america that doesn’t exist. I agree with you on all this.
however, I do disagree with you on one part here…(bear in mind that I am not a christian, if I where, I would follow the turn the other cheek bit….I don’t understand how so-called christians can be for killing anyone)
with that in mind, I would say this: I don’t own a gun. I am totally 100 percent for gun control. BUT—if I had a gun and a hard core criminal was breaking into my house in the aftermath of katrina..I would shoot them. I would warn them first…but then I would shoot. I think it’s important to keep very much in mind that proverty and racism and classism created these criminals and drug addicts. and I know that 90 per cent of so called looters in new orleans were just trying to survive and get what food they could..to be fair I think the cops left almost all of these people alone. but there were obviously hundreds of actual, hard core, intense criminals left in the city. I lived in New Orleans for 14 years. these people, no matter what the unfortunate social conditions that created them, are not your friend. they don’t care about you for one second and killing you means absolutly nothing to them. and if I had to, I would defend myself against such a person.
however…