NYT: Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street (decomposing 4 days)

[DeepModem Mom]

Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street
By DAN BARRY
Published: September 8, 2005


NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 7 - In the downtown business district here, on a dry stretch of Union Street, past the Omni Bank automated teller machine, across from a parking garage offering "early bird" rates: a corpse. Its feet jut from a damp blue tarp. Its knees rise in rigor mortis.

Six National Guardsmen walked up to it on Tuesday afternoon and two blessed themselves with the sign of the cross. One soldier took a parting snapshot like some visiting conventioneer, and they walked away. New Orleans, September 2005.

Hours passed, the dusk of curfew crept, the body remained. A Louisiana state trooper around the corner knew all about it: murder victim, bludgeoned, one of several in that area. The police marked it with traffic cones maybe four days ago, he said, and then he joked that if you wanted to kill someone here, this was a good time.

Night came, then this morning, then noon, and another sun beat down on a dead son of the Crescent City.

That a corpse lies on Union Street may not shock; in the wake of last week's hurricane, there are surely hundreds, probably thousands. What is remarkable is that on a downtown street in a major American city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/national/nationalspecial/08orleans.html?hp&ex=1126152000&en=20e00c90f7037aad&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[skooooo]

1. sick :-(

:grr:

[DELUSIONAL]

2. so journalists are finding their spines?

What is remarkable is that on a downtown street in a major American city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable.

We aren't being hysterical or partisan -- we are concerned humans who happened to have inherited the empahty gene.

I do believe that expression of the empathy gene can be suppressed -- but a traumatic event can resurrect this character trait.

[lonestarnot]

6. This is the America bushitler has created!

[cyr330]

11. Don't give them much credit

They're responding to the worst natural disaster this country has ever had, so they're writing about it. Don't forget that they're reporting sensational things. I hate the corporate media and don't trust them any more than I can spit. I'll never forget their cowardice over the last five years; nothing they do now will redeem themselves in my eyes.

[Ron Mexico]

16. I could have written this post. A "dead body decomposing for four days"

could well have been a dummy coated in sewage for four hours. Unless I see a police report, I'm actually inclined to believe it's bullshit until proven otherwise. Hell, I barely trust newspapers with sports scores.

If true, it's sick and I'm as outraged as everyone else, but given the source (today's media) I don't believe a word and have no reason to.

[babylonsister]

18. It's happening; haven't you seen the pics? nt

[Ron Mexico]

20. No, because I don't read papers much anymore. No reason to trust them(N/T)

[MADem]

19. No, Dan Barry of the New York Times wrote it

This isn't "some poster" ruminating.

And I rather doubt that someone would cover a dummy coated in sewage with a tarp, in the current state of emergency.

[Ron Mexico]

21. I honestly don't doubt it. I put nothing past journalists.

Maybe a reputable one write this article (I'm not familiar with his work because I'm not paying a buck for an out-of-town paper and absolutely refuse to register with online versions, I subscribe to the Washington Post and that's the limit to my exposure to papers) and maybe not, but if the media gave us a fair shake we'd have a different president. I stick with my overwhelming support of the post I responded to.

[MADem]

22. You need to broaden your reading

You can go to www.bugmenot.com and get a registration without revealing personal information, or do what most people do, make the shit up--I'm sure most of these papers have Ophelia Thigh or Hugh G. Rection registered as enthusiastic online readers.

I have no desire to convince you that your thesis about a dummy is frankly, absurd, and a shameful denial of the brutal reality of NOLA on your part. You'll come to that conclusion, eventually, on your own.

[Ron Mexico]

23. Regarding what you took as my "thesis,"

The dummy bit was sarcasm! What would make you think I REALLY think that's the case? I meant it as a disparaging remark about the media along the lines of "they could tell me the sky is blue and I'd want confirmation."

I like this "bugmenot" thing, though, so I thank you for that. I knew I could make shit up but couldn't be bothered to go through it.

Any reading suggestions? Favorites of yours?

[MADem]

24. Read every major paper, to include the enemy rags

NYT, LAT, WAPO, WA (Moonie) Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune...not every day, of course, but pick a city and go to it. You can get a good selection of articles at Buzzflash.com, that might be a fair starting point. There are a lot of good reporters at some of the alternative weeklies, too, like the Boston Phoenix and others.

This :sarcasm: little icon in the smilies lookup table might be helpful in future to avoid confusion.

Good luck in your reading!

[Ron Mexico]

25. I hate to admit this, but

I honestly don't know which papers are supposedly "theirs" other than the NY Post and the Washington Times. The Boston Globe looks like another one, as it was the first to publish anything bad about Kerry, although my Repug office mates tell me it's a "liberal rag."

Chicago, for example, has two papers, one supposedly right and the other supposedly left. Can you tell me which are "enemy" papers and which outside of the NY Times are supposedly "all ours?"

Time permitting, of course. I realize most people know this, I just can't bring myself to pay the media much attention when I see how it gives Bush a pass on su much of his bullshit, so I'm behind the curve here.

[MADem]

27. If you go here

http://www.mediaresearch.org/ you find a rightwing website that will tell you which horrible news outlets are BIG L Liberal. Of course, many are middle of the road, but only considered liberal when they fail to pay homage to the monkey. My favorite headline today? Celine Dion supports NO Looters--fucking nitwits!!!

http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/index.html These guys look at the Conservative web media...
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=100 These guys describe themselves as progressive in their approach to media bias, and then of course there is this site, http://mediamatters.org/ which is the redemption song of David Brock, the one who created the NUTS AND SLUTS attack on Anita Hill, was a closeted gay poster boy for the right, and then wrote BLINDED BY THE RIGHT, which was probably the first small crack in the GOP dike, lo those many years ago, which tore the cover off the GOP unified machine and showed just how low they would go.

