Cuthbert ...SteeveT..

I am not in the big easy, but I went to see Joe there last year. In fact my wife and I followed the tour bus down from the Ryman auditorium after the Nashville show. I am just hoping to catch Joe there again and hope the dire situation there can return to some sense of normalcy.

As far as shots being fired.... What kind of idiot would fire shots at the rescuers? Tired, thirsty, confused and dependant people still need to help each other..

Namm Man

cuth, I turned off the tv a while ago, so I don't know if things have changed. The shitty side of the shooting story is, it was probably one idiot guy with a bad temper. Imagine all the women, children, elderly, and sickly that asshole ruined it for. It's like shooting a gift horse in the mouth (what the hell is that saying?) You have to be a total moron to shoot at people who are there to help. Either that, or the guy was mentally unbalanced (which kind of goes without saying).

Can you imagine - no medicine, no diapers, formula, or baby food, no feminine hygeine products, no electricity, phones, food or water. Add the heat and humidity. It's hell on earth. People need to be helping each other, not hurting each other, but it's the nature of the beast.

Earlier I was watching the Today Show. A man and his pregnant wife and their four kids were stranded in their SUV in a CVS parking lot. They came back to check their house, but it was completely gone. They got a flat, and ran out of gas, so they were stranded. The woman was able to buy some cookies and lemonade to feed the kids a little something. A man from the store came out and gave them 2 cans of Flat Fix to fix their tire. Another guy came over with a spare gas can and offered them a few gallons of gas to help them on their way. That's the way it should be man. People helping people.

Ha! I just got a reply email from Sound Mind Music concerning the 5 1/2 weeks it took for my Petrucci cd to make it from NY to PA. I emailed them July 18th!!!! Here's the reply -

"Dear Michelle, I'm sorry for the delay in your order. As you can see, the customer service is even slower than the order processing! I hope you enjoyed the Cd as well as the concert. Sincerely, Sound Mind Music"

Ya know, that cd is so damn good, it was worth the wait. LOL!

Good Morning Satchland........ How are you ?

Cuth....Michelle...... I couldn't agree more with you guys. Maybe some good can come from Katrina in that this is a wake up call for our goverment and all Americans to realize :

IT'S TIME TO CARE OF OUR OWN ! ! ! !

I'm sick n tired of America babysitting the world only to get shit on. It seems our government wants to go out of there way to help foreign coutries and don't consider our own problems here in our homeland as important or serious issues. America is still and will always be the greatest country in the world and I'm damn glad I'm an American but come on people....... The Time Is Now ! ! ! ! Sorry I'm politicly pissed.... enough said.

Cheese..... I was wondering if you saw my post..... It's actually my son who taught me about Joe and showed me this site...he just dint know what kind of a monster he was creating! LOL! Cuz I became instantly and forever hooked on Joe!! And "drag" him to as many Joe shows as possible, poor child..NOT!! He's happy that I like the same music as him... so HI back to ya!! Like I said.......

Unrest Intensifies at Superdome Shelter By ADAM NOSSITER Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS - Fights and trash fires broke out at the hot and stinking Superdome and anger and unrest mounted across New Orleans on Tuesday, as National Guardsmen in armored vehicles poured in to help restore order across the increasingly lawless and desperate city. "We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, complaining that he and others were evacuated, taken to the convention hall by bus, dropped off and given nothing.

The Superdome, where some 25,000 people were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, descended into chaos.

Huge crowds, hoping to finally escape the stifling confines of the stadium, jammed the main concourse outside the dome, spilling out over the ramp to the Hyatt hotel next door - a seething sea of tense, unhappy, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder up to the barricades where heavily armed National Guardsmen stood.

Fights broke out. A fire erupted in a trash chute inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect the evacuation.

An additional 10,000 National Guard troops from across the country were ordered into the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast to shore up security, rescue and relief operations in Katrina's wake as looting, shootings, gunfire, carjackings and other lawlessness spread.

That brought the number of troops dedicated to the effort to more than 28,000, in what may be the biggest military response to a natural disaster in U.S. history.

"The truth is, a terrible tragedy like this brings out the best in most people, brings out the worst in some people," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on NBC's "Today" show. "We're trying to deal with looters as ruthlessly as we can get our hands on them."

The first of hundreds of busloads of people evacuated from the hot and stinking Louisiana Superdome arrived early Thursday at their new temporary home - another sports arena, the Houston Astrodome, 350 miles away.

But the ambulance service in charge of taking the sick and injured from the Superdome suspended flights after a shot was reported fired at a military helicopter. Richard Zuschlag, chief of Acadian Ambulance, said it had become too dangerous for his pilots.

