It's been an ugly week. Let's kiss it g'bye.

Finally. Help arriving. Such a massive undertaking, and as I've said before - even in the middle of my angry rants - law enforcement, first responders, doctors, nurses have shown Herculean strength and fortitude. Hearing their stories and watching them weep should say it all. They'll have some truth-tellin' to do when all this is over, I'm sure, as will the National Guard and some of the newscasters who've been in the thick of things.

I hope everyone that has been stranded in New Orleans has a clean, dry, safe place to sleep tonight. I've made my donations, and I've said (and will continue to say) my prayers. It's been a fateful, frightening week - let's move forward.

As for me, I'm taking two 13-year-old boys to Dragon*Con tomorrow - oh, my goodness. (And I'm not really much of a sci-fi fan.) Will send along pics if I get some interesting ones.

Now. Pour me a double.

Katrina rescue via database?

Just an idea. Why doesn't someone create a database of homes, hotels/motels, churches, schools with rooms available to house the victims of Katrina for a month or two? Ordinarily "government" would do this kind of thing, but - um, pro'ly not now since it's in complete chaos. What about a website coordinated by some aid organization instructing people to go online, register your name, location, what kind of housing you can offer, length of time, etc. Then other aid organizations like the Red Cross, church charities, whoever, would guarantee financial or some other kind of support (clothing, transportation, employment, school, etc.) to each person/family relocated. The transportation industry (airlines, buses, trains, even taxi/limo services) would have to step up to get people to their new locations.

I know this is fraught with pitfalls, but smart people can work those out. I have heard so many people say "I have an extra room or two and would be glad to take in a family or an old person for a month or two."

And if not for Katrina - it seems to me that Homeland (In)Security should start building this kind of volunteer database right away so that during the next disaster - natural or manmade - people can be quickly and comfortably relocated. Just a thought. Shoot it down, if you must . . .

OK - seems the idea does have legs, thanks to MoveOn.org. Here's their website for Hurricane Housing.org. If you've got a spare room or have access to someplace that can house folks, do what you can!

Mission Impossible?

Where are these people when we need 'em? James? Cinnamon? Barney? Bet they could figure out a way to help the folks in New Orleans. Paul Krugman makes some good points in today's New York Times. A couple of wonderful homages to The Crescent City - one in The London Times from Ben Macintyre, one from Rick Bragg in The Washington Post. Good cartoon in The Guardian. It's Friday, folks. I better not be ranting on this stuff on Monday - these people must be rescued today. American Red Cross here. Episcopal Relief and Development here.

Angry and helpless

I'm writing this three hours after watching the evening news programs - hoping, thinking I would calm down enough to journal something thoughtful and uplifting. Nope. Can't. I cried and ached so much during those newscasts. Who wouldn't? Thousands and thousands of people abandoned (yes, abandoned) in the worst imaginable circumstances - right before our eyes! This is New Orleans, for God's sake, not some podunk place on the other side of the world or a backwater (no pun intended) rural spot in the heartland. New Orleans is a metropolis! Despite the natural catastrophe that has befallen it, there are ways in and ways out (I have this on first-hand authority). What in the hell is taking so long? Huh? What?

I heard (on NPR) and saw (NBC) that puny excuse of a Homeland Security Director Chertoff make excuse after excuse. "Oooh. Boo-hoo! Natural disaster! 90,000 square miles." (How big is Iraq, I wonder?) Obviously, if color-coded Homeland Security can't evacuate a major city and/or get basic food, water, and medicine to stranded people - what the hell are they good for? Homeland what-did-you-say? Where are the National Guard? Why weren't they in there Saturday? Sunday? Monday? And the FEMA guy is a joke. Completely clueless. (Bring back James Lee Witt, or whatever the guy's name was that dealt with the flooding in the mid-90s.)

People are dying. Dying! Charity Hospital - um, think anybody can help 'em out? Babies, children, old folks, sick folks, sick-and-tired folks. This is the best the mighty United States of America can do? Why on earth would any other country on the face of the earth trust us to save them, bring them "democracy," when we can't help our own? Yup. Be right there. Let us just get this stuff organized. Hang on. Be patient. Patient, my ass. Patient this, oh mighty leader sitting in your comfy air-conditioned, water-food-bathroom whenever you want them environment. (And that goes for you, too, Congress - all of you!)

