Profiles in Courage

Writer's Block: I Can Relate

2009-06-18T08:23:42Z

What fictional character do you most identify with?

Your mom.

Lasagna? Yes. Mondays? No.

2008-01-24T07:44:41Z

Comedy genius! It's a rare thing. I have a certain comedic sensibility. I like Superbad, Caddyshack, Tenacious D, and Frisky Dingo. I can't explain the thread that links them together, but I know what I like, and I know it when I see it. I think it's vulnerability, more than anything.

There's a vulnerability that I had forgetten about for a while. The vulnerability of one Jon Arbuckle. He has a cat. A lazy cat. Who loves lasagna. And hates mondays.

Everycat, if you will. You might recall a recent post highlighting an experiment with this cat's thought balloons. It was funny, and it made me think a little deeper about a cat who, frankly, reminds me a lot of me.

Comic genius plus video editing skill equals awesomeness. The gentlemen responsible for this project, the lasagna cat project, have done some hilarious videos before. They were behind the brilliant tech blog Infinite Solutions.

If you haven't checked out google tv beta yet, here's your chance:

These guys also did some AMAZING parodies of TV show openings. Check out Alf from that link. It's too hot for youtube. But there's plenty there. Do you love the Golden Girls as much as I do? More? Not possible, my young friend.

Wow. So these brilliant geniuses, these wonderful artists, have finally finished one of the greatest installations in youtube history. Each starts with a comic strip. Then a music video tribute, followed by the face of Garfield creator Jim Davis. Enjoy lasagna cat. Pass it on.

Did I mention that there are TWENTY-EIGHT of these?

They make me so fucking happy. And humble. And blown away.

I think this is my favorite. But none are bad. All 28 are wonderful. I'm in tears.

I love you. Thank you for being alive. Now, more lasagna.

This might be the greatest thing I've ever seen

2008-01-02T10:03:25Z

http://aprilsrealblog.blogspot.com/

Dude.

2007-04-12T10:13:22Z

What's with the Julie Story sightings? Also, check out these poems:

http://www.wavepoetry.com/bedazzler/3

I especially love the Mini Opera. I remember when she bought that wig. She wore it to the opening of the Tiki bar. She looked incredible. I was afraid of her by then. As she says, her heart wasn't in it. Obviously.

That was the night I met Vanessa. It's funny how things work out, isn't it?

I deserved everything that happened.

These are really good, too.

http://absentmag.org/issue01/story.html

I didn't go to that reading. I thought about it. What, exactly, would I say?

Immigration Nation

2006-05-17T16:52:08Z

http://nhindymedia.org/mod/columns/display/45/index.php

Previous Columns

Im starting to get very, very frustrated with the immigration debate. I was frustrated when the debate began, but the chorus of voices that surrounds the issue keeps ignoring what are, to me, the things that are most important.

Immigration strikes at the heart of the Great Paralysis of the last forty years. If you want to look at economic fairness, there are two separate playing fields that have been both merging and diverging at the same time. On the one hand, theres the sort of classic union-style left-wing focus on good jobs at good wages. This has something of a nationalist component, because workers overseas who are willing (or, more often, who are forced) to work for pennies a day drive down American wages. This is bad for all American workers. It drives down our standard of living directly.

But of course, our principles dont stop at the border. We also want to see more people in the world lifted out of poverty in their own nations. We look at the damage the IMF has done around the world and nod approvingly when Ecuador or Venezuela stand up to multinational banks and corporations. I certainly do. But understandably many of these people feel that they can escape the grinding poverty of their home countries by immigrating to the United States. Certainly my family (and probably most families in America today) has ancestors that proved this possible.

The immigration debate conflates these two issues. They come to a head in the ridiculous, bizarre, awful concept of guest workers. What are guest workers? Guest workers are poor people who come and visit a rich country to do hard work for low pay. Theyre willing to do it because work in their own countries pays poorly, and they want to help their families get a better life. Some illegally stay past their guest period. Some enter America illegally for the same reasons.

