Boing Boing: Katrina: joke du jour

"Q: What's George Bush's position on Roe v. Wade?
A: He really doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans. "

No matter what Bush says, all Americans hear is "disaster"

"The rest of the federal bureaucracy may be slow off the dime, but not this Republican Congress: They practice spending hundreds of billions all year long so that when disaster hits, they'll be ready. "

on "repeat" at the manse today Country Got Soul a collection of smooth 'n' gritty cookers from people like Charlie Rich, Dan Penn, Tony Joe White, including "Fancy" by Bobbie Gentry, as jaw-dropping a story song as you're ever likely to hear. And if you've never heard Eddie Hinton...
 

The Decline of the West

"During my months in the Caribbean, I often asked myself why, when I was exhausted by the vitality of others, it was in the Afro-Cuban cults, of all places, that I regained my strength. Why, of all things, the sect-like rituals of the Santeria and Palo Monte gave me a sense of security whose effect even lasted a while on my return to everyday life. And the answer I reluctantly gave myself again and again was that besides giving us a great deal, Enlightenment finally takes away that which makes life easier and brings happiness closer--certainty beyond knowledge, steadfastness in spite of all trials and tribulations--and precisely this was rendered palpable by every practising Santero or Palero. It was only during these hours of ritual that I felt once again the cathartic trembling before the superhuman which in Christian churches has vanished in the programme of 'love thy neighbour as thyself'. Who wants bread and wine when they can have blood and (sacrificed) flesh? Who wants a benevolent god in some abstract realm who has withdrawn from his creation (with a shepherd-in-chief who always appears uncertain, in spite of the hype surrounding the Pope), when they can have priests who give clear instructions and certainty in life, when they can have communication with the dead, when they can have gods who violently possess their followers to dance, smoke and drink with them? Anyone who has experienced the undiminished, African intensity of religious belief in the Caribbean--with all its fear and horror, dread and terror, to the point of barbarity --knows that in the long term, our godless society cannot defend itself against this with a private brand of individualist esotericism."

via metafilter a great trove of mp3's by Enrico Caruso

Ben Watt "The Night I Heard Caruso Sing" (from EBTG "Idlewild")

The highlands and the lowlands
are the routes my father knows,
the holidays at Oban
and the towns around Montrose,
but even as he sleeps,
they're loading bombs into the hills,
and the waters in the lochs can run deep,
but never still.

I've thought of having children,
but I've gone and changed my mind.
It's hard enough to watch the news,
let alone explain it to a child,
to cast your eye cross nature,
over fields of rape and corn,
and tell him without flinching
not to fear where he's been born.

Then someone sat me down last night,
and I heard Caruso sing.
He's almost as good as Presley,
and if I only do one thing,
I'll sing songs to my father,
I'll sing songs to my child.
It's time to hold your loved ones
while the chains are loose,
and the world runs wild.

But even as we speak,
they're loading bombs
onto a white train.
How can we afford to ever sleep,
so sound again?



 

Zak Smith's Illustrations for Each Page of Gravity's Rainbow

After telling someone I wasn't going to I find myself reading it again, in the golden Bantam paperback I first read it in, stretched in the back seat of Victor Bateman's one-door Ford in the parking lot of Nanaimo District Senior Secondary, 1975...

 

No Direction Home

"Let's be clear about one thing. Nothing that happened last week -- the mass destruction in the Mississippi Delta, the obliteration of the city of New Orleans, the murderous abandonment of thousands of people to death, chaos and disease -- will change the Bush Administration or American politics at all. Not one whit. President George W. Bush will not reverse his brutal policies; his Congressional rubber-stamps will not revolt against the White House; the Democrats will not suddenly grow a spine. There will be no real change, and the bitter corrosion of injustice, indifference and inhumanity that is consuming American society will go on as before.

