Hurricane Katrina Survivors

My family, and the communities they live in, the places I grew up in, have been totally destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and worse, the bungled governmental response afterward. I've been down in the Gulf documenting in photographs and words what they've been through, and how they're surviving. Family, friends, neighbors, and strangers all reaching out to each other like life rafts. You can read all my coverage here, at Operation Eden

The above image, from Operation Eden:
"Mike Walters, 40, Fireman. His birthday was on September 4th, just a couple of days after the hurricane hit. Shot at the Charles B Murphy Elementary School in Pearlington MS, which is being used as a distribution point for survivors and aid workers to gather, get and give supplies. The school is the only structure in the whole town of Pearlington that I saw intact. That look on his eyes I saw on a lot of people stumbling around in the dust and heat. It's shock and fatigue and gathering hoplessness. It's the realization that Pearlington has been forgotten, and they are on their own."

Small Government

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." -Grover Norquist, compassionate conservative, douchebag, Bush advisor.

"Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal," Norquist stated in May 2000. "If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050"

These people won't be happy until we're back to the Gilded Age. At some point, middle class people become poor people. And at some point, poor people snap. Can you tell, we're getting closer to that point?

Presidents Comment On Corporations

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
-- Thomas Jefferson More...

Somebody's Coming To Get You, Mama

"His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said. Are you coming. Son? Is somebody coming? And he said yeah. Mama. Somebody's coming to get you.. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday. And she drowned Friday night. And she drowned Friday night. Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For god's sakes, just shut up and send us somebody..—Aaron Broussard

I grew up with men like this. They can work 16 hours on an oil rig, or welding ships, or painting buildings, then help you fix your flat on the way home, then drink you under the table, and still be tough enough to catch a gator bare-handed, and get up at 5am the next morning to do it all over again. Seeing them reduced to tears begging for help from their government makes me ashamed to be American.

The Sisters and Me and Fats Domino

My mom Linda, and my aunt Susan.

Sisters. They grew up poor in a shotgun shack under an industrial overpass. McKain Steet. The air smelled of chicory and baking bread and petrol. Three rooms, nine people, some Boston Terriers and a few chickens. They were the youngest and they had to watch out for each other, to make sure oldest brother Sonny didn't hurt them when he stumbled home drunk, smelling of Jack and hair grease and Lucky Strikes. Bad things happened to them but they survived and when Linda ran away and got married in a baby blue mini dress Susan was the only family that showed up. And life went on.

***All circuits are busy now. Please try your call later. 127t***

I was ten when the sisters showed me my first wild night on the town, New Orleans style. They took me to the Mississippi, on the Riverboat President, to a floating concert by Fats Domino. They snuck in Amaretto in their purses, and giggled at their cleverness when the guards were too shy to look under the box of tampons they had used for cover. I giggled too, not because I understood, but because we had gotten one over on The Man. The riverboat cruised above the French Quarter and they drank and Fats found his thrill and we danced with our shoes off and shrieked like we were on fire. And we were, in a good way.

***Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.***

The sisters are separated now, and even though she tries to mask it, thinking of me as that ten year old, I can hear the waver in Aunt Susan's voice when we check in on each other. And we say: Any news? No. Any news? No. She's fine, it's just the phones are down is all. Yeah. Call me if you have any news. And we don't have any news, but we call anyway to say: no news.

***Your call did not go through. Please try your call again. 127t***

And she's leaving her safety now to look for her older sister, who's fine, it's just the phones are down is all. They both survived being born at Charity Hospital. They both survived Sonny. They both survived Betsy. They'll both survive this. And she wavers when she says keep strong, and I can tell she's saying that for herself as much as me. And she'll go back into the Gulf and she'll disappear off my radar screen as she goes under for her sister and then I'll have even more no news, if that's possible.

Only I've got news. That ten year old is now as old as they were that night we shrieked with Fats Domino, and he's coming down to tell the sisters that Fats was found alive and well, and we'll all dance together again before this is over.

Let Them Eat Cake

"My Pet Goat" v3.0
Laugh it up, douchebags. History will know you for what you are.

Say 'Quagmire' With Me, Dumbasses

Iraq's costing us:
$5,600,000,000 per month.
$186,000,000 per day.
$7,750,000 per hour.
$129,000 per minute.
$2152.77 per second.

All Hail Nero

"My Pet Goat" v2.0
A tale of two photos: Mississippi Goddamn

Before and After

Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
(click on image to toggle back and forth)

American Taliban

I wish I had a baseball bat and ten minutes alone with this douche:
"'Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,' stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. 'From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge,' he continued."

Basin Street Blues

Smile cry with me for my New Orleans...

"Now the band’s there to greet us
Old friends will meet us
Where all them folks goin' to the St. Louis Cemetery meet
Heaven on earth.... they call it Basin Street

They’ll be huggin’.... and a kissin’
That’s what I been missin’
And all that music....Lord, if you just listen’
New Orleans....I got them Basin Street blues"
-Louis Armstrong


Now, please go here and give what you can.