Guest worker programs are the worst of both worlds. These programs take jobs away from Americans and give them to foreigners. The jobs pay lower wages than they would pay to Americans competing in a free market. Its pure market manipulation. I certainly dont blame any business for seeking a profit. But guest worker programs depress the entire labor market.

Its a common fallacy that without illegal immigrants or guest workers, farms and small businesses would go under, and America would lose jobs. This is ridiculous. If a business cant survive without paying Americans a living wage, then their business model needs to be revised. Weve all heard the argument that these are jobs Americans dont want. This is a lie. I work at a homeless shelter. Many (if not most) of the residents go to Labor Ready every morning at 5:30 to beg for day labor: the jobs we dont want. Most days they return empty-handed. Do you think there are unskilled workers in America who dont want the 20f American construction jobs that go to immigrants? If you dont believe me, go visit a day labor shop tomorrow at 6AM and ask which jobs these folks wont do. Its easy for the liberal (and conservative) intelligentsia to forget that there are people in America who dont have college degrees, and wont ever get them. Its easy to forget that there are plenty of Americans who are driven by desperation, and who would give anything for a steady paycheck.

Im sure theres a perception that paying higher wages would drive firms out of business, but given a level playing field, businesses and farmers ought to be able to compete just fine. And keep in mind the competitive advantages gained by firms that hire guest workers or illegal immigrants. Should they be rewarded for taking jobs from Americans? Why? What difference does it make if a firm hires a guest worker or sends production overseas? It has the same effect on the American economy and wage scale, but with lower shipping costs.

I cant fathom the global economy. I sincerely do not understand it. Wouldnt huge corporations want people to make lots of money so they can spend it on their products? What do they have to gain if most people can barely afford to survive? Doesnt it make GM and Ford shareholders angry that so few people can afford new cars? Wouldnt they be happier (and richer) if there were fewer low-paid maids getting by on rice and beans, and more high-paid workers out spending? Wouldnt that create economic growth better than tax cuts for people who sit on their vast stockpile of riches? Its utterly unfathomable to me.

But its even harder for me to understand why the American public stands for it. Were supposed to be a democracy. Why do we constantly fight our own interests? Right now the debate is: on one side, the minuteman-style nationalist-racists who want to guard our borders against the invading hoard. On the other are the immigrants and their supporters, who want to let everyone in and damn the consequences. Both sides miss the real issues. Immigrants dont somehow cost society more than anyone else. Public schools and emergency rooms are going to be there anyway. More immigrants wont change that. But when weve set up a system to keep these people poor, and more importantly, to use immigrants as a tool to keep everyone else poor, then the costs to governments rise. Then we issue $50 lottery tickets and raise sin taxes and sales taxes so the poor are forced to shoulder the burden as we cut taxes on dividends for the very people who enslave the rest of us. How is this possible in a democracy?

I think the answer is simple: it cant. Were not a democracy anymore. Its just a big show, like in the bad old days of the Soviet Union, where the winner is decided beforehand and the machinations of the Politburo are simply the shuffling of deck chairs. We can solve the immigration problem. Cancel ALL guest worker programs, raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour, and hire thousands of people to enforce employment laws. If we did this, the immigrants that are here could build decent lives, and we could set a real immigration policy that is fair and most important, legal. But without strict enforcement provisions against employers were never going to actually solve these problems. Sadly, it looks to me like thats the point.

</p>

Victory is possible!

2006-03-16T17:48:58Z

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/03162006/news/92802.htm

And I like to think I played some small part...

http://www.tnhonline.com/media/paper674/news/2005/03/01/LettersCommentary/Common.Sense.Discriminate.Thats.Not.Ok.With.Me-880520.shtml?norewrite200603161013&sourcedomain=www.tnhonline.com

This is my big interview.

2006-03-15T16:55:22Z

http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/carver/dialoguesonrape/

I did a radio show last night for the first time in years, and I can't believe how bloated the FCC has become. We were doing skits, and we were asked to substitute words. We decided to use "librarians" for "whores" and "relax" for "pee." That's right — you can't say "pee" on the radio. Not at 7 p.m., anyway. We'll never reach satori this way, by being careful to not offend. We'll never know ourselves.

