THE 6-YEAR OLD WHO NEVER FAIL TO MOVE ME

This LA Times article by Ellen Barry was written at the heights of Katrina Hurricane and it stays on the list of most read articles on many news sites for months and months after Katrina. Even after 3 years it still move me in an indescribable way and if this article can't move you, nothing will.

6-YEAR-OLD BECOMES A HERO TO BAND OF TODDLERS, RESCUERS
Tense days lead to reunion of kids and their moms

By ELLEN BARRY
Los Angeles Times

BATON ROUGE, LA. - In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of evacuees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he said his name was Deamonte Love.

After their rescue Thursday, paramedics in the Baton Rouge rescue operations headquarters tried to coax their names out of them.

Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.

"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"

Clean and healthy

So far, parents displaced by flooding have reported 220 children missing, and that number is expected to rise, said Mike Kenner of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which will help reunite families.

At the rescue headquarters, the children ate cafeteria food and fell into a deep sleep. Deamonte gave his address, his phone number and the name of his elementary school.

He said the 5-month-old was his brother, Darynael, and that two others were his cousins, Tyreek and Zoria. The other three lived in his apartment building.

The children were clean and healthy, said Joyce Miller, a nurse who examined them. It was clear, she said, that "time had been taken with those kids." The baby was "fat and happy."

False hope

Thursday night, they got an encouraging report: A woman in a shelter in Thibodeaux was searching for seven children. People in the building started clapping at the news. But when they got the mother on the phone, it became clear that she was looking for a different group of seven children.

The children were transferred to a shelter operated by the Department of Social Services, rooms full of toys and cribs where mentors from the Big Buddy Program were on hand. For the next two days, the staff did detective work.

One of the 2-year-olds steadfastly refused to say her name until a worker took her picture with a digital camera and showed it to her. The little girl pointed at it and cried out, "Gabby!" One of the boys — with a halo of curly hair — had a G printed on his T-shirt when he arrived; when volunteers started calling him G, they noticed that he responded.

Deamonte began to give more details to Derrick Robertson, a 27-year-old Big Buddy mentor: How he saw his mother cry when he was loaded onto the helicopter. How he promised he'd take care of his brother.

Late Saturday night, they found Deamonte's mother, who was in a shelter in San Antonio along with the four mothers of the other five children. Catrina Williams, 26, saw her children's pictures on a Web site set up over the weekend by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. By Sunday, a private plane from Angel Flight was waiting to take the children to Texas.

In a phone interview, Williams said she is the kind of mother who doesn't let her children out of her sight. What happened on Thursday, she said, was that her family, trapped in an apartment building, began to feel desperate.

The water wasn't going down and they had been living without light, food or air conditioning for four days. The baby needed milk and the milk was gone. So she decided they would evacuate by helicopter. When a helicopter arrived to pick them up, they were told to send the children first and that the helicopter would be back in 25 minutes. She and her neighbors had to make a quick decision.

It was a wrenching moment. Williams' father, Adrian Love, told her to send the children ahead.

"I told them to go ahead and give them up because me, I would give my life for my kids. They should feel the same way," said Love, 48.

His daughter and her friends followed his advice.

"We did what we had to do for our kids because we love them," Williams said.

The helicopter didn't come back. While the children were transported to Baton Rouge, their parents wound up in San Antonio, and although Williams was reassured that they would be reunited, days passed without any contact. On Sunday, she was elated.

"All I know is, I just want to see my kids," she said. "Everything else will just fall into place."

TALKING TO MYSELF

The previous posting was actually sent to one political news site but it was not deemed as suitable to be published. Think most probably they are more inclined into more serious stuff.
I don't think I'll be updating this thing very religiously since nobody is going to read it anyway. It's purely for my own ego.
I don't think I'll go and flood every comment section of every well-known blogs in the country just to gain readership. No, whoring is not one of my strongest skills.
With that I end my talking to myself posting.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNT FROM MAHATHIRITES

HEALTH WARNING: THIS POSTING MAY CAUSE YOU TO PUKE. OR FAINT. SOME PEOPLE DO LIVE IN CUCKOOLAND.