Worse (and most sinful) are those people who blame the victims. "They should have left. It's their own fault." "New Orleans was a sinful place and it was God's will that it be destroyed." "Shoot all the looters."

Please - let me tell you about "looting mentality," the white-folks kind. Yesterday in Atlanta we had a run on gas. Long lines formed throughout the day at gas stations and many stations ran out. And though most people were patient, lots of ugly incidents happened as people jockeyed for position in their air-conditioned cars trying to get home in time for dinner. I know and you know that if they'd been stuck there for three or four days, cars out of gas and no way to get home, no food, no water - but mainly, no gas - honey, these lily-white suburbanites would've been lootin' and shootin', believe you me.

No, I don't condone lawlessness and looting, but boy - who knows what we're capable of in 100+ degree weather, 95% humidity, without the very basic necessities. I suspect a little lootin' might give us a bit of satisfaction. I hope not, but maybe it would. Don't know. Don't want to find out.

What is happening to New Orleans un-Christian, un-American, and un-Human. (OK, I know the term is "inhumane," but I was going with the flow, there.) And I only mention un-Christian because a) I am one, and b) I get tired of the "Christians" being so un-Christian. I know that miracles are happening and many, many good people are doing God-like deeds, but too many people are losing or have lost hope. Once that's gone, nothing.

Give. Pray. May God have mercy on our souls.

Anyway, I've added some good New Orleans/Katrina blogs to my link list on the left. Check out: Humid City, NOLA View, Metroblogging New Orleans and CJ Experience. Lots of good first-hand experiences, plus lists of missing people/found people (in case you're looking).

(Wonder what kind of trouble I'm going to get into for calling the Director of Homeland Security a "puny excuse"? I actually meant to call him a "puny weasel." Uh-oh.)

"They endured."

I saluted the literature of New Orleans a couple of days ago (and didn't do a very thorough job of it - sorry!), so I need to give it up for Mississippi. Believe it or not - and it is hard to believe whenever somebody like Gov. Haley Barbour opens his bubba-mouth - Mississippi has birthed the greatest of the great American writers. That's why I never quite believe the statistics that put Mississippi dead-last in education - somehow, some way, the most brilliant thinkers and writers are born in the Black Belt (not to mention the soul-shattering blues musicians).

How can you touch the Mama and Papa, Eudora Welty and William Faulkner? By the way, there's a new biography about Eudora by Suzanne Marrs, recently reviewed by the New York Times , among others. I always loved The Ponder Heart. And what can I say about Faulkner? His prose is dense and his books don't make for casual reading, but by the time you're finished with one, the characters, the environment, and the history are a part of you. It's hard to pick a favorite, but I'll close my eyes and pick The Sound and the Fury.

Here is a great list of Mississippi writers - just take a gander at the names (besides Welty and Faulkner): Tennessee Williams, Shelby Foote, Richard Wright, Walker Percy (yes, I know he's on my New Orleans list, too, but most of these writers crossed over to The Big Easy at one time or another), Ellen Gilchrist, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, pot-boiler-churner-outter John Grisham, Sweet Potato Queen Jill Conner Browne. I know I'm leaving out really important folks, but I just wanted to give you the range of talent in this seemingly-backwater place - heavyweights, lightweights, knowns, unknowns. Simply amazing.

Read about the people and places that have been leveled, flooded, and over-burdened by Kristina. Oh, what we - as Americans (all Americans) - have lost. Show 'em some love.

