Maitri has a Blog up concerning the new HBO series “Treme”. I am definitely going to watch it. You should too because it tells much of the truth about what happen to New Orleans post-Flood.
John Goodman is a great representation of our Late Great Ashley Morris, a Blogger for the city back then. I think he will pull this one off.
Over the last few months my Blogging has almost become non-existant. It’s not that I don’t have enough to rant about… I’m just tired. Four years of slogging and smacking down mooks for being stooopid on top of the cares of rebuilding our home and lives, care for friends and love for New Orleans have taken much out of me. It has also upset that delicate balance that I had acheieved years ago with my little dance with HIV.
For months I’ve been more of a news aggregator funneling good pieces onto dear old FB and just letting the chips fall as they will. I had gotten away from what I started doing right after the Flood in educating folks about what was going down here and explaining the arcane systems that the powers-that-be had concocted for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. One-liners followed by a link doesn’t fit the bill in my book.
This weekend I was with many of us original NOLA Bloggers for the Rising Tide 4. I felt connected again and so proud of what they continue to do even now at the eve of the 4th anniversary of the Federal Flood. I realized that I wasn’t a parrot, but an owl. My life has spread half-way around the World twice, I have the Blessing to be able to have been able to rebuild my life and Being as it must be and I am surrounded, physically and in cyber with some of the best souls I have ever known. Some of the folk there asked why I had gotten quiet on my Blog, that they missed the rants and the snarky diatribesand the Tales of Our City.
The Blog no longer had any meat.
There has to be the meat, the processing of a news article by a person in order to make sense, show some relation and postulate what a political decision can lead to down the line.
So I’m going back to Blogging more regularly. If someone trashes New Orleans of the Gulf Coast, I am going to freaking eat you alive. Some politician wants new rules that will be to our disadvantage here, I will dig to refute or abuse you in creative ways. And when I just want to talk about life or my beloved New Orleans, I will do just that. There is a story to be told about a chunk of the country that has been used and abused for the Nation’s benefit but is sadly lacking when it comes to being helped to heal. (the volunteers who have come understand and we hail them). I’m talking State and Federal governments and the oil/gas companies. I’m talking about the destruction of our wetlands… the disregard for the folk of the swamps as just fools and simple folk. About buying a populace and culture and just running it into the ground because “people of this region do not count”.
Yes we do. Without us and the sacrifices over the last century the rest of the U.S. would not have what it has now. Our homeland, bought as just swamp and some chattel have been almost crushed, but life still flows here.
Sinn Fein!
Be there or our Orisha will get you. (Or maybe I’ll ride the dark winds to express my displeasure.)
Here’s the link for registration, info and donations. We like donations, but we’d rather see you there.
Note- (I’ve been very concerned about certain issues in the City that could prove to only deepen the divide between Black New Orleanians and the rest of us. There seems to be a form of “mentality” (termed loosely) that that expresses an air of “entitlement” which excludes all of those others that call themselves Natives or those who see our place as their home. As a descendant of Native French Creoles, Free People of Color, Haitians and Islenos, I am horrified. As a defender of the United States’ Constitution and the Social Contract I am sick to my soul. Being a child of the Civil Rights Era and all that it promised, I am agast.
The Louisiana Ministerial Alliance of Churches for All People types desire to set up a reverse Apartheid in order to maintain their voice and control. Many of their churches own different types of property, some not in compliance with Law, but it can easily funnel monies into their coffers for their racist war.
This is not what was meant by “Equality”. This nowhere comes close to being a land where we all work together in order to promote the concept of living in Wholeness… )
I have been receiving the New Orleans Agenda for quite some time and could never really get anything much useful out of it. In fact, often I saw it as a racist attack on the non-Black folks of the city.
This came in today via the Agenda. Its an open letter to the Mayor-
“ Dear Mr. Mayor, Let ice water flow through your veins. You have learned many hard earned lessons about the ruthlessness of evil and you are fighting the good fight.
You are protecting the interest and power of a 60% African American electorate against an onslaught of temporary white power created by the elections right after Katrina. This four to three Confederate clique on the city council is an imbalance to the demographics of the city and an anomaly. It will never happen again. The “At large” seats will always be split, one black and one white. Districts B, C, D and E are all likely to return to African American control, but for the next two years you must preserve and defend your ability to insure participation of qualified DBE and African American owned companies in this recovery against this onslaught which is really about denying you that.
Trust that all across America, you are a wonder, and they are the clowns, even though local media which shares the white power agenda avoids touting the amazing work that you and your administration has done, even while under siege. The world is back in New Orleans, and they can see that we are extremely functional, and the cranes are rising.