It's not like we're going to avoid rape by not talking about it. In fact, I bet a lot of date rape and borderline rape (weird, taboo seduction that only looks like rape some time later) depend upon non-clarification. Yet if you bring it up at a party — perhaps wondering aloud why so many women fantasize about rape — people act as if you're siding with the rapists. Yet somehow Jill Soloway managed to get away with talking about it throughout her book Tiny Ladies In Shiny Pants, perhaps because she's funny. And my friend Erik Swanson, a local newspaper columnist, kept bringing it up, perhaps because he likes to aggravate me. I decided to record our conversations. — Lisa Carver

Erik Swanson: "No one believes in secret knowledge anymore."

Nerve: I think that so much of really good sex between consenting, happy people does involve informed semi-exploitation, where you act like you don't know what's going on.
Erik Swanson: The first date I had with one woman, I didn't ask her: "Hey would it be okay if I spank you so hard you have bruises for days?" Obviously I'd gotten some kind of clues or I wouldn't have done it. But there have been other times when I got rough and then found out I was totally wrong in my interpretation of clues.

n: There's a lot of pressure on women, even today, to seem confused and innocent. A lot of people still think that only women with partially submerged wills are attractive, feminine, alluring. And women still feel that being explicit means they're acting like a whore or a man.

es: What about the time you raped somebody?

n: He was clear on his will, which is what made what I did rape — even though he had an orgasm. He told me specifically, "Don't. I don't want you to do that," and he gave me his reasons. But I kept doing what I was doing. I disrespected him. I didn't realize I was raping him, because I didn't respect people's rights in general. Now I do. And maybe now I overclarify my intentions when I'm attracted to someone. Also, I listen to "no" now. But out of the hundred times I ignored somebody's "no" in the past, ninety-nine of those people were happy that I didn't. They'd been playing. I feel kind of sad being more conscious and respectful. Like I've lost something.

es: Starting with the Catholic confessional, we started explaining sex. Explaining desires and things that we were better off not talking about. Now we're bombarded: top ten sex tips, ways to make your man go crazy, how can you do sex right, who's gay. Foucault talked about an ideal future when we'll look back on this time and say how ridiculous it all was — all these treatises and attempts to analyze and control what should remain secret. But no one believes in secret knowledge anymore. Nothing exists unless it can be scientifically proved. And yet arguably the essence of sexuality is not knowable. To me, that's what makes sex interesting. Foucault thinks that sex should go back to being a very secret thing. He said all these laws circumscribing the sex act should be taken off the books.

n: So you and Foucault don't think statutory rape should exist.

es: That's right, Foucault and I don't think statutory rape should exist [as a law]. If you want to bring a fifteen- or a thirteen year old's desire or ability or right to consent into the legal system, you've got to be able to get the whole story. And that may be un-gettable.

n: Maybe people should stop inspecting rape victims for desire or pleasure. On the stand they're always trying to prove if someone wanted it, or enjoyed it. I might have an orgasm if I were raped, just like I might urinate or vomit. Orgasm is a function. Why is everyone examining the victim's motivation and reaction and not the rapist's?

You know what's so odd is that Paglia is supposed to be a big feminist —

es:She is not a feminist! Not even a postfeminist.

n: What do you think she is?

es:Mostly just a jerk. It's been a while since I thought about Camille Paglia.

n: What I was going to say is: Paglia says, "Let's stop talking about motivations at all and just talk about results. If a girl in college gets drunk at a frat party, she could get raped, so just don't go be drunk with a bunch of men, girls. Or if you do take the risk, don't complain if you get the common results." When I first read that ten years ago, I thought, well, yeah, she's taking a behaviorist approach. Now I'm thinking: again, we're looking at the mindset of the victim, the pussyset of the victim —was she asking for it? No one's telling the boys not to congregate with girls because they (the boys) may get drunk and accidentally date-rape one of them. Paglia sets up women as victim over and over, yet she doesn't hold herself to the same standard. I guess because she's a lesbian? Or an intellectual? Over and over I see feminists and postfeminists, describing "women," and it's like they're talking about some creature other than themselves. Most women do. I do that. Women hate women. We all secretly think we're men. Maybe that's why we have to work so hard at acting like "women" — like, "We don't know what we want, hee hee. Protect me."

