George Bush has resigned!

No, just a joke. The news isn’t that good, but still good news anyway.

First, dead bodies. It seems that the death rate may have been dramatically overrated in New Orleans, although we still do not have a final toll. But so far it is much lower than predicted!

Just in from the Katrina Bog:

6:13 P.M. – (AP): Authorities raised Louisiana’s death toll to 197 on Sunday, and recovery of corpses continued. Teams pulled an unspecified number of bodies from Memorial Medical Center, a 317-bed hospital in uptown New Orleans that closed more than a week ago after being surrounded by floodwaters.

And next on the agenda, finally, some real action on getting poor pets out of the flood zone.

6:10 P.M. – (AP): The first major airlift of canine refugees from the hurricane battered Gulf Coast headed out of Louisiana on Sunday with about 80 dogs bound for new temporary homes in California.

The Continental Airlines flight from Baton Rouge, La., was chartered for about $50,000 by Texas oil tycoon Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine, in a movement dubbed by organizers as “Operation Pet Lift.”

I forgot. Yes, today is Sept 11 and I forgot, and I’m a native New Yorker to boot. Of course, growing up while the city festered in trash, high crime and on the verge of bankruptcy during the 1970s, my childhood goal was to escape as soon as possible.

I should clarify and say that I didn’t really forget about 9/11 but I just didn’t realize the date. The days have been flying by so fast, and with all the commotion over Katrina, I really haven’t been paying much attention to time.

Four years later, we still haven’t really decided what is going to take the place of the World Trade Centers. We haven’t found Osama bin Laden (not that Dubya has put much effort into looking), and we’re all just getting on with our lives.

This is an interesting bit of news from the Katrina Blog:

5:36 P.M. – HOUSTON (AP): About 2,000 Muslim volunteers helped victims of Hurricane Katrina at the city’s downtown convention center Sunday, the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Muslim leaders from around the country who were in Houston for the volunteer effort said the anniversary was coincidental. But they welcomed the opportunity to highlight their faith’s true meaning.

“We’re not trying to prove anything, other than what our faith requires us to do,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Muslim American Society. “What goes with our faith is to help others, to respond and show compassion when people need it, and I’m glad we can do it.”

I know that the giant agribusinesses are not going to like this, and ditto for their patsy the FDA, but U.S. government scientists from the CDC have released a new study revealing that switching to organic foods provides children with “dramatic and immediate” protection from toxic pesticides.

The scientists tested the urine of elementary school children for 15 days. Children ate conventional foods for ten of the days and ate organic foods for five days. During those five days, researchers saw the toxins malathion and chlorpyrifos in the children’s urine completely disappear. These chemicals are two of the most commonly found pesticides on non-organic foods, and are associated with nerve damage in children. Pesticide levels increased five-fold in the children’s urine as soon as conventional foods were reintroduced to their diet.

The study concludes, “An organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposure to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production.”

Of course, in a day or two we’ll be hearing the backlash from the industry of how “flawed” the study was, and that this doesn’t mean that pesticide residues are bad for you. Of course, all of the studies that they sponsor are never flawed, and always demonstrate how healthy pesticides are for growing children.

You can read the study here.

Here’s a warm and fuzzy tale, a happy ending, and to boot, it is health related. Yes, I have not forgotten the original mission of my blog, but I do feel that reporting about Katrina is important. Anyway, this is from a press release issued by Noah’s Wish, an organization which rescues animals in disasters. (Hint, if you like, you can send them a donation or supplies.)

Anway, this is one of the nicest and sweetest stories that I’ve seen in a long time.

KATRINA SURVIVOR REUNITED WITH RESCUED CAT IN MISSISSIPPI HOSPITAL ROOM

(SLIDELL, LA) – September 10, 2005 – Volunteers from the animal rescue group Noah’s Wish and Slidell animal control officers reunited a 59-year-old Katrina survivor with his beloved cat “Miss Kitty” in a Mississippi hospital room yesterday.

Slidell resident Bill Harris was trapped in his home by rising floodwaters for three days. Harris stood on a chair in 5 feet of water with his beloved cat in one arm and a two-way radio in the other. For three days, Harris desperately called for help on the radio. When rescuers finally arrived, a distraught Harris, who suffers from chronic kidney failure and needed to be taken immediately to a hospital, was forced to leave the cat behind. An MSNBC crew covering the Katrina disaster learned of Harris’ ordeal and went to the animal rescue group Noah’s Wish for help. Noah’s Wish is working with Slidell Animal Control to rescue pets in the aftermath of Katrina. After several days of searching, a cat wearing a black collar and matching the description Harris gave was humanely trapped eight days after her owner had been evacuated.

Slidell animal control officer Horace Troullier and Donna Wackerbauer, a Noah’s Wish volunteer from Canada drove over 70 miles from Slidell to Hattiesburg, Mississippi where Harris was admitted to Forest General Hospital on Monday. “I was holding Miss Kitty in my arms when I walked into Mr. Harris’ hospital room,” said Wackerbauer. “When she saw her owner, Miss Kitty jumped out of my arms, onto her owner and burrowed her head into him. It was like she was saying, “Yeah! I got my daddy back!’”

During the three-day ordeal, Harris said that Miss Kitty meowed to keep him awake as he began to drift in and out of consciousness.

“It was the most exciting rescue I have ever been a part of,” said Troullier “This is what it’s all about.” A 15-year veteran of Slidell Animal Control, Troullier’s house was completely flooded and he does not have insurance. The animal control officer has been working around the clock for two weeks straight.

Joe Bruncszk, a video producer from Washington DC, videotaped the reunion. Bruncszk traveled to Slidell mobile veterinary clinic that is working with Slidell Animal Control and Noah’s Wish. The videotape may be viewed at www.msnbc.com.

Harris was able to spend time with Miss Kitty before Troullier and Wackerbauer returned the cat to the Noah’s Wish animal rescue center in Slidell, where she will be cared for until he is released from the hospital and able to relocate. According to the hospital, Harris is suffering from internal bleeding of the kidneys and stomach and will require surgery in the next few days.