Politics can be funny. Fanatical supporters to any political figures can be funnier These days whenever I need some good old humor, reading anything posted on www.chedet.com is enough for me. No, not the ones posted by the old wily fox, but his worshipers. Here's some of the gems I discovered, and also the conclusions any clueless soul (who had never heard about Mahathir and his legacies all his life, and only recently read the comments section in www.chedet.com and nothing else, in order to know who Mahathir is) would make:

1. Mahathir's decision to leave UMNO is a correct decision. His son, Mukhriz's decision not to quit UMNO is also a correct decision. Everybody else who stays in UMNO is either self-serving, yes-man, apple polishers, has no balls/principles/morale standing or a combination of the above. And they are all wrong to stay in UMNO.
2. Mahathir was the best Prime Minister Malaysia ever had because he had many mega projects during his time, KLCC, KLIA, Putrajaya, MSC, Penang Bridge, Proton, blah blah blah. Pak Lah is the worst Prime Minister Malaysia could ever have because he had no mega project.
3. Present day UMNO is filled with corruption, leaders who have lost sense of reality and fake politicians/members whose only interests are projects, more projects and tonnes of money that come with it. They don't really care about ordinary people's plight. UMNO under Mahathir had no such thing. They're in UMNO purely for the struggle of the Malays and to protect the sanctity of Islam.
4. When Mahathir is firm, he is the man of principle. When Pak Lah is firm, he is either losing touch with the masses/desperate to cling to power/ignorant/in denial syndrome/following KJ or Forth Floor Boys' advice/kowtow to Singapore.
5. Should we let the Opposition comes into power, the Malays will be trampled on by Kaum Pendatang. The Malays will definitely have no future. Only Mahathir can be the saviour of the Malays.
6. Should we let the Opposition comes into power, Malaysia will lost its sovereignty to some evil foreign power, chief suspect is Singapore, with the help of Zionist/America
7. During Pak Lah's time, Cabinet members and UMNO MT members who defended PM and his decisions are doing so because they are yes men to Pak Lah, and have no mind of their own, not because it was the right decisions.
8. During Mahathir's time, Cabinet members and UMNO MT members who defended the then PM and his decisions were doing so because it was the right decisions not because they are just yes men to Mahathir and they all have mind of their own.
9. Cabinet members and UMNO MT members who criticized Mahathir (read: support Pak Lah) are a bunch of apple polishers
10. Ordinary rakyat who criticized Mahathir are a bunch of ungrateful lot, after all the hard work done by Mahathir towards the betterment of the country. Without Mahathir's hard work the world must still be thinking that we live on the trees.
11. When Mahathir criticized UMNO, it was because he loves UMNO more than he loves himself.
12. When UMNO politicians criticized Mahathir, they are all rude, ungrateful lot, after all that Mahathir had done in bringing them to the high positions they are/were in today/in the past. Rafidah Aziz, Shahrir Samad, Nazri Aziz and Musa Hitam are the worst of them all.
13. Every statement by Mahathir is correct. Every statement by Abdullah is stupid. Every statement by the Oppositions is pure evil.
14. Anwar is the chief of pure evil.
15. Mahathir should become our Prime Minister again. We need you. We are really desperate. Should you become our Prime Minister again, we can say goodbye to high oil and food prices, all the social ills, all the cronyism, all the corruption…because you are such a brilliant and caring Prime Minister.
16. During Pak Lah's time, when the media only air/publish pro-government news, it's pure propaganda and trying to undermine people's intelligence.
18. During Mahathir's time, when the media only air/publish pro-government news, it's because everything done by the government was right and the opposition was wrong. And evil.
19. Program Semarak by Ministry of Information (still remember that?) was the best program for the leaders to get up close and personal with the people. We felt so close with the leaders back then compared to now. And Tok Mat (Tan Sri Mohamed Rahmat) was the best Minister of Information. Ever.
20. Should Mahathir is still the Prime Minister, we won't lose Pulau Batu Putih. We won Sipadan and Ligitan because Mahathir was the Prime Minister. Our future generations will pee on our graves because we lost Pulau Batu Putih.
21. When Mahathir is given the accolades by the foreign media, it is because of his charisma. When Anwar is given the accolades by the foreign media, it is because he is a Zionist agent. We all know how Zionists control the world media.
