So, Chicago???
But brother Spike, says it's, "CHI-RAQ" and he says of his movie that it's SATIRE.
Okay, but what kinda "tire" is SATIRE???
Well, ifn it's GREEK to you, anywho, so is "soul-lu-tion"....
But it all depends on What Side of Chicago, the other side Chi-raq????
Well, well, yes, I love poetry, I love art, and, and, yes....
One more, will you "Please" give "NATO" a chance, and, and,
While you are at it will you "Please" give the CLIMATE CHANGE agreements a chance.
Give "PEACE" a chance. GIVE each other a chance. IT'S WORTH IT.
What's your story "Morning Glory"???
"RU" progressive too??? "RU" green for this earth???
"RU" anti-WAR too???
"RU" DEM dat's for"poor-poor, PEOPLE"??? Ifn you UR goodie goodie 4U.
South Carolina Flooding: Residents Warned Flooding Could Worsen Downstream; State's Death Toll Rises to 17
By Sean Breslin
Published Oct 7 2015 01:39 PM EDT
weather.com
Damage after Dam Breech
If there's one video that shows the scope of the Carolina
flood damage, it's this new drone video. Look at all the debris after
the Lexington Mill Pond dam breach.
Residents in South Carolina's Lowcountry were
being warned that water from days of flooding across the state was
moving in their direction, and it was going to have major impacts.
Near
the coast, residents were seen sandbagging around homes, businesses and
tourist attractions as they prepared for the surge of water that was
headed their way. Though some areas have already dealt with flooding
from the initial event, authorities said some areas that didn't see
flooding may get swamped before all that water moves out to sea.
"We are going to be extremely careful. We are watching this minute by minute," said Gov. Nikki Haley.
Enlarge
South Carolina Rain Totals
Although the bulk of the rain has ended, high
waters are still a very dangerous reality after the historic flood event
in South Carolina. Rescue crews went door to door in South Carolina's
capital city of Columbia as officials continued to free residents that
were trapped by severe flooding that swamped virtually the entire state.
“I believe that things will get worse before they get better,”
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin said Monday. “Eventually the floods will
abate, but then we have to access the damage, and I anticipate that
damage will probably be in the billions of dollars, and we’re going to
have to work to rebuild. Some peoples’ lives as they know them will
never be the same.”
Wednesday morning, Williamsburg County
officials were asking some residents south of the Black and Santee
rivers to evacuate as the two waterways overflowed their banks.
Officials expected to see river flooding in the area, and they're
hopeful that some controlled dam releases will alleviate the flooding, Live 5 News reported.
Dam
failures were a constant concern for thousands of residents, days after
the rain ended. Residents near one Columbia, South Carolina, dam were
told to flee Wednesday morning, as it was believed to be near its
breaking point, potentially putting thousands in the path of millions of
gallons of water. (INTERACTIVE: Columbia Report and Recover Map)
Those
new evacuation orders were issued after concern that the Beaver Dam at
Pebble Creek could breach. All residents were ordered to evacuate the
area, asking that they go to A.C. Flora High School.
"Move to
higher ground now. Act quickly to protect your life," wrote the National
Weather Service's Columbia office in an alert sent to the area
Wednesday morning.
According to the Richland County Sheriff's
Department, the dam was stabilized at about 8:30 a.m. local time
Wednesday morning. Authorities kept a voluntary evacuation notice in
effect for residents living downstream of the dam.
During a
Wednesday afternoon press conference, Gov. Haley said the state is
monitoring 62 of South Carolina's thousands of dams. Thirteen dams have
failed, she also said.
At least 17 people have died from the
floods in South Carolina since the rain began to fall days ago. In the
wake of the disastrous flooding event, President Barack Obama signed a
disaster declaration for the state of South Carolina, ordering federal
aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts.
Obama's
action makes federal funding available to affected parties in
Charleston, Dorchester, Georgetown, Horry, Lexington, Orangeburg,
Richland and Williamsburg counties. Forms of assistance included are
grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans for
uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and
business owners recover.
The rain event has set records all over
the state, flooding entire towns. For some locations, this historic
rainfall qualifies as a 1,000-year rain event, meaning in a given year
there is a 1 in 1,000 chance of observing rainfall totals of this
magnitude.
"The flooding is unprecedented and historical," said
Dr. Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist and director of the atmospheric
sciences program at the University of Georgia, in an email to The
Associated Press. (INTERACTIVE: Charleston Report and Recover Map)
The University of South Carolina announced Tuesday
classes will be canceled for the rest of the week due to the floods. A
football game between USC and Louisiana State University was scheduled
to be played in Columbia on Saturday, but it will instead be played in
Baton Rouge.
