Pardon me while I self publicize… Three years in the making, my first book is now available at Blurb. You can view the commercial here.
UPDATE! It just gets better!
Just two days after releasing the lower ninth ward: K+36 on Blurb, they contacted me for their Take 5 Tuesday interview on the Blurberati Blog! I’m positively dizzy!
Mere weeks remain, soon the overburdening hysteria will subside as votes are tallied, recounts demanded and one reptile or the other slithers into the Oval Office. Like the majority of my fellow bloggers on HumidCity I am pro Obama. Unlike many out there I do not trust or like him very much at all. I do believe he is our last, best hope for salvaging something from our country’s toppling fall of the past eight years.
I don’t think anyone who seeks power is trustworthy, power intrinsically attracts the corruptible. Make no mistake, I am sharpening my claws for Obama’s screw ups once he is in office as I would anyone else taking the position. All politicians must be watch-dogged, even (sometimes especially) the charismatic ones.
That said I encourage all of you out there to cast a vote for Obama come election day. He is the only politician I’ve ever heard acknowledge the vital nature of dealing with the wetlands. While we were evacuated during Gustav I caught some of Anderson Cooper’s 360 when he was speaking with Obama. The Senator from Illinois was asked what his strategy for the Gulf Coast would be upon taking the Oval Office. Sen. Obama replied that while levees and housing issues are vital the most important thing is restoration of the wetlads so that this becomes a once every hundred to hundred fifty years occurence as aopposed to an every two or three year occurence. As Gulf Coast residents this is an angle we all to be on the same page about. “Drill, baby, drill!” will do nothing but further destroy our only barrier against the storm surge.
Obama is as close to the answer as we are going to get right now. It is incredibly important to have someone in office who will deviate from the disastrous path our country has been taken down by the “Current Occupant.” As McCain’s campaign becomes more overtly hate filled and brazen in its attempts at deception I feel pretty safe in saying he is not the one we need. He voted with Dubya 90%+ of the time and helped to bring our nation to its knees, as we watch the global economy begin to spiral down the toilet as a result the course of action should be clear.
Once he is in office then it will be time to explore and lobby for a new syste (Instant Runoff Voting comes readily to mind) that will enhance democracy by making third party candidates viable without being “Vote wasters.”
Come on people, this is too important to screw up.
-Loki HumidCity Founder
My wife drives me nuts. This is why I love her.
While everyone else in the city (myself included) is running around at war with the month of August — fighting and backbiting and teeth-gnashing and letting their fear and anger get the best of them, my girl Elly is keeping a calm head and focusing on the one thing where she knows she can make a difference. Saving little lives.
At the moment our house is a bit of a zoo, filled with wayward animals that she’s been busy snatching from the jaws of death and is currently seeking homes for. This is called fostering. But she does the rescue bit, too. Every single day.
Our latest little tribe of houseguests is a mama cat and her six babies, and a seventh one (a little orphan) who the mama cat has amazingly accepted as her own, without question or complaint. If only the people in this city treated each other with such generosity. The little orphan has been given a new chance at life from this tight knit little family, just as Elly gave them all a chance by saving them from euthanasia only hours before it was too late.
Please read Elly’s latest blog entry about this unusual family of cats, and their harrowing story of abandonment and salvation. It will warm your heart, remind you how fragile and fleeting life is, and show you how a simple act of selflessness can really and truly put things right.
Elly’s well-written account, called “Cats Can’t Count,” with pictures, is here:
http://waifnola.livejournal.com/2008/08/20/
The cats are named after our favorite New Orleans characters and colorful homeless folks, they are: Ruthie the Duck Lady (the mama cat), Biscuit, Lucky Bead Lady, Head Wound Harry, Mr. Ike and His Harmonica That Cost More than a Car, Geico Caveman, Homeless Bill, and Flash. Here they are:
Have I mentioned that my wife drives me nuts? God bless her for it. She also keeps me sane. Little acts of kindness can have that effect.
Elly’s little neighborhood rescue organization, which she runs with her friend Gail, is called WAIF (Wandering Animals’ Insurance Fund). Please visit their website at http://waifnola.com. Their motto is: “Two Crazy Ladies on a Mission and One Husband Who Barely Tolerates Them.”