Sometimes even folk in New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward forget that in preserving their rights to return and rebuild you denied the white power move to turn “our space” into “green space” and you enraged those who didn’t want them back. In insuring the inclusion of the East and lower nine in the recovery, you created a greater challenge for your administration. It would have been easier and perhaps you would be better loved by the children of the Confederacy, but fortunately, your bold and courageous stand has maintained the rights of our people to return to their property and lifestyles and citizenship in our city, and that’s the part that makes the white power people stoop to these constant and petty attacks on your administration that have achieved nothing, except headlines.
If they don’t railroad you into letting them control the contracts, they know you will keep the door open for the development of real wealth and power in the hands of independent African Americans, like you did with the sanitation contracts, and that’s too much freedom (power) for the children of former slaves.
I also appreciate the fact that you cannot run for reelection, but are fighting for our interest anyway.
Lloyd Dennis”
(Lloyd Dennis has city contracts- via Big Red Cotton.)
This guy is a nutcase.
He sees the entire social equation of our city as a group of tribal organizations instead of a coalition of people living under the Social Contract. He wants to divvy up the various neighborhoods to different “tribes” as if the land belonged ONLY to one ethnic group. (the constant revenge killings are the logical outcome of just this sort of skewed thinking- tribal warfare)
I see this as a form of racial segregation from the very group that wished to not be seen as separate from the Whole circa 1955. It is a stepping backwards, not a moving forward. Segregation instead of desegregation. It can only lead to a condition of slow decline and stagnation. In other words, they dig the ghetto deeper and thereby entrap the young from growth, exploration and expansion of their lives from that of the Past. These young will never be allowed to enter the 21st Century and the promises it makes for one to achieve their God/dess-given possibilities.
This will be the result if we cannot get the City Charter changed to a more equitable power sharing between the City Council and the Mayor’s Administration. For those of us with a more modern mindset the thought of living under a “tribal ruler” is abhorrent. It goes against the spirit of the Constitution. It is treason to the spirit of this country.
We have a derelict property problem and one of non-profit ownership of some properties that does not conform to Federal laws concerning use of said properties. Our society is being “used”.
They scorn and harm the LGBT tribes even though they are your children. They discard that little bit of their culture that actually attempts to achieve something beyond wherefrom they spring. They hate those who escape the mindless lockstep of a culture that is on the edge of the abyss when it comes to it’s demise. They hate the fact that their children chose freedom of thought over the banality of a dead culture.
And lastly for now, the Ministerial Alliance is now going after U.S. Rep. Joe Cao for his vote on the recent Stimulus Bill, even though there wasn’t anything of import for East New Orleans. This is not about the voting, but about the fact that the Ministerial crowd cannot continence the thought of a US Rep that is not Black. This is blatant racism, no question.
They wish a kingdom within the midst of a Republic… this cannot stand. They wish to be seen as Priest-kings ruling their little regions. That is not what this Republic is about. We have no Priest-kings, we have ourselves and our representatives to a government that is responsible to the All, the future and honor of an united Nation. None are left behind but those who choose to remain in the Past.
The Past is just that- the past. This is the 21st Century and it’s time to embrace the hopes and possibilities that are at hand. Living in the 19th Century no longer counts as “living”. We are a polyglot culture that can celebrate our commonality and the specifics that belong to our various cultures. We no longer must separate ourselves from the Whole.
Welcome to the new New Orleans.
Now tell me what you think please?
Here’s the info via HumidCity.
Update- The Second Line for Wendy will start at 2PM at the Starlight, 934 N. Rampart St.
Silence is Violence and NoLA Rising are teaming up for a Paint Party in order to protest the ineffectivness of NOPD and the D.A.’s Office on matters of crime within our city. This protest will take place at the home of Willow and Feather who have created a wonderful memorial to Willow’s son David who was murdered in ’01.
The reason for the choice of venue is outlined in an article from today’s T-P.
I think the neighbors, the Taylors, who so much want to have Willow remove her expressions of love are true fuckmooks, especially when they moved into the neighborhood years after Willow started on her memorial to her lost son. They feel it hurts their property value, but did they not notice the house next to the one they were purchasing at the time?
Yet another example of outsiders coming in, smacking down $$$ for a home in an old neighborhood and then going bat-shit insane when they finally realize that the culture they were surrounded by wasn’t exactly their cup of tea. And then they attempt to stop our cultural expressions to suit their desires. They will not win… you either “get” New Orleans or you don’t. If the latter is true, get the Hell out of our city.
To see pics, go here.
Sinn Fein
I mentioned this topic yesterday.
Now there’s a petition to Save the Bonfire. Go and sign it please. We can’t allow the fuckmooks and Nagin’s Minions to destroy our way of life.
Sinn Fein!
