I woke up at 4. Savored those first moments when I couldn't remember a thing, when it was just another Saturday.
But it isn’t.
It's the fifth day of The End Of Life As We Know It In These United States.
We all have our ways of coping. As one of my sex-writer friends wrote me: "I can't even imagine blogging about celebrity nudie shots or 'White Chicks and Black Dicks!' while people are dying in the streets of the city I love."
Exactly. So let's get down about the origins of sex, which is staying alive.
I want to make sure I’ve contacted every single person I know on the Gulf Coast. I phoned and emailed a bunch of people yesterday—with trepidation. I was shy because I thought, “The last thing they want to do is talk to some know-nothing in California, who’s not even family...”
But I was wrong. Everyone I contacted was so touched to hear from me, to know that anyone gives a damn about them. Their sense of being abandoned is so pervasive, the despair is so huge, that hearing from a kind stranger is indeed a comfort. I can tell them I love them— and I mean it— and they hear it. They long to hear it.
People are posting on Craig’s List when they can help anyone who needs phone calls or messages delivered. Others are opening their homes to refugees, or offering supplies of all kinds— another great way to make direct contact. I've fielded requests for Valium, chocolate, and whiskey, and I intend to honor all of them.
Some folks want to get down to Texas, Louisiana, Alabama— STAT. I think all of us want to do that, on some level. It’s so frustrating to hear any excuses why people are suffering without relief.
Here’s an excerpt from one of the most moving stories I’ve read of this kind of get-up-and-go:
"I recently left my job as an emergency medical technician in Baltimore and moved to Austin, Texas, to accept a James Michener fellowship in writing. Austin is about 500 miles from New Orleans, so on Sunday evening, when I heard what the news was predicting about Hurricane Katrina, I packed my car and headed for New Orleans.
"I drove all night and got to the suburbs of the city around 11 a.m. Monday. The hurricane was still blowing and though the winds had slowed somewhat, the rain was sideways and visibility was almost nothing. Interstate 10 was blocked with downed streetlights, the roofs of homes, and every other kind of debris imaginable. It was like driving through a junkyard. Every so often a big piece of steel roofing would go skating across the interstate or down a side road.
"For the most part I was numb to it, but when the big debris started blowing I would tell myself: "Stay alive, stay alive, stay alive..."
Salon is doing an excellent job of looking at the Hurricane from every angle. I was gobsmacked by this forensic report— bringing out the dead, indeed.
I also log on to The Well, where I find intelligent, media-savvy, and heartfelt discussion from other “dry outsiders” like me. The Well is an inexpensive subscription, but it's priceless.
I am staying home in Santa Cruz, despite my rescue fantasies. I’m going to keep minding my child, all the while thinking what a different world she’s grown up in, than I did. Aretha was conceived in the '89 Earthquake, approached puberty at 9/11— and now this. It’s Generation Splat.
She gets mad when she sees the worry in my eyes. She wants to love life, and the future, and she's right. I just can't stop crying.
In the meantime, I look for news that isn’t disaster-porn.
I start with the Times hurricane coverage, because they give "good structure," frequent updates, and a big picture feel. They have superb photos and video, with enough bandwidth that anyone can see them. They also have detailed charts about everything that’s going on physically and geographically... you can even see where the hurricane hit in relation to the income per capita.
If someone asks you, “What does racism have to do with this disaster?” — (and I'm hearing that constantly in the white enclaves of my sheltered town)— show them the interactive graphs.
Speaking of pictures, you probably know that the US press is careful not to show too many gruesome pictures of death or violence, or even strong emotions. If you have the stomach for it, or want to be shaken out of your stupor, then head on over to the BBC, where they are presenting a less-censored vision of the horror. I took one look, and yes, it was my worst nightmare. I can’t handle watching that stuff if I can’t be there to do something about it.
Nevertheless, if you know somebody who insists that people stayed home because “they just didn’t want to evacuate; it's their own fault,” give them a good slap-upside the head with the international coverage.
Speaking of which, someone please airdrop Rush Limbaugh to the 9th Ward and leave him there. AIRDROP.
I must confess to you that my next news stop is the Drudge Report.
Matt, of course, is going to be the one who carries a headline that "corpses are being eaten" on New Orleans' streets— a Drudgesque urban legend if there ever was one. But he does update frequently on weekdays, and you will find breaking stories from AP and Reuters, as well as interesting tangents that are worth following up on. You can scan his headlines in a minute. Just don't read him exclusively, or you will despair of all humanity.