22. Only during Pak Lah's reign we can see that law enforcers are just there to serve the government, not the people. Powerful people who committed any wrongdoings can easily get away from the clutches of law. There's no such things during Mahathir's reign.
23. Should BN lose their grip on power in the next general election, it is because the people are angry of the way the government treated Mahathir now. BN performed very badly in the recent GE because people are angry with the way the government treated Mahathir after he retires. (Yes, express sympathy to Mahathir by voting Anwar-lead coalition, very nice)
24. You have no right to criticize Mahathir for he had done so much for the country, you have yet to do anything for the country, so please shut up. And whatever it is that you do for the country, can never be compared to Mahathir's contributions during his 22-year premiership.
25. There's rule of law during Mahathir era. Also justice. Now no more.
26. Royal Commission of Lingam Tape is useless and unnecessary because the video was taken without his knowledge, we can say anything we want to say in our own house without any legal consequences and we can't proof who was on the other line. Therefore, Lingam has a very good defence. (I'm really speechless here)
27. Nazri is a racist, ungrateful and stupid minister now. (Nazri was nothing like that during Mahathir's time?)
28. Pak Lah is now being slammed left, right and centre because he is a very weak leader. Mahathir as a PM was never being slammed left, right and centre because he was a very good leader. But if Mahathir let himself be criticized then, it was because he was being democratic.
29. Mahathir's decision to quit UMNO has in effect abruptly bringing to the end the intentions of hundreds of thousands of people out there who are on the verge of joining UMNO. (Huhh?)
30. The silent Malay majority supports Mahathir. No matter what he say. No matter what he do. The 99.99% positive comments on his blog is a testament to that.
31. When Abdullah continues Mahathir's policies, it is because the policies are good, he can't come up with anything better for he is such an inept. When Pak Lah discontinued Mahathir's policies, he's out to destroy Mahathir's legacy.
32. Letting the Sultans to decide the MBs were the worst precedent ever set in the history of Malaysia.
33. Pak Lah did tremendously well in 2004 GE because we knew he was a good leader. How did we knew? Because Mahathir picked him.
34. Hosting the Commonwealth Game/F1 was/is a very good way in boosting the economy in a long term as people around the world know Malaysia more. (Just by people knowing Malaysia we'll have a stronger economy? They don't even need to come here and spend?)
35. Without LRT/Monorail/Komuter projects, it's unimaginable how much the people have to pay for petrol.
36. It is none of Mahathir's fault when Proton can only produce sub-standard quality cars at an inflated price.
37. It's OK that some of Mahathir's projects are deemed as failures because we are just human.
38. Mahathir is one of the most influential people in the world. (Wowww!)
39. Perak MB, Selangor MB, Anwar, Musa Hitam, Rafidah, even Pak Lah and all of Malaysians today are the person that they are today because of Mahathir's excellent work during his 22 years as PM.
40. One day when the future generations of Malaysia look back to this point in time, they will remember Mahathir as the selfless leader who gave back Malaysia to Malaysians. (How?)
41. The present Government is so scared with the Opposition's march to Putrajaya and the rising cost of living that they have to turn rakyat's attention to something else, that is by putting a fight with Mahathir.
42. We the Malays must stop the Opposition's march to Putrajaya (See No. 5 & 6)
43. Should Mahathir propose the rakyat to vote for PAS in the next general election, rakyat will vote for PAS in droves, not because they support PAS's ideology, but because Mahathir ask them to. (Should Mahathir ask you to terjun lombong, you'll terjun lombong lah?)
44. It is very undemocratic of UMNO in making it hard to contest the top positions in UMNO. (My question: Who introduced that practice anyway?)
45. Please don't question Mahathir's loyalty to UMNO. His loyalty to UMNO is second to none.
46. Mahathir is still the leader of Malaysia, the Malays and UMNO.
47. It is disappointing to watch and hear how the Parliament has becoming more of a circus nowadays (Yes, the increasing number of Opposition MPs are very bad to the country, as they are only there to create trouble, and they are a bunch of bad people. Life was so much better when Parliament was merely used as a rubber-stamping institution, no?)
48. When Mahathir talk about Malay rights, he is a true Malay nationalist. When the Oppositions talk about other races rights, they are inciting racial hatred.
49. Karpal is still not repentant even on wheelchair. He should stop making noises and just enjoy the excellent infrastructures built by Mahathir.
50. Mahathir, Ayahanda Rakyat.