Betsy, Camille, Katrina

I can't breathe today. My mind is focused on that red swirl, right now mindlessly, purposelessly tearing up what I love. Most of my family lives in its path. I haven't heard from most of them. My last contact was with my mom, in a voicemail she left me yesterday morning at dawn, telling me she was evacuating. It ended, her voice breaking in tears, "Pray for us, brother."

The eastern edge of the eye is the area you don't want to be in. It's the area that is right now over the home I bought for my mom this year. Is she safe? My little brother? Is the roof of her home, which she called Eden, now upturned in some swollen black swamp? Are my childhood photos driven by the blasting winds like nails into a pine tree nearby?

My family, mom, my little brother. They have so little, is even that now all gone?

Are they safe?

Ladybird

Stories From Space, by Ladybird, AKA Helen Nodding. She makes tiny worlds in urban cracks, and I want to live on them. Interview here.

Moss Graffiti

This simple yet effective concoction is an old favourite of gardeners trying to encourage moss growth and provides an excellent alternative to spray paint.

Freedom To Photograph

Freedom To Photograph - The Definitive News Source for Photographers' Freedoms

Bitterness Really Turns Chicks On

Why Marriage Has Become a Raw Deal for Men
"The intent of this website is to help educate men about
the realities of today's modern marriage. Please pass the word....
(Disclaimer: The author has never been married)"

Holy Shit, Fischer-Tropsch?

"Montana's governor wants to solve America's rising energy costs using a technology discovered in Germany 80 years ago that converts coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

The Fischer-Tropsch technology, discovered by German researchers in 1923 and later used by the Nazis to convert coal into wartime fuels, was not economical as long as oil cost less than $30 a barrel.

But with U.S. crude oil now hitting more than double that price, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plan is getting more attention across the country and some analysts are taking him very seriously.

Montana is "sitting on more energy than they have in the Middle East," Schweitzer told Reuters in an interview this week.."

First Period Kit

"A girl's first menstruation is such an exciting and beautiful time in life. Here at Birth With Sol we felt that beginning the journey into womanhood, another birth experience, deserves to be honored and celebrated with joy and pride! It is so vital to pass down to our girls the importance of pride and appreciation for our womanly bodies, and celebrating the first menses is a great way to start."

Gay Bar! Gay Bar! Gay Bar!

'I have the genes in my body to make a vagina and carry a baby, but I don't use them, because I am a man.'

Bad Luck Guy

"A Hollywood producer who was found dead in a car with his young daughter had apparently suffered a heart attack and fallen on top of the girl, suffocating her, according to a coroner's report."

Grasping the Depth of Time

"It's been approximately 3.5 billion years since primeval life first originated on this planet. That is not an unimaginable number in itself, if you're thinking of simple, discrete units like dollars or grains of sand. But 3.5 billion years of biological history is different. All those years have really passed, moment by moment, one by one. They encompass an actual, already lived reality, encompassing all the lives of all the organisms that have come and gone in that time. That expanse of time defines the realm of biological possibility in which life in its extraordinary diversity has evolved. It is time that has allowed the making of us."

Conservative Douchebags Du Jour

In an episode of meta-irony befitting a largely senile organization made up of grumpy old men, the American Legion has declared war on antiwar protestors:

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu.

And Cadmus should know best how to protect our troops, having first-hand experience serving during the Vietnam War, where he bravely toiled in the infamous killing fields of Kentucky.

He explained, "No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies."

Interestingly enough, he said this via press release at a public media event. So basically, soldiers (other than the valiant Mr. Cadmus) have fought and died for your freedom of speech, for which they should be respected by not using that freedom of speech.

Some of the American Legion's previously notable conservative douchebaggery is: breaking unions, heartily endorsing Benito Mussolini, attempting to organize a coup against FDR, and the perpetual flag-burning amendment nonsense.

Oh, and smelling musty.

Bullshit Protectors

These need to be handed out at every political rally.

And, a related product:

The Trillion-Dollar War

Ouch:
"Even by this simple yardstick, if the American military presence in the region lasts another five years, the total outlay for the war could stretch to more than $1.3 trillion, or $11,300 for every household in the United States."

The Trillion-Dollar War - New York Times

Flat Earth Swimwear

Does your Dark Ages attitude towards sexuality and the human form leave you with a deep feeling of shame and frustration at the beach? Then Hasema Islamic Swimwear is what you need, my ululatory genuflecting friend.

But wait! What if your brand of prim sexlessness is more Western-leaning? Well, WholesomeWear can handily shield your putrid sinning body from thy Lord's gaze, my little home-schooling breeding machine.

Gee, I guess it really is a small world after all!