A 70 year old tradition is in peril from the Modernist mooks. Read the latest attack on New Orleans’ Culture here
My response- Well I do not support suppression of the Cultural expressions of the folks of New Orleans.
Let’s get this game on and have the Bonfire (I’ll even end my “Stay @ Home, eat Ruebans and drink Margaritas” to save this event)
I’m tired of the City trying to control our lives and gentrify our town. All of us who returned did so for a reason- this is our home and these are our ways. Time to drive that point home once and for all.
Namaste!
Morwen
“Greater than scene is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame”. Eudora Welty
Here’s Editor B’s take on this travesty.
This is from M. Homan.
And from the Wet Bank Guy.
Goddess knows I LOVE Civic Blogging. To be able to tweak the nose of some pin-headed mook is just the best thing in the World!
Well it seems folks are getting more informed concerning the breaking up of a Second Line 10 days ago.
Jarvis DeBerry weighs in here. The T-P editors put this one together. Some of us on the NOLA Blogger’s e-list are trying find out more concerning this incident. Right now the opinion of most is that it was a rogue cop who just decided to break up the Second Line. As NOPD is slowly collapsing under Chief Warren Riley’s ineptitude, we still can’t get a real answer. No competency in leadership always results in chaos, and that is what Riley has done as the head of our police force.
Riley must be removed and a real leader put in place to turn this poop around. He is a true fuckmook.
Sinn Fein!
Last Saturday, a major dissing of our Cultures and Traditions here in New Orleans went down: Da’ NOPD broke up a Second Line, a Jazz Funeral, in the Treme last Saturday. (Of course the local paper didn’t report on the event until the wee hours of the morning today.) This was as the mourners had finished and were walking to a place to share the Repast at a Community Center.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of this kind of funerary rite, here’s what it entails:`a procession heads toward the ceremonial place of passing (could be a business, a fishing hole, a certain park or the cemetery.) A brass band leads the folks playing dirges. When the selected place is reached, the words are said and the departed is ready to move on. Then the band strikes up a different beat and the mourners start to dance in order to help their friend move on to the other World. “Dancing them Home” is also a way to stop the tears and just remember our friend as we continue through day-to-day life. We are a Family. We take care of our own.
Once the Second Line is done, the folks gather in places and share food, drink and stories about the departed. Some members of the “Family” might be at one place, others at others. But this is usually how it goes down.
This is a Sacred ritual. It is rooted in Culture and Tradition, Respect and Humanity. This act is seen as essential by many of us as part of our Heritage and our City. Events such as this define us as a people and a Culture, the continuation of what has been for many, many years. As a Native I will say now: “This is part of our Birthright, our being a part of the Life that moves through the heavy damp air as it sways the Spanish Moss on the oak trees. Here is where we came from and in the fullness of time where we shall return. The muddy waters of Old Man River, the clays in the swamps… the scent of cypress trees… all of these things are also part of us. We dance the Dance of Life, knowing full well the fragility of the living, and we will not give our ancestral ways up. This is our home and these are our Traditions. This is OUR Dance.”.
This is why what happened last Saturday is an attack and an affront to the Culture of New Orleans. It is orchestrated by those of money and power. Our city is badly damaged by the Federal Flood, and they want the land for speculation, for those who would buy a condo near the French Quarter in order to “celebrate” three days once every year at Mardi Gras. To break the back of the old Cultures in order to be able to schedule and charge for every little thing we locals do as a matter of course. To make their way our way. These are the desires of malignantly evil creatures.
These are the carpetbaggers, those who swoop down when the we are hurting and gnaw on our bones even as we die. They only see New Orleans as a cash register, not the living entity that it truly is. Our Life, our city’s Life, is something they can never know. The Spirit of Place can never enter them because they cannot “feel”.
New Orleans belongs to Her people and they to Her. Native or adopted, it doesn’t really matter: we are all infected with Her elixier… the “Water of Life”. Our strange little anachronistic bastion of the Old World infused with the desire to just be ourselves in the midst of American Culture gone crazy. The reminder of what could be, if only one accepts it.
One paragraph of the above article caught my eye:
“Snuffing Saturday’s parade was an “attack on the culture,” the same culture that gave birth to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, said Wilson’s longtime friend, Jerome Smith. He found the timing ironic: At about the same time that police had scattered an authentic funeral march, near Esplanade and Claiborne avenues, Jazz and Heritage Festival-goers were lined up behind a band at the Fair Grounds, ready to follow a second-line recreated for tourists.”
Need I say more?
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Perfesser Ashley Morris, a determined lover and defender of New Orleans and Her Culture passed one month ago yesterday. I can almost hear him ranting about this. He did have his Second Line, and he’d be pissed that someone else couldn’t have their’s.
We have established a fund to help his family through this rough period in time. Please donate.
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