Katrina concerns

Well, now folks are shooting at the rescue helicopters. I just don't have much to say about any of this right now. There are plenty of great blogs putting out information and giving people a chance to sort through all that Katrina hath wrought. Besides the obvious, mammoth concern for getting storm-victims the basic necessities to live, I'm also concerned with about:

• All the little children, big kids, and college students that need to find a place to get basic schooling right now. The physical and financial logistics for the cities and states outside the storm areas to absorb these students is mind-numbing.
• Sick people - how to care for people who were sick or in hospitals before and the many thousands that have been injured and made ill over the past few days. Again, municipalities around the country will have to absorb the patients immediately. And what are the short-term/long-term repercussions of this?
• The animals - much-loved family pets, as well as the animals at The Audubon Zoo and the aquarium. Worry about the animals might seem superfluous when there has been so much human devastation, but I'm still thinking about them.
• The art of New Orleans - is it all gone? Fabulous, irreplaceable museums, historic buildings/homes, churches/cathedrals - lost forever? Again, this may seem a minor concern, but it still rips at the heart and mind.
• Streetcars - haven't seen any photos of the famous streetcars that normally run from Canal Street up through the Garden District. Were they stored somewhere before the storm hit? Silly concern, I know, but just wondering.
• Law enforcement/municipal workers - they must be zombies right now. I can't even imagine what they've faced over the past four days. And if - as the Louisiana National Guard dude has said - they have plenty of LA Natl Guard units that can help, why weren't they put in place on Saturday? Sunday? Certainly Monday? Or are they there and we haven't seen them on the news? I'm just wondering why the National Guard (if plenty are available) haven't had a more visible presence, especially in New Orleans. The NOLA police seems to have been bearing the burden of this.

Well, I obviously have more to say than I thought I did. I guess we just have to keep checking with The Times-Picayune for updates on this stuff. The paper seems stunned and pissed off enough to tell the truth about what's happening down there.

A Streetcar Named Get Me Outta Here

Katriiiiiiiiinaaaaaaa!

Do what you can, folks. Money's a big help - here's American Red Cross. Or, for all you good Episcopalians out there, here's Episcopal Relief and Development. But don't just sit there - do something.

Riddle me this

Another writing journal find. Several years ago I made a list of questions I'm perpetually asking myself, and I discovered the list a few days ago while browsing an old writing journal. Here are some of the questions that kept surfacing in 2002:

• How many people have I (truly) made happy?
• How do I really take control, as opposed to acting like I have control?
• Is it ever safe to tell someone how you feel?
• Will I ever get the junk out of the closets and the attic?
• What does it take to get inspired?
• Will anybody ever hold my hand again?
• What time of the day am I most productive?
• Is anyone glad to see me?
• Will breathing ever get any easier?
• Can I just walk away?
• What will Christmas be like this year?
• What's the funniest thing I've seen lately?
• How do I simplify, simplify, simplify?
• Why do I have to keep asking the same questions over and over?

Well, you get the picture (the journal list is three pages long). All of the questions still flit through my mind occasionally, and I know that they reveal more about me than the answers ever could. Well, anyway, most of the answers change according to the situation or season. Still, it helps to read them over now and then.

Morning quote, from The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje:

The word should be "thinkering." Caravaggio's mind slips into this consideration, another syllable to suggest collecting a thought as one tinkers with a half-completed bicycle.

The cure for the summertime (TV) blues

The hand-wringing over slumping movie box-office receipts is laughable. How stupid are these people (and the media that keep reporting it)? If anyone tried to poll me on it, I'd strap 'em to a comfy chair for a week and force feed 'em Turner Classic Movies. TCM has done a beautiful job this summer demonstrating classic film-making and unsurpassed entertainment. Its "Summer Under the Stars" campaign rolls out gem after gem after gem, from 6 in the morning to well after midnight (and darn it, because I can't stay up that late and I don't have TiVo).

A 30-something friend at work pulls the TCM monthly schedules, highlights what he wants to see, then hands the list to me so that I can make sure he doesn't miss a classic. And I don't mean the usual Casablanca Citizen Kane classics, either (because those are certainly marked). C'mon - everybody needs to see iconic films like Where the Boys Are, The Russians are Coming/The Russians are Coming, The Long, Long Trailer, and The Thin Man series (and I could go on and on).

Watching the critical, as well as the fun or silly, classics, here's what my strapped-to-the-chair-"boohoo-why-isn't-anybody-going-to-movies-anymore" person would recognize for him/herself:

1. Real movies have stories (plots, scripts, good writing - however you want to say it). If the story ain't there, yo' money is wasted.
2. Real movies have people who talk to each other, with conversations that move the story along (see above). Nothing makes movie-minutes fly by faster than well-written dialogue. (How many times can we watch Jack Nicholson try to order toast in Five Easy Pieces? A million times. Brilliantly written, brilliantly played. No special-effects needed.)
3. Real movies are made by craftsmen/women. Directors, actors, writers, Directors of Photography, set design, editing, lighting, sound, wardrobe - every shot, every frame a little work of art. Money has nothing to do with it, since some of the best were made on the cheap or made before bells-and-whistles made things so expensive (though these craftsmen most certainly deserve every penny they earn).
   

