Fiyou on da Bayou

Reboot

2009-08-08T21:03:00.003-05:00

I'm going to start posting here again.

Lately the crime headlines have been so out of control. Babies killed by rats, kids shot up by cops, college kids kidnapped and shot in an abandoned house. (Fitzgerald and Calyisse. I won't forget.)

Health reform is being derailed by modern day fascists. Most people in the US could care less that we spent far too much comparatively for worse health outcomes, while leaving out 47 million people. The unchallenged doctrine of American exceptionalism continues to rot our nation.

The city seems paralyzed until the next mayoral election. On the plus side, I'm seeing a spattering of road construction lately. I will sure be glad when both lanes of Pontchartrain Blvd are open again. Bike lanes on St. Charles sound promising, too, but they need to go all the way to Canal. The potholes (giant sinkholes, let's be honest) I hated on Napoleon got filled just as I started to complain about them out loud to other people.

Michigan has an unemployment rate of well over 20% (U6).

My life has been great, though. I got a new job. I found a much better apartment. I replaced my stolen bike. I'm healthy. It seems wrong to take pleasure in the fact that I'm doing well, when so many are not. I'm not sure how to feel about this.

I'm participating in Infinite Summer. It's well worth it. Since the move, I haven't had a television, and my brain is so 'googled' that I've nearly lost the ability to read fiction for pleasure. I'm not saying that Infinite Jest is consistently pleasurable to read; it's challenging and difficult, and the disjointed narrative is an additional hurdle I didn't anticipate. However, the book is seriously blowing my mind. When David Foster Wallace committed suicide last fall, I felt a vague sadness despite only having read one of his short stories in a McSweeney's compilation. I stumbled upon his Kenyon College commencement speech without realizing it was the same author. Then I bought IJ and struggled to actually start it, when I stumbled upon Infinite Summer through, I believe, an Ezra Klein post.

Slowly, my brain is becoming less googled. I don't miss television that often. I still catch The Daily Show on Hulu.

2009 has been a good year. It's going to keep getting better. I plan to write about it. DFW is inspiring me to sharpen my grammar and analytical capabilities. I will try to be articulate.

GOOD RIDDANCE

2009-01-19T23:52:00.002-06:00

I truly wish I could be marching in this inaugural parade instead of the one I marched in 8 years ago. (that is a story for another post)

Good riddance, motherfucker. There's a cell in Den Haag with your name on it.

initiation

2009-01-15T23:03:00.004-06:00

I guess I wouldn't be a true New Orleanian without having something major stolen from me. My bike was stolen out of my laundry shed on the back of my house, in a locked up backyard. I just discovered it about 15 minutes ago. Sadly I don't know when it was actually stolen.

So if you see one of these layin about town, let me know. I'm sad and I can't afford a new one right now.

Rep. Cao: Not such a fan of women

2009-01-09T18:02:00.003-06:00

Our new representative decided to start his career in politics by voting against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act today.

For those of you who don't know about this, Lily Ledbetter was a supervisor at a Goodyear plant in Alabama for many years. She found out that she had been paid less than her male colleagues who worked in the same position. She sued and took her case to the Supreme Court, who ruled that she had no right to compensation because her case wasn't filed within six months of the first instance of discrimination.

It was a horrible decision by a male-dominated court that apparently doesn't understand that the vast majority of pay scales are not public, and so uncovering pay discrimination can take decades. Maybe the court did understand this, and instead thought that Lily Ledbetter deserved to be paid less than her male colleagues.

Congress rightfully decided to rectify this and attempted last year to pass the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would remove the statute of limitations on filing a suit to compensate for lost wages. The Republicans blocked it, fearful of "frivolous lawsuits."

The new Congress, with their sizeable Democratic majority, took it up again today. I called Rep. Cao's DC office this morning and asked how he would be voting on it. I was told that he was meeting with his legislative staff about that very issue at the moment. I told the guy on the phone that I hoped Rep. Cao would vote to allow the women in his district the opportunity to be paid equally and sue for that right in court, because a civil right that you can't take to court is no right at all. It was to no avail, because in a big "Fuck You" to the women of the 2nd district of Louisiana, Cao voted with the Republican caucus against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act today.

Happily, it passed anyway, thanks to the sizeable Democratic majority.

get busy livin'

2009-01-06T18:52:00.003-06:00

Big Red Cotton, via Eli, says it's time to march again.

I think it'll take more than that.

I attended a professional conference last year and was able to sit in on a session about influencing legislation. The speaker described a movement in Arizona and how they succeeded.

They assembled a group of organizations who may not have agreed on everything, but they agreed on this one thing. I can't recall what it was in this case, but it doesn't matter: it could be saving Lower Mid-City, it could be adequate public housing, it could be firing Warren Riley.

They formed a coalition. They created a symbol, t-shirts, and a schedule. They wore these t-shirts in the legislature every day. Everyone took shifts. They asked questions, politely. They insisted on being present, visible, and loud. They didn't back down. And they won.

I agree that we need to march. But at the end of the march, everyone goes home and Riley goes to bed and gets up again the next day. What happens after the march? What happens when we numb ourselves with routine?

We need a coalition. Black, white, Vietnamese, Hispanic, female, gay, straight, male, Catholic, Baptist, atheist, uptown, downtown, lakeside, riverside, everyone. We need everyone to come together on this one thing. Yeah, call me naive. I know how fucking difficult that is. It's New Orleans.

We need a symbol. Obama's campaign turned him into a symbol, and the symbol was meaningful because millions of people were behind it. The real power was his coalition, but the symbol was the flashpoint. We come up with a symbol and get it all around town. Behind the symbol, we have a narrow and focused statement of purpose.

And we need constant, persistent, vocal, and peaceful visibility. It starts with the march. But we end the march by saying: do x, or expect y, z, and the whole damn alphabet. Then we follow through with nonviolent direct action. We can run shifts in City Hall. We can come up with a question sheet, we can display victim's pictures and stories, we can chalk out body outlines from every unsolved murder in front of City Hall. We get a PR firm as part of the coalition. We use social and traditional media to organize it. It just needs to get rolling. And it can't end until they're out of office.

I'm open to suggestions and critiques. I want to get serious about this. It's time to clean house or we won't have houses to clean.

so this is the new year, and i don't feel any different

2009-01-02T17:43:00.004-06:00

Actually, that's not entirely true. I feel good about my 2009 prospects.

I accomplished a lot in 2008. I worked an entire year at my job and did some good things there. I successfully quit smoking cigarettes and lost some weight. I went back to the Netherlands and had a great family visit. I made some great new friends and expanded my comfort zone a little bit more. I rescued a dog and moved to a new apartment. I avoided some crucial life mistakes, went to my first Jazz Fest, and attended Rising Tide. I even went to a Saints [preseason] game.

2008 was a difficult but rewarding year, and I look forward to the next one. Every year I'm in New Orleans is a reward in itself. It's challenging and frustrating and entirely worth it.

I'm going to be blogging more in the new year, I hope. I've sort of fallen off (on?) the wagon.

Today was a good start. I had lunch at Pho Tau Bay and it was delicious and spicy and exactly what I wanted. The music was great and adorable children made "is your refrigerator running?" jokes at the next table. My pho was spicy and I added the beef in at the table to keep it from overcooking in the broth. The sun shone on me as I blared the Pixies with the windows down over the Mississippi River on my way back to work. It was the perfect lunch break.

To come: ruminations on Benjamin Button. And much more. Gelukkig Nieuwjaar, everyone!

well glory be

2008-12-13T08:59:00.001-06:00

Looks like we got ourselves a genuine HUD secretary.

This part's my favorite:

“I would never believe that the private sector, left to its own devices, is the best possible solution,” he said in 2006. “I’m in government because of the role of government in setting rules and working in partnership with the private sector."

next week

2008-11-19T22:43:00.003-06:00

I'm headed to the Netherlands for a bit do make the rounds with the family. They live all over the country so I'll be spending a good bit of time riding around on these beauties.

I am just as excited about the public transit as I am to see my family. I can go literally anywhere. It's easy to understand. Dependable, punctual, and clean. A great transit system enables the country to live densely - a necessity, with over 16 million people in a country the size of Ohio and known for farm-related exports - without feeling crowded. In fact, it feels cozy. Gezellig, even!