But the best way to sort out which is which is to read the editorial page--it tells you all you need to know. Not the commentaries, because even the rightwing papers will have a token (and vice versa--an Alan Colmes to make it seem like balance) but the editorials under the publisher's imprimatur will tell the real tale.

Boston Globe is historically liberal, but MA politics is like Inside Baseball--there is a lot of infighting going on, and agendas within agendas inside the Democratic machine here. If you compare it to the Herald, the Globe is Mother Theresa, the Herald is Lucifer...for whatever that is worth.

[Ron Mexico]

28. Thanks, I really appreicate this. BTW, the right must not have

much on its mind if "its" media focuses on what Celine Dion thinks, but that cracked me up to learn, so thanks for that, too. :)

[stillcool]

3. great article....

i'll take note of the author...thanks..

[CoffeeCat]

4. How long will it be, before Junior outlaws writing about dead bodies?

BushCo is attempting to keep people from photographing bodies. However, he can't stop reporters from writing about what they see. Or can he?

I'm just waiting for FEMA to issue a directive--mandating that reporters cannot write about anyone who died in the hurricane, due to national security interests.

I almost felt as if this piece was a protest against the ban on photographing bodies. The entire piece was about a dead body, and it was so graphically described in detail.

It was as if the reporter was attempting to draw a picture for us.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Very perceptive, TwoSparkles. nt

[aaronbees]

7. Amazing writing...

Captures the horror vividly, the numbness of shock that allows people to walk on by corpses. I liked this quote: "The absence of sweetly blown jazz, of someone cooing "ma chère," of men sporting convention nametags and emitting forced guffaws - the absence of us - assaults the senses more than any smell." Just hearbreaking.

[Freedomfried]

8. Leave him there and he'll kinda melt into the gutter

And the dogs will carry off the bones.

Homeland Security, your either with us, or you're not.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

9. Eloquently written article

Heartbreaking, compassionate and eloquent.


"Maybe some of them had helped to kick in the portal to the Williams Super Market in the once-desirable Garden District. And who could blame them if all they wanted was food in those first desperate days? The interlopers took the water, beer, cigarettes and snack food. They did not take the wine or the New Orleans postcards"


Indeed, who could blame them?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

10. snip

Rush hour in downtown now means pickups carrying gun-carrying men in sunglasses, S.U.V.'s loaded with out-of-town reporters hungry for action, and the occasional tank. About the only ones commuting by bus are dull-eyed suspects shuffling two-by-two from the bus-and-train terminal, which is now a makeshift jail.

[saigon68]

12. Kicked and recommended

This is the shit that has to be exposed.

A country that treats its poor and dead with derision and contempt is truly ruled by the devil.

[seemslikeadream]

13. Here's another link for the rest of the article

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050908/ZNYT02/509080847

[crispini]

14. "the toxic metropolis."

powerful.

[Nothing Without Hope]

15. Here the story of what a neighborhood did with another body, a neighbor:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4622712
The name of that thread is "A Death In New Orleans," and all of us should read it to better understand the callous hell the feds have made New Orleans. If these caring people had not buried their friend as well as they could, she would still just be lying there. I'm afraid few victims have been treated with as much dignity and unified mourning.

The corporate media are STILL talking about a total death toll of about 10,000. In fact, judging by how many bodies the morticians have been told to expect, it's going to be at least 40,000.
http://www.t-g.com/story/1116806.html
DU thread is here (but OP does not have this permalink):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4674804
Many bodies will never be recovered, much less counted, and that's the way the White House wants it, I believe.

[peacetalksforall]

17. As much as I despise the NYT - a greater portion of the world will be

able to see what this country has become under the Cheney and Bush cabal.

Take a look world.

Cheney and Bush are determined to make the U.S. a fourth world country.

Some of our citizens have bragged about the superiority of the U.S. over your country and shoved their superiority down your throats.

Both native born and naturalized citizens and all the foreigners living here made the country a success in many ways, but what was good is now being destroyed and we don't understand.

I will play the blame game - I am blaming the forces in the military, intelligence, corporate, corporate/cabal media, elected and non-elected officials and the entire war machine of people against the rest of the nation (think tanks, grooming shcools), reverends whose power is overwhelming and the lies, theft, deception of people who stole the elections that placed them in power to destroy.

The leadership of this country is also toxic.

It is the role of the people who are responsible for our tax money to prevent what is happening.

Watch for their lies abd their counter and preventive actions to be debunked and exposed.

These are cunningly evil people who are not totally in control, but they are trying and they are not perfect.

Please pray for the good people of this country.

[Virginian]

26. Quite a contrast to the way Rehnquist was handled. (rant)

"...murder victim, bludgeoned, one of several in that area."

At least one of those several in that area may have been a veteran, entitled to burial with full military honors.


Chances are, if Bush hadn't been on vacation, that corpse might still be a man with a family who loved him. Now, after rotting in the heat, he may never be identified. They may never know what happened to him. Too bad Bush didn't call off his vacation a few days earlier when it may have made a difference to this man. Too bad Bush sent the National Guard to Iraq. One more in the city immediately after the storm might have made the difference of life and death to this man.

Bush is evil. He could have made New Orleans safer for the Hurricane survivors, but he chose not to.

[TexasBushwhacker]

29. Journalistic embellishment perhaps ....

or maybe the Louisiana state trooper was incorrect about the time of death. Rigor mortis starts about 3 hours after death and lasts about 36. In NOLA's heat, there is no way that the body would continue to be stiff after 4 days.