Now, for the more homegrown stuff...
When I first searched for the daily newspaper of New Orleans, I thought they had gone out of business. I was partially right... their former office is part of the N.O. underwater fantasia. But they've been blogging like it’s going out of style, and I’m sure they'll be up for a Pulitzer because of it. Tons of neighborhood and community information you won't find anywhere else.
One of the most enlightening blogs I’ve been reading belongs to a guy named "Insomnia” who is collecting all the refugee voices he can find:
"Whether you think I'm a stupid bitch for staying or not, the fact remains that because of us staying, dozens of people got fed for free on Monday and early Tuesday as we cooked up the food in our kitchen and served it without asking for money.
"People were able to come and get water, food, drinks and good spirits because we stayed. And when we did decide to leave, we took people with us that otherwise had no means of getting out of the city, even though they were piled on top of each other in the van and we had to drill holes in abandoned cars' gas tanks to get enough fuel to leave the city. We were on the road for the past two days, dropping people off where they needed to go, staying with friends and family, or catching flights home.
"You may think Flanagan's is just a bar to me and that we only stayed so we could "party" or something. We stayed because it is OUR FUCKING BUSINESS. Our lifeblood, our home and our family. We couldn't leave it any sooner than you'd chop off your own arm.
"It was hard enough to do it out of absolute necessity, and god only knows if there will even be anything to come back to. —Not to mention the people I know who may or may not still be there, that I couldn't take with me because they weren't holed up with us.
" I hope with all my heart that they are all alive and well and will be in touch when they can be. Sooner or later, everyone has a life changing event, catastrophic or otherwise. At least I got to choose mine. I chose to stay and I chose to hope and I chose to help. We didn't hurt anyone and we defended those who stayed with us from anyone hurting them. No matter what you say, you can't take that away from me."
Most of Insomnia’s contributors are young white people, many of them students, the working class of the hospitality/tourism trade, or middle-class natives. They have a lot of unique things to say, and a much bigger picture than you’ll get from any conventional news source.
The exception to their youthful demographic is the now-famous “Interdicter,” a wildman CEO of an Internet company, who is holed up in a downtown high-rise with his mega-generators and guns, posting his webcam pictures on a series of failing signals. He is surely over 30. I can’t say I like this guy, who believes he is better than everyone else, and calls looters “animals” and “monkeys.” But the description of his survival strategies speaks for itself. I keep up with all his postings and pray his experience eventually humbles him. Right now, I think his conceit (plus his guns, money, and location) is what is keeping him alive.
The Blogs You Won't Find...
Are any of you are aware of any New Orleans bloggers who are writing from the perspective of being black and left behind, or being white and elderly in the same situation? Send up a flare. How about those who are natives of lifelong Coast poverty, or those who were abandoned to the hurricane with chronic illness? The top drug being looted is insulin, after all.
I’m unlikely to find these people on the Web, as righteously as they're needed. These are the voices you don't get an earful of, except for the crazed soundbites on TV. We are missing the words, online, that span the distance between the haves and the have-nots. I've never been so conscious of the elite demographics of the computer age.
"Looters 'R' Us"
One last thing about the Young White Bloggers... They talk about the looting they’ve done in their various escape and survival stories. They deliberately use the word “loot” in a nonchalant way, as if it was just one more thing you do to dig yourself out. Which it is, of course.
They are not differentiating themselves from anyone else— i.e., who might black, the ones the the Guard has been instructed to "shoot to kill." They are defiant.
Looting is part of the list of things people did to get the hell out of Dodge. I appreciate their sarcasm.
This is very different from the stories one hears about predators, for whom no one has any sympathy. Yet in my desperate need to understand what the hell is going on, I’d like to hear from these villains, too. After all, I get to hear press conferences from all the predators on the other end of the spectrum. I want to know what is going through the minds of all the malicious, why they steal from the dying, rape, or pillage the unprotected. All I can think of is rage, a rage that is annihilating. There but for the grace of Gopod go a lot of us.
My rage is pretty annihilating, come to think of it, although it’s directed further north. Look at this recent quote from Grover Norquist, “Field Marshall” of the Bush Plan:
“My goal is to cut government in half in the next twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
Well, you got your bathtub, you psychopathic prick. Now get in there and soak in it. AIRDROP.