The military, which was overseeing the removal of the able-bodied by buses, continued the ground evacuation without interruption, said National Guard Lt. Col. Pete Schneider.

The government had no immediate confirmation of whether a military aircraft was fired on.

Fury rose among many of those evacuated. Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."

part 2

Just above the convention center on Interstate 10, commercial buses were lined up, going nowhere. The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.

"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said.

People chanted, "Help, help" as reporters and photographers walked through.

John Murray, 52, said: "It's like they're punishing us."

In Washington, the White House said President Bush will tour the hurricane devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.

The president urged a crackdown on the looting and other lawlessness that have spread through New Orleans.

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this - whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."

On Wednesday, Mayor Ray Nagin offered the most startling estimate yet of the magnitude of the disaster: Asked how many people died in New Orleans, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands." The death toll has already reached at least 110 in Mississippi.

If the estimate proves correct, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which was blamed for anywhere from about 500 to 6,000 deaths. Katrina would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.

Nagin called for a total evacuation of New Orleans, saying the city had become uninhabitable for the 50,000 to 100,000 who remained behind after the city of nearly a half-million people was ordered cleared out over the weekend, before Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast with 145-mph winds.

The mayor said that it will be two or three months before the city is functioning again and that people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two.

"We need an effort of 9-11 proportions," former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, now president of the Urban League, said on NBC's "Today" show. "So many of the people who did not evacuate, could not evacuate for whatever reason. They are people who are African-American mostly but not completely, and people who were of little or limited economic means. They are the folks, we've got to get them out of there."

part 3

"A great American city is fighting for its life," he added. "We must rebuild New Orleans, the city that gave us jazz, and music, and multiculturalism."

With New Orleans sinking deeper into desperation, Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts Wednesday and stop the increasingly brazen thieves.

"They are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas - hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now," Nagin said.

In a sign of growing lawlessness, Tenet HealthCare Corp. asked authorities late Wednesday to help evacuate a fully functioning hospital in Gretna after a supply truck carrying food, water and medical supplies was held up at gunpoint.

The floodwaters streamed into the city's streets from two levee breaks near Lake Pontchartrain a day after New Orleans thought it had escaped catastrophic damage from Katrina. The floodwaters covered 80 percent of the city, in some areas 20 feet deep, in a reddish-brown soup of sewage, gasoline and garbage.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 15,000-pound bags of sand and stone into a 500-foot gap in the failed floodwall.

But the agency said it was having trouble getting the sandbags and dozens of 15-foot highway barriers to the site because the city's waterways were blocked by loose barges, boats and large debris.

___

"I'm sick n tired of America babysitting the world only to get shit on "......when did "the world" ever ask to be "babysat?"

"Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?"......yes, not even the President Of The United States Of America can stop the weather doing what it wants to do.

"We must rebuild New Orleans, the city that gave us jazz, and music, and multiculturalism."....and black people.

I guess the spotlight is off aid for Africa then?

mikesb:Barca is alive at last, Sept is all go, so i guess in a week or so i,ll get it.Will be sending a lil your way Sat, just heard Fri is a nightmare bud

Stay good amigo

Stevee T:I think the Guitar 9 thing goes by album sales as opposed to the what do you think about the artist, is good all the same.I have to say this again,when i first came to T2J some jessus i think it was 3 years ago! i never posted here thinking this was a sales market, Ronnie asked me to post because people liked what i recorded, all in all a very humbling experience to have anyone pass there money because they like or loved what they heard, just an amazing feeling after 24 years bustin my butt.Next cd will be the crunch tho, i,m at it already every min i get free! Work hard,play hard bro

Namm Man...glad to hear you weren't in Katrina's path...

Slanshroom....gotta love the music, and how it can heal...

962..... "I'm sick n tired of America babysitting the world only to get shit on "......when did "the world" ever ask to be "babysat?" The world didn't ask...... So why does our goverment think they have to. We need to take care of our own business. I use to think the war in Iraq was justified 'cause I believed in what Bush was saying. I was proud that our country liberated two countries and made them a Democratic society. I'm changing my view. All we did was piss off these people who were pissed at us to begin with. If they wanted to be a Democratic society my guess they would be.There was a reason for 911 and it wasn't because they just felt like doing it. They were and did send a message and that was to : STAY OUT OF OUR BUSINESS What did we do.....We took over and are still occuping thier country. You can't fight people who have no regard for human life. That cut the heads off of inocent people or blow themselfs up and God knows how many inocent people around them. I say pull out and take our chances in America. They are commin' back. It just a matter of time. That terrifies me when I think about it.

"Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?"......yes, not even the President Of The United States Of America can stop the weather doing what it wants to do.

