What do you think?

We've heard from the pundits; now let's hear from loyal readers of this blog.

Read more about the Reichstag Fire, even if you thought you had a general idea of what it was (I thought so too but found the above-linked Wikipedia entry enlightening anyway).

You should see a blogpoll above. If you don't, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

I Cuban doctors

The latest on Katrina... Fidel Castro offered to send 1100 doctors and 26 tons of medical supplies (more here).

I've been thinking about Cuban doctors since this thing started.

For those who don't know (and how would you?), whenever there's a major health crisis in Latin America (and often enough, in Africa), the Cuban doctors arrive on the scene and save the day. Cuban and Cuban-trained doctors also are to be found throughout Latin America and Africa setting up clinics and working in the poorest areas where local doctors "fear to tread."

You can consider this a marvelous PR sleight-of-hand, a devious plot to instigate worldwide revolution, or the realization of a genuine spirit of socialism—or all of the above—but the fact is, Cuban doctors are pretty much the heroes of the world. (I wrote about them before here).

I wonder what would happen if they came here... that would be amazing, 1100 Cuban doctors. An army of doctors.

Not that anyone would ever let them come here--Americans might discover that folks can go to the doctor for free anytime in Cuba, and we might get the crazy idea that that's a good thing.

As for Castro himself... well, I'm not his #1 fan, but check out what he says here:

[Castro] would not comment on the U.S. government's response to the tragedy because "this is not the time to kick an adversary -- while he's down."

*sigh* ....I can't imagine Bush saying anything half so classy...can you? (Though my favorite Castro quote is still when he offered to send election observers in 2000).

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In other news, I saw my old student-teaching teacher today—not the mean one, the awesome one, from 2003—the one who got her start when, together with a few of her cousins, she was selected by her community in 1955 as someone who could survive being the first Black students to attend the formerly white high school. She has some tales to tell. She's a warrior & she tried to teach me how to be one, too. If only!

Anyway, I knew she had family in Mississippi, but turns out, she's got a ton of family in New Orleans—her Daddy's sister settled there and all the cousins and their children are there. But she hasn't heard from anyone, doesn't know if they're dead or alive, or where they are, or anything. I almost cried on the spot, thinking of all those terrible pictures and all those horrible stories and wondering if any of them were Miss Tenia's family.

Somehow it really does make it more "real" to have it be someone you know. Shouldn't be true but it is...

a random memory

Overheard, at the beach one summer:

Younger brother: "WHOA! Hey Trevor, check out this GIANT MOSQUITO!"

Older brother: "You moron—that's a dragonfly."

That cracked me up. Is it just as funny if you weren't there?

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Which reminds me... a photo from Mr. Itayama's garden in Hokkaido
(Mrs. Itayama is the intended recipient of the pi shawl...more about them another time)

dragonfly & hydrangeas

anger & fear

If you're not in the mood for this kind of introspection, skip down to the next post for some fun knitting pix

I was thinking this morning that anger can come from fear or it can come from compassion. Anger from fear makes your whole body clench up into a scrunched, hard fist—it makes everything hurt. Anger from compassion is different...or is it? What do you think?

I was also thinking about how fear is the root of so much suffering. Many times if I stop & ask myself, why am I thinking or acting like this? (when I don't like how I'm thinking or acting) it's because I'm acting in fear.

I might be afraid that something will happen that I don't want—that's the kind of fear we're used to thinking about—fear of death (fear of a tornado or plane crash), fear of pain (fear of rejection or disrespect).

But sometimes I'm afraid of things being different from how I think they should be.

I think we're less accustomed to thinking about fear this way. But our set ideas about "how things should be" can seem so important—we take them as seriously as death and pain. It can be small things (I sorted my papers into three piles and if anyone messes them up I'll die) or bigger things (teachers should teach like this, and if I'm near someone who's not teaching that way, I can't stand it, I'll die).

