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What brought this to everyone's attention, apparently, is that Yahoo.com posted both pics side by side, with their captions, and didn't realize what they had done. They have since pulled the photos and apologized.

This is the kind of subtle message that organizations such as NAHJ and NABJ struggle with on a regular basis. To be fair, the Society for Professional Journalists denounces things like this as a matter of principle as well. I don't think it was racist, in the sense of an active desire to send this message. I think it might show bias, and once it's pointed out to the news organizations, the people responsible would probably be embarrassed (if not defensive). But being "defensive" might be the appropriate response, because the "defense" could very easily be a valid one. I agree with the careful reading provided by snopes: these were two different photographers for two different news services, and I don't have other images to compare them. Did the AP photographer label white people as looters? The the AFP photographer say black people "found" food and supplies? If both those statements are true, then it's not fair to criticize either for inconsistency. The two photos merely provide an anecdotal object lesson.

God Bless Texas.

First off, bygones. The whole argument got out of hand and I'm sorry. My only point was supposed to be that this storm is going to be a lot uglier than we even know at the moment. I've heard some people say some pretty uninformed things, which may turn out to be true in the future, but don't need to be said until we have more information (like the U.S. Senator who said the bodycount will be more than 10,000, then said he wasn't basing this on any information. Dude, if it's not based on information, shut up, Senator)! Anyway, as my posts indicate, I live in Fort Lauderdale, where Katrina came on land as a cat 1 on Aug. 25. And yes, I did already tell this story. Every time you see a thread title with the word "Cone" in it, it's about a Tropical Storm or Hurricane, and I started it. The Cone of Katrina thread is now called "Prayers for the Gulf Coast (Katrina)." No question, I consider myself lucky to have escaped as unscathed as I did, even for South Florida.

Aside from the part I lived through, no. We'll be covering the refugees when they arrive here in South Florida.

You have no idea what a mistake you're making, but I suppose when you read more of my posts you'll realize I am not at all as you describe. As for my major, I am proud of my college degree, proud of what it took for me to get it, and your pitiful effort to denigrate it makes the knowledge I gained during and after my formal education no less valuable.

This makes it sound as if there was exactly one incident of one person moving one body away. There were a bunch of incidents, all being summed up. That's not "subtle language." That's summary. I expect you know the difference.

Lean in real close to the monitor, okay... AFTER the levee broke, there was still no way to tell how high the water would rise, so the experts who were talking gave best case and worse case scenarios, which were passed on by the media. That is our job. To pass on information. Hence the term "media." Methinks you, not I, are the one not reading carefully.

You're talking about the Tsunami, and the Tsunami was caused by a major earthquake. NOTHING MAN DID could ever have caused or contributed to such a quake. All the nuclear bombs we've exploded since the 1940s could not do what that one earthquake did in terms of the earth's axis/rotation. And the effect of that earthquake on the axis was miniscule. EARTHQUAKES ARE NOT WEATHER EVENTS. Comparing a your car experiment to how man can affect the weather is like comparing an ant's strength to an elephant's. Lots on interesting facts, to be sure, but I've never seen an ant crush an elephant. This isn't even worth responding to.

Your silliness in blaming the media for exaggerating something like this holds whether I am with the media or not. For the record, yes, I am with the media. And the reason I pointed out the meaning of "media" is that it's outright silly of you to blame them for passing on what officials were saying COULD happen (not what WILL happen, what COULD happen: if you can't see the difference, that's not the media's fault, it's the school system's). You figure out a way to verify what's going to happen tomorrow. Let me know, so I can buy my Lotto tickets. "Fortunately, no one was listening..." If people had listened, maybe more would have gotten out of there. People are dying, you're blaming the media for exaggerating things that have not been exaggerated, and you accuse me of nitpicking. "Pot, meet the kettle." "But, but, but..." (In fairness, though, Bill obviously didn't know I was with the media. That's okay. He hasn't been posting long. Bill, let's grab a beer later and talk media politics).

Jeff Goldblum The Fly Geena Davis

Really? Hmmmm. Magnolias? (Proving once and for all that I am no botanist).

A typhoon couldn't POSSIBLY move the earth off its axis. You read wrong. Read again. We have not caused hurricanes, we have not caused typhoons (which are hurricanes, by the way), we have not caused tsunamis, we hva not caused earthquakes, and we put our collective efforts into causing these things, we MIGHT, collectively, as a planet, produce one extra raindrop. This whole premise is absurd.

Please don't mistake television for newspapers. There are not enough of these stories being aired, maybe, but plenty of these stories are being written.

Maybe it would be better if news anchors got on the air and said "Nothing to see here, move along..." We now return you to our Twilight Zone marathon...

I will say this: I hope you're right about the number of dead. I think you're wrong, but I hope you're right.

Do you know what the word "media" means? It's the plural of medium. It's what passes information from the source to the public. You act as if the media got together and decided to push a 20' story on the public, all by themselves. The media told that story because the officials responsible for monitoring the city and giving the worst-case scenario told that story, and wanted the public to know it. Getting angry at the media in the situation you describe is like getting angry at the postman for putting a bill in your mailbox. "It seemed to me they were saying there was a sea of bodies they had to push through..." No one said that. They said people when rescuers encountered bodies, they had to push them out of the way in an effort to get to the living. Ratings... as if people aren't going to watch... oh never mind. Go ahead. This is the perfect opportunity to get angry at the media. Yup. We LOVE this story in the media. BIG BIG business for us. Woohoo! If only the storm had moved west instead of east! Why, our bottom lines would skyrocket! Yippeee!

You do know the difference between speculation before the fact and reporting after the fact, don't you? I'm grateful that the 10'-20' didn't happen. But it could have, and everyone there knows it. That wasn't hype, my friend, that was a responsible way of telling people to get the bejeezus out of the city. I wish more people had listened to that media hype: we wouldn't see the kind of devastation we're seeing now.

The one verbal account...? Sorry, you saw one of many accounts of people pushing bodies out of the way to get to others to be rescued. The pictures they've shown have not shown that. You don't want to see the ones they're not showing. And this is NOT rumor. This is all-too real. The rumors would scare 10 pounds off of you in a half hour. But don't doubt the MSNBC stuff. Hoping for the best and ignoring the reality of what has already happened are very different things.

Bill, it is like they have to push bodies out of the way. That's precisely what they're doing. On top of that, people are continuing to literally die waiting to get out of the city. An MSNBC photographer was taking video footage, and was so sickened by what he saw that he didn't even film it. He only filmed what he could stomach. He sent those images back, and the footage he sent back was so sickening that MSNBC refused to air it. Hoping it's less than 1,000 is, I hate to say it, wishful thinking. When this number is finally estimated, I'm going to be hugging my toilet.

Science teaches me that when you have a great big hunk of metal, it will be more dense than air and therefore will stay on the ground. MORE SCIENCE teaches me that when you shape that hunk of metal a certain way and fuel it the right way, you can turn it into an airplane and it will lift off the ground. Listen to more science, Roy, and you will see the relationship of global warming to hurricanes.

You can't be arbitrary about this. If "science" teaches you that things happen when waters warm up, then you should learn something from the scientists who study hurricanes when they say no, this storm was not caused or intensified by global warming. We've had Cat 5's before, and we'll have them again, global warming or no.

Brother Speed, welcome to THE. Now brace yourself, because this is really going to hurt...

That's a great way to dismiss every scrap of knowledge that comes your way.