More importantly, Nederlandse Spoorwegen is enabling me to go visit my relatives without renting a car. Family first.

adventures in reading

2008-11-15T22:59:00.004-06:00

Remember those cheesy library posters, Adventures in Reading? Good times.

I got bookstore fever, and today I bought a copy of Infinite Jest. I read the forward by Dave Eggers and now I have the feeling that I'm about to embark on some sort of twisted spiritual quest.

We'll see how it goes. The last huge novel I read was The Children's Hospital, which was a beast. It took me a long time to finish it. I also bought Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day in an airport recently, but that is going to take some work. I may not be ready for Pynchon right now. (And yet I'm going to tackle Infinite Jest? Yeah, ok.)

Other stuff I'm looking for, and will be ordering soon: poetry by Laura Kasischke and Yusef Komunyakaa. Ta-Nehisi posted three of Komunyakaa's poems on Friday, and they've been stuck in my brain. Incidentally, that's a blog y'all should be reading.

Any other recommendations? I'm trying to get back into good reading and writing habits. I used to be a good writer. I used to read effortlessly. Life intervened, but I want this outlet, so I'm going to wrest it back from the part of my brain that says, no, you can't.

obama fashion

2008-11-12T07:50:00.001-06:00

Huffington Post calls it the "Dorky Dad" look.

I don't see how it's so dorky. Obama may well have taken all those clothes from my dad's closet. Maybe it's a Chicago thing? They both get their shoes re-soled, too.

apples to apples

2008-11-11T22:53:00.001-06:00

Hero.

Villains.

its my blog and i can cry if i want to

2008-11-05T17:42:00.004-06:00

My roommate's motherfucking dog chewed the shit out of my most sentimental, most irreplaceable, favorite, unique pair of shoes: flower-patterned Doc Martens that I bought over a decade ago. They were the first thing I ever saved up for and bought myself.

One of them is fine, but the other I have to figure out how to salvage so I can wear them again.

Goddamnit.

They looked like this:

So if anyone sees them on Ebay, let me know.

4 years ago

2008-11-05T01:35:00.005-06:00

entry, 11/3/04, day after election day:

"this country is turning into a fucking fundamentalist theocracy.
goodbye senate. goodbye supreme court. goodbye moral imperative. goodbye world respect.
goodbye environment. goodbye fiscal sanity.
...
the ONLY good thing about yesterday was that obama was elected. thank god for illinois.
i seriously couldn't be more sad. this is the worst day of my life."

I don't know about y'all, but this whole permanent democratic majority thing sounds pretty good. I never want to feel that way again. Victory is so much better. I'm looking forward to the actual governing.

no words right now

2008-11-05T01:09:00.005-06:00

I'm incoherent. We won. WE WON. DEMOCRATS won. America won. Chicago won. Cities won. Women won. New Orleans won. Black people won. Victory for Everyone. Even Indiana, blood-red-conservative Indiana where I spent four years plotting my escape, went blue. Virginia, the capital of the confederacy, went blue.

The world is awake!

As Bartlet would say, "What's next?"

GET IT DONE

2008-11-04T07:54:00.003-06:00

Eight years ago I had to march in Bush's Inaugural Parade.

Four years ago M and I got drunk in our dorm room and eventually turned off the results to watch The West Wing because we were too depressed.

Last Saturday, I waited over four hours at City Hall to cast my ballot for Barack Obama.

Today, America gets it done.

I can't wait.

candidates

2008-10-30T22:53:00.002-05:00

So, Jay Batt is going to make another run for City Council, and Manny Chevrolet "Ziggy Sobodka on Quaaludes" Bruno will be running for Mayor.

Love this town.

cute overload

2008-10-24T17:50:00.002-05:00

from the Trib

$150K

2008-10-23T19:09:00.003-05:00

A quick note about Sarah Palin's impending charity donation:

Why would a presidential nominee of a major party admit that his running mate's new wardrobe - a wardrobe purchased because she "needed clothes," presumably because her old ones weren't befitting a vice president - will be donated to charity? Wouldn't she need those clothes for, oh, I don't know, four more years?

I think this most likely means that McCain knows he's going to lose, because he's pretty clearly assuming that the campaign will end. However, it could also be him throwing out a sham excuse to cover up some other mispropriation of campaign funds, or forgetting the line they told him in a morning meeting, or not giving a shit anymore. Maybe McCain thinks that Palin is so inconsequential that her continued use of the clothes in a vice-presidential capacity doesn't even factor into his presidential plans or fantasy, like she's not even on his radar screen.

coffeenomics, or, an excuse to draw graphs

2008-10-22T18:09:00.012-05:00

So next year we may be hitting "peak coffee." Colombia, the world's third-largest coffee producer, says that next year demand will outstrip supply.

EcoWorldly points to several implications:

Coffee will probably become more expensive, directly lowering demand.
Farmers in coffee-producing countries will increase production, resulting in a wider extent of deforestation and loss of animal and plant life, as well as biodiversity. The deforestation will occur because coffee farmers who are looking for short-term profits will favor shade-growing techniques even less than before, instead opting for use of full sun to grow coffee plants. Global warming’s effects will continue their increase as tropical rainforests are destroyed and consequently trap less carbon.

I'd just like to address the first point - because it's lazy economics.

In neoclassical economics, demand doesn't come from price. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense - welcome to neoclassical land! - but that's the mainstream theory. Neoclassical economists conceive of everyone in the universe as a rational utility-maximizer. In layman's terms, any given person will have a set of preferences for every item in the known world, and always want more, and will make rational choices to maximize utility, or happiness, given a budget constraint. "Demand" in the following series of graphs is really an aggregate of every living being's utility preferences for coffee, based on my understanding of the price elasticity of coffee. Being an economist is so much fun!

OK, here's our 2008 coffee equilibrium. Supply is set by various factors of production (I don't want to get into "what's behind the supply curve?" right now). Demand we just explained. P1 and Q1 are our equilibrium price and quantity.

So, we know that supply is going to fall. Here's what 2009 might look like.

Supply shrinks (S2) at the same time that demand increases (D2). The new equilibrium quantity is actually greater than in 2008, despite the supply "contraction." Actually, this model is extremely flawed - this is econ 101 basic here - because this assumes total fluidity of capital, where suppliers can meet demand at any price given the profit motive. Since coffee is an agricultural product, this isn't necessarily true, and so the 2009 equilibrium might just as well end up looking like this:

Here I assume that the supply contraction will be larger than the world increase in demand. Therefore, 2009 production (Q2) is less than in 2008 (Q1) but at a higher price than if we stayed on that same demand curve.

What this article said is that the price will lower the demand. Well, maybe. But first, the price has to increase to P2, as above. *Then* people might switch to tea. What happens to the coffee market if people switch?

What I've done here is added a D3 line, to reflect a decrease in demand for coffee (because of people switching to tea or other substitutes). Quantity falls even further to Q3, but the price is still above 2008 levels.

So, we could be looking at really expensive coffee next year. My concern is how this impacts the Port of New Orleans.

Robert Landry, marketing director at the Port of New Orleans, said that in a normal year, his port handles between 250,000 and 300,000 tons of coffee. “Coffee is not a huge portion of our general cargo -- about 3-5% of the total -- but it’s the one commodity that stays in New Orleans. Coffee comes into New Orleans, where it’s stored, then cleaned, sorted, blended, roasted and packaged. That’s one reason we’re here, to be an economic stimulus to the area. If we can be a more efficient transportation conduit for coffee coming into the United States, then we’ll feel like we’re doing our job.”

Luckily it looks like the port has diversified its imports. However, the prevalence of the coffee industry here means that companies like Reily, ICC, Folgers, Sara Lee, and Westfeldt may be seeing decreased production. If coffee becomes more expensive and people demand less coffee, imports might end up decreasing more than a simple supply contraction would portend. With a general economic downturn, that could easily affect employment numbers in the metro area.

(minor edits made for clarity)

"Will wonders never cease."

2008-10-17T18:58:00.003-05:00

Such was the subject line of the email from my dad today, letting me know that the Trib endorsed Obama.

In 161 years, the Trib has never endorsed a Democrat. They endorsed Bush in 00 and 04. Dole in 96. Bush in 88 and 92. Hell, they endorsed Eisenhower - twice - over Illinoisian Adlai Stevenson.

I'd talked with my parents a few times about how they knew a McCain endorsement was inevitable and how they were going to cancel their subscription when it happened.

