My Old Home Town

Oh, they be so broad-minded and accepting there in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I spent my late high school and college years and beyond. Where my wife's family, or rather a substantial portion of it still resides, one of my brothers and my mom, and where we're gonna be for Christmas this year. Home of the LSU Tigers and all that. Well, I'm surprised to learn that the white southern portion of town has proposed seceding from the rest of the city of Baton Rouge and renaming itself "St. George" (extraneous side note: when I was in grad school at LSU, Susan, Tanya, and I lived in a little subdivision called "Village St. George" and Tanya went to St. George Elementary School.). And they're circulating a petition in the proposed area to get the measure on the ballot. I'll give you one guess as to the majority in the part of town that will remain "Baton Rouge." Gold star if you said: majority of black and poor people.

I didn't even know such a thing was possible. But in Louisiana, anything is possible, especially if it has the tint of stink about it. I'll keep ya posted on developments.

Source which includes a video with maps and various people talking about the petition. Purportedly it's basically about the school districts.

Bangs Cows

Here's my latest poem, a prose poem at that. As my brother remarked, remarkable memories for a city kid.

Bangs Cows

My dad bought cattle for the family meat-packing plant on Poydras Street, not far from the River. It’s gone now, Dad, too, and old New Orleans that seeped into my childhood like the ground water mere inches under any surface in the city. I have little boy memories being with him at cattle auctions in weathered Cajun villages: Raceland, Zachary, Mansura. Smell of dung, flies, shrieks of hogs, cowboys with their brims, boots, and chaw. Rows of pick-ups. Rawboned buyers arrayed about the selling pen flicking the price up with near-invisible nods or finger-jiggles. The auctioneer, whose bewildering babble streamed over the static-plagued speaker like an ancient incantation to the god of the herds, never missed a bid. Nobody bought breeding stock: cows, calves, hogs, mostly. An occasional bull. Sometimes sheep or goats, but all headed to the abattoir. Why Dad bought this one and not that one remained mysterious. But “canners and cutters,” bony beasts with hip bones jutting out and ribs you could count were clear. And you couldn’t miss a “bangs cow,” that's what they called 'em, a big B—for brucellosis, a bad disease for them—stenciled on both jowls. Seers they were. All prescient, these cows. Their mournful moist eyes, the same kind you would have foreseeing a future stuffed inside a sausage casing, gave them away. 

We're Number One!

 
The shooting in Aurora, Colorado, has prompted an outpouring of commentary in the webosphere. The graphic above comes from an interesting blog I check out occasionally called "Crooked Timber."* This chart depicts the number of deaths per 100,000 population attributable to violence. It doesn't take a college degree to understand just how far out of whack this country is compared to the rest of the world when it comes to visiting mayhem and hurt on fellow citizens. We're number one, baby! It's not even close.

Best of All: Louisiana, My Ancestral Home

Even more disconcerting is this chart. Louisiana, by far, is the worst in the country for violence. By far, far. This will not surprise many of my relatives and Susan's who still live there. Their complaints about how awful the violence and killings are in their own backyard are constant.

Just some cheery info for you to think about in the wake of the mass murder in Aurora. Already I've read about three articles saying that nothing whatever is going to be done to curb the insane arms sales and possession in this country.

*The full title of the blog is interesting: "Out of the Crooked Timber of Humanity, No Straight Thing was Ever Made."

But We Knew That

According to census figures just released, New Orleans, my hometown, has lost a third of its population during the past decade. But actually, it's not over the past decade that the city has taken such a hit. It's since Hurricane Katrina, which occurred on August 29, 2005. Before the storm, the city was about 455,000 people. Now, after it, we're talking 344,000. That missing third of the populace has been scattered to the four winds. Shortly after Susan and I moved back here we met a lady driven out of New Orleans all the way up here to Oklahoma City; she said she's not going back. Baton Rouge LA has added about 40,000 people to its population since the storm. Places all over south Louisiana have experienced similar jumps in population. But overall the state has shed enough population to lose one congressional representative as a result of the storm. One has to wonder what New Orleans would have looked like and what its population would have been had the national government reacted to the disaster the way we have a right to expect a merely competent national government would have. Damn George Bush, I say . . . the evils this man visited upon this country we're still living with and will be for a long time. Our kids will live with them, too, long after we're gone.

Update I: Actually, the state of Louisiana gained 1.4 percent in population from 2000-2010. See interactive map here. But compared to the rate of growth of other states, this was not enough to allow it to keep its present congressional delegation at the same size. Next-door Mississippi, for example, gained 4.3 percent population during the same period. Of the six Gulf Coast counties ravaged by Katrina, five gained in population during the decade.