es: The fact that there is this thing "rape" floating about out there works in some ways to men's favor. If you're out and you need to call your boyfriend to come drive you home or walk you home because you're afraid something may happen to you, he's getting power over you. I think that in general men get something from the fear of rape. In women's minds and in my own mind I'm able to separate myself from this group of monsters. But I was reading an article about guys who worked with rapists in a clinical setting and they said, "What we found was that these guys weren't some horrible subset of subhuman people. They were basically pretty normal." If rapists are not monsters, if we're all just human beings . . . human beings sometimes do terrible things. This doesn't make them immediately Other.

Here's another one.

2006-03-15T16:45:24Z

http://nhindymedia.org/mod/columns/display/28/index.php

Hey, Idiots: What About Credit Cards?
Erik Swanson

If you’ve read the papers or watched television the past few weeks, one of the Big Stories is, “What’s Wrong With the Democrats?” Despite the Bush administration’s descent into parody, the Democrats’ prospects for November don’t look particularly good. And why? The usual reasons. The Democrats don’t know what they stand for. They don’t have a message. And while admittedly, the dreaded mainstream media are lying to us, and most of the Democrats’ “message problem” is that the Republican echo chamber even makes illegal spying seem like a pretty good idea, the Dems do have to take some heat for this one.

For example, I hear the Democrats may possibly be coming up with an Iraq plan. It’s utterly baffling, and is impossible to explain in a 10 second sound bite, so it’s certainly doomed to failure. The Democrats are still fooled by the bizarre thesis that they lost in 2004 because of a lack of values or God-fearingness. Frankly, nobody knows what the Democratic Party stands for anymore except maybe that they’re against privatizing Social Security. But there is one HUGE issue that the Democrats can ride to majority in 2006, and back to the White House in 2008. And believe it or not, it’s not health care.

Sure, they COULD win on health care, and I hope they do. But this one’s even easier. If the Democrats want to win in November, they need to make their central campaign issue Credit Card Reform.

This one’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Did you ever notice that if you pay your phone bill late, you get charged about fifty cents, but if you pay your credit card late it costs $39? How is that legal? Does the phone company automatically start charging you $1 a minute if you miss a payment? No, of course not. But if you pay a credit card late (or a phone bill, for that matter), suddenly your interest rate can jump ten, twenty, even thirty per cent. How is this legal?

The short answer is: it’s legal because there’s no law against it. The numbers are staggering. The average American household owes $9000 in credit card debt. That’s up from $5600 in 2000. Fees and late charges have become criminal, and interest rates of 40% or more are becoming common. This can all be fixed tomorrow. We just have to write a law.

If we’ve learned anything from the K Street debacle, it’s time for the Democrats to fight back. Screw the banks. They make enough money. And I’m sure they’ll pour billions into a scare campaign to tell us that they’ll make everybody pay the money back tomorrow if the law passes. But it won’t work. First, pretty much every American hates the credit card companies. Second, along with the reform law, the Democrats can write an amnesty law whereby the government will cover outstanding debts with something like student loans if consumers are forced to pay the money back.

America, for the first time since the depression, has a negative savings rate. New Commerce department rules are forcing Americans to pay more every month on their credit cards anyway. It’s time for the government to step in and fix this problem.

And yes, if the credit card companies decide to turn off the credit spigot to spite the Democrats, it will hurt the economy. But that will only create incentive for the other middle class holy grail, national health insurance. If the Dems roll that one out on the heels of this victory, every American will have more money in his pocket, and more money to spend. But Democrats can’t win that fight until they win an easy one first.

