Marian's Blog

No "Race or Gender" in Political Appointments?

Conservative CNN television commentator Lou Dobbs poses the loaded question: "Do you believe race or gender should be a determining factor..." in jobs and nominations for various positions? Before anyone rushes in with "Oh gee, of course not" - guess what...  Surprise...

They already are:

photo: Tina Hager

White House photo

Haiti - and France's Taubira Law

Right this moment I'm writing this from Haiti - the 'poor' country that made France rich. And if you haven't checked it out already, it's time to learn about the Honorable Christiane Taubira's huge contribution to French law: the Taubira Law, that established the trafficking and enslavement of Blacks in the Americas as a crime against humanity. You can read the Taubira law here. Next, we're hoping for Netherlands, Spain and Portugal ... and Britain (the United Kingdom) can step forward.

POOR LOUISIANA - Katrina, Now Rita

Louisiana is still catching hell 9 hours after Hurricane Rita hit land about 3:30AM US Eastern time. It is now morning into afternoon. The storm has passed over east Texas - Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, etc. and they are assessing damage; but in Lake Charles, Louisiana they say Rita actually has intensified. The live images are frightening - the City of Lake Charles is inundated and winds are still dangerous and strong. Louisiana has been hit from the East by Katrina and now on the West by Rita, so the whole state (with some exception for North La.) has been completely knocked to her knees. Some places - with storm surge and flooding in the New Orleans/St Bernard Parish area and elsewhere - now have been hit twice. God love and help Texas and Louisiana, and everyone anywhere hit hard by both storms. In all the media coverage of Gulf Coast Texas and Louisiana, other than Ray Nagin in New Orleans, I have seen not one Black mayor.

Rita: Use Secondary Roads, Avoid highway jams; Use cell phone TEXT Messaging

People evacuating from oncoming Hurricane Rita are strongly encouraged to use secondary roads to leave the affected areas. Remember: Use cell phone text messages. Text often works when phoning does not!!! For some strange reason text messaging is used far more in other countries than in the US. For your own good - Get with the program, Americans. Those trying to flee affected areas - do your best to avoid gridlock that has formed on major highways. In the coming hours of Friday during daylight (US time) people have to find shelter before tropical-storm and then hurricane force winds move in. If not everyone is able to travel as far away from the storm as they would like, those who have sturdy shelter would be urged to take in others fleeing who do not.   

Sir Seek's Search Engine for Crises & Assistance

A kind and inventive reader has devised what "he" calls a "customized EMERGENCY-type search engine that links only to crisis situation type websites (like relief aide, evacuation planning layouts, crisis management setup and others relating to disasters caused by terrorism, natural disasters, poverty, disease and man-made war)..." The site is Crisis Search.com. Reader Sir Seek says he developed this project after Hurricane Katrina to assist in other disasters. He invites you to "... add related crisis blogs and websites to the database ..." More than a thousand sites have already been registered by their 'meta data' ("... meta tags for description, title and keywords..."). "Sir" also has external links "at the bottom of every search page" and a "... 'Suggestion Bot' that tries to suggest similar terms to use in further queries... Blogs/forums are on the way (... so people can find more personalized one-on-one advice/help) for people to post missing friends, family, pets or post about volunteering or ... strategies for emergency planning for current crisises or clean-up plans for past disasters." Thanks!

Jazz: Be Where You Are, by Alexandre Saada et al

A title could not be more fitting as folks in another part of the world deal with hurricanes in the Caribbean, Gulf and western Atlantic. Moving east to France, Paris-based pianist/composer Alex Saada releases his latest CD - Be Where You Are. Quintet includes Sophie Alour - tenor sax, Yoann Loustal - trumpet and bugle, Chris Jennings - bass, David Grebil - drums, and Alexandre himself on piano. In addition to original material I'm especially looking forward to checking their version of Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess. BWYA's premier concert is Oct 24-29 at La Fontaine in Paris - #20 rue de la Grange aux Belles, in the 10th. Metro Colonel Fabien. Be where you are. And wherever we are, we're definitely here...