One indication of this can be found in the first polls coming out after the disaster, which show that some 45 percent of the American people approve of Bush's handling of the relief effort. It seems inconceivable that any sentient being could witness the agonizing results of the Bush team's dithering, dilatory response -- an agony played out in the full glare of non-stop media coverage -- and not come away with a sense of towering anger at this criminal incompetence. But it's obvious that nearly half the American people have now left the "reality-based community" altogether; they see only what they want to see, a world bathed in the hazy, golden nimbus of the Leader. The fact -- the undeniable truth -- that behind this carefully-concocted mirage lies nothing more than a steaming pile of rancid, rotting offal means nothing to these true believers. The Lie is better, the Lie is more comforting, the Lie lets them keep feeding on the suffering of others without guilt or shame.


This painful split between obvious reality and popular perception is nothing new, of course. Today we look at old footage of Adolf Hitler and wonder how on earth such a pathetic and ludicrous creature could ever have commanded the adoration and obedience of tens of millions of people. Yet he did. As T.S. Eliot once wrote, "Human kind cannot bear very much reality." "

Glenn Gould's "The Search for Petula Clark" and Samuel Beckett's "Film" (with Buster Keaton) only some of the many goodies new and old on the thankfully revived U B U W E B
 

Smoky Moon

Smoky Moon, originally uploaded by The Nature Lady.

Last night the Nanaimo moon was still pale orange around midnight. Delta only 20km not forty, the wind going the other way today though hazy.

Burns Bog, September 11 2005

Burns Bog, September 11 2005, originally uploaded by megarhyssa.

shrooms (click) 

Power to the victims of New Orleans

"Before the flood, this highly profitable vision was already displacing thousands of poor African-Americans: while their music and culture was for sale in an increasingly corporatised French Quarter (where only 4.3% of residents are black), their housing developments were being torn down. 'For white tourists and businesspeople, New Orleans's reputation means a great place to have a vacation, but don't leave the French Quarter or you'll get shot,' Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans-based labour organiser told me the day after he left the city by boat. 'Now the developers have their big chance to disperse the obstacle to gentrification - poor people.'"
 

great to see Robert Duvall's The Apostle again, though with some concern for the lovely bayou country in which its mostly set...
 

Burns Bog: Fire outside of Vancouver (Sep. 11, 2005)

Burns Bog: Fire outside of Vancouver (Sep. 11, 2005), originally uploaded by bmann.

We're about 40km away, and this morning a pall of smoke started filling our valley.

I just got back from a FEMA Detainment Camp

"We then lug all food products requiring cooking back to the car. We start unloading our snacks. Mom appeared to have cornered the market in five counties on pop-tarts and apparently that was an acceptable snack so the guy started shoving them under the counter. He said these would be good to tied people over in between their two meals a day. But he tells my mother she must take all the breakfast cereal back. My mother protests that cereal requires no cooking. "There will be no milk, ma'am." My mother points to the huge industrial double-wide refrigerator the church had just purchased in the past year. "Ma'am, you don't understand...

It could cause a riot."

He then points to the vegetables and fruit. "You'll have to take that back as well. It looks like you've got about 10 apples there. I'm about to bring in 40 men. What would we do then?"

My mother, in her sweet, soft voice says, "Quarter them?"

"No ma'am. FEMA said no...

It could cause a riot. You don't understand the type of people that are about to come here...."

I turn and walk out of the room...lugging all the healthy stuff back to the car. My son later tells me the man went on to say "We've already been told of teenage girls delivering fetuses on buses." My son steps toward him and says "That's because they've almost been starved to death, haven't had a decent place to get a good night's sleep, and their bodies can't keep a baby alive. I'm not sure that's any evidence some one should be using to show these are 'bad people'."

useful Katrina Timeline

(habeus corpus suspender Castlereagh)

PB Shelley---

The Mask of Anarchy

Written on the occasion of the massacre at Manchester.



As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

I met Murder on the way--
He had a mask like Castlereagh--
Very smooth he looked, yet grim ;
Seven blood-hounds followed him :

All were fat ; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Lord Eldon, an ermined gown ;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies.

Last came Anarchy : he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood ;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown ;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone ;
On his brow this mark I saw--
"I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!"

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

And with a mighty troop around
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down ;
Till they came to London town.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

For from pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
"Though art God, and Law, and King.

"We have waited weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold."

Lawyers and priests a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed ;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering "Thou art Law and God."

Then all cried with one accord,
"Thou art King, and God, and Lord ;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!"