This is easy. It will help everyone but the billionaires. It’s the kind of thing government is designed to do: solve problems.

Will they do it? I don’t know. But what do you think Joe Red State cares more about: gay marriage or his Visa bill?

My latest nhindymedia.org post...

2006-03-15T16:44:13Z

http://nhindymedia.org/mod/columns/latest/9/index.php

The Rule of Law

Why won't Democrats stand up for the rule of law?
"I’ve said before that I disagree with the Bush administration’s legal judgment on this one. I don’t believe they have operated within the law as it exists. But this is a critically important program to the prevention of terrorist acts here in the United States and I don’t know a person here in the senate who is against this program. If this place was operating as it should we’d all be figuring out how to sit down around a table and bring it within the law." –Senator Joe Lieberman, quoted on NPR’s All things Considered, 3/13/06.

Maybe the Republicans were right.

Back in those bygone days of the Clinton presidency, conservatives complained that Democrats had no principles. They railed on and on about how Democrats didn’t care about the rule of law. To them, the fact that Bill Clinton had broken the law was enough to remove him from office.

Now, I, like so many Democrats, thought that the Clinton impeachment had nothing to do with high-minded principles. I thought it was simply an attempt at a palace coup. Perjury in a civil case is hardly a high crime, after all, especially after Kenneth Starr spent several years and millions of government dollars on his right-wing witch hunt.

I argued forcefully at the time that Democrats DO have principles. I predicted that if the shoe were on the other foot, all of the high-minded conservatives would suddenly go mute when one of their own got into legal trouble. And we’ve seen that, of course, in the Abramoff case, in the DeLay case, and in the “Scooter” Libby case.

But yesterday, as many of you surely know, Senator Russ Feingold rose to the floor of the United States Senate to propose a censure of President Bush. And most Democrats basically ran out of the room screaming in fear. President Bush broke the law, and continues to break the law. His domestic spying program is illegal and he knows it. The entire administration knows it. The entire congress knows it. Sure, the spin doctors have been successful in selling the American public on the idea that the spying program isn’t illegal. Or even if it WAS illegal, you know, you gotta fight terrorists. What choice did the administration have?

But we all know this is a lie. According to the New York Times, in the article that broke the story about domestic spying, “President Bush did not ask Congress to include provisions for the N.S.A. domestic surveillance program as part of the Patriot Act and has not sought any other laws to authorize the operation…Seeking Congressional approval was also viewed as politically risky [by the administration] because the proposal would be certain to face intense opposition on civil liberties grounds.” So Lieberman knows the president broke the law, and he knows the president specifically chose not to ask congress for a new law. The President was sure the new law wouldn’t pass, so he chose ignore current law.

This brings me back to the puzzling, puzzling statement of Joe Lieberman, the Senator from Connecticut. Why doesn’t this make him angry? He’s not going to support the censure motion, even though, in his opinion, the President broke the law, and continues to break the law. Apparently this is just fine with Senator Lieberman, as nobody in the Senate is against the program!

How does this make sense? Is this how we’re going to pass laws from now on? Maybe Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana can start stealing money from the treasury to give to hurricane victims. Surely, no Senator could be against that program. Or John McCain can start conscripting teens off the streets of Phoenix to go strengthen our forces in Iraq. It might be illegal, but who could argue with such noble aims? Just about every Senator voted to invade Iraq. If just about every Senator supports the war, wouldn’t “Scooter” Libby’s (I just can’t stop saying Scooter) attempt to silence dissent by putting a covert operative in danger be OK? Why tarnish the war effort by indicting him?

We’ve got a pretty simple system in place here in America. It’s legal, or it’s not. If you think the president’s powers include spying on Americans whenever he sees fit, then fine, fight that battle. But to me, if you believe the President has broken the law, even if you support his actions, you still have to wind the gears of justice. If the Congress wants to pass a law to make domestic spying legal, as Senator Lieberman suggests, let them do it. It still doesn’t make Bush’s spying retroactively legal.