Progressive Review
Just when I thought I couldn't get any more incredulous, I found the headlines at PR:
"Sound Torture Weapon Being Sent to Louisiana to Control Crowds."
Think of all the survivors, those little babies and mothers, who we saw in those BBC photos, half-dead or half-mad. Imagine them being blasted with excruciating volumes. Drive them back? WHERE? Into the lake to drown? I'd prefer to be shot. It’s news like this that make any accusations of paranoia look naive. Anguished cries of genocide are inevitable. The White House indeed. The naked prejudice involved in this disaster makes the 60s look like a walk in the park.
I also go to the Progressive Review because editor Sam Stone is asking the right questions:
...As well as posting eloquent lyrics and poetry. Thank you, Sam.
I need a soundtrack to get through this, so I am playing nothing but New Orleans blues right now. Professor Longhair, Irma Thomas, Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino, Dr. John, James Booker, Louis Armstrong, and many more. The tears need to come again.
You can learn what’s happening to the New Orleans music scene , as well listen to some of the classics, from a thoughtful round-up on Salon.
TV that isn't completely ridiculous
I don’t have a television. You won’t catch me buying OR looting one. But I have been grateful for Louisiana WWLTV’s live broadcasts, which you can watch on your computer, in real time, or listen to their low bandwidth audio feed.
Their broadcasters are amazing... no ads, no bullshit, just nonstop talking, and showing what they can. It’s easy to OD, but I keep checking in with them.
The most-read blog in the world is the Daily Kos, which is curious to me, because you have to be a consummate insider to sort through their landing page. I’m still bewildered and I’ve been reading them all week.
Here’s a tip... look at the right-hand column, for the list, “Recommended Diaries.” Read all of those! That’s where I found out that the head of FEMA, Michael Brown, is not only a Bush crony with zero disaster or relief experience— but is, in fact, the disgraced former head of an Arabian equestrian group. He ruined their organization so badly that they had to change their name to ever get a hope of participating in the Olympics again! The richy-rich horse people hate his guts! I’m telling ya, it’s a tipping point.
The Washington Monthly
Here, in handy timeline form, is Why FEMA Can't Seem to Get Out of the Little Clown Car.
Boing Boing
Then you have Boing-Boing, the other "most popular blog on the net.” They don’t provide constant coverage of Katrina, but what they do have is fascinating.
They have geeky stuff that makes me feel hopeful about what engineers are doing to remedy the situation. They have eye-opening reports from the rescue dogs. Juicy political dirt as well. Just open their home page and use your “Find” command to look for keywords like: Katrina, Hurricane, or New Orleans. Thanks to Boing Boing, I found a live police radio scanner feed from Louisiana, that I listened to all night... the periods of silence were the most deafening.
I find them a little easier to use than Technorati, 'cause they’re faster, have a huge scope, and everything I need to see is on the front page. However, unlike Technorati, BlogPulse is politically conservative. I find myself innocently clicking on wingnut bloggers who are hysterical about property ("looting") and a lot less interested in life (dead bodies).
Nevertheless, it's a revelation to see their point of view. For example, they're going soft on Clinton, 'cause he told a female anchor on CNN to shut up. And they're pissed at FEMA, even if they haven’t made the connection that FEMA is Homeland Security staring you in the face, dahlin’. Maybe they’ll take a hint from Newt Gingrich:
"If we can't respond faster than this, to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?''
Newtie used to smoke pot in New Orleans, you know. Bless his heart.
The conservative bloggers tend to emphasize the weather as being the most important factor in the situation. They insist that if bad people weren't so bad this wouldn't have gotten so bad. Bad, bad people who stayed in New Orleans. Race and class has nothing to do with it. They could have left but they were... bad.
And if you’re that bad, you get to drown in the bathtub, right? AIRDROP.
You Got To Move, Mama
I had no idea until this week that one of my favorite Led Zeppelin a very old cover from this part of the world: "When The Levee Breaks." One of the original examples can be heard here, circa 1927, by Kansas Joe.
When I listened to Led’s cover this morning, the hair on my arms stood up:
Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
Where we’re all going to move to, I have no idea. I’m looking for that “little bit of heaven in a disaster area”— searching for dry land— but there is no escaping grief. Strangely, there, I do find comfort.