Pigs are flyin' in the Windy City, baby!

oh my

2008-10-16T17:55:00.001-05:00

Dr. Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate

2008-10-13T18:05:00.004-05:00

I was so thrilled to see the NYT headline this morning: "Krugman Wins Nobel Prize in Economics."

It brought me back to these days, when Krugman was the only voice of sanity in our entire national discourse. I started reading his books - Accidental Theorist and Great Unraveling - and was inspired to sign up for Econ 101, where I met my mentor/advisor and decided to change my major to Economics.

So thanks, Dr. Krugman, and congratulations. I can't think of anyone who deserves it more, in 2008, than the guy whose writing has sustained an entire movement through years of darkness. Enjoy your 1.4 million dollars, and please accept when President Obama offers to nominate you for Treasury Secretary!

monday's annoyance

2008-10-06T17:48:00.003-05:00

"Smile, baby!"

"Baby, why aintcha smilin?"

"Baby, use that smile!"

"Where's your smile at, baby?"

DUDE. Y'all think I am hurrying down Loyola from Perdido to Howard for my health? You think I am here on this earth to smile just for you? If you want to see a smile, look in the damn mirror and quit harassing me.

Just for clarification -- no, I'm not just a cranky yankee today. I have no problem with saying hello, small talk, conversations with strangers, or chanting WHO DAT with tailgate crowds along Loyola Ave... but when strange men accost me for not smiling, as if it's my job to smile for them, as if I have no overriding emotions, as if they have the right to be pissed at me for not smiling at them, that makes me angry.

...or, what rachel said

2008-09-30T21:25:00.002-05:00

Look at the time stamp on my previous post, and you'll see that I did, in fact, post that before Rachel Maddow's show aired. She made the same argument much more eloquently than I did.

a little bit of a day

2008-09-30T18:06:00.005-05:00

In my favorite episode of one of my favorite shows ever - "Two Cathedrals," the season 2 finale of The West Wing - there's a scene between President Bartlet and his secretary that reminds me of how I'm feeling right now.

Bartlett: I have MS, and I didn't tell anybody.

Mrs. Landingham: Yeah. So, you're having a little bit of a day.

Bartlett: You're going to make jokes?

Mrs. Landingham: God doesn't make cars crash and you know it. Stop using me as an excuse.

Bartlett: The Party's not going to want me to run.

Mrs. Landingham: The Party'll come back. You'll get them back.

Bartlett: I've got a secret for you, Mrs. Landingham, I've never been the most popular man in the Democratic Party.

Mrs. Landingham: I've got a secret for you, Mr. President. Your father was a prick who could never get over the fact that he wasn't as smart as his brothers. Are you in a tough spot? Yes. Do I feel sorry for you? I do not. Because there are people way worse off than you.

Bartlett: Give me numbers.

Mrs. Landingham: I don't know numbers. You give them to me.

Bartlett: How about a child born this minute has one in five chances of being born into poverty?

Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans don't have health insurance?

Bartlett: 44 million.

Mrs. Landingham: What's the number one cause of death for black men under 35?

Bartlett: Homicide.

Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans are behind bars?

Bartlett: Three million.

Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans are drug addicts?

Bartlett: Five million.

Mrs. Landingham: And one in five kids in poverty?

Bartlett: That's thirteen million American children. 3.5 million kids go to schools that are literally falling apart. We need 127 billion in school construction, and we need it today!

Mrs. Landingham: To say nothing of 53 people trappd in an embassy.

Bartlett: Yes.

Mrs. Landingham: You know, if you don't want to run again, I respect that. But if you don't run 'cause you think it's gonna be too hard or you think you're gonna lose - well, God, Jed, I don't even want to know you.

The world is coming apart at the seams. Thirty years of Republican rule, and in the words of the oft-quoted Reverend Wright, the chickens are coming home to roost. Can anyone deny it anymore? What scares me most is that people can, and do, and will continue to do so until conservatism dies its deserved death. My roommate told me yesterday that he's not worried about the current crisis because "the free market always corrects itself." I came very close to bursting some sort of blood vessel.

It comes down to this: a broad-based, progressive economic solution (hint: we've had one of these before) is the best and only solution to what ails us right now. We needed it in 2001, and even more so in 2005, but now it is literally the only solution left. Looting the Treasury to pay for Wall Street losses is not the answer. But what is? Oh, you thought I couldn't answer that? Here ya go: Nationalization of failing banks and financial institutions, recapitalization by buying preferred shares (Warren Buffet just did it - Iceland just did it - Britain just did it - let's play follow the leader, shall we?), extended unemployment insurance, provide more generous food stamp benefits, raise the FDIC insurance requirement, revised bankruptcy laws that allow judges to revise mortgage loan terms, direct help for homeowners through an HLC type program, public investment in mass transit and green technologies - hell, just bring back the WPA and CCC. And now that the Republicans have said see-ya-wouldnt-want-to-run-against-ya on the Cash for Trash plan, the Democrats have the perfect opportunity to put together a dream list of progressive legislation, not just for political reasons, but because it's what will actually save the economy!

Do I have any hope of this happening? No.

And it's not just national malfeasance. It's local. Goody Clancy won't even reveal who's on their damn citizen advisory committee or whatever they're calling it. The city refuses to stop demolishing houses that people are either living in, renovating, or negotiating with the state's Road Home program to get their money to renovate. The schools plan was apparently written without any knowledge of the city, its people, neighborhoods, traditions, or shortcomings. There is no transparency and no accountability. Our levees are a joke, our roads are a joke, our sewerage and water is a joke, our private utility and cable/internet monopolies are robbing us all blind. Cost of living is huge and wages are stagnant or worse. Everyone is stressed and anxious and cranky and tired.

Yesterday I about melted down into a big ol' panic attack. Instead I drove around for a while listening to the Smashing Pumpkins and pretending it was 1997 and I could lock myself in my room and lay on the floor with my head between the woofers. 97. The world looked bright. I had AOL on Windows 3.1. Clinton was in office, my family moved to a new house, I was in a new school. Life was good.

It seems a world away now.

Someone talk me off the ledge here. This feels so insidiously terrible and ominous that I doubt any one man, any modern social movement can put a dent in it.

I can see Cuba from my house!

2008-09-27T21:43:00.001-05:00

Ok, can I be vice-president now? I'd do way better in front of Katie Couric, that's for sure.

best political ad of the season

2008-09-17T21:29:00.002-05:00

hands down:

Ronnie Musgrove is currently fighting some electoral ballot shenanigans in Mississippi. Gov. Barbour and hack Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann buried the race at the bottom of the ballot. He also won't be identified as a Democrat on the ballot. If he keeps running ads like this, he'll clobber Roger Wicker anyway. This ad is incredible.

9/11

2008-09-11T18:34:00.004-05:00

There's been a lot of incredible stuff written today, both poignant and political. I won't try to match that.

I just want to link to Patrick Murphy, who died in the Pentagon on a two week assignment there. He graduated from my high school, albeit long before my time. The flagpole in the MCHS football stadium was re-dedicated in his memory in 2002.

I was a junior that year. I remember a lot about the 11th, but mostly I remember a few days later, when I was outside at a band practice, and we heard a plane overhead and everyone stopped marching to look up at the plane. When you live in the shadow of O'Hare and Midway airports, planes are as blase' as sirens or freight trains. That day, though, we all stopped moving and looked up, wondering who was on that plane, and what had become of our world.

bummer

2008-09-10T19:00:00.002-05:00

My roommate just got back from a summer in NY. Now instead of one person and one dog in the house, it's two people and two dogs. I'm not used to it yet.

Example A of why I want the house to myself again: I came home from work today and his dog had taken a giant shit in my bedroom.

So it goes.

liberal

2008-09-09T08:21:00.000-05:00

and damn proud of it. Bob Herbert, a national treasure.

idiocy

2008-09-08T20:56:00.002-05:00

T. Boone Pickens was just on the teevee telling me that Eye-Ran is powering cars with natural gas, so they can sell oil domestically for $120 a barrel and save a bunch of money, and we should do it too, because ain't no reason that Eye-Ran's better than AMERICA!