None of us can just ignore the laws we don’t like. Not me, not you, not the President. It’s not politics. It’s a matter of principle.

Does this make me a "sexpert?"

2006-03-13T02:30:28Z

http://nerve.com/ad-interstitial/index.asp?target=/dispatches/carver/dialoguesonrape/&ad=10

cohort?

2005-12-11T04:48:52Z

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multipage/documents/05106422.asp

Attention west coast peeps!!

2005-11-08T18:16:29Z

I'm on tour with Lisa Carver (nee Suckdog) to promote her new book Drugs are Nice.

I'll be playing GG Allin in a skit. I'll be wearing a jock strap and a leather jacket. And aviators.

You don't want to miss it!! Honestly, it's one you'll tell your grandchildren about!

Nov 10 9:30P
il corral Los Angeles, CA

Nov 11 7:30P
Modern TImes San Francisco, CA

Nov 12 8:00P
Dunes Portland, OR

Nov 13 6:00P
Confounded Seattle, WA

My latest column...see it at tnhonline.com

2005-10-21T04:46:00Z

After witnessing the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, many of us were moved to do what we could to help out. We watched as waves of water washed away treasured heirlooms, entire homes, even lives. We got frustrated as our leaders bungled their response to an American disaster. And as Americans, most of us wished we could drop everything and go help out. We wanted to do something, anything, to help ruined lives start to recover. For most, the tyranny of jobs and school kept us from helping in person. Instead, we decided to give what we could: a little money.

And even if we were quite generous, we felt guilty that we couldn't do more. But I have good news. If you're reading this, chances are that you attend UNH or you work at UNH. Chances are you aren't wealthy and you need some financial aid to go to school here. Chances are you aren't wealthy, and you need every penny of your paycheck, and even that doesn't go far enough.

The good news is you don't have to feel guilty anymore. President Bush has pledged that the government will pay the costs for the incredibly massive cleanup and rebuilding effort for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. And you might be wondering, how will we pay for all this? How will America afford the $250 billion dollars to rebuild? Especially on top of the massive financial outlay needed to continue to fight the insurgency in Iraq, expected to be at least $84 billion dollars this year alone according to the Congressional Research Service. Even before Katrina we were over $300 billion dollars in the red for this year alone, with more deficits on the horizon. So how will we pay for our nation's needs?

We have a couple of choices. We can raise taxes, or cut spending. Now, to me, tax increases seem like a pretty good idea. If we just raised the top tax rate back up to the level they were during the '90s boom years we'd take care of most of the deficit. Would it be so terrible if the billionaires had to pay a little extra for a few years to cover the cost overruns of the war? Is it really taboo to ask the rich to foot most or even the entire bill for Katrina? Is it awful to imagine the oil companies, swimming in windfall profits, to give that money back to the American people in the form of taxes?

But tax increases are off the table. No, so far two groups have been singled out to pay for the damage of Katrina and help balance our nation's books: the poor and college students. The chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), and ranking Democrat, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), issued a statement last week. It turns out that the new Higher Education Act, which provides funding for federal grants and loans to college students, will save billions of dollars for the federal government. And they want to earmark those funds for Katrina's victims. These cuts in student loans are primarily in terms of interest rate subsidies. They won't feel like cuts today, but it's been estimated that for new loans originating after June 2006, a student with $20,000 in student loan debt can expect to pay an extra $6,000 over the life of the loans.
To me, it's just awful that Congress is considering cutting financial aid while billionaires get tax cuts. As you all know, tuition is skyrocketing much faster than inflation, Pell grants shrink every year due to inflation and now our loan interest rates are going up. Meanwhile, professorships go unfilled and universities hire more and more temporary labor, both to teach classes and to clean and cook and lift heavy things for us students. And all the while we're told there's no money to pay anyone. There's no money to help folks whose parents cooked and cleaned and lifted heavy things send their kids to college.

