HumidCity

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ashley Morris and his contribution to this city’s Cast of Colorful Characters or of his devotion to The Saints:
Chris Rose: We’ll miss the Blogger next door
The Ashely Morris Blog
Remember Ashley Morris

Dirty Coast Press, The Rising Tide and the Big Easy Roller Girls Present:
FYYFF It’s Black and Gold Forever
A Fund-raiser for the Ashley Morris Memorial Foundation
Featuring:
The Big Easy Roller Girls
The Other Planets
Simon Lott, Helen Gillet, Justin Peake , Diamond Kinkade,
Fleur de Tease “Nude Is Nice” performance
Supa Saint
and emcee Andrew Ward - The Reverend Pysch Ward.
DEFEND NEW ORLEANS T-Shirts
Proceeds from the raffle and the auction as well as the T-Shirts will be donated by the Morris family to the Ashley Morris Memorial Foundation which will be used to present FYYFF Awards at later dates.

One-Eyed Jacks
Saturday July 26
Doors 8p
$10 cover

Please help spread the word. Anyone with donations of art for the raffle or auction please contact Loki at HumidCity

I meant to post this a few days ago, but other things devoured my time. Let me start by disclosing that I do not like sports at all. AT ALL. I’m probably the only straight male in America who does not even watch the occasional game.

That said my comment today is about sports. The recent LSU / Ohio game that my buddy Clint sang the National Anthem for. (Clint, I am SO proud of you brother!) It came to me as I was trying to navigate downtown on my way home. Usually on a bike you can zip through, even in bad traffic, but this time is was a meandering morass of human flesh.

The eye was assualted with my alma mater’s colors- purple and gold - and the screaming scarlet of the opposition’s fan base. I got a big laugh out of. Obviously none of the Ohio fans were also Star Trek fans. Any fgood Star Trek fans knows that the guys in the red shirts always die in the first reel…

There you have it, the rare Loki Sports Post

The score is 14/16 with the Saints just having scored a touchdown. The really interesting part is the vacant streets outside.

I just got back from walking to the store for cigarettes. It reminded me so much of those first weeks back after our exile. In the course of walking six blocks on a fairly major street (Prytania)  I saw only one car. When I entered the store there was only one other customer and the staff were howling as the Bears scored on the TV set up on ther counter.. Everywhere the exterior face of the city is deserted. I’m willing to bet that no crime will occur during this window either.

With the exception of that period when there were so few of us in the aftermath of the Katrina/Levee Failure/Rita apocalypse this is the emptiest I have ever seen the city streets…

The discussion generated by my Jail the Bloggers article has unearthed a number of interesting perspectives and opinions. I think the most telling are the following:

Promoted From The Comments:

Crystal :
With this I am thinking of, for example, the Oil Company lobbyists who paid the CEI company to put out pro-global-warming propaghanda commercials to be played on certain tv stations, and the 8 million dollars Exxon mobil has paid to people then went out and masqueraded as scientists to convince people there was doubt about the effects of too much carbon in the atmosphere. This could now be prosecutable if the origins of the attempt are not disclosed.

In fact, I suspect myself that the grassrootsfreedom.com website, could have been just such a set up. Lobbyists created that website as a front to misrepresent this bill and get people angry and signing petitions to take it out. They are the ones who stand to lose the most from such an amendment.

Doesn’t that scare you that no matter how good your intentions, you could be duped so easily, if that were the case?

Yes, yes it does. Very astute observations which tab nicely with this little gem of data…

Jim :

Grassrootsfreedom.com is run by Richard A. Viguerie, he owns American Target Advertising. American Target is a direct mail advertising company with a special focus on conservative candidates.

Richard has written several books on how to use the alternative media to influence politics. Wiki Richard Viguerie ( Read the wiki, you will find it very interesting -Loki)  I’d be willing to bet that Richard would have to do more reporting then he wants if this legislation passes.

This would seem, along with Nathan Morrison’s constitutional dissection of the situation, to be cause for a sigh of relief. The thing that prevents me from doing so is the one voiced here:

Maitri -
Yes, but what about a group of 100+ New Orleans-esque bloggers who actively campaign for any given change through their writing, along with some funding from a non-profit or grassroots organization?

What the unprecedented alliance of New Orleans based bloggers has done so far is impressive and unique. This bears continued watching as I am sure someone down the line might try to squelch our collective voice. Hmmm……

There are three lines of conversation on this, all with very good input from a variety of sources, ranging from constitutional analysis to pure invective.  To see all of the discussion across platforms visit the following links:

Crosspost on LJ New Orleans With Comments
Comments on the original posting (Humid City/ Powers and Morrison)

OFF TOPIC, GO SAINTS!: Let me start by saying that I am a rarity, an American male who cannot stand football. Keep that in mind. Now even I cannot miss the fact that the Saints have one more game to go in oder to make it to the SuperBowl, if they make it I will watch my first SuperBowl ever! Not only that, but I will als go so far as to state (are you listening, Ashley? Rachel G? Oyster?) that if someone provides the garb I will do so wearing a Saints Cheerleaders outfit. Something this momentus deserves some spectacle, don’t you think? If it comes to pass I will make sure that incriminating photography is arranged. Uh… (cannot believe I am saying this) Go Saints!

While the Saints game is undeniably bread and circuses, garnering attentiion and participation in far greater quantity that things like housing or elections, it still has its good sides. For the first time (yes, first time, I am NOT a sports fan of any stripe) I watched the Saints pound Atlanta into the ground the other night. Besides the awe of the impossible I also felt that the game might help bring us back into the national consciousness. From the looks of things it has. Here is part of an excellent article from (Ta-Daa!) Sportsline:

New Orleans, ravaged by Katrina, far from recovered - CBS SportsLine.com
You hear how New Orleans is coming back, that the recovery is progressing, then you come here, to the mostly black neighborhoods, and you see it is a lie, and our shame.

There are few houses left totally intact within eyesight. Debris still lines some of the streets. There are people moving about but not many. There is a deserted feel. Football might be coming back to New Orleans on Monday night, but the money from the federal government seems to have not quite made it, so many of the homes stay annihilated, and people remain lost in the bureaucracy.

When part of an American city — in these times of the mega-rich, where wealth spills onto the streets by the c-note — looks like the surface of the moon all this time after Katrina, something is wrong. You want to say the Ninth Ward looks like bombed out Iraq, but Iraq is being rebuilt with more rapidity. Saying the Ninth Ward looks like Iraq is an insult to Iraq.

In fact a columnist for a weekly newspaper here asked the question: “… are you safer in the streets of New Orleans or Iraq?”