I had no idea Pickens was such a socialist, because there's a reason that Iran can sell oil domestically at whatever price they want - they have a national oil company, directly under government control, called NIOC. Since the oil and gasoline sold in America is sold by corporations, their price is dictated by the world price of oil, based on world supply and demand (and oligarchic markets, also). The US actually exports a bunch of oil - in fact, the oil spilled in the Mississippi this summer was bound for the Netherlands - because there is no guarantee that oil drilled for and produced in America will be sold in America. If Pickens supports such a guarantee, or thinks that naming our own price is a solution, he is calling for nothing less than a government takeover of Exxon-Mobil.

surely you cannot be serious

2008-09-06T14:53:00.003-05:00

Oh, I am. And don't call me Surely:

KIMBERLY RIVERS ROBERTS: I want to know what is—you know, what are the people, the leaders of New Orleans, are going to do about the neglect that’s going on in the city?
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: Unfortunately, we can’t change 200-300 years worth of habits overnight. The good thing about Katrina, if there is a good thing, is that we’ve got our economy going in a much better direction. There’s lots of jobs, opportunities, and business.
KIMBERLY RIVERS ROBERTS: I’m talking about real jobs with living wages. We’re still—
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: Let me just tell you a couple of examples. And I know this is something that is—we need to have a deeper discussion about.
KIMBERLY RIVERS ROBERTS: Right, right, right.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: Just things like, you know, working at Gene’s po’ boy shop.
KIMBERLY RIVERS ROBERTS: Yeah, yeah.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: They’re paying, you know, $1,500, $1,800 a week to their cooks.
KIMBERLY RIVERS ROBERTS: No, they’re not, man. I’m putting [inaudible] Gene’s, man.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: To their cooks.
KIMBERLY RIVERS ROBERTS: They’re not.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: I’m telling you what they’re doing.
KIMBERLY RIVERS ROBERTS: I cook. I cooked in the French Quarter before, and I’ve tried everything.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: You ought to try, because I just left Gene’s not too long ago.

What a patronizing sack of shit. $1500, $1800 a week? The only people making that much "work" for City Hall.

h/t greg

actually home

2008-09-06T14:28:00.003-05:00

I made it home last night at about 12:15. Traffic was free and clear the whole way. I was worried that I'd be stopped and turned away because of curfew, but that didn't happen, and I unpacked at 1 AM without really worrying about armed robbers or anything. The giant patch of bamboo across the street where they've been known to hide was totally wrecked, not eliciting any tears from me.

For some reason it always takes longer to get to Chicago than it does to get home. 15 hrs there, 14 hrs back.

The city is filled with branches and leaves and other natural detritus. I haven't seen any destruction yet, except for one bit of fence. The fence that goes around all the homes on my block, since they're all owned by the same property company, was knocked down in one section. The total effect is more "autumn" than "hurricane," at least Uptown.

But then again, I've only been awake for about an hour. Time to go forage for food.

home

2008-09-01T15:14:00.007-05:00

me: "This sucks. I feel so far away. I don't want to get stuck here."

J.S.P.: "You know what that means, right? New Orleans is your home."

I was abroad when Katrina hit. On August 29, I woke up with a killer hangover in Bangkok after a night of drinking long islands made by a clown and a transvestite and dancing on a fake beach. Later that evening we checked into a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City and turned on CNN International and started to watch the footage. My friend J, who was on the trip, is from Mandeville and her family was in Atlanta, so she was horribly worried. Another friend on the trip, M, has tons of family in New Orleans, because her dad grew up there. We had a lot of connections back to New Orleans, least of all mine - my first time in the city was Mardi Gras that same year. It had made an impression on me, enough that I could recognize some of the geography and magnitude of what was happening.

When you're outside the US, the full burden of the American experience falls on your shoulders. The glories and triumphs of what our country has done and what it represents to others is suddenly embodied in your face, your skin, your clothes, your mannerisms. You constantly examine yourself through the eyes of others. I was in 6 countries in less than 5 weeks, and got to see myself through many different lenses. And in 2005, the full weight of the Bush administration was on our shoulders. We were even advised to possibly put a Canadian flag on our backpacks, and to definitely avoid rah-rah Americanism while abroad.

So with the Iraq war raging, a war that I never supported and never wanted to be associated with, suddenly I was an American ambassador in Asia.

On September 1st, we toured 2 museums from the "American War" (the Vietnam War). The first was a military command post that had many secret rooms, old maps, and other espionage-related exhibits that were very interesting to me but boring to a lot of other folks. The second was a more literal war memorial, mostly consisting of photojournalism and preserved bomb fragments. I had my headphones on as we walked through. I was listening to Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio, which I had played in high school in 2001. Since I had spent 5.5 months playing that piece 20 hrs a week, it had some significant meaning to me. And there I was, in Vietnam, wandering this exhibit, listening to this piece.

The big impact came for me when I walked out to the sidewalk to get some air. The street was packed with people: women and children crowded on motorbikes, vendors trying to sell me merchandise, a man sitting with coconuts, lopping off the tops and putting in straws. I looked around at all the faces - the same faces as those in the photographs, struggling to defend their country, their ideology, their families. The same faces. The same faces. The same faces.

It all came together, in that moment. In my mind, there was an unbroken chain from the land I was standing on to New Orleans' at that same moment: George Bush, born into privilege, never knowing the peril and complexity of war, the horror of napalm, the sickening numb silence of a burnt village. That same man, who never learned the lessons of Vietnam, sending American troops to repeat those mistakes in a faraway desert. The financial drain of all those wars, denying money for levees and infrastructure and wetlands. And then, as we walked in Ho Chi Minh City, knowing those New Orleanians were utterly abandoned by their government, despite being full citizens of the wealthiest nation in the history of the world.

We went back to the hotel and a group of us gathered in one room to watch CNN. Anderson Cooper's outrage. Nagin's interview with Garland Robinette. We watched this from the other side of the world and wept for what our nation had become.

I spent spring break 2006 gutting a home on Prentiss Drive in Pontchartrain Park, meeting with Ms. Rose Jackson in Plaquemines Parish, meeting the folks at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, and getting a disaster tour from Bill Quigley. Mr. Quigley took us past Common Ground, still at the Pauline Street site in the Upper 9, and those few minutes we spent there made such an impression on me that I decided to come back for the summer. I pitched my tent at St. Mary of the Angels, May 29, and started to work running the Upper 9 Distro on Robertson & Poland. This is what I wrote after that summer (see the link for full text):

For the first time in my life, I felt that everything in my life was exactly the way it was supposed to be; that I was in the right city, with the right people, doing the right work with the right mindset. Even amidst the chaos and violence and living conditions I felt incredibly safe. I felt protected by the work that I was doing, that no harm would come to me. I still carried a knife and mace at all times. But that was the first time I had ever felt that certain in what I was doing, and since I left New Orleans, my whole life is different, because I’m looking for the way back to that certainty. Himes warns, "[A life of service] will not make you content or give you rest. But [...] it will exhilarate and energize you. It may kill you, but you will not die of boredom. You may be driven to self-gift by the restlessness of your heart, and you will not find in such self-gift any easy stilling of that restlessness. You will find no fulfillment, no satisfaction. But so what? What a deadly fate fulfillment would be!" I long for this more than anything else. I long for the courage to put my life on the line for others. I long for the sense of self-sacrifice, the "displacement" as Nouwen refers to it. "Voluntary displacement leads us to the existential recognition of our inner brokenness and thus brings us to a deeper solidarity with the brokenness of our fellow human beings."

Nothing angers me more these days than people who want to deny that the system is broken, that people are dying because of the choices we’ve made and the systems we’ve created. So many of us want to hide our brokenness, but then there is that picture of Jesus and the sacred heart, the simplicity of him pointing to his heart, all flaming and thorny, laying his majestic pain on the line for all to see. After being in New Orleans, where people point to their brokenness like a flaming, thorny heart, and aren’t ashamed, I know that I will be restless until I can stand with them, unconcerned with my own well-being, and point to my brokenness as well.

I'm ready to go home. New Orleans is my home.

gustav ran me out of town

2008-08-31T01:59:00.002-05:00

I'm dealing with some family business up in Chicago for a few days. Safe and sound.

Jesus, Krishna, Allah, save us from this storm.

still not ok

2008-08-28T23:11:00.002-05:00

8-29 Never Forget

if at first you don't secede...

2008-08-27T19:12:00.003-05:00

Suddenly I couldn't give two shits about the convention.