Related articles

• Post-Katrina New Orleans still bleeding people, census shows (mcclatchydc.com)
• Bush Admits Katrina Air Force One Photo Was 'Huge Mistake' (huffingtonpost.com)

You Can Set Your Clock by It

On the first day the Atlantic Magazine comes. On the following day comes the Harper's Magazine, thereby laying out my reading for the next couple or three days, and of course the Harper's Index, tidbits of which I've gotten in the habit of sharing with you. Tell me which one comes as the biggest shock to you. It will probably be a hard choice.

•  Percentage change in reading scores for the public-school fourth-graders since No Child Left Behind became law: +1
• Number of delayed-notice search warrants granted by federal judges last year under the Patriot Act: 1,150
• Number that were related to drug offenses and terrorism, respectively: 844, 6
• Date a congressional report called the number of government entities to be created by the health-care reform "unknowable": 7/8/10
• Value of economic-recovery bonds the State of Louisiana has sold since Hurricane Katrina: $5,900,000,000
• Percentage of the revenue that has been spent on projects in New Orleans: 1
• Percentage spent on the Lower Ninth Ward: 0
• Portion of all pencils, pens, and crayons sold last year that were manufactured in China: 1/3
• Rank of carbonated beverages among the best-selling grocery items in the United States this year: 1
• Rank of baked desserts, pizza, and soda as sources of calories for American children, respectively: 1, 2, 3
• Chances of an American believes that Jesus Christ will return to Earth by 2050: 2 in 5
• Chance that a US Protestant knows who Martin Luther is: 1 in 2
• Percentage of Americans who believe that Stephen King wrote Moby-Dick: 4
• Proportion of the world's reindeer herds that are currently in decline: 4/5

Related articles

• Open thread for night owls: Harper's Index (dailykos.com)
• Looking for magazines that publish enthralling nonfiction (ask.metafilter.com)

I'm Not Ready for This

Not to worry . . . this one is in shallow water. Right.

Another oil rig is on fire in the Gulf of Mexico and has already produced a sizable slick on the water. Off the Louisiana coast. West of the mouth of the Mississippi. I suppose this one is not as alarming to some since it's in "shallow" water, 320 feet. All the heartburn I had about the last disastrous spill still is with me with this one. As a displaced Louisianian, I take these oil spills personally. And even if they get this fire out quickly and contain the spill quickly too, I'm still pissed off. I think these kinds of events--that are happening all the time all over the world--are just more warnings, insistent warnings, that we're trashing the Earth as if there is no tomorrow. When in fact the tomorrows we're headed for are not all that encouraging.

Along with this story about the latest spill is this one from a German military document reported in the magazine Der Spiegel about what the arrival at peak oil will mean for all of us. In short, it will not be a  good thing. Not one of the consequences of shrinking oil supplies are going to be good. In fact, they could lead to "mass-scale upheaval" with the next 15-30 years as the world's economic foundations are increasingly eroded. International trade would be crippled by transportation costs. So shortages everywhere and collapse of the industrial supply chain. "In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse." The worldwide economic crisis would in turn call into question the political institutions that created the economic systems. Another way of saying that democracy could not survive a crisis like this. The situation would be made to order for totalitarian, repressive governments and grave internal and external political crises all over the globe.

James Kuntsler, who I talked about the other day, has been warning about peak oil and lamenting our blindness to its consequences for a long, long time. I have absolutely no reason to believe that this latest evidence of a national government getting extremely nervous about peak oil is going to have the slightest effect the U.S. We have far more important things to worry about--NFL season opens Sunday! Besides, say many, peak oil is just a hoax. There's plenty of oil.

Seems to me this is just a variation on the biggest hoax of all: Tomorrow is going to be just like today.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Jonathan Kim: ReThink Review: A Crude Awakening -- Why We Spill (huffingtonpost.com)
• Richard Stuebi: The Petroleum Industry: Past the Tipping Point? (huffingtonpost.com)
• 'Peak Oil' Movement Prepares for the Worst (nytimes.com)

Spill, Baby, Spill

The horror of the oil spill out in the Gulf of Mexico is now becoming fully apparent. What's incontestable is that this accident is going to be a environmental catastrophe that will be a benchmark for our despoliation of the planet in the same class as the Exxon Valdez and Santa Barbara spills of storied memory. The early estimates--and where did these come from, one wonders? Could it have been BP? Or the government?--the early estimates could not have been more mistaken. (And lest we forget, 11 guys who worked out on that rig died.)