And Anarchy, the Skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation. Top

For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his ;
His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.

So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament

When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said :
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air :

"My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day ;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

"He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me--
Misery, oh, Misery!"

Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose.
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale :

Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky.

It grew--a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.

On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay ;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.

With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men--so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked,--but all was empty air.

As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

And the prostrate multitude
Looked--and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien :

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth ;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt--and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose

As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe Top

Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood,
As if her heart cried out aloud :

"Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another ;

"Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you--
Ye are many--they are few.

"What is Freedom?" ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well--
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

"Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,


So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak,
They are dying whilst I speak.

Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye ;

Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.

'Paper coin' that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something from the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.

Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you--
Blood is on the grass like dew.

Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood--and wrong for wrong--
Do not thus when ye are strong.

Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wing'd quest ;
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.

Horses, oxen, have a home,
When from daily toil they come ;
Household dogs, when the wind roars,
Find a home within warm doors.

Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed ;
All things have a home but one
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none ! Top

'This is Slavery' savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do
But such ills they never knew.

What art thou, Freedom ? O ! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand--tyrants would flee
Like a dream's imagery :

Thou are not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.

Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude�
No' in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.

To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

Thou art Justice ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England--thou
Shield'st alike both high and low.

'Thou art Wisdom' Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.

'Thou art Peace' never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood ?
It availed, Oh, Liberty.
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

'Thou art Love' the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,

Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belov'd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud--whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou--let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.

Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.

Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.

From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast ;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others' misery or their own,

From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold--

From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares�

Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around

Those prison halls of wealth and fashion.
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale--

Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold--

Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free--

Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses heels.

Let the fix'd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.

Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of arm'd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.

Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,

The old laws of England--they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day ;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo--Liberty !

On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.

And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew,
What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular ;
A volcano heard afar.

And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain.
Heard again!again!again!


Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many--they are few.


(idea from the mighty James Wolcott)

racism or just cynicism at ABC News: The Note?

"The poor families of the Gulf Coast are not as potent a force in Washington as the 9/11 families, and thus won't be able to force an independent review. "

Criminal

"But to focus on Bush's personal failings as a leader--to dwell on how he played a guitar as people drowned, or the unbelievable hubris of his photo-op leadership, or his complete inability to call for meaningful, shared national sacrifice in response to a tragedy of biblical scale--is to miss something more important. These are not the failings of one man. In the reaction to this disaster we see the worst elements of the Republican Party writ large--an obscene combination of incompetence, contempt for informed opinion (some might say reality) and a mad, corrupt libertarianism that assumes things will simply take care of themselves without the interference of government.

Northern Command stood by helplessly awaiting permission to attend the desperate and dying for the same reasons the American military was ordered to stand by as Baghdad was destroyed. Anyone who still fails to understand why Iraqis who are neither Baathists nor Al-Qaeda sympathizers have taken up arms has only to draw the line between New Orleans and the Iraqi capital. In the one case as in the other, conservatives who attempt to excuse the inexcusable only heap shame on themselves. This is criminal negligence, and there must be accountability. "

Lake George

"We're naming it Lake George, 'cause it's his frickin fault. Have you seen all that data about the levee projects' funding being cut over the past three years by the Prez, and the funding transferred to Iraq? The levee, as designed, might not have held back the surge from a direct Class 5 hit, but it certainly would not have crumbled on Monday night from saturation and scour erosion following a glancing blow from a Class 3. The failure was in a spot that had just been rebuilt, not yet compacted, not planted, and not armed (hardened with rock/concrete). The project should have been done two years ago, but the federal gov't diverted 80% of the funding to Iraq. Other areas had settled by a few feet from their design specs, and the money to repair them was diverted to Iraq.

The NO paper raised hell about this time and again, to no avail. And who will take the blame for it? The Army Corps, because they're good soldiers and will never contradict the C in C. But Corps has had massive budget cuts across all departments (including wetland regulatory) since Bush took office, and now we've reaped what was sown. It really pisses me off to see the Corps get used by the Administration to shield Bush -- they do great work when they're funded. This was senseless, useless death caused not by nature but by budget decisions."