After today's pie-fighting with Kossacks who see New Orleans as little more than a prop, I am more than a little disillusioned with the daily Kos community. I've been on dKos since 2003 - before Scoop! - so it's not like I'm a newbie over there. Kos has stuck a finger in the eye of Louisiana before, and recovery issues have barely made the front page, so I was already pissed about that. And truly, it never felt like Louisiana was even a part of the DNC's 50 state strategy. They should have a monumental presence in New Orleans, and although there are campaign people here, it is mostly Landrieu's people.

It feels like betrayal.

Sinn Fein has never made more sense to me than it does right now. US out of Louisiana!

hillary's speech

2008-08-26T23:29:00.003-05:00

Ok, I want to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Did anyone else see Bill Clinton quietly muttering, "I love you I love you" as Hillary was entering the stage to such rapturous applause? He got teary a couple of times, too.

It seemed way too overwrought to me, but maybe I am being cynical. It was just weird. I got the sense that he was faking it, knowing that the cameras would be on him.

I watched it on C-SPAN so as to avoid all the talking heads. Maybe they edit the footage differently and no other network showed this particular cut shot.

go away, gustav

2008-08-26T19:00:00.003-05:00

Random notes for today, before my computer burns to a crisp and dies.

I should have been watching Generation Kill one hour at a time, like normal folks, but was interrupted when I was in Michigan last month. The plan was to catch up in one big marathon. Two episodes and several destroyed villages and murdered kids later, I had to stop for the night. Soon, I'll explain why in a post over at New Package, where I've been MIA.

WWL reported today that FEMA hauled away the trailer of a serviceman from Chalmette currently fighting in Afghanistan, leaving all his stuff on the curb, which was then stolen by his neighbors. Another neighbor had been watching his property and was interviewed for the article, and did a good job at declaring that no one should have to deal with these shenanigans from Afghanistan, much less Baton Rouge or even Gentilly.

I'm so disgusted with this situation (mostly with FEMA, although the very unneighborly neighbors deserve some asshole points as well) that I don't really have a lot more to say about it.

Then I read this, about how an airstrike aiming for a Taliban leader killed over 60 kids, and spent the afternoon thinking about the nature of moral culpability. It was a depressing afternoon.

Unrelated - it was so good to see Teddy K speak at the convention last night. Yeah, I cried. He's one of my heroes.

------

Upcoming (once the new laptop is here): a post on the monetizing of research in journalism, or an attempt to answer the question, "Why does Lee Zurik get paid for Karen's work?" - all with an economic systems analysis! Get excited!

new mood: apocalyptic

2008-08-26T08:06:00.002-05:00

hastily added post

2008-08-23T16:40:00.002-05:00

I'm just throwing this up here real quickly since I just got back from the EXCELLENT Rising Tide III conference. Others on my blogroll have been liveblogging, but until the new laptop arrives, my notes are in pencil and paper. So for any newcomers whom I met today, welcome, and I will be posting more frequently once I update my five and a half year-old computer early next month.

Oh, and the A/C is fixed, in case you thought I was still camped out in my yard. No mas.

my AC is broken

2008-08-04T07:33:00.002-05:00

Last night, I slept in a tent in my backyard because it was cooler outside than it was in my house, and the windows don't have screens.

Did I mention that it's August in New Orleans?

summertime, part 2

2008-07-31T17:40:00.002-05:00

So when I said yesterday how I'd probably never know what I ran into last night? Yeah, that was wrong. It was an armed robbery turned kidnapping turned police shootout.

summertime

2008-07-31T00:45:00.003-05:00

After work: fire truck, ambulance, EMT, squad cars. One block around the corner.

I'm out walking with Puppy and so I asked one of the many ladies standing on their porches what happened. "She found Mrs. Jennings."

I don't know whether Mrs. Jennings was old or young. At first, I thought that dying alone was the saddest part. Then I realized she may not have died alone, and that was probably worse.

On my way home from the bar, Washington Ave was closed all along Xavier. I made a scenic drive through Gert Town before heading back out to Carrollton and taking Fountainbleu instead. There seemed to be many people in a certain section of the street, but I couldn't get close enough to tell. Squad cars blocked off at least eight intersections.

Then, right before I get to my house, another fire truck.

Too damn hot outside. Folks get stir crazy. The real question is, of course, how much of this will make the papers? Given how long it's taken for the T-P to write about the NOAHnsense coming out of Nagin's remedial home gutting program, I doubt I will ever find out from the media what happened along Washington Avenue tonight.

obama et l'europe

2008-07-24T17:42:00.003-05:00

I was curious as to how the European papers were covering Obama's Berlin speech. I also wanted an excuse to practice my rusty French.

This sentiment, from Le Monde, pretty much sums it up:

Difficile de croire qu'il n'est pas déjà président.

(It's hard to believe he isn't already the President.) Vraiment.

This bit was also hilarious, from the same piece:

En termes d'image, le voyage est déjà salué comme une réussite, d'autant que le "timing" a servi le sénateur démocrate. Alors qu'il tenait une conférence de presse à Amman, les télévisions ont montré John McCain circulant dans une voiturette de golf avec George Bush père, une vision pas particulièrement porteuse de dynamisme ni d'avenir. John McCain aura 72ans fin août. Cherchant désespérément à contre-attaquer dans la guerre des images, le candidat républicain avait prévu de se montrer, jeudi, sur une plate-forme pétrolière dans le golfe du Mexique, mais l'ouragan Dolly l'a obligé à reporter ce projet.

(In terms of image, the trip is already hailed as a success, especially since the timing has served the Democratic senator. While he held a press conference in Amman, the television [stations] showed John McCain in a golf cart with the senior George Bush, a sight that doesn't portray any dynamism nor [hope for] the future. John McCain will be 72 in August. Searching desperately for a counterattack in the war of images, the Republican candidate had planned to go up, Thursday, on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexcio, but Hurricane Dolly forced him to postpone this project.)

I think they 'missed the boat' on why McCain punked the oil rig photo-op, but contrasting Obama and King Abdullah vs two cantankerous old white men in a golf cart was a clutch move from one of the best papers in the world. Thanks, Le Monde!

Hat jemand deutsch sprechen? Obama ist ein Berliner!

northern michigan

2008-07-20T22:47:00.002-05:00

I'll be in my favorite place in the whole world this coming weekend. My family (and our friends, making a legendary group of 8) has been vacationing in this place for over twenty years. We're in the process of making it my parents' place of retirement as well.

The banner of my blog isn't any kind of bayou - it's Lake Michigan, peace to my soul, comfort in distress, ravaging wintry beauty, summertime perfection.

I love New Orleans, and am not leaving, but y'all, summers in Michigan are how life was meant to be lived. Warm, breezy days, bordering on hot, with refreshing clear lakes to swim in. Tall stands of pine, and sand dunes and birch groves, stretching on endlessly. Cool evenings, with winds off the lake, where you need a campfire and a hooded sweatshirt. Cozy nights in a sleeping bag, with a bazillion stars overhead, the moonlight making lakes on open fields, the smell of woodsmoke in your hair the next morning. Cinnamon rolls from Suttons Bay-kery (oh yes, the bakeries are pun'd).

I will be kayaking, hiking, biking, swimming, and emptying my brain of every worldly problem for five days. No tv, no internet, no phone, no communication whatsoever. Just great food, great friends, my family, a birthday (o yes), and lots of late-night card games listening to the Beatles, Chicago, and Paul Simon.

I haven't been this impatient in a long time.

oh, indeed

2008-07-19T14:53:00.001-05:00

Bob Herbert reads my mind, and writes a great column for the Times today. A must-read.

do you have your new package?

2008-07-08T19:20:00.004-05:00

A little PSA for my 1.3 faithful readers: I finally wrote my first post over at Got that new package. If you're a fan of the Wire, and you should be, come check it out. We'll be blogging Generation Kill when it airs later this month.

Thanks to the NuPac'ers for inviting me to join this shindig. I will do my best not to disappoint or make any egregious grammatical errors.

deep thought

2008-07-02T23:06:00.002-05:00

I am so sick of looking at Eddie Price's ugly mug. Pass the brain bleach, nola.com.

when i think the world is going to shit

2008-07-01T19:50:00.004-05:00

this makes me feel better. with all the crappy things going on in the city, state, country, planet, it's hard to feel optimistic. but, we went to the moon, and came back. we defeated hitler. we survived katrina. if we're not fixing our problems, it means that we're just not working hard enough, because it CAN be done.

the world is just awesome.

yes, yes, it's a commercial. still great.

I dee-double-dare you

2008-07-01T18:14:00.000-05:00

You think you want to
get in a haiku war with
me, but you are wrong.