It really doesn't matter who put out the first word, it's clear that the initial estimates which minimized the extent of the spill, and hence the difficulty of containing the spread of the oil, the danger to the coastal environment, the amount of time it would take to contain the spill, and the resources that would be needed, these estimates were pretty far off base. Remember the initial announcements? They said nothing about any oil spilling at all. In fact, they led you to believe that the well had been capped off. Well, it was not long before we got disabused of that notion. But up until late yesterday, the reporting did not seem to have any sense of urgency about it. Well, that's gone. Oh, it's urgent now, alright. This oil spill has the potential to be the worst that's ever happened on the globe.

How bad is this? It's frigging off the chart, that's how bad:

Ian MacDonald, professor of oceanography at Florida State University who specializes in tracking ocean oil seeps from satellite imagery, said there may already be more than 9 million gallons of oil floating in the Gulf now, based on his estimate of a 25,000 barrel-a-day leak rate. That's compared to 12 million gallons spilled in the Valdez accident.

Interior Department officials said it may take 90 days to cap the leaking well. If the 25,000 barrels a day is accurate and it leaks for 90 days, that's 2.25 million barrels or 94.5 million gallons.

Listen, I'm from South Louisiana. I grew up in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The oil business was always offshore, where you could not see it. But what you could see was the incredible bounty of the Gulf waters and the tidelands: oysters, crawfish, shrimp, crab, redfish, flounder. These creatures and all the wonderful birds and other swampland creatures were always there, too. They defined the state, and to a certain extent they defined everybody who was bred and raised in south Louisiana. Which is why, I think that this oil spill which is now certain to wreck unspeakable havoc on the Louisiana coast  has hit me here in Oklahoma much harder than I could have ever imagined. This thing is just so outrageous; it makes me furious with the Fates that decreed this. It makes me furious at the mindless idiots screaming "Drill, baby, drill" during the presidential election.  It makes me furious at Obama and his caving to the goddamn oil companies. It makes me furious that we industrial sophisticates are apparently helpless to prevent what's going to happen to the Gulf coast from happening. All that, but at the same time I want to cry. I want to weep out loud because of the profound ugliness of this mess, because of humankind's cruelty to this earth and to its creatures who sustain us. Because the fragile and threatened coastal wetlands of my home state are going to be irreparably damaged. Just because of the death this spill deals and represents. Death. Who would not cry?

A Scary Friend with Even Scarier Friends

The following post is long and scary. I have this friend from back when I worked for the Air Force in the 1980s. He's a Pennsylvania Republican, gun nut, and convicted right-winger. But he's not incapable of thought. We've been arguing for years. But sometimes  I wonder. The people he tends to support are really crazy. For example, here is something he just sent me. (He never ceases to believe I'm going to see the light one day.) 

First comes the attachment he included with his post. This is followed by my response.

HOMELAND REBELLION -- State plans $2,000 fine for feds over gun rules -- 2 years in jail also possible for US agent enforcing U.S. regulations on firearms in Wyoming        BY: Bob Unruh, © 2010 WorldNetDaily    SEE: http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=127787

Wyoming has joined a growing list of states with self-declared exemptions from federal gun regulation of weapons made, bought and used inside state borders – but lawmakers in the Cowboy State have taken the issue one step further, adopting significant penalties for federal agents attempting to  enforce Washington's rules.

According to a law signed into effect yesterday by Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal, any agent of the U.S. who "enforces or attempts to enforce" federal gun rules on a "personal firearm" in Wyoming faces a felony conviction and a penalty of up to two years in prison and up to $2,000 in fines.

This was reported just days ago when Utah became the third state, joining Montana and Tennessee, to adopt an exemption from federal regulations for weapons built, sold and kept within state borders.

A lawsuit is pending over the Montana law, which was the first to go into effect.

But Wyoming's law goes further, stating, "Any official, agent or employee of the United States government who enforces or attempts to enforce any act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the United States government upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Wyoming and that remains exclusively within the borders of Wyoming shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall  be subject to imprisonment for not more than two (2) years, a fine of not more than two thousand dollars ($2,000.00), or both."

Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, who has spearheaded the Montana law, now describes himself as a sort of "godfather" to the national campaign.

