thinking about new orleans

a refugee evacuee(?) arrives in houston - photo by slightclutter

hard to do much else today besides think about new orleans, hope for the best, and curse every last gov't official and self-serving asshole who let this (largely avoidable) tragedy get so terribly out of hand.

what a mess.

if the upshot, though, is that americans finally come to understand, appreciate, and rectify our serious energy problems and unethical consumption patterns, our lack of real priorities, our sickening history of abandoning poor folk and black folk, and the fact that our commander-in-chief and his cronies continue to lead us astray, that will truly be something.

crazy thing is, all evidence and clamour aside, i'm still skeptical.

at any rate, i have been encouraged by some eloquent attempts to make sense of the significance of all of this, and i can only hope that these dark days will spur a serious, national conversation about a major, and long overdue, reckoning that this country must have.

though there is so much out there to process, including the fascinatingly rich media and timely updates of the NOLA blogger and the unbelievably current and fluid wikinews, allow me to point you to two moving reflections on the trials and tribulations of the people of new orleans.

1) jeff chang once again articulates the politics of abandonment as a way of understanding the vast suffering going down, in new orleans and worldwide.

2) tobias van veen channels samuel delaney to offer some afro-futurist insight into the apocalyptic images and acts that have so many of us reeling.

finally, we're all glad to hear that the mighty fats domino is safe.