Yes, this is kind of a paraphrase of Pema Chodron's From Fear to Fearlessness, for those of you who have read that. I've been listening to it in the car a lot and I'm just kind of assimilating it into my own language. For those who aren't familiar with it, I recommend it!

That's all for now.

On a more cheerful note...

Loopy posted about her pi shawl. So I formatted some photos & emailed them to her...

...but then I got so depressed with all this New Orleans stuff that I decided to put a couple here, by way of cheering this place up a bit. There's still a bunch more for her to post.

Here's the shawl on the 20th in Hokkaido:

A tantalizing glimpse... you'll have to wait for Loopy to reveal the whole thing.

Here's a closeup of Loopy knitting on the train... I like how her hand is blurry...


Ah knitting... a source of solace—even to us non-knitters—amid all the disasters of the world...

ok, just one more...

A friend sent me this well-written piece. Worth reading if it's the only one you read...The author talks a lot about the situation in New Orleans prior to Katrina...

For those who have not lived in New Orleans, you have missed a incredible, glorious, vital, city. A place with a culture and energy unlike anywhere else in the world...a city of kindness and hospitality...

He also fills in a lot of the details that help contextualize the demonization of the victims & the stunning failure of most officials to do much of anything to help them.

It is also a city of exploitation and segregation and fear...There is an atmosphere of intense hostility and distrust between much of Black New Orleans and the N.O. Police Department....Race has always been the undercurrent of Louisiana politics. This disaster is one that was constructed out of racism, neglect and
incompetence.

I definitely urge folks to go read the whole piece. Here's the link again.

you're sick of hearing about all this, but

...two, ok, three—well, really four Katrina-related items.

#1.I don't know if more $$$ is needed or not, but you want to donate cash to non-holy-rollers, here's one option: the AFL-CIO's Union Community Fund has set up a special Hurricane Relief Fund (contributions are tax-deductible).

#2. Apparently, Venezuelan pres Hugo Chavez (you know, the one Pat Robertson wants assassinated) has offered to send a supply of cheap oil to help with the fuel crisis.

Apparently, the U.S. "has not decided whether to accept" this offer from the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.

Yeah, study that one a bit more, wouldja?

#3. A lot of folks are really pissed at Michael Marcavage, and rightly so. Franklin & his commenters rant beautifully on this topic.

No disrespect or disagreement, but I'm reserving my fury for two people who—unlike the pathetic, miserable Mr. Marcavage, whose surplus of bile will probably eat out his innards and save us the trouble of bothering about him—have both the responsibility and the capability of saving the lives of thousands of miserable people in New Orleans, and whose totally stupid, misplaced, ridiculous (I can't even think of enough adjectives here) responses are redolent with ignorant self-satisfied superiority, and certainly can be suspected of racism as well.

Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco: "Anytime ya got a buncha poor Black folks all together, you know yer gonna need some biiiiiig scary guns."

No food, no water, but here's what we got for ya: "They have M-16s and are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will," Blanco said.

FEMA head Mike Brown: "Maybe if we let those dumb n_____s sit in their own shit with their dead grandmas for a coupla days they'll evacuate next time we say evacuate, a-heh heh heh heh."

Commenting on the death toll, predicted into the thousands, Brown told CNN, "Unfortunately, that [high death toll] is going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings..." [Like YOU, asshole!]... Piling on the condescension, Brown continued, "[W]e've got to figure out some way to convince people that whenever warnings go out it's for their own good."

Extra irony:Brown's complete title is "Undersecretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security." His prior qualification for this job? Some other government posts and, prior to that, he was a lawyer.

It just kills me how all these folks keep saying that this is the best that could have been done. It's that typical American thing—it's us doing it, so it must be the best, because we're the best, QED.

If this had happened in Japan, you'd see some goddamn Emergency Preparedness.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So if you were gonna go live in some other country because this one is too ridiculous, where would you go? I mean, realistically. Taking suggestions now...