I’m the husband. :-)
- Louis Maistros
While neither the wife nor I are overly enamored of Valentine’s day, that Hallmark driven feast day of merchandising and consumerism that it is, I would like to take a moment to tell the world how much I love her.
She has stood by me during some sincerely dark times: the loss of my best friend, Katrina exile, the year of ten funerals, and my own times of being less than pleasant. After eight years together and fifteen months of marriage I am still thrilled every morning when I wake up to see her face on the pillow.
Whatever else may happen as long as we are together I will always have hope and I will always try to be the best person I can be for her.
Honey, I love you!
Loki, Founder HumidCity
2006 with its floods, pestilence, and piracy (yes, real pirates- no, not the imitation depp and disney variety) pales in comparison to the four “whore’s men” of the apocalypse that are now on the horizon… the eve of destruction will be far worse than what the 60’s mcguinns and mcguires ever dreamed or dreamt of…. this korean war will make hawkeye spill his martini, or better yet, do a spit take (??)…. klinger will rip his hose…. but don’t you fret, kim jong-il will buy us all a round of henessey as slim pickens comes back to sing “til we meet again”
as i walk around new orleans, it’s as if the bomb has already fallen… the naked, wasted, abandoned city, the crumbled buildings, the dashed hopes, the smells of disease and refuse, all surrounded by the symphony of the militaristic drone as hummers and tanks roll through, as another band of vigilantes fire and the mad max-like maruders and ne’er-do-wells do their mad max-like maruader and vigilante thang… and the MURDER, oh the MURDER… more vicious than the nazis more horrendous than the korean interment camps… and the worst murder one between strangily estranged lovers…. her head in a pot to boil, her limbs in the oven to roast… who is the omega man? who is the damn dirty ape? neither charlton heston nor michael moore could make this film….
you can’t make that sh*t up… i wish i could…
in “apocalypse now,” kurtz mutters that ” ‘IF’ is the middle word in ‘LIFE’ “… a scary apoco-thought is revealed… a glimmer of hope perhaps… IF is life’s crunchity goodness … IF is life’s life-affirming nugat, IF is life’s impatient licks to the center of a blow pop…. all of life’s IF’s are all these hopes sandwiched inside the four letters… L I F E…. i see the IF… i see the potential.. but like Kurtz i also have seen the horror, i’ve smelled it, tasted it, heard its screams in my sleep as i lie awake in my FEMA trailer waiting for the other shoe to drop, another shot to be fired, another robber, burglar, rapist, politician….to rob, burgle, rape, or politic me.
i can see the pot on the stove, the limbs in the oven… IF may be the middle word in LIFE, but EAT is the middle word in DEATH, and this is one last supper that i can no longer stomach…. the cook? the thief? his wife? her lover? “shall we start with the…. it’s a delicacy?”
BLOG THIS!
A pinch of panic, a dash of unease, and one hefty spoonful (make that two!) of propaganda. Add to a simmering pot of rubble and stir under NOLA heat until nicely thickened. Garnish with denial and serve with side dishes of optimism and hard work.
Voila! One heaping helping of Hurricane Season!
Things here are scary, depressing, uplifting, insane, and unpredictable. We are all wondering exactly how we feel about the advent of Storm Season here, by turns hopeful and fearful. The mountainous evidence of the Corps of Engineers’ design failures act as a counterpoint to efforts like the Katrina Krewe and ThinkNOLA.
As I sit and catch my breath after riding my bike home throught the darkened streets I reflect upon my last two hours, teaching a Web Publishing Workshop to community and civic activists and leaders. There is plenty of good and bad floating in this gumbo, we just have to make the right efforts to ensure that the good is triumphant!
I’m proud to be an American tonight. I haven’t felt this way in a long damn time.
Joe the Plumber could not be reached for comment.
I love my country. I love my family. I love the planet. I love every human being that voted for Barack Obama, and even the ones who didn’t. I am pure love and hope and gratitude at this moment.
I am an American again and so are you. We will be one country. We will again inspire the world. Our greatest generation is yet to come. I may not live to see it, but my children will — and now I know that it will come. Our nation’s best days are not in the past. No, they are not.
President Obama, thank you for the hope you have given my kids, and may God bless you always.