There's a very illuminating series of posts from a Doctor in the Astrodome, who's given reprint permission to Al at Code the Web Socket. Start here. Here's Day Two. Day Three. Day Four. Day Five.
Those posts give you a real feel for the dedication and frustration that medical personnel are exhibiting in the midst of this.
Also, read this at TPM Cafe. The author was "one of the volunteers who helped greet the busloads of evacuees at the Astrodome." Talking of the news coverage, he says:
Always these stories have a specific purpose: to shut down empathy so that we won't demand action or accountability. They are told because we are a charitable nation, and if these people aren't rapists and murders and looters, then what they are is suffering, and suffering would demand attention that wasn't given. The fact that it wasn't given would demand that someone be taken to task.Posted by Linkmeister at September 6, 2005 05:00 PM | TrackBack