Now, don't think I'm a cinema-luddite. I like an occasional special-effects orgy, but it takes a lot to impress me special-effects-wise now (and I suspect the same is true even for 9-year-old boys). Nothing impresses me more than a well-crafted script, exceptional cinematography, and solid acting. Let the story come to the front and then - wowser! - ya' got me hooked. To Kill a Mockingbird, Alfie (the real one with Michael Caine), The Palm Beach Story, The Women - oh shoot, just pull up the TCM site and plan your TV time.

In these crazy, unsettling times, these films will tell you more about what it means to be an American or a citizen of the world than any politician or news analyst.

Climbing down from soap-box now.

A "recipe" in memory of Mother

Though I'm not a "scientific" person, I love reading the Science section of the New York Times on Tuesdays. A lot of the stuff is complicated gobbledegook to me, but there are always one or two (sometimes more) articles that really hit home in a personal way. Today, it's Dr. Larry Zaroff's "One Last Recipe From Mother, for the Good Death." His mom must've been a real peach. She wasn't allowed to really come into her own until she was 80 when her husband died, and then she flourished - running her husband's real estate business better than he had and becoming the "mainframe" communicator in the family. When she had a massive heart attack that she knew was the beginning of the end for her, she wanted a good death for herself and for her loved ones. Read this article.

My mother died March 14, 2004. She would've been 89 years old today, August 30. Zaroff's little story is a great way to remember my own sweet mama.

Literary salute to the Big Easy

Feelin' some simpatico with our friends in New Orleans suffering through the 'cane Kat? Settle in with a good read set in the Big Easy. I have a few personal favorites. How about The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy? I think you could also get away with Percy's Love in the Ruins, although the setting is a little obscure (but it's very New Orleansy). Or John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, published thanks to Percy and Toole's tenacious mama. Or, shoot, just go ahead and dive into an Anne Rice - you don't have to tell anybody. I think The Witching Hour's her best "New Orleans" book. I found a website that lists books set in New Orleans if you want to explore more, though it leaves off The Moviegoer - and how could that happen?

Cheers, oh brave and drenched New Orleans. Laissez le bon temps roulez - just not today!

We come from the planet Turquoisia, and we come in peace

I was promised wall-walking in 2001: A Space Odyssey

Here's a follow-up to my post about disappointment in 21st fashion and technology (Jane Jetson). Look at this picture. This is what I'm talking about. Is there anything this cool right now? Nooooooo. No futuristic clothes. No jet-packs. No space malls. Who failed us on this? I want names and numbers.

Oh, and you need to know that the planet Earth has been renamed Turquoisia. Spent yesterday afternoon with my 8-year-old bud Joanna, just hangin' out in the park. Lots of silly talk that started with the usual 10-minute naughtiness about Uranus led to the conclusion that - hey - "Earth" isn't such a good name either (though not as hilariously funny as Uranus). All the other planets are named after ancient gods and goddesses, except for Earth and (you guessed it) Uranus. (See how many times I managed to say Uranus? It's addictive, I tell ya'.)

Joanna and I decided we wanted a better name, something that reflects the blue and green of the place. She came up with Turquoisia. It's a little long and hard to spell, but other than that I think it sums things up nicely. Just think: Mother Turquoisia, Turquoisia shoes, turquoisia-bound, moving Heaven and Turquoisia . . .

Actually, we decided Turquoisia would be a temporary moniker until we found a goddess's name worth using. Suggestions?

If you demand the price, you must look at the result

Spent too much money in here, May 2005

A little early morning musing on a passage from Pat Barker's Regeneration, one part of her World War I trilogy. . . I have been immersed in the Great War for the last several months because it is a major part of the book I'm writing. (If you're interested in how that's playing out, you can visit my "serious" blog The Wildgoose Chase .)