Thanks, Bravo

2008-06-26T00:34:00.002-05:00

No need to highlight our culinary traditions or anything.

hell no

2008-06-17T21:49:00.000-05:00

Oh, the humanity.

Obama and free market fetishism

2008-06-16T17:46:00.004-05:00

Ok, this concerns me. A lot.

Obama's centrism, specifically his tendency to triangulate and compromise, have always been my least favorite of his attributes. I voted for him in 2004 (when I was still an Illinois resident) and expected that with his political capital, he would immediately become a voice of reason, speaking truth to power, and work on immediately ending the war and fixing the many, many ills of our social safety net.

Say it with me now: "Na Ga Ha Pan"

Yes, I was disillusioned. Apparently, in the Senate, they have this thing called "seniority." And newly elected Senators are loathe to upset the senior Senators, lest they lose committee seats, or somesuch.

I thought that when you win an election with 70% of the vote, you receive this tricky thing called a mandate from the voters, where you can do exactly what you said you would do in the campaign without pissing anyone off, except for the people that the voters wanted to piss off. Sadly, no.

For a man who says his favorite show is The Wire, he's acting an awfully lot like the New-Day-promising, seat-jumping asshole Tommy Carcetti. I know I can't be the first one to make that comparison, but this run-to-the-middle economics is not only bad politics, it's bad economics. Don't believe me? Let's ask Paul Krugman:

Look, Obama didn’t pose as a Nation-type progressive, then turn on his allies after the race was won. Throughout the campaign he was slightly less progressive than Hillary Clinton on domestic issues — and more than slightly on health care. If people like Ms. Klein are shocked, shocked that he isn’t the candidate of their fantasies, they have nobody but themselves to blame.

I think Krugman is tacking too hard here - no one is shocked, shocked that Obama isn't perfect. Besides, Krugman himself took a drink of the Hillary Crazy during the primary and hasn't quite recovered. But his point on policy is correct. Hillary's policies are, in fact, more progressive. (The gulf between Clinton/Obama and McCain's policies is bigger, of course.) Many people nonetheless voted against her for other reasons: to avoid dynastic politics, to break cleanly from the nineties, to escape the DLC-Clinton centrist party politics of failure, to elect a new promising young leader, to avoid having Dean removed as DNC chairman. Those are excellent reasons.

Another reason for Obama's success is his ability to rebrand centrism itself. Obama stakes out solidly progressive positions on many issues: choice, the environment, and ethics come immediately to mind. However, his rhetoric is always focused on bringing diametrically opposed groups together, promoting dialogue, finding commonalities rather than using wedges to divide. Again, all good things.

But there is a time when, if the voting population grants you a bully pulpit, you use it. Economic issues tie in to every single policy issue of our time. Neoliberalism is so woven into our mindset that we have managed to build the single most expensive, complicated, unequal medical care system in history, and it leaves out at the very least 47 million people. Neoliberalism is what brought about Katrina. Neoliberalism dictates that we divest from public infrastructure and give it away to private companies. Neoliberalism means voting against a GI Bill while private security companies, aka mercenary fuckmooks, get paid three times as much, live outside the rule of law, and incite violence that kills our troops. Neoliberalism is "I got mine, and oh by the way, I've got yours too, and your grandkids, and the fact that I have it is proof that I deserve it." Americans managed to turn Calvinist predestination theology into the economics of greed. I mean, it's just stunning. I'm barely scratching the surface. For more, you need to read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. It is a hugely important work, one that should be required reading for all US citizens.

All of this leads me back to Naomi Klein's recent piece on Obama and economics, which I linked to up top.

Obama's top economic adviser is Austan Goolsbee, and the head of his economic policy team is Jason Furman. Both of these guys are Chicago School neoliberal economists. Furman is even a staunch Wal-Mart defender and promoter. Klein does us the favor of reminding us that, uh, actually, the world is not so fond of Milton Friedman and his policies.

The movement launched by Friedman, introduced by Ronald Reagan and entrenched under Clinton, faces a profound legitimacy crisis around the world. Nowhere is this more evident than at the University of Chicago itself. In mid-May, when university president Robert Zimmer announced the creation of a $200 million Milton Friedman Institute, an economic research center devoted to continuing and augmenting the Friedman legacy, a controversy erupted. More than 100 faculty members signed a letter of protest. "The effects of the neoliberal global order that has been put in place in recent decades, strongly buttressed by the Chicago School of Economics, have by no means been unequivocally positive," the letter states. "Many would argue that they have been negative for much of the world's population."

When Friedman died in 2006, such bold critiques of his legacy were largely absent. The adoring memorials spoke only of grand achievement, with one of the more prominent appreciations appearing in the New York Times--written by Austan Goolsbee.

Thank god the U of C faculty has come to their senses. Better late than never.

Here's the upshot of all this. At a time when we need more market intervention, more government regulation, more monopoly-busting, more federally-directed investments, more government-funded jobs programs, better educated engineers, more research into technologies that can save us from the coming environmental clusterfuck that will be weaning off oil and carbon, what we DO NOT NEED is a president who talks a big game, but walks just the same as the rest of them.

It was in the two and a half months between winning the 1992 election and being sworn into office that Bill Clinton did a U-turn on the economy. He had campaigned promising to revise NAFTA, adding labor and environmental provisions and to invest in social programs. But two weeks before his inauguration, he met with then-Goldman Sachs chief Robert Rubin, who convinced him of the urgency of embracing austerity and more liberalization. Rubin told PBS, "President Clinton actually made the decision before he stepped into the Oval Office, during the transition, on what was a dramatic change in economic policy."
Furman, a leading disciple of Rubin, was chosen to head the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project, the think tank Rubin helped found to argue for reforming, rather than abandoning, the free-trade agenda. Add to that Goolsbee's February meeting with Canadian consulate officials, who left with the distinct impression that they had been instructed not to take Obama's anti-NAFTA campaigning seriously, and there is every reason for concern about a replay of 1993.

If Obama screws me like this, I'm moving to Holland. You can take that to the bank.

gross

2008-06-08T19:24:00.002-05:00

Today I found out what happens when you buy onions and forget they're in your kitchen. For six months.

I've never claimed to be a fastidious housekeeper...

when to take an omen for what it is

2008-05-25T21:54:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, I bought a bike. It was a major purchase. I plan on riding this bike for decades to come.

Today, I gave a disaster tour by bike through Gentilly and the 9th ward for some reproductive rights activists. It went very well.

Then my brother calls and tells me that our family friend was killed this morning riding his bike. He was the most careful, experienced cyclist that I know.

Struck by vehicle, blunt force trauma.

I don't know if this is some sort of hint I should be taking.

Gerry was a great and wonderful guy, one of the smartest people I've ever met, and his family misses him already. Please keep his wife, Jane, and his four adult children in your prayers/thoughts. I'm too sad and shocked tonight to say much more than that.

Worst nightmare, part 2

2008-05-21T12:18:00.003-05:00

My least favorite person on planet Earth apparently lives here again. And is making appearances Uptown.

Shoot me in the fucking face.

My worst nightmare

2008-05-20T21:45:00.005-05:00

I have had a fairly acute fear of bridges for as long as I can remember. I designed my eighth grade science project with an eye to assuaging this very fear. I tested the weight load and relative safety of bridge designs - built out of popsicle sticks - mostly so that I would know which kinds of bridges to be slightly less afraid of. (Obviously I couldn't take into account materials, and physics, and all that. I'm not an engineer now, nor was I one at the tender age of 13.) When I had to ride over this bridge in Japan, I hid in the bus bathroom to avoid looking out the window. A college road trip to the east coast included me unexpectedly driving over the George Washington Bridge ("What in holy hell is... oh, you've GOT to be kidding me") cursing like a fisherman with tourette's, white knuckles on the steering wheel. Then I moved here, what with our four of the top ten longest bridges in the world, and had to either get over it, or never leave Orleans Parish. I will still not drive over the Huey P, but on every other bridge, I am mostly ok.

Except for the killer Claiborne Ave nightmare bridge from Hell.

Last night it struck again. This time, the victim: a fifteen-year veteran of the NOPD. A narco, who sounds more like Sydnor than like Herc (for any Wire fans reading by chance):

As a narcotics officer, Felix often put himself at risk, undertaking countless undercover drug buys, said Maj. Michael Glasser, his former supervisor.
"I've never met a more dedicated individual," Glasser said. "He is irreplaceable."

