More Truth-Telling

Katrina Jazz Concert

''When the hurricane struck, it did not turn the region into a Third World country ... it revealed one,'' actor Danny Glover told the audience in a speech with Harry Belafonte.
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''Katrina was not unforeseeable,'' Belafonte said. ''It was the result of a political structure that subcontracts its responsibility to private contractors and abdicates its responsibility altogether.''
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Robin Williams poked fun at the Bush administration during his standup routine, in which he imagined an ethnically named Hurricane, and imagined its attitude: ''I'm going to go to Kennebunkport and see if they respond any quicker!''
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Jazz singer Jon Hendricks summed up the tone of the evening. After singing one tribute, he said, ''That's the way I feel about New Orleans. This is the way I feel about the country right now.''
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Then he launched into the angry song ''Tell Me The Truth,'' singing lines like ''Nowadays, wrong is right, down is up, black is white, bad is good, truth is a lie'' before defiantly singing, ''Somebody tell me what's right,'' to the applause of the audience.