He said the issue is not only about guns but about states' rights and the constant overreaching by federal agencies and Washington to impose their requirements on in-state activities.  He also said South Dakota, Oklahoma, Alaska and Idaho also appear to be close to adopting similar legislation, and several dozen more states have proposals in the works.

According to an analysis by Michael Boldin at the Tenth Amendment Center, the federal government has used the Commerce Clause**, which authorizes the regulation of commerce that crosses state lines, to regulate just about anything.

In the Montana lawsuit, the Federal Government's brief argues it can regulate intrastate commerce because of the Commerce Clause**.  This analysis said what the states are doing is simply a nullification.  "Laws of the federal government are to be supreme in all matters pursuant to the delegated powers of U.S. Constitution. When D.C. enacts laws outside those powers, state laws trump. And, as Thomas Jefferson would say, '[when the federal government assumes powers not delegated to it, those acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force]' from the outset," Boldin wrote.

"When a state 'nullifies' a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or 'non-effective,' within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned. Implied in such legislation is that the state apparatus will enforce the act against all violations – in order to protect the liberty of the state's citizens," he continued.

"By signing HB95, Gov. Freudenthal places Wyoming in a position of proper authority while pressing the issue of state supremacy back into the public  sphere," he continued.

On a blog, one commentator noted, "This is a healthy sign. Legislators in several states are working to take back sovereignty and restore constitutional government. The next step that has to be taken is to replace representatives and senators who don't support states rights. Then, the House needs to introduce impeachment proceedings against Supreme Court justices who exhibit bad behavior. Contrary to popular belief, Supreme Court justices do not serve lifetime appointments. They serve for periods of GOOD BEHAVIOR. I contend that erroneous decisions constitute bad behavior."

** See: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/atla/outlines/ConLaw-Outline-08.doc especially the "regulation column" -- One decision was how much wheat a farmer raises -- affects commerce so he can be fined if he raises too much, even if it is for is own feed use!
ALSO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause 



Bob, my friend,

What insanity! From all this I assume that the federal government has no responsibility to uphold quaint notions like the "common good" as opposed to the parochial interests or asserted rights of states. And what about individual rights if states are given overweening rights over the federal government, which is the only thing in many cases standing in the way of oppression by a state?

I shake my head in disbelief . . . nullification was tried in 1832 and it failed. Whether a state had sovereignty over whatever the state damn well decided it was sovereign over was decided at the cost of over 600,000 lives in 1861-65. That was when the nature of the federal union was defined, remember? Alas, there's no Jackson or Lincoln on the horizon to do anything about this today.

Who is this Michael Boldin? Following his impeccable logic, the US needs to return the Louisiana Purchase territory to France, since purchase of land is not delegated in the Constitution to the president.

Bob, seriously . . . can you possibly endorse the kind of thinking that says "erroneous decisions" by Supreme Court justices constitute impeachable "bad behavior"? And did you take the time to look at the list of commerce clause cases? I did, and I wonder which of those are "erroneous"? Most of them, I would imagine. Which would mean child labor is OK, transport of prostitutes across state lines is OK, strike-busting is OK, unionization of workers is, of course, not OK. Nor are federal standards for manufacturing, transport, food processing.

This country is turning into the f**king Balkans. I truly don't know or understand what kind of madness has taken hold of people. And I'm sure when the time comes, they will be coming to take people like me and my family away as obvious menaces to liberty, freedom, and democracy.

Oh, Man!

Happy 89th birthday, Mom!

Well, I'm back. I've just returned from the mother of all family celebrations. Been in Denver for the past several days with my immediate family. For Mom's birthday and for the greatest Super Bowl I've ever seen or any of us in this all-from-New-Orleans-and-south-Louisiana family have ever seen. I'm exhausted, exhilarated, bloated from too much great food and wine, happy, and glad to be free of the airport experience--still terrible--for awhile.

Actually I wish I were in New Orleans to celebrate with everybody else down there. But since I cannot be I'll just have to content myself with things like this:

Who Dat Say De Gonna Beat Dem Saints?