A family man:

Felix is survived by his wife and five children, who range in age from 4 to 19.

It appears so far that he wasn't drunk, nor was his car malfunctioning.

No, this perfectly preventable tragedy happened because the gate on the bridge was not down, streetlights were out, and the design of the bridge is such that when it is up, any vehicle is liable to drive blindly into the canal, with only a flimsy gate blocking the way.

The responsibility for Officer Felix's death lies not only with the bridge operator, but with those directly in charge of the bridge and its maintenance, but everyone at City Hall funneling money into real estate development contracts for their friends and away from real infrastructure.

In this town, it's a constant, sometimes futile task to figure these things out: how much money, who paid it, and who got paid. I think it's pretty clear to Officer Felix's family that it isn't making our city a functional or safe place to live, but it probably is making some people very rich.

Requiscat in pace, Officer.

roundup

2008-05-15T17:09:00.003-05:00

I had a great weekend. My best friend from h.s. was in town, and he had never been to New Orleans before, and he's a musician, so we had a blast. Food included: Juan's, Parkway, 9 Roses, Bluebird Cafe, 13 on Frenchmen, and maybe a couple others I'm forgetting. Basically, now I'm broke. We also saw Vavavoom at the Spotted Cat on (was it?) Saturday - there was a really weird vibe there, like everyone in the bar had never been in there before. It was very territorial and felt wrong. Come on, Anderson Cooper, stop telling people to go there, damnit!

This week, I am doing a computer training course for work, so I'm further downtown than usual. It's a nice change of pace because it reminds me that we actually have a downtown, and people in my demographic work there, and there are lots of great lunch places. Not so near my office. I had the opportunity to eat at That Indian Place and ran into Maitri. Got hooked up with a masala dosa, and I haven't had one of those since I was in Kerala almost three years ago. The scent alone was such a rush of familiarity. There is almost no South Indian food in the US, so it is rare that I come across something like that. Apparently there are great South Indian places in Houston, so if there's an evacuation this season, I'll be able to try them out.

About the City Council's decision to investigate Nagin's technology office, I'll just say this: If Nagin had just appointed Ashley as CTO, none. of. this. bullshit. would. be. happening.

Happy birthday, mom

2008-05-09T13:00:00.002-05:00

My mom doesn't read this, but if she ever finds it, happy 50th birthday, Mom. I love you. Thanks for, you know, bringing me into the world and all.

evil buckmoths

2008-05-03T22:45:00.003-05:00

I take my dog outside five or six times a day. He's really little so we go around the block a lot. A couple times in the past week, he's had a hip come out of the socket - he would be in a lot of pain but then it would pop back in and eventually he'd start putting weight on it again. The first time it happened, I was scared out of my mind. I called the emergency vet hospital and the tech talked me through it on the phone, saying it'd be $140 just to come in, so maybe I should wait and see. Then he asked what kind of breed it was. I told him my dog was a Maltese, and he said, "Oh, this happens all the time with small breeds. I bet it's no big deal." Then, as I was on the phone with him, it popped back into place, and my dog started to feel better.

Then tonight, I thought it had happened again. This time, though, he was curled up on the sidewalk, frantically licking his right rear paw, and wouldn't let me touch him or carry him back to the house. I was concerned. Mosquitoes were biting me. I thought maybe this time he had broken something. Eventually he relented and I carried him home.

Looking at his paw, it was red and swollen. That's when I figured it out: he got stung by one of those buckmoth caterpillars.

I haven't been stung yet, but it hurt my dog so badly that he yelped in my ear and I went deaf for a few seconds!

Could have been worse though. I watched the Derby today, and what a tragic end for Eight Belles.

Fuck You, David Vitter

2008-05-01T17:46:00.002-05:00

I could have tried to say it more eloquently, but sometimes, ya just gotta come right out with it already: Fuck You, David Vitter.

I don't know if Deborah Palfrey committed suicide out of humiliation and despair, or just to avoid serving time in prison. And I don't care. It underscores my point either way.

In college, I watched a movie about human trafficking. That's the nice term for it - a better one is sex slavery. The movie, Lilja 4-ever, was about a teenager from Russia who met a Swedish guy and accepted his invitation to move there with him, only to find herself locked in an apartment and taken from house to house to have sex with men, not seeing a dime of the money. The whole movie is about this girl's search for freedom, not finding it in Russia and moving to Sweden, and then trying to escape the hell she's been tricked into. The movie ends with her throwing herself off a highway overpass. It is graphic, terrifying, and horrifically tragic. I had nightmares for weeks.

It isn't a problem relegated to Russia and Thailand. Over 100,000 women are trafficked into the US each year, for sex slavery. They answer ads looking for nannies, dancers, and other innocent-sounding jobs, and end up without anything at all. And it's not like this is one dude orchestrating this operation from his laptop. It involves fake passports, security breaches at airports, transport by cargo container, and implicit, if not explicit, governmental approval. Any one country's laws and enforcement mechanisms are not strong enough to stop this trade. It is global, it is pervasive, and it is deeply evil.

What does this have to do with Deborah Palfrey? She ran an escort service. She wasn't importing Cambodian eleven-year-olds for rich Bethesdans, so why do I bring this up?

Most discussions of prostitution involve the supply side. How can we get girls to stop being prostitutes? How can we best punish people for solicitation? Theorizing, of course, that if no girl wants to be a prostitute, then there won't be any prostitution.

Never do I see discussions on how to change our culture so that men no longer feel the need to treat women like shit. In fact, it keeps getting worse. A perusal of any feminist blog will reveal discussions on the increasing sexual violence in mainstream pornography, including the increasing popularity of gangbang and simulated (or actual) rape. The demand keeps growing.

And in a black market economy, supply always meets demand. Always.

Of course, it's so much easier to humiliate women in public and wait for them to kill themselves, and save the john-busts for political expediency.

That is why David Vitter is part of the problem. Because women are humiliated, degraded, raped, and suicidal - and he gets to keep his job representing me in the United States Senate.

oh thank god

2008-04-29T19:23:00.001-05:00

After a pretty horrible day, I get a link to Simpsons Wire, via Chris Hayes. All better now!

new route

2008-04-28T17:32:00.003-05:00

I started driving a new route home from work. Instead of taking St Charles, I'm taking Simon Bolivar/Lasalle through Central City.

One of my very first impressions of New Orleans (first visit: Feb 05) was my amazement that such poor areas could be in such proximity to immense wealth. Mansions to shacks, within two blocks. I have since learned and written about the "white avenue, black alley" settlement pattern that contributed to this phenomenon, not just in New Orleans, but in other Southern cities. Uptown, in particular, has perfect examples of this pattern, because of the insular radial structure of the streets (as compared to the more grid-like settlements in the 7th ward, for example). Peirce Lewis, a geographer, calls them "superblocks," where wide avenues surround 10-15 interior streets. Originally, the black folks who worked in the white mansions lived in these interior blocks so they would be in close proximity to their employers. If I were a certain bald-headed mayor, I could make a tone-deaf chewy chocolate center joke here...

Anyway, the same thought struck me again on my way home today, about the proximity of poverty to some very wealthy parts of town. Central City is in total disrepair. Once you cross Louisiana Ave heading west there are a couple new homes, but many are empty except for squatters. And we all know what a dead house looks like in this city. Cave-ins, overgrown vines, peeling paint, broken windows.

And then, a few blocks from Napoleon (around Marengo), BAM. Huge, immaculate single-family mansions.

I'm going to take this route for a while and try to get some pictures. I got hollered at from the car today, so walking around is not something I want to mess around with.

happenings

2008-04-25T17:30:00.005-05:00

Went to Festival International with Ray last night to catch Sonny Landreth and the Blind Boys of Alabama. I always take any excuse I can to go to Lafayette, but this was especially worth the drive. Sadly, the Blind Boys cannot read my mind, and so they did not bust out a glorious rendition of "Way Down in the Hole." They did, however, sing some great standards, and the Preservation Hall cats were playing along with them, and it was grand. Sonny blew my mind. I've never seen anyone play guitar that way. His whole band was just as talented as he is, and the sound system really showed them off. Not uncomfortably crowded, $3 Abita Strawberry, crawfish pistolettes. I also got to meet Greg and his family. They were charming and adorable. I will be going again next year f'sure.