Parts of Columbia, including the USC campus, lost
water service. Bottled water and portable restrooms were delivered to
the students Monday morning.
As a result, officials are begging
residents from other areas to donate water for Columbia residents who
lack running water. Collections have been set up all over the state for
citizens to bring extra bottled water that will be delivered to the
Midlands, according to the AP.
Columbia city officials have released a statement
issuing a boil water advisory to all 375,000 of its water customers,
advising them to vigorously boil their water for at least a full minute.
Any ice made from water that was not boiled beforehand should also not
be used.
On Wednesday, the Saluda County Emergency
Management Division lifted the boil water advisory for
Batesburg-Leesville, Monetta and Ridge Spring.
Swift-water rescue teams plucked hundreds of residents from stranded cars and flooded homes all over the state. Officials say it may take weeks or months to assess all of the closed roads and bridges.
Interstate 95 remains closed from Exits 119 to 132, but the rest of the
freeway was reopened on Wednesday. For days, a stretch of more than 70
miles of I-95 was closed from I-20 to I-26.
Hundreds of roads will remain shut down across the state Tuesday; the South Carolina Department of Transportation has a full list here. (MORE: How You Can Help the Victi
WASHINGTON — Welcomed with a fanfare of trumpets and a chorus of amens, Pope Francis introduced himself to the United States on Wednesday with a bracing message on climate change, immigration and poverty that ranged from the pastoral to the political.
On
a day that blended the splendor of an ancient church with the frenzy of
a modern rock star tour, Francis waded quietly but forcefully into some
of the most polarizing issues of American civic life. Along the way, he
underscored just how much he has upended the agenda of the Roman Catholic Church and reordered its priorities.
Perhaps no one was more pleased than President Obama,
who greeted him with an elaborate arrival ceremony at the White House,
where the pope explicitly embraced the administration’s efforts to
combat climate change.
At a later speech to American bishops, Francis, the first pope from
Latin America, pressed for openness to immigrants, marking a signal day
for Hispanics in the United States.
While
the last two popes focused on traditional moral issues like abortion
and homosexuality, Francis left those to the side in Mr. Obama’s
presence. With the bishops, he spoke about the “innocent victim of
abortion” but mentioned the issue as only one of a long list of
concerns, including children who die of hunger or in bombings,
immigrants who “drown in the search for a better tomorrow” and an
environment “devastated by man’s predatory relationship with nature.”
“Humanity
has the ability to work together in building our common home,” the pope
told a crowd of thousands on the South Lawn of the White House in his
first major speech in English. “As Christians inspired by this
certainty, we wish to commit ourselves to the conscious and responsible
care of our common home.”
Still,
in a low-key but evident break with Mr. Obama, Francis at the end of
the day made a previously unannounced stop to see the nuns at the Little
Sisters of the Poor to underscore his support for religious freedom, a Vatican
spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said. The Little Sisters
religious order sued the federal government over the birth control
mandate in Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Wearing
his white cassock and skullcap, Francis was greeted everywhere he went
by joyful crowds. Catholics and non-Catholics alike juggled their
cellphones and small flags of the Holy See as they craned for a glimpse
of the 266th pope — only the fourth to visit the United States and third
to visit Washington.
The
spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics led a short parade around the
Ellipse in his open-air popemobile, waving and making the sign of the
cross as Vatican officials brought him babies to kiss. He later
celebrated Mass for more than 20,000 people and presided over the first
canonization in the United States.
In
his first visit to the United States, Francis, 78, seemed eager to pass
over his previous criticisms of a materialistic, capitalist culture and
instead reach out to the world’s most powerful nation. He praised the
country’s devotion to freedom of liberty and religion even as he
cautioned that its vast resources demanded a deep sense of moral
responsibility. “God bless America,” he said at the White House.
The
pope arrived at the White House in a modest Fiat to find a crowd of
11,000 people, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Secretary
of State John Kerry and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the
Democratic minority leader, all Catholics, as well as about half of the
members of Congress. The White House rolled out its best color guards,
including a fife-and-drum corps, but opted against the 21-gun salute
that is traditional for such ceremonies.
Mr.
Obama thanked the pope for his help in restoring American diplomatic
relations with Cuba and hailed him for speaking out for the world’s most
impoverished. “You shake our conscience from slumber,” he said. “You
call on us to rejoice in good news and give us confidence that we can
come together, in humility and service, and pursue a world that is more
loving, more just and more free.”