NO.... it did not have to happen. If you read the article Cuth and Michelle posted you'll read funding for the levees were rerouted for Iraq. The flood waters have cause an estimated 27 billion in damages and is the cause for the catastrophic effents that our enfolding. If those levees were completed I'm thinking there would be really no flood damage only damage from the 140 MPH wind that Katrina had. Damage that within time and a reasonal amount of money could be fixed. New Orleans is F....ed for a long time. It's going to take months for the water just the water to reseed. Then the rebiulding of the infrastruture commences....The health issues.....This will take years to get back to normal if there will be a normal. What about all those homeless people who lost everything?Where are they going to live ...work.... or even have a life. Bush pulled a couple of million away from completeing those levees and look what happened as a result. We're all going to pay for this in the end. The little people always have to pay for the govenments mistakes. I'm sick of that to. Are you? Like I said before I'm proud to be an American and I'm damn glad to live in America 'cause it's given me the life I love with my two boys and my wife Cindy. But enough is enough...End of rant.......

Ohio High School Has 64 Pregnant Students

CANTON, Ohio - Thirteen percent of the female students at Timken Senior High School in Ohio are pregnant.

High school senior Monica Selby thought she would be busy this year planning for college, not preparing for the birth of her first child. "I've been crying every day and every night. I keep on blaming myself for this," said the 18-year-old Selby, who is six months pregnant.

She cries about starting classes this week at Timken Senior High School with a bulging belly, about the emotions of planning an adoption, about becoming part of a statistic that has snagged the nation's attention: 64 of Timken's 490 female students — 13 percent — are pregnant.

The statistic at the school in the heart of this old steel city contrasts with a decade of declining teen pregnancy rates nationwide. But teen pregnancy experts say the problem is not exclusive to Timken High.

Experts, parents and students themselves struggle to explain why such pockets of high teen pregancy rates appear. Are teens getting appropriate sex education? Do they have access to birth control and are they using it consistently? Has the stigma of unwed motherhood lost its edge?

"This might be a school that is forthright with its problems while others are not," said Jay Green, chairman of the Education Reform department at the University of Arkansas. "But this is a widespread issue."

Green wrote a study last year for the conservative New York-based Manhattan Institute for Policy Research that found 20 percent of urban teenagers have been pregnant, compared with 14 percent of suburban teens.

Urban teens as a whole don't use birth control as consistently or often, according to his research, and often have less to lose financially and socially than those in the suburbs.

But Green couldn't say whether those factors applied to Timken. The school of about 1,000 students draws teens from across the neighborhood and economic lines in the state's ninth largest city.

Eric Wilson, 18, who works at a hot dog shop a few blocks from the school while making plans to get his GED and caring for his 2-year-old son, said the spotlight on Timken is magnifying an old problem.

"My mom had a kid when she was in school and now I have a kid," he said. "It goes back to how you were raised. Down here, it's not looked too down upon because a lot of parents had kids when they were kids."

Last school year, both high schools in the city's district reported 55 pregnancies. Ninety-nine pregnancies are expected in the district this year, most of them at Timken, where expecting students get six weeks of maternity leave.

"This has gotten to horrible proportions. I wish I knew the answer to why it's happening," principal Kim Redmond told the city's daily newspaper The Repository. Redmond did not return several messages left by The Associated Press.

Joanne Hinton, whose 16-year-old daughter, Raechel Hinton, is eight months pregnant, said she believes the school's abstinence-based sex education program isn't enough.

"It's time to take the blinders off and realize that these kids are having sex," she said. "Obviously, abstinence is not working. If we have to, just give them condoms."

Hinton stresses that she doesn't condone teenage sex and that her daughter doesn't fit the mold some may think pregnant teens come from: The Hinton household has two loving parents with a strong relationship who asked the straight-A Raechel "45 times a week if she was having sex, doing drugs, drinking. We were constantly checking on her."

Raechel, who plans to return to the 10th grade at Timken after delivering and completing an adoption, said many students are sexually active and need more information about birth control.

Hello wonderful friends!!!!

I feel so sorry about the Hurricane tragedy :-((((.

To all American friends my condolences and best wishes. I saw on TV that the situation is terrible, sorry friends :-(((. My prayers are with all of you, sorry my great people!!!

I`ve been busy on company, many work and trips to do.Soon i will be here with more time. I miss all of you!!!!

WEBMASTER - Thanks for the good news. Thanks Dear Jon!!!

MARI, MICHELLE, JUJU, 962, BAHDUH, DO THE STU (welcome back), DCK, PHRYDOM, OCPS470, OVATION1 and all of you, take care friends, hope everyone is well and safe, Warm Regards to all !!!

JOE - I still miss you brotha.

ALBUM OF THE DAY TO RELAX: SLANSHROOM`S CD, nice one.