Anyway, let me set the scene here. One of the characters, a beautiful, healthy young woman, goes to a war hospital and encounters the worst of the war wounded - men who have been horribly disfigured or maimed:

Simply by being there, by being that inconsequential, infinitely powerful creature: a pretty girl, she'd made everything worse. Her sense of her own helplessness, her being forced to play the role of Medusa when she meant no harm, merged with the anger she was beginning to feel at their being hidden away like that. If the country demanded that price, then it should bloody well be prepared to look at the result. she strode on through the heat, not caring where she was going, furious with herself, the war . . . everything.

Seems to ring true today. Will we ever learn to tell the difference between necessary, honorable wars and the superfluous, hubris-filled ones? Pro'ly not.

Da Shakespeare Code

Forget the Billy-Bob Shakespeare we've all come to know and love. Turns out the guy was down-right subversive and wrote in code. Yup. All those lovely little plays were just chockful of dangerous political messages.

Your alternatives are: 1) Get busy re-reading all Shakey's plays and try to figure out his byzantine network of clues that gives away his strong Catholic loyalties and his fears for drab, Protestant Elizabethan England; or 2) Find yourself a copy of Clare Asquith's new book Shadowplay. (Personally, I think she'd sell more copies if she changed the title to Da Shadowplay and wrote under a less pretentious name like, say, Dan Brown.)

Asquith contends that Elizabethan Blighty was fraught with dangers for Will and all loyal Catholics, so he had to pretend to suck up to the Queen and her new-found religion with plays that sold the current political line. Still he was a good Catholic boy, so he coded the language and images in his plays to get him off the hook, eternally speaking. He was also more edu-ma-cated that previously surmised, sneaking off to Oxford for some real readin' and writin' (not sure about the 'rithmatic).

It was scary times in England:

It is now widely accepted that the era was not a period of political consensus, says Asquith. Instead, it was a time in which opposition voices were banished and censorship meant the burning of illegal pamphlets and printed works.

Whew! Sounds suspiciously like 21st century USA, eh? I really must start coding these blogs. All right, my little Gad-Poor-Alecks, you can read about it in today's The Observer.

How to avoid the Incredible Shrinking Brain

A few weeks ago Posh Spice - one of the true intellectual giants of our time (snark) - claimed that she'd never read a book. I guess that includes her own "autobiography" (snark II). For those of us who have two or three books going at a time or keep a paperback in our purse "just in case," Posh's statement leaves us wondering if she isn't some alien species dropped to earth solely to have a flash-in-the-pan pop career and marry a really famous soccer/football player. Never read a book. Try to imagine that (cue cold chills and unsightly tic of right eye). Now before I go too far in Posh-condemnation, I think she did admit to reading magazines and the occasional newspaper. Maybe. But she didn't mention children's books - she has three boys, so I can only assume that these little fellers aren't getting any brain-input either. Sigh.

In the midst of that news, The Guardian ran a short blurb about what books - or any sorts of intellectual pursuit - do for the brain. Most all of it I already knew, but it's good to have a review every now and then. In short, the brain shrinks as we age - and before you 20-year-olds start rolling your eyes, the shrinking starts around your age, my little kudzu vines. The brain needs to be exposed to new information constantly. Reading is an important way to keep the brain facile as it shrinks away to a dried up little pea (no, no - I don't think it goes that far). The good news for Posh is that there's really no diff between books, magazines, or ads posted to the subway wall, and - here's where she'll luck out, the silly little twit - physical activity counts as well.

Now, I don't care one way or another whether Posh and Becks read (though I do hope someone will learn to read well enough to give their boys a bedtime story now and then). My amazement comes from someone who proudly declares that she hasn't read a book.

She may have all the money in the world, but she certainly isn't rich.

It's a beautiful morning here in Atlanta, finally cooling down to the 70s. The remnants of hurricanes won't blow through until next week. Enjoy your Saturday, wherever you are.

Is that. . . ? Can it possible be? It's so bright! It's. . . it's THE WEEKEND!

Time's up. Crawl outta your cubicles, cubbyholes, and hovels. Look! Daylight! (Unless you're in Florida - then it's "Look! Hurricane!") That's right, my little gin blossoms - cast off the shackles and pull yo' party-self together. Restore, refresh, renew!