Hurricane RITA - Here We Go Again

Category 5 Hurricane Rita roars toward the Texas Gulf Coast, as southwest India deals with its own heavy flooding. Women need to organise even more internationally and regionally to deal with disasters. On a lot of levels I believe women are deeply aware that ordinary, everyday life holds plenty of sturm und drang - enough drama, urgency and emergencies to last a lifetime. (Younger) Men, on the other hand, seem drawn to 'adventurism'. They seem to almost constantly need new drama, new urgencies. One spring when I worked in Peru I marvelled at their civil engineering emergency preparations in place for the annual, predicted land and rockslides and rock falls that occur due to their Andean high mountain geography. I've also heard Peru has the world's fastest-melting tropical glacier - the Qori Kalis glacier. I will never forget the "boulderslide" - not just a rock - we witnessed on the road into the city of Juaraz - in the Callejon de Huaylas. We rounded a mountain curve and avoided a huge boulder fallen onto the roadway. Then we saw the empty bus. It had swerved far left and off the road to avoid the boulder. It now rested with the front end hanging out over the river bank. Obviously the driver had just barely managed to avoid going over the edge. Ten years later I can still "see" it and I feel whoever was the driver, he or she deserved an award. Meanwhile in the US - since FEMA was created in 1979 there's been little national discussion, debate or action on grassroots and other preparations for natural disasters. It would be great if women would share more information, resources and mutual support internationally to help each other deal with catastrophic events. Oh yeah... and also do our part to help all of us 'get real' and get serious about global warming.

George Bush in Jackson Square: "Opportunity" or Opportunist?

George (Bush) is now on his what, uh... 53rd(?) trip down to New Orleans & other parts of the stricken Gulf Coast. Of course George carries with him a few more crumbs to spread (kind of like something else), even as he and his posse pass an Estate Tax repeal to relieve the suffering of the Super-Rich (Bush's base) while screwing the rest of us (including Katrina and Ophelia victims) with a new bankruptcy law. In Jackson Square "George the un-frugal Conservative" proposes big spending to rebuild New Orleans & the Gulf. It was Republicans who used to call this "throwing money at" a problem. News commentators note Bush never mentions 'sacrifice', nor how we are going to repay Chinese or other international lenders - to whom we are in major hock already. Bush thinks he also wants to re-define 'credibility'. Good luck, George. Meanwhile Louisville Courier Post political cartoonist Nick Anderson skewers The Bushter with his "HURRICANE LATRINA" cartoon. I'm loving it. Oh, and by the way... more than a few people consider New Orleans' Jackson Square "unlucky" if not downright evil. It's named in honor of the same Andrew Jackson who inaugurated the US federal Indian Removal policy and infamous Trail of Tears. As with the siege of Iraq, Katrina is well on the way to becoming yet another Bush "adventure" not turning out quite as George would like.

Louisiana Links

Baton Rouge Morning Advocate news; Survival of New Orleans blog ; http://mgno.com

Bush: "Very important" to learn relationships between federal, state, local US Governments

George Bush says he "wants to learn" or understand the relationships between US federal, state and local governments as they pertain to national emergencies. He might have benefitted from a few US civics lessons and some neighborhood volunteer work (not including self-interested glad-handing to win some office for himself or one of his brothers or his dad). This issue is not just about national emergencies; and there is not much left of federal-state-local 'relationships' that once existed, after 30 years of political and financial attack, neglect & general dissing and destruction of progressive public policies. Oh. And not to mention a few assassinations of various national and local political leaders in the USA. Sad to say but in 2005, education, jobs, poverty, hunger, housing, and medical care have all long since become national emergencies themselves. Surprise, surprise. I fully realise this may be new and unfamiliar information to Mr Bush, even as he and his GOP Congress prepare to repeal the estate tax to help the "haves and have mores" - Bush's self-proclaimed base; while closing off bankruptcy options from the middle and working classes along with the poor.