And it just gets worse. The Republican Study Group just released a plan called "tough choices in tough times" that "saves" nearly $200 billion dollars over the next five years. There are lots of increases in medical co-payments for the very poor and very old. But one of the least pleasant parts of the plan is to completely eliminate subsidized loans for graduate students. They won't exist anymore.

So don't feel guilty if you haven't given enough to help the victims of hurricane Katrina. Trust me, if you're a college student, you'll pay more than your fair share.

Lisa Carver/Suckdog megatour featuring me! In my most charming role!

2005-10-21T04:44:40Z

22 Oct. Providence AS220 3 o'clock

23 Oct. Philly Robin's 7 o'clock

24 Oct. DC: Warehouse Next Door 9 o'clock

25 Oct. NYC: KGB 7, then Galapagos 10 NYC

31 Oct. Boston: Club Europa (Buzz). Down the street from Jacque's. Also
appearing: Traniwrecks. Drag queens and kings. The pick of the crop.
Extravaganza! We go on early.

For details, isn't it enough that I'm performing? And hot girls peeing
on pizzas? Man oh man, I'd go to see that! Plus Dame Darcy on
autoharp and palm-reading. And playing The Hole and being forced to squirt ketchup during Lisa's attempt at suicide with a potato peeler. All true!

Plus, I'd love to meet you guys! Come out!

Read it and weep.

2005-09-10T23:30:50Z

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the
Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville
streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly
visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without
electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and
cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The
owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers,
and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside Walgreen's
windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty
and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never
materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the
looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have
broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit
juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic
manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing
cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago
and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see
any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are
willing to guess that there were no video images or front-
page pictures of European or affluent white tourists
looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with
"hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the
police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane.
What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real
heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief
effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance
workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled.
The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators
running. The electricians who improvised thick extension
cords stretching over blocks to share the little
electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop
parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical
ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing
air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them
alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators.
Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing"
boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in
flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that
could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the
food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens
improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded.

Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not
heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and
provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans
that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the
hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign
tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals
who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from
Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and
friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told
that all sorts of resources including the National Guard
and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses
and the other resources must have been invisible because
none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money
and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us
out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.
00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra
money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the
last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water,
food, and clothes we had. We created a priority boarding
area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited
late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses.
The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute
the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by
the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water.
Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and
despair increased, street crime as well as water levels
began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their
doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to
the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered
the center of the City, we finally encountered the National
Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the
Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into
a humanitarian and health hellhole.
The guards further told us that the City's only other
shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into
chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing
anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go
to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our
alternative?" The guards told us that that was our problem,
and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This
would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous
and hostile "law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal
Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our
own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now
numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide
a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police
command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and
would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City
officials. The police told us that we could not stay.
Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short
order, the police commander came across the street to
address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should
walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater
New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to
take us out of the City.
The crowed cheered and began to move. We called everyone
back and explained to the commander that there had been
lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he
sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander
turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to
you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the
bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted
the convention center, many locals saw our determined and
optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told
them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed
their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and
then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us,
people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others
people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the
freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now
began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our
enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a
line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close
enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our
heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions.
As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched
forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in
conversation. We told them of our conversation with the
police commander and of the commander's assurances. The
sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The
commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway,
especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane
highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to
become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in
their City. These were code words for if you are poor and
black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you
were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek
shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our
options and in the end decided to build an encampment in
the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center
divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We
reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have
some security being on an elevated freeway and we could
wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups
make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross
the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with
gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally
berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were
prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on
foot.
Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into
squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was
by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving
vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All
were packed with people trying to escape the misery New
Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a
water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it
for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck
lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We
ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now
secure with the two necessities, food and water;
cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We
organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar
poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We
designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built
an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken
umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food
recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of
C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repe atedly in
the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to
find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only.
You had to do whatever it took to find water
for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic
needs were met, people began to look out for each other,
working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with
food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation,
the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to
passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and
join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every
relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the
City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do
about all those families living up on the freeway? The
officials responded they were going to take care of us.
Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had
an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking
City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff
showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun
at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A
helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to
blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the
sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway.
All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when
we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In
every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot".
We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was
impossible because the agencies would force us into small
atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed,
we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8
people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned
school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were
hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and
definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs
with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made
contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were
eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team.
We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a
ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen
apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards.
They explained that a large section of their unit was in
Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable
to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had
begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were
caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for
several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the
airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast
guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official
relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven
to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and
hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In
the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy
overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out
with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered
plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-
sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had
been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off
the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the
men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for
hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we
were not carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm,
heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We
saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was
barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and
toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official
relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was
more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not
need to be lost.

