If you are in the Houston area seeking shelter from Hurricane Katrina, DO NOT GO TO THE ASTRODOME! While those who are in the Superdome are being taken to that site, there are no current plans to open it up to those beyond the folks being specially transported from the Superdome in New Orleans.

Where should you go? Try the following locations, as listed on the Red Cross site.

HOUSTON – August 31, 2005- The Red Cross has opened 19 shelters in the Greater Houston area to help disaster victims forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina. The shelters will remain open and additional shelters will be opened as necessary.

As of Wednesday evening

# Mont Belview Sr Center (Full 112 capacity)
11607 Eagle Drive

# Baytown Community Center (150/250 capacity)
2407 Market St
Baytown, Tx

# Memorial Baptist Church
(Full/capacity 135)
600 W. Sterling (full capacity)
Baytown Texas 77520

# St. Peter Claver
(Full/ capacity 220)
6005 N. Wayside Drive
Houston Tx

Moody Methodist Church
2803 53rd Street
Galveston, Texas

New Shelters

# Spring Tabernacle
(Full capacity 200)
3034 FM 2920
Spring, Tx 77338

# Gloria Dei Lutheran Church
(capacity 250)
18220 Upper Bay Rd-Nassau Bay
Houston, Tx

# St. Mary's Catholic Church
(capacity 200)
701 Church Street
Brenham, Tx
#

# Fairmont Park Baptist Church
10401 Belfast (150 Cap)
LaPorte, Tx

# New Life Central
2104 Underwood (350 Cap)
LaPorte, Tx

# 1st United Methodist Church
4308 W. Dallas
Conroe, Tx
(capacity 200)

# 1st Baptist Church
906 Ave A
Katy, Tx

# 1st Baptist Church
1229 Ave J
Huntsville, Tx

# Lee College Gym
200 Lee Drive
Baytown Tx

# St. Maximillian Catholic Church
10135 West Rd
Houston Tx

# Missouri street Church of Christ
3400 S. Hwy 146
Baytown, Tx 77520

# North Forest School Bldg
11433 Surburb
Houston TX 77016

# North Forest School Building
6511 N. Wayside
Houston, Tx

# Kingwood United Methodist
1799 Woodland Hill
Kingwood Tx 77339

#

Also a Red Cross information Hotline number regarding locations of shelters is available for Hurricane Katrina victims. Call Red Cross 1-(866) GET-INFO. Due to the high demand, the Houston Chapter has opened a local phone bank to provide information on Houston Area Red Cross activities at 713.313.5480. The number for the Louisiana State Police: 1.800.469.4828.

Families and individuals are advised to bring along basic personal items that they will need in the shelter. Those items should include pillows and bedding items, essential medications and health- related items, extra clothing, and a toy or activity for any children they might be bring with them.

The centers will provide a safe haven for individuals and families evacuated from homes affected by Hurricane Katrina.

I got the following email in my box this morning. I won’t shame the guy by posting his name.

Date: Aug 31, 2005 1:05 AM
Subject: do you plan on writing anything about the hurricane?

Not as important as voter fraud or Cindy Sheehan?

Glad to see you have things in perspective. When you can't gas up your Hummer you might change your tune

Actually, I had tried a couple of times to write about the hurricane. But as often happens in times of overwhelming tragedy, I find that mere words just are not sufficient. So I’ve refrained from posting rather than post some cliché-ridden item about the horror of it all and wailing “Oh, the humanity!” Others have done a significantly better job of addressing the subject – especially Michelle Malkin. Their words have not failed them, while mine have.

So instead I’ve written about stories that I find important that I think could be missed in the crush of Katrina coverage. If that strikes others as uncaring, too bad.

Ultimately, I think this writer is a bit confused. Does the presence or absence of a post about the hurricane on this blog determine what is or is not important? Is RHYMES WITH RIGHT the standard by which the importance of a story is judged? If it is, no one has told me. So either this guy vastly over-estimates my importance as a media source, or I vastly under-estimate that importance.

And while I may not be writing about the hurricane and its devastating impact that does not mean that I am doing nothing. The writer doesn’t know whether I am sending money or to whom it is going. He has no way of ascertaining whether or not I am doing anything for the refugees that have fled into my own community in the face of this disaster. No, he chooses to interpret silence as apathy.

Now I’ve not played politics with the storm. I’ve not asked why Cindy Sheehan and her fellow terrorist-backers are not down in New Orleans instead of traveling the country to undermine the war effort (Did you know that while everyone else travels by bus, Cindy hops a plane to the next destination? Orwell was right about some animals being more equal than others.) Doesn’t she care about the devastation? I’ve not heard her address the crisis with her “unquestionable moral authority”. Why doesn’t this writer hold her to the same standard that he wants to hold me? Heck, what about the fuel being eaten up by the buses and the planes used in her anti-American endeavor?