Okay. Okay, I'm gonna 'fess up. I'm as nuts about the idea of the New Orleans Saints being in the Super Bowl as if I still lived there in the city where I was formed. The entire state of Louisiana, but especially south Louisiana--which if you know anything about the place should be another state all by itself--is going nuts. And I am, and so is the whole family, which is scattered from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to Norman, Oklahoma, to Denver to Salt Lake City.  We're all bonkers about the New Orleans Saints and their trip to the Super Bowl. The game is one week away. Just like the entire Louisiana diaspora, and especially the New Orleans contingent, I wish I were back home now for the excitement, the whole atmosphere. For those who don't understand, well, here's why the entire state of Louisiana is on its ear. The Saints have been in the National Football League since 1967. That's 43 seasons. And of those seasons, the New Orleans Saints won more games they lost in exactly 8, counting this year's amazing season. It's hardly a distinguished history, to say the least. The Saints have been for years a study in futility. It wasn't until the turn of the century that the franchise began showing some signs of life. And this year . . . well, the Saints have finally won a conference championship and chance to win it all in the Super Bowl.

But there's more. As anyone from down there will tell you, the Saints are more than just a professional football team to the city of New Orleans. Their identity has been merged with the suffering metropolis that underwent the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina. Driven out of their home--the Superdome was severely damaged in the storm--the Saints did not play a single game of the 2005 season at home. Their homecoming in 2006 was a hugely emotional event for the city. And anybody who understands will tell you that the Saints are more than just a football team to the people of New Orleans. It's a complicated and passionate attachment we're talking about. It's a love affair between a city and a football team. What can I say?

There are nay-sayers, of course, who are talking about the relative insignificance of a professional football team in the large scheme of things. Even my own daughter is trying to talk some sense into me about this event. But it won't do any good. I'm crazy 'bout dem Saints and I'm not even going to think about the possibility of their winning the Super Bowl. I don't know how I could stand that kind of ecstasy. The Rangers winning the World Series would be only thing remotely comparable.

Who dat!

Let There Be Music!

Here's a great band I just discovered, Los Lonely Boys, siblings from San Angelo, Texas. Well, I didn't discover them just this minute, but a few days ago when my Louisiana bud's latest batch of swap CDs arrived. The periodic swaps we do have been an education for me. Enjoy!


 
There's no end to the wonderful music out there. One of the blessings of my life is the wide taste I have for music. I spent a couple of hours tonight watching Barenboim on Beethoven on PBS. The maestro played five of the piano sonatas, including a just astonishing performance of "Appassionata" ("Sonata No. 23 F minor," Op. 57). You can listen to his performance of Sonata No. 20 right here. I'd put the video up, but it's dinky. There's nothing wrong with the sound though. You should definitely try and catch this program on its next go 'round.

I don't know what I'd do without music . . . or books. Both take me away, which is sometimes not a bad prescription at all.

My Baby

Well, as I was about to say yesterday . . . my first collection of poetry, self-published and called  Buried Above Ground, arrived at the house yesterday in 30, I must say, glorious copies. I'll never forget when that heavy box of ten author's copies of  Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia arrived 21 years ago, after I had labored probably about 10 years writing and researching. It was a feeling of what must be somewhat like giving birth and seeing the infant for the first time. Only this was a box of full-grown books. It was a feeling of satisfaction and pride that's hard to describe. I think I've pined for that feeling ever since.

So I got a twinge of that feeling again yesterday, and I confess I just sat with the slim, little volume in my hands and stared at it. It's glossy cover, the heft of it in my hand, the way it looks on a shelf, the way it smells. My baby. That's what it is. This collection of 76 poems. There's more of me spilled here in this little book than any ten history books I could write. And, honestly, there may not be any more history books, but I know for a fact there will be more poems, and who knows, maybe another collection.* I was struck when I was picking out poems for the book just how many of them seemed steeped in my New Orleans and south Louisiana childhood. I have no idea how or where these words, these ideas, come from. I sit at the screen and I type. I revise and rewrite and rearrange. And then I say it's done. Sometimes the words gush out like Spindletop, other times it's like chiseling marble. I've been telling myself that I'd be more authentic and maybe the damn poems would come easier if I wrote with one of my fountain pens on yellow legal pad--that's the way I did all my writing before computers. Enough. Here's one of the poems.


Things I’d Never Do

Now that kids are grown up
and gone
along with whatever brawn
allowed my extracting
the cork
from the Chianti
without my face purpling
to the same color,
the list of things I’d never do
seems to get longer,
pretty much in concert
with my expanding years
and corresponding shrinkage
in virtually
every meaningful category
of physicality
save the number
of required nocturnal urinations.
 
Just a few things
I’d never do:
take up mountain climbing ,
become an accountant
(which would suck
life’s blood from me
like a gigantic tick
even if I were twenty-six),
give up red beans and rice,
root for the Yankees,
wear anything lime green.