Hold on to your dogs and office chairs . . .

The oh, so lovable boss from Slough - David Brent

Harlan Pepper loves his hound. Pine nut, hickory nut, pistashio nut . . .

Harland Pepper and David Brent are making a movie together! The Guardian is reporting that, yes indeedy, Ricky Gervais (AKA Brent/The Office) is joining the usual Christopher Guest (AKA Pepper/Best In Show) faux-documentary suspects like Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey, et. al., in a new film called For Your Consideration. Well, one can hardly contain one's bladder on this one. Christopher Guest and crew are brilliant in everything they touch - Waiting for Guffman, Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, and - of course, the classic - This is Spinal Tap. Now throw in the genius of The Office and Extras - and goodness gracious me! Here is a boatload of people who can think (imagine that!) and be funny and successful all at the same time. The combination is so rare that I think I'm going to have to sit down for a minute.

Needless Markup has gone to the dogs (and rightly so)

Well, here's one that'll leave you shakin' your head and wanting to bitch-slap the next self-righteous desperate housewife in a gas-guzzling tank. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that some lame-brain left two poodles in a behemoth SUV in the Lenox Square parking lot here in Atlanta. Let me set the scene for ya' - it has been hot here. Not regular Southern hot - I mean oven-roasted turkey hot. Awful! So, anyway, a Neiman-Marcus employee comes out, sees the dogs, and tries to rescue them from being baked alive:

I walked out the door, saw the dogs, went back into the store and got the phone number for Fulton County Animal Control and wrote down the tag number," she said. "I went out a second time and checked the doors and they were locked."

Cheatham went back inside and picked up a little paper bowl and a bottle of water.

"I'm 5-2," she said. "I took my shoes off and got on the hood."

That's when everything went to the dogs. By the time she was in a position to reach down through the sunroof, the car owner "came out and called me fat and ugly," Cheatham said. "She was just screaming." Cheatham said Ramona Lindsey screamed for her to get off the "$80,000 car."

According to Cheatham, Lindsey also said: "I hope you're somebody because I'm going to have your job."

Lindsey, of Peachtree City, declined comment, saying twice Thursday that her attorney would contact the newspaper, but he didn't.

The next day, Neiman-Marcus fires the woman who tried to save the dogs! Say, wha'? Now, I don't know what this employee had done in the past that would warrant dismissal, but this, this shouldn't have pushed it over the edge. Are you with me here? In fact the owner of the dogs and the god-awful SUV shoulda' been taken to jail immediately and the car sold to help support the troops (don'cha' just know there was a big yellow ribbon slapped on the back of the car?). I mean, she needs to be taken off the streets because she's too stupid to drive, too stupid to own dogs, too stupid to shop - well, you get my drift. She's endangering the population, both human and canine.

OK, that's my vent for the day. And woo-hoo! It's Friday!

Eat, eat so you don't go mad

Another little history-mystery blurb this morning from the London Times, regarding the cause of King George III's porphyria (the cause of his mental instability). Seems it had to do with his preference for boiled eggs instead of rich, lavish banquet-food. The newly-discovered protein that causes porphyria is called PGC-1a. When the protein becomes over-active in the liver - usually due to fasting or malnutrition - the disease kicks in. Seems our choice is madness or obesity. So eat, eat, my little darlin's!

The note in the middle

A Bloomsbury Bookstore on a Sunday Morning in May (2005)

My writing journal not only gives me a place to scribble ideas for stories and articles, but it's also where I keep favorite passages from books I'm reading. Here's a great line from The Thinking Reed by Rebecca West:

"There was nothing casual about life in France; it demanded perpetually that one should hit the note in the middle."

Don't you find that - much too often - we are called upon to do the very tedious work of hitting the middle note, over and over? It takes such concentration and energy to stay on the dead-center of things - at work, at home, with people with love, with people we don't. As one who has a hard time staying on the middle note, often running up and down the keyboard, jumping up on the black keys, generally causing a ruckus - I think of West's words when I'm forced to contain myself.

I love Rebecca West, but I can't fly through one of her books. Her writing is so brilliant, that I have to savor every line.