angry as hell
it's pretty hard to focus on the magazine and school when all this shit is going on in the world. new orleans/mississippi hits close to home and my heart. my mom, grandmother and everyone on my mom's side grew up there. until last year when my grandmother moved to my moms house in Maryland, i was there 2-3 times a year. i know there's more to new orleans than mardi gras and the french quarter. i know about the people, the despair, and struggle in that city... i know the situation.. and it's fucking sickening. whenever you have a mayor of a city cursing and angry and telling the president to "get off his lazy ass" you KNOW there is a problem. you know there is a problem when for some "strange" reason, the french quarter is saved but the other 98% of teh city is COVERED TO THE ROOF TOPS with water.
check out these links.. see what's going on..
there are a lot of videos on this page:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html
then i see some redneck on the news.. an owner of a GROCERY STORE talking about "loiters will be shot!! shot and hung by the neck from a tree!!" WTF?!?! people need FOOD! people need WATER!! people have gone DAYS without it! and new orleans is a city with a lot of OLD and very young people... their immune systems need to be taken care of. if you watch one of the videos on that link, there is a journalist in the hospital that's flooded.. bodies are being put in the stairwell and stacked one on top of the other. there's no water.. no electricity. meanwhile, america sent troops and dropped food and water in indonesia TWO DAYS after the tsunami hit. does this make any fuckin sense to you?
and despite new orleans you have the war, you have genocide in africa and south america. you have slavery in asia... fuck. shit is so crazy in the world, even if i helped a little, it wouldn't do much. i packed up most of the clothes and shoes i was going to sell on eBay and sent them down to new orleans, along with sheets and a ton of batteries. i'm thinking about flying out there this weekend on a whim and just wandering around helping. i just can't sit here and indulge in normal activity when all this shit is going on. it breaks my heart. and for me, a box of clothes isn't good enough for me. i feel like i need to help carry people, feed people, console people, talk to people. but then again at the same time people will say "school is about to start.. just let the professionals handle it and stay here." but.. my heart won't allow it.
i'll keep you updated.