In
his own remarks, the pope noted the country’s origins at a time when
critics of illegal immigration were pushing to build a wall at the
southern border. “As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a
guest in this country, which was largely built by such families,”
Francis said.
He
devoted more of his address to climate change than any other topic.
“Mr. President,” Francis said, “I find it encouraging that you are
proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution.” He added that there
was still time to heal the planet for its children. “To use a telling
phrase of the Rev. Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted
on a promissory note, and now is the time to honor it,” he said.
The
ceremony brought together two men with starkly disparate backgrounds
and yet commonalities that have united them now, a community organizer
from Chicago and a priest from Argentina, both presenting themselves as
champions of the powerless. While they first met last year at the
Vatican, their appearance on Wednesday carried a visual and possibly a
political power that solidified the impression of a secular-theological
alliance.
Republicans,
who have said they disagree with the pope on climate change and
capitalism, nonetheless largely kept such thoughts to themselves and
instead focused instead on the majesty of the day. Former Gov. Jeb Bush
of Florida, a Republican presidential candidate who converted to
Catholicism, attended the afternoon Mass with the pope and posted a
picture on Twitter.
After
meeting alone with the president and an interpreter in the Oval Office,
the pope went to the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, where the
crowd swelled so deep that for many the only sign of the pope’s arrival
was a cheer echoing through nearby streets. A crowd of more than 50
people inside a restaurant pressed against windows facing the cathedral
and stood eagerly on chairs to get a better view.
As
the pope entered the cathedral, the rector, Msgr. W. Ronald Jameson,
threw his arms open wide. As he walked down the church’s center aisle
between rows of bishops in pink zucchettos, some of them held up phones
and cameras to take pictures.
Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Ore., posted on Twitter from his seat in the pews: “Pope Francis has arrived!”
Addressing
nearly 300 bishops, whom he referred to as his brothers, the pope was
warm and encouraging, but he also spoke clearly and with simple language
that was unmistakable in its emphasis. He praised the bishops for their
work on behalf of immigrants, and for the first time praised their
“courage” in handling the church’s sexual abuse scandals.
“I
am also conscious of the courage with which you have faced difficult
moments in the recent history of the church in this country without fear
of self-criticism and at the cost of mortification and great
sacrifice,” the pope told the bishops.
Those
remarks brought applause from the bishops but later drew indignation
from survivors of sexual abuse and their advocates. Dennis Coday, the
editor of The National Catholic Reporter, an independent outlet that
helped reveal sexual abuse by priests, said the pope’s comments would
prompt victims to conclude, “He just doesn’t get it.”
Speaking
to bishops who have not always agreed with his spiritual emphasis, the
pope said that he had “not come to judge you or to lecture you.” But he
said the “style of our mission” should make parishioners feel that the
message was meant for them. “Be pastors close to people, pastors who are
neighbors and servants,” he instructed.
Francis
also pressed his case for particular attention to immigrants and
refugees as a primary responsibility of the church. Speaking of the
recent surge of migration from Latin America, he acknowledged that
parishes may be “challenged by their diversity.”
“But
know that they also possess resources meant to be shared — so do not be
afraid to welcome them,” he said. “I am certain that, as so often in
the past, these people will enrich America and its church.”
Latinos
who flocked to see the pontiff said they were not surprised that he
would highlight an issue of critical importance to a community with
increasing influence in American politics — and an expanding target for
political backlash.
“He understands Americans — he is one,” Oscar Lefranc, 55, said. “He’s lived it. He’s experienced it.”
Later
in the afternoon, the pope went to the campus of Catholic University of
America to celebrate his first Mass in the United States and to
canonize JunÃpero Serra, a Franciscan who founded missions across
California in the 1700s.
The
pope greeted the enthusiastic crowd before entering the Basilica of the
National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the nation’s largest
Roman Catholic church.
Before
the homily, the pope declared Father Serra to be a saint. “Having given
mature deliberation and having begged the help of divine grace, and the
opinion of many of our brothers, blessed JunÃpero Serra we discern and
define to be a saint,” the pope said, speaking in Spanish.
Olga
Herrera, 30, and eight other members of a young-adults group at St.
Camillus Catholic Church of Silver Spring, Md., all of them from
Guatemala, cheered when Francis accepted the proclamation made on behalf
of Father Serra’s sainthood.
Correction: September 23, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated the church group
that Olga Herrera was with when Pope Francis accepted the proclamation
made on behalf of JunÃpero Serra’s sainthood. It was the group with St.
Camillus Catholic Church of Silver Spring, Md., not the group with St.
Catherine Laboure Church in Wheaton, Md.