EFFORTS by Hollywood actor Sean Penn to aid New Orleans victims stranded by Hurricane Katrina foundered badly overnight, when the boat he was piloting to launch a rescue attempt sprang a leak.

Penn had planned to rescue children waylaid by Katrina's flood waters, but apparently forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of the vessel, which began taking water within seconds of its launch.
The actor, known for his political activism, was seen wearing what appeared to be a white flak jacket and frantically bailing water out of the sinking vessel with a red plastic cup.

When the boat's motor failed to start, those aboard were forced to use paddles to propel themselves down the flooded New Orleans street.

Asked what he had hoped to achieve in the waterlogged city, the actor replied: "Whatever I can do to help."


With the boat loaded with members of Penn's entourage, including a personal photographer, one bystander taunted the actor: "How are you going to get any people in that thing?"

Penn obviously created the hole in the boat when he shot himself in the foot, but missed due to his misguided aim and thought process. Remember, this is the same guy who used to slap Madonna around (wait, maybe he's not so bad! - just an intentionally bad joke).

It's great that any private citizen tries to help, but Penn reeks of self-promotion and politicism (He could call his buddy Saddam to help). He should fork over a "boatload" of his money to those organizations that can best use it to broaden and speed-up their rescue efforts.

There are thousands of people still suffering injury and loss, and nothing could get things made right fast enough. Cut it out with the government-bashing and racism cr*pp. The only "blame" I see is for poor advance planning by Louisiana and a playing-the-odds mentality on when a catastrophy like this would hit.

hahahaha, Sean Penn. I guess his heart was in the right place, too bad his wallet wasnt when he bought the boat.

I seems that Mr. Penn got what he wanted from his little trip to the Big Easy...More Bush Bashing!

This is
LONDON
06/09/05 - News section

Penn accuses Bush amid rescue chaos



The US government was accused of "criminal negligence" as hopes of finding survivors faded and the death toll from Hurricane Katrina continued to rise.

Holidaymakers returning to the UK spoke of the scale of the misery while one said leering police officers demanded young women flash their breasts in return for help.

Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Sean Penn, who has been assisting rescue efforts in New Orleans, said the US government did not "seem to be inclined to help".

"We were pulling drowning people out of the water, it's the ultimate distress and human suffering ... dead bodies," he told GMTV.

Penn said he had spent nine hours on Monday searching the water for people and during all that time he saw just three boats carrying US officials.

"There are people that are dying right now and I mean babies and old people and everybody in between - they're dying. There are people dying and (the US government are) not putting the boats in the water, I think that's criminal negligence. I don't think anybody ever anticipated the criminal negligence of the Bush administration in this situation."

The US authorities were also castigated by British bus driver Ged Scott, from Wallasey, Merseyside, who was on holiday in the New Orleans area.

He stayed in the Ramada Hotel during and after the devastation with his wife, Sandra, and seven-year-old son Ronan. At one stage, Mr Scott, 36, had to wade through filthy water to barricade the hotel doors against looters.

He told the Liverpool Daily Post: "I couldn't describe how bad the authorities were. Just little things like taking photographs of us, as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own little snapshot albums.

"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts. When the girls refused, they said 'Fine' and motored off down the road in their boat."