No, it’s come time
to mimic
my wandering dog, sniffing away
at whatever interests her
in the grass,
and rolling in whatever seems
especially savory.
================================================== 
*Oh, I'm always working on something history. Articles, sure, and a friend and I are working on a joint project, a biography of David Farragut, but that's a way off yet. But I know for a fact there will be more poems; there already are.

Update 1: In a couple of weeks or so, there will be a web site where you can find out more about the book and order a copy if you want. I'll put it up when I have it.

Definition of a Good Day

Day after a nice Thanksgiving day with the grandkids. Good food, good wine, family yesterday. Even if only part of the family, it's good. My daughter, bless her, brought me the chocolate chip cookies I requested. Nice day. And today? Well, today had three excellent things. My granddaughter, who is seven, came over to help her Mimi decorate the house for Christmas, and she stayed the whole afternoon. Two, all the Christmas decorating got done today. No more to do. All the boxes put up. House looking great. And three, I received in the mail this morning the latest batch of CDs my friend down in Louisiana has burned for me. Fifty of them! This is like getting a $500 gift certificate for iTunes downloads, and buying all those tunes at once. 

This is the fifth batch of CDs I've received from Bill, and by far the largest. I estimate well over 100 CDs from Bill over the past six months. We discovered last summer that we both shared a profound love for music, music of all types. "What kind of music do you like?" they ask. "Everything," I answer truthfully. Everything. Like food or poetry or books, I'm willing to try it if I haven't had it before. I don't know much about jazz, world music, or hip hop, which is not to say I don't appreciate some of it, just that I don't listen to it much. I'm not too crazy about crooners or show music, although there are individual exceptions here, too. But I love the rest of it: reggae, rock, blues, classical, opera, country, some metal, electronic, R&B, and probably know enough about these to be mildly dangerous.

Anyway, this latest batch had just a whole flock of people I'd never heard of. Kings of Leon, for example, over there on the right. And The Mars Volta--well, actually, I have heard of them before, but only because Bill has sent me a previous album--and Fastball, Ozomadi, and Oysterhead and Primus. Plus some familiars: Richard Thompson, Miles Davis, Soundgarden, Kate Bush, Buddy Guy, and Porcupine Tree (another band, one that I really like, that Bill introduced me to a few batches back). The mix of music was wide: rock, blues, metal, a little folk, plus an oddball guy with an irreverent attitude and a potty mouth named Mojo Nixon, whose music is hard to classify. I just called it "Other" on iTunes. Even some holiday music. (By the way, I wish I could have pointed you to the Allmusic site for each of these bands, but it don't work that way. The URL will always default to the generic opening page.)

I'll say one thing for a bunch of new music. It takes your mind off the miserable state of the nation for a while. I fear I soon must address some of these distressing topics soon.

New Music Flood

Lateralus by Tool ==>>>

I can think of several things in life bring me right up: having all of my kids together in one place, red beans and rice, my wife's fried chicken, being at the ballpark, finishing a writing assignment, a new book, new music. I've been really blessed in the latter department. I recently discovered that an old grad school bud likes all the same kinds of music as I do: everything. He plays guitar, loves rock music, and has a whole bunch of stuff by bands I've never even heard of. But it so happens I've got a lot of stuff he doesn't have a lot of like blues, reggae, country, and classical. It didn't take us long to figure out that a swap of music would be beneficial to both of us. And we're in for the long haul. I can see a whole bunch of new CDs on the horizon.

Long story short: I got a real jolt of feel-good on Saturday morning when the mail came. I got the first batch of music from him while we were in Louisiana for the funeral. All of it of the rock, metal, alternative variety. Honestly, I had never heard of most of the bands--I suspect my kids and younger readers might know them. But that was the whole point: we're sending stuff the other guy has probably never heard of. I've finished to listening to over half of the 15 CDs by such artists as: Tool, Porcupine Tree, System of a Down, The Mars Volta, Sonny Landreth, and Thenewno2. (Any of you out there heard of these bands? The only ones I knew were Frank Zappa and Gov't Mule.) The long and short of it: I'm pretty tickled with what I'm hearing.

Latina Worker

I'm in Louisiana. My brother-in-law died. No surprise. Hospice had been engaged, but only for a short time. He was supposed to have another six months to a year. He got three weeks instead. He has suffered for the last two years or so. He's better off now. His family is better off now. May he rest in peace with God.