I originally went because I thought I would not be able to see Sonny at JazzFest. However, today I was given two free tickets, and so it looks like Friday and Sunday are in the cards for next weekend. Just another everyday New Orleans miracle.

So while my life is going pretty well, the city is falling apart in its usual aw-shucks way. Murder, malfeasance, and criminal mookery all made headlines today. Paper levees? Seriously. Paper levees? I don't know if I can summon the outrage. May I remind everyone that Amsterdam is protected against a 1 in 10,000 year storm, and that no part of the Netherlands is protected against anything less than a 1 in 1,250 year storm? And that's the level for the farmland!

Not to mention more death by taser, this time from Chicago/Oxford, OH. My brother happens to live in Oxford, and helpfully supplies this tidbit of information:

what they don't include is that his father had a heart attack when he got the news his son was in the hospital.

fuck oxford police.

Indeed.

There appears to be good news on the Entergy/street tile battle royale, begun with Ashley's warning shot. I read the Entergy letter and was concerned by this part:

The fact is, of the nearly 1,500 street corners impacted by the rebuild to date, approximately 500 have street name tiles and only about 18 were not replaced -- a clear violation of Entergy's practice.

There are at least 16 corners in my immediate neighborhood that all have gaping street tile wounds. The corners look like they have keloid scars. The corners look terrible without the tiles. Entergy should put them back in, and I filled out the online complaint to tell them so.

If the tiles were broken or missing before Entergy did the work, it would be a damn nice public service of them to buy the tiles from a local artist and put them back on our sidewalk corners. Instead, the corners have only concrete patches that remind me of the tiles that should be there, but aren't.

NIMBY

2008-04-21T17:50:00.004-05:00

Environmental injustices are alive and well in Baltimore City.

Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients.

Nine low-income families in Baltimore rowhouses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department.

The Associated Press reviewed grant documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and interviewed researchers. No one involved with the $446,231 grant for the two-year study would identify the participants, citing privacy concerns. There is no evidence there was ever any medical follow-up.

Hmm. Poisoned soils? No medical follow-up? No disclosure of possible health effects?

Anyone heard this before?

It doesn't take much of a logical leap to go from the massive amount of environmental injustices inflicted upon minorities in our country (just look at Houston) to Tuskegee to the government manufacturing AIDS to kill black people.

Or dynamiting levees.

Anyone who would put themselves in these peoples' shoes, these not-accidentally poisoned peoples' shoes, for just a few minutes, would realize that these theories do not appear from nowhere. They evolve over time. They evolve based on injustices that actually happen, a thousand injustices of varying degrees that white America either has no clue or no care about.

Tibet blogging

2008-04-17T12:40:00.003-05:00

This article by Jim Yardley in the NYT is really good.

Beijing's revisionist history regarding Tibet is now being enshrined in a museum. According to Yardley, the scholarly debate over whether Tibet is a historical part of China depends on whether Tibet was a satellite state (like the Soviet Bloc nations) under the Mongol empire, or an territory of a Chinese state under the Yuan and Qing dynasties.

I'm not an expert and have not done nearly the amount of background reading I would like to on this issue, but I have been to Lhasa. And honestly, I think the political history is almost irrelevant. This is an issue of cultural and linguistic preservation, of freedom of religion, of free travel within borders, of suppression of free speech. At this level of violation, historical borders and control issues are subservient to issues of human rights. No one disagrees on whether Tibetan rights are being violated - probably not even the Chinese party members. They just don't care, because political power and cultural domination are valued more highly than the right of Tibetans to carry a picture of the Dalai Lama.

When I walked around Lhasa, I remember thinking that I felt so lucky to be there before the Chinese had eviscerated any remnants of the older ways of life. "Five years, max, and this place will be a shadow of its former self." Truly, a cultural genocide is taking place. Even the untrained eye of a college-age visitor can see it. It reminded me of a scene from the West Wing, where Pres. Bartlet looks at satellite photos of a mass grave being constructed with thousands of people forced to march towards it, and says, "He's trying to finish the job before the deadline."

The deadline is the Olympics. China did not succeed in suppressing the truth, or the Tibetans, or international support. But if we turn another blind eye after this episode is over, they will finish the job. Tibet will be lost.

I don't have a political solution. In my Politics of East Asia class in college, we did a mock diplomatic crisis with China over some hypothetical Taiwanese military exercises (again, like the West Wing). We never even touched the Tibet issue, because that was seen as a 60s relic. Thankfully, it's coming into the public eye once more. I just hope we're not too scandal-fatigued to pay attention.

UPDATE: Maitri has more, with a lot more nuance than what I posted.

The forgotten arm

2008-04-16T18:43:00.002-05:00

Aimee Mann has been kicking my ass.

I watched Magnolia for the first time right after I moved here, almost ... wow, almost a year ago [already!]. I know everyone else probably went through this when it came out, what, ten years ago? but it hit me pretty hard. Mostly because of Aimee Mann's haunting, resonant, beautiful voice.

I didn't get around to buying an album of hers until a couple weeks ago, when I got "The Forgotten Arm" from iTunes. It's a concept album that tells a story of an older guy (an addict, actually) and a younger gal, and their scorched-earth, codependent, tragic romance. Really familiar territory for me.

Too familiar, as it turns out. The trajectory of the album is just pitch-perfect. If you haven't lived through one of these kinds of relationships, then it'll seem off. But if you have... see if these elements don't seem creepily familiar.

The beautiful beginning: the feeling of fate, the falling into it without thinking.
The immediate revelation of problems, and the glossing over...
Moving, of course, into the first of many attempts to fix things:

You could have it made / Up there in San Rafael
But baby, I'm afraid / I'll never see you well
Because I've seen the tally / And you're just going through the motions, baby

And then, the thinking it's your fault:

I want to believe / Cause you oughta know
That kicking is hard / But the bottom's harder
So I'm taking your card / But I cannot get my head around it, baby...

That whole song (I Can't Get My Head Around It) just floors me. I've listened to it approximately 63 times in the past two-three weeks.

But then the album moves into the real emotional arc, the running away together and watching it fall apart.

Like a building that's been slated for blasting
I'm the proof that nothing is lasting
Counting to eleven as it collapses

She even gets this right: the delay between figuring out that it's going to end badly (That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart) and actually doing something about it (I Can't Help You Anymore), complete with requisite anger from knowing you've been drawn into someone else's manipulative machinations:

Was I the bullet or the gun / Or just a target drawn upon
A wall that you decided / Wasn't worth defending?

The album ending is perfect, too: the broken man (why does it hurt me / to feel so much tenderness?) and the woman trying to stop trying to fix it (i wish you could see it too / baby how i see you).

Really, just give it a listen already.

I've been dealing with emotional fallout for an embarrassingly long time. It wasn't until I listened to this album that I finally felt ok about savoring the happy memories and pinning the blame for the bullshit on exactly who deserved it.

I've got to let it go now, or it will drag me under / 'cause I can't help you anymore

So good riddance, old-relationship-feelings. It's an auspicious start to this blog that I have finally put all that crapola to rest. It wasn't a lesson that I wanted to learn this early in life, but I'll be damned if I make those same mistakes again.

And thanks, Aimee Mann. You are a brave woman.

So it begins

2008-04-16T18:08:00.005-05:00

Yello, erryone...

I'm starting this partly in hopes that it will get me writing again. I miss it. Used to fancy myself a fairly decent writer, actually. After the Famed Hard Drive Crash of Aught-Six I was so despondent from losing all of my work that I stopped writing altogether, except for academic papers [and the THESIS!]. It's very difficult for me to write well without reading stuff I've written previously. I need that sense of where I've been and where I'm going. I found some old drafts at my parents' house over the holidays, and that helped. At least this whole episode has permanently shattered my life-as-Algernon hypothesis (short version: everything stopped at age twelve and then repeated itself in reverse, leaving me hypothetically dead at 24). The last three years of my life have been inconceivably monumental in scope. I guess that's the whole "growing up" bit that we've all been warned about.

I don't want to miss any more chances to record what's happening all around me, because whether it is or isn't, it seems important. And I'm anxious to join in the NOLA blogging community, who have enriched my life so much, and whose voices helped guide me home. So here it goes.

A note about the title: I spelled it "fiyou" because "fire" was already taken. I like it better this way, anyway. I'm just trying to keep that flame lit, floating out here on the national guitar of the Mississippi Delta...