And we won’t get into the question of one of the writer’s favorite haunts, Americablog, where the owner has played politics with the decision by the president to stay in Crawford and continue with some speaking engagements instead of returning to Washington immediately – and would have played politics by criticizing a decision to return to Washington immediately if he had. The writing there about the disaster has been so incredibly insincere – as have been the comments posted there by my email-critic.

As for the issue of my car and gas prices – I’m a teacher in an 80% minority urban school district with a high poverty rate. What out-of-touch planet does this liberal fool live on if he believes I drive a Hummer? My car is seven years old and gets 30+ MPG. I need it to, because I drive 20+ miles each way to school. I’d love to know what he is driving and what he does for a living/how much he makes. I’m guessing he is a trust-fund baby who is seeking to assuage his liberal guilt by attacking conservative rather than giving away the money that feeds his lifestyle..

I really enjoy reading Baltimore’s Gregory Kane on virtually any issue. He offers the perfect analogy to explain the relationship between George W. Bush and Vincente Fox on immigration issues.

Mexican President Vicente Fox seems to think of the United States as his country's northern suburb. President George W. Bush doesn't have the guts to correct him.

In fact, the relationship between Fox and Bush can best be explained this way: If Fox and Bush were inmates in the same prison, Fox would be slapping Bush and taking his Christmas packages.

On the matter of illegal immigration, Fox has shown that Bush has a fully nurtured and developed wimp gene.

Yeah, that sums it up quite nicely. It seems that this president is more interested in placating our southern neighbor than telling it to quit encouraging and facilitating the violation of American sovereignty.

Make sure you read the column.

No, this is not about Bush and Sheehan.

It is a question for the American Left’s new favorite dictator, Hugo Chavez.

A woman who rushed up on a stage to hand President Hugo Chavez a note was pulled away by bodyguards on Tuesday, and the Venezuelan leader urged supporters to remember there have been threats against his life.

The incident occurred while Chavez was addressing thousands of supporters in a Caracas convention center.

"It's dangerous, because I'm threatened with death, so you have to understand that the security team surrounding me is on alert," Chavez told the crowd.

The incident came more than a week after the U.S. religious broadcaster Pat Robertson drew condemnation from Venezuela's government and others for suggesting that Chavez should be assassinated because he poses a threat to the United States.

Come on, Hugo, meet with the poor homeless woman. You claim that the Venezuelan people love you and support you. What have you got to fear?

Or do you only meet with celebrity liberals and fellow dictators now?

Look at this excuse for the prevalence of fraudulent registrations in NYC.

Mr. [John] Ravitz [the executive director of the NYC Boad of Elections] responded yesterday to the officials' calls for investigations, saying: "If people really think two weeks before a primary that I can now have all my entire staff look throughout the voter rolls and look at an address that might be suspect on the face, it's an unrealistic feat."

He earlier said the board does not independently conduct systematic reviews of the voter rolls but will probe questionable registrations if someone brings specific charges to its attention. He added that it would be nearly impossible to investigate all registrant names that appeared suspicious, lest someone really named "Lou Gehrig," to use Mr. Ravitz's example, be subjected to unfair and undue scrutiny.

Moreover, Mr. Ravitz said, many of the dubious registrants and those who registered at questionable addresses would not be voting in this election, because their failure to cast ballots in the last four years rendered them "inactive" and thus ineligible to vote.

"I don't want anyone to think there are going to be Elmer Fudds voting in the primary," Mr. Ravitz said.

In other words, the city doesn’t look for fraud. More to the point, the board doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings because they have a name that looks suspicious. Besides, Ravitz explains, it would cost too much money to actually investigate the voting rolls to detect fraudulent registrations and voting.

Elected officials are calling for action.

A candidate for Manhattan borough president and a member of the City Council, Eva Moskowitz, Democrat of the East Side, said the board must be "proactive."

Calling the board's approach "ridiculous" and "government at its worst," Ms. Moskowitz said investigating and rooting out potential irregularities in the voter rolls "is the Board of Elections' job."

"They don't have too much to do other than prepare for elections and make sure the lists are clear and honest," she said.

Mayor Bloomberg and some of the public officials trying to unseat him this year, meanwhile, responded by declaring their affection for the democratic process.
"Voting is a sacred right and responsibility," Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement sent by e-mail. "Abuse of this fundamental right is unacceptable. ..."

One of his Democratic challengers, C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan borough president, said in an e-mail: "Placing false names and/or addresses on voter registration forms and other documents undermines the city's democratic process. Therefore, the entire election process - from signature collection to the actual act of voting - must be taken very seriously.

"For its part, the Board of Elections must work to improve its efforts to weed out false names and addresses. The board has an important role to play in this process and it cannot afford to be asleep at the wheel," the statement read.

The Democratic mayoral front-runner, Fernando Ferrer, said in a written statement that voting fraud disenfranchises everyone "and must be vigorously prosecuted."

The statement from the former Bronx borough president also said: "We must also be vigilant that efforts to crack down on voter fraud do not result in an illegal purging of legitimate voters from the rolls."

Maybe we will see some action – or is this all window-dressing?