Latina Worker
by Doren Robbins

Then I notice through a triple-Americano-awakening moment,
in the mall food court, a young Latina cleaning around by the chrome rail
at Sbarro Pizza. Maybe a Guatemalan, possibly Salvadoran or
Honduran—

could've been Argentinean or Columbian, Chilean, Bolivian,
Panamanian—good chance a Peruvian, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Mayan,
Toltec, Sephardic, Huichol coffee plantation or U.S. Fruit Company

or tobacco company or auto industry slave labor robot or CIA-trained
death squad Guardia Nacional butchery massacre survivor.

Several tables down from mine--roughly stacking chairs on tops
of tables—cussing in Spanish, in the mall food court, she hates her job,
I hate her job.

USA! (<===irony)

I was at a wedding today. Yes, I know, it's July 4th. Odd time for a wedding. But there it is. Some holiday observations:

• It's a terrible burden for me to be somewhere in a crowd of people whom I don't know. I'm not the least concerned about this in crowds at games, concerts, church, movies. It's not the crowd part that's uncomfortable for me. Not at all. It's the socializing part. A wedding reception is a social event. You sit at tables with people, and you have to talk to them. I have little or nothing to say to strangers, especially if . . .
  
• . . . the wedding reception has not one discernible drop of alcohol, save the champagne the bride and groom sipped oh so delicately as part of the severely scripted event. Everything was on a schedule. Let me say this about that: I come from south Louisiana, New Orleans and Baton Rouge. You don't have a gathering of more than three people down there without alcohol. And you would risk social ostracism and perhaps a visit from a shrink if you threw a wedding celebration without alcohol. Wedding receptions? Hell, these are over when they're over. It's certainly most unnatural to have a wedding reception on some kind of schedule: this special dance, cake cutting, toasts, another special dance, now we're going to have the bouquet toss . . . give me a break! Wedding receptions are supposed to be spontaneous and noisy. Loud music, loud people. At times today, you could have mistaken the gathering for a funeral.
• There are 84 houses in the little corner of suburbia I live in. A number of these are flying the flag today, of course. As you know, or might have guessed. I don't fly the flag. I think the flag is flown and waved way too much in this country. It's what defines our patriotism: waving the flag. I don't regard waving the flag, flying the flag, worshiping the flag, treating the flag like it was the Eucharist, as patriotism. Flags are symbols of the globe's national states. The national state is useless as a way of organizing people. By definition, it makes your nation superior to other nations. No one would think of saying that your race makes you superior to another, so why does another accident of birth make you superior? Patriotism has other unfortunate tendencies. It almost always stokes "love of country" to the point where you will kill somebody just because "your country" tells you to. But the point of this bullet is that of all the houses I could be residing next to, I reside next to a dude that's got a frigging flag pole that flies the flag every day. Every day. Today there are a slew of red, white, and blue decorations all over the yard in addition to the obligatory flag. USA! USA! USA!
• Ended the day watching a DVD of Richard Wagner's Sigfried--that's four hours to end the day. I don't know which is more compelling: the magnificent music or the desire you feel to have the story move along a lot faster than it does. Nothing is slower to happen than something substantial in a Wagnerian opera. And Sigfried is notoriously slow to get off the runway.
  

Blogging

I've been so tied up trying to get my paper done for Saturday's Civil War shindig in Louisiana, I haven't been able to post a blog entry. Would you believe I miss it? This little few minutes a day where I get to say anything I want about anything I want. I'm convinced that to enjoy doing this, you have to have something of the egoist about you, at least have a fairly good opinion of yourself.

Doesn't everybody who blogs expect somebody to read them? I cannot imagine anybody would do this and not expect that somebody out there in the whole wide world would take the time to read. Otherwise why do this? Is not the whole point to communicate with somebody? And in the case of blogs, anybody?

Nobody writes letters anymore. When's the last time you actually got a letter that somebody had written? Blogging, I think, resembles letter writing. In some cases, it can be an intimate form of communication, blogging, that is. In all cases, it's self-revelatory to some degree. And that's because the writer wants to do that. Wants to let you know him or her. In a way, blogging is kinda sad. All these people saying "Here, here I am. This is me." And they don't say it to another real person. They say it to a screen.

Trillions

So who else watched the Obama speech to Congress tonight? I missed the beginning, but saw most of it. Did anybody else get tired of the standing O's? Was anybody else repulsed by the sight of that weasel Joe Lieberman, whom the cameras drifted to at least a couple of times?