I have a nickname!

2005-06-01T18:28:22Z

http://www.commonsenseunh.com/VolumeII/Issue6/lirette.htm

holy crap, i'm everywhere!

2005-06-01T18:18:16Z

http://www.chelseagreen.com/2004/items/guantanamo/AssociatedArticles2

This one's really me.

2005-06-01T18:16:03Z

I had no idea this existed until the other day.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041206&s=webletters

And I call Chuck D a "retread," not a "retard."

Emergency housing alert

2005-05-27T00:39:41Z

Hey, my friend Dan REALLY needs a place to live for the summer, preferably in Portsmouth. Can anybody give him some love? He's startlingly responsible, yet also fun to be around.

Ayuh.

2005-04-16T22:53:07Z

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% General American English

40% Yankee

15% Upper Midwestern

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

really?

2005-03-26T22:53:14Z

You scored as Utilitarianism. Your life is guided by the principles of Utilitarianism: You seek the greatest good for the greatest number.

“The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”

--Jeremy Bentham

“Whenever the general disposition of the people is such, that each individual regards those only of his interests which are selfish, and does not dwell on, or concern himself for, his share of the general interest, in such a state of things, good government is impossible.”

--John Stuart Mill

More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page...

</td>

Utilitarianism

75%

Justice (Fairness)

75%

Hedonism

75%

Existentialism

55%

Nihilism

40%

Kantianism

30%

Strong Egoism

10%

Divine Command

10%

Apathy

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.02)
created with QuizFarm.com

It's my birthday tomorrow!

2005-03-08T00:25:18Z

So come celebrate. Dinner at the Muddy River at 6:30, bowling at bowl-o-rama at 8:30.

Hm? Bowling? Yes.

Need an Advisor? A letter to NH-VT YRUU

2005-02-23T18:29:20Z

Hi, my name's Erik Swanson. I was a leader in NH/VT YRUU in the eighties and early nineties. I was on the DYC, Youth Council, and Steering Committee, as well as staff for four con-cons.

I'd like to get involved with NH-VT YRUU as an adult (I'm 36). Is that possible? I just read that the Youth Office unilaterally cancelled Con-con forever, which I find totally baffling (at least from a parlimantary point of view. How can they do that? Aren't youth supposed to make that decision?)

http://www.uua.org/YRUU/events/concondecision.html

So, anyway, I was wondering if there are any youth who are angry about this decision who would like to start an ad-hoc group to overturn it. Lots of former youth staff are lawyers now, and they're kind of annoyed.

But more than that, it made me realize that if youth aren't going to be treated like babies, adults need to get involved who won't oppress them. YRUU is a youth run organization, and I'd like to offer my support to help it stay that way.

So can I help? And is anyone mad about this?

Thanks,
Erik Swanson

muya

2005-02-09T13:02:57Z

Perhaps I should join the productivity people.

2005-02-04T10:08:16Z

http://www.theproductivitypeople.com/erikswanson.htm

Whats your Band Name
Created by girlhatesyou and taken 55 times on bzoink!
Name
Least favorite animal
shoe size
What type of music do you play
My Rockin Band is	Flushing staples
we wear	trucker hats
we slept with this many fans	314
we broke up when	the drummer came out
Create a Quizlet \| Search Quizlets \| Go to bzoink!