It was a good speech, delivered well and forcefully. And best of all, it was a Democratic speech, that wasn't stingy in its criticism of bankers and banks, the previous administration and all its allies in the Congress (although he didn't say so directly) who preferred short term gains at the expense of long-term stability in the country's financial system. I personally was happy to hear that no-bid contracts like those that fattened defense contractors in Iraq were going to end, as well as all the conspicuous perks for bank and Wall St. CEOs. I was delighted to hear that cuts are coming for defense (scrapping Cold War weapons systems the services are buying, ferreting out fraud and waste). And that subsidies for "giant agri-business that doesn't need them" are also on the block. (I'm going to have to see this to believe it.)

The president reiterated the three main goals for action he's been talking about from the start: alternative energy, health care reform, close attention and improvement in education. Of course, all of this will have to be embodied in legislation that must pass through the sausage grinder in the Congress. And what's being proposed is in addition to the many more hundreds of billions it will require to prop up the damn banks, billions to keep the auto manufacturers afloat, and assist homeowners with mortgage relief. We're talking perhaps a multiple of trillions of dollars before, and if, we get out of this mire. I simply don't understand another thing Obama said tonight: that by the end of his first term, he will have reduced the deficit by half--to about a trillion dollars. The numbers we're talking about here make my head spin.

Update 1: Reactions to Obama's speech from various observers and reactions to the reactions.

Was anyone surprised by the Bobby Jindal response speech? I thought it was terrible. Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, trotted out the same, tired formula for solving the gigantic problems we face: tax cuts and don't trust government. Lame, lame, lame. Even the Republicans are saying so. Check David Brooks to Jim Lehrer tonight about Jindal's performance.

Update #1: Lots of Republican heartburn with the Jindal response. Fun reading.

Trifecta

Sometimes it does the body good to not think about the state of the world. I'm not going to think about the state of the world again today. Not to worry. I'll be worrying about it again soon enough, and I'm sure it will give me reason enough to. If I were in south Louisiana, for example, I'd be thinking about Mardi Gras tomorrow, and Obama and the miserable Republicans would be far from my mind.

With these thoughts as backdrop, I have three diversionary topics.

• Consider the astounding speculations about the images of the ocean floor off the west coast of Africa that have shown up with the use of the last version of Google Earth (5.0). The image is pictured here, and the questions concern the fabled city of Atlantis, which according to legend more ancient than the Mariner, was swallowed up beneath the waves. What's the meaning of the undeniably geometric pattern down there? I'll vote for Atlantis on the theory that all myth and legend, even of the ancient variety, is based on some reality. So take a look at this piece and this one--it's got a map showing where in the ocean this phenomenon is--and take a gander at the accompanying image. I want some divers or deep sea submersible to get down there and check this out.

Update 1: It ain't so. Google reports "what users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process," Google said. "Bathymetric (or seafloor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the seafloor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data." Shucks!

• And then there's this story about a concerted move by lawmakers in Oklahoma, of all places, to--get ready for this--pass legislation banning the tatooing of eyeballs in the state. I'm not making this up.
• Some nut case of a teacher asked his class of ten-year-olds in England to write down a list of hurtful, unkind words as an exercise exploring bullying. The kids did not disappoint. "The litany of words ranged from variations on the F-word, crude slang for sex acts, female and male genitalia, and racist and derogatory name-calling." The parents of the kids, however, were disappointed, to say the least. Oh, and did I mention it was a Church of England school?

Reasons Not to Know the News, Holiday Edition

What kind of person dresses up as Santa Claus, knocks on the door of house on Christmas Eve where a party with more than 20 people attending is in progress, proceeds to kill nine people in the house, and then burns the structure to the ground? The first person he shot with his semi-automatic, by the way, was the hapless 8-year old girl that answered the door. A madman, obviously. A crazed assassin. A guy with a gun who was pissed off at his ex-wife, to be more precise. This story appeared yesterday, but that was Christmas, and I swore off reading or watching any news on the safe assumption that whatever it was, it would be bad enough to ruin the holiday. I was right, of course. I cannot help but think every time I read or hear of something like this of the insane gun culture we live in.

Case in point: the nut cases at the NRA are pushing for legislation allowing students at colleges and universities to carry concealed weapons. Read about it here. (We'll stop these college shooters, by God. We'll just allow everybody to pack heat!) Oh great idea. Let's have hundreds of concealed weapons where people are getting drunk all the time and live in dormitories. The good news is bills to allow this have failed in such bastions of gun crazy citizens as Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Kentucky, among other states. But the NRA has not given up, and a new group of collegiate gun nuts has formed their own pressure group to lobby for concealed guns on campuses.

Ain't this a great country?