I don't know exactly what to say. I came here tonight to rhapsodize on the joys of friendship. But the first thing I saw was that photo of New Orleans and the title of yesterday's post. "Stop, Children What's That Sound..." And it stopped me.
It is amazing that there is such catastrophe in the world, and yet...Life goes on. For the rest of us there are still jobs to go to and shopping to be done. Gas to be bought, children to be fed, papers to be written, arguments to be had...over money, over sex, over children and love; life goes on. For the rest of us.
But for people in Mississippi and Louisiana; life, as they have known it has come to a screeching halt. Think of the things that are gone. County records; births, deaths, marriages from two centuries. Beds and tables and chairs and family pictures in the home where you lived, the home in which your grandmother was born, swept away; precious memories never to be recovered. Homework...schools are gone, as for going to the job, the job is a memory, and no idea of when, or how, or from where, you'll go to another job again.
Yes, tonight I came here to rhapsodize about friendship and couldn't. Not tonight. Don't worry folks, the feeling will pass...and no doubt sooner than it should.
Life...it does have a way of going on.
--dB
Tags: artistic activism, nonprofit, philanthropy, zine, artists, bakery of the poets, hurricane katrina, life
02 September 2005
31 August 2005
Stop, Children What's That Sound...
Jason Reed/ReutersFrom above, coastal Mississippi resembles moon-like wasteland
San Jose Mercury News, United States - 56 minutes ago
... An aerial view Wednesday of coastal Mississippi's devastation, two days after Hurricane Katrina tore through, revealed that nothing was as it should have been ... Frustration at slow emergency response grows on Mississippi coast San Jose Mercury News In Mississippi: 'This is our tsunami' Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) Death is everywhere in Biloxi's nightmarish landscape Centre Daily Times
Hundreds feared dead in Mississippi
Monsters and Critics.com, UK - 16 hours ago
... Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told CNN the hurricane had destroyed "every one" of the casinos that generated $500,000 per day in revenues for the state. Power outages hit 900K in Mississippi; health officials issue boil ... Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
Katrina Devastates New Orleans; Mississippi Death Toll Rises To ...
MTV.com - 15 hours ago
... While looters ransacked clothing and jewelry stores on New Orleans' Canal Street, in Biloxi, Mississippi, they ripped into casino slot machines to snatch coins ... Hundreds feared dead in Mississippi Science Daily (press release)
New Orleans reels under worsening floods, looting
Taipei Times, Taiwan - 34 minutes ago
Engineers scrambled to plug two broken New Orleans levees and rescuers searched for survivors clinging to both hope and rooftops as the swirling, tea-colored ... Total evacuation of New Orleans begins Chicago Tribune
Death toll in New Orleans expected to swell into thousands
San Jose Mercury News, United States - 34 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - A major American city all but disintegrated Wednesday, and the expected death toll from Hurricane Katrina mushroomed into the thousands. ... New Orleans outlook bleak; at least 100 dead in Miss. USA Today Gulf Coast struggles to reach living, New Orleans to stem flood Globe and Mail
Tags: artistic activism, nonprofit, philanthropy, zine, artists, bakery of the poets, hurricane katrina
29 August 2005
Xenophobia?
***The New News***
Bakery of the Poets: The Store. Here is my brand-new money making scheme. heh heh. We have become partners with the grand folks at Powell's Bookstore and will be selling books through our website. So please, take a look at few of my favorite titles and use our search engine to shop for more books. There's more to be done in store. (Hah. I made a rhyme. I'm a poet and I didn't know it. Look, I did it again. Am. I. Not. Brilliant? Let me take a moment to reflect) Yes, in the coming weeks more things will be added to the store as soon as I figure out how to do the shopping cart thingy.
***The New News***
I love Powell's. Seriously, they are the only bookseller on the web that doesn't make me feel as though I've sold my soul to the devil when I buy from them. They are a bookseller and are so clearly about books. Author interviews, essays, criticism, really great, kinda funky editor's/staff picks. They're the Berkeley of online booksellers. Even if they are in New York.
I try not to hold that against them.
I live in Northern California, which is this place of temperate climate and at times, astonishing beauty, and a cool, eclectic population. And I love it. I am, however, ruined for almost any other state.
Now, I'm a pretty easygoing girl, the past couple of days of whining notwithstanding, but after 27 years in Nor Cal I don't think I'm capable of moving to another state.
Actually, I should rephrase that, most other states. I could live in Washington, I'm pretty sure. It does rain a lot, but I like rain. Plus, they have islands...and ferries. I like ferries a lot.
I could live in Maine. I think. They have foliage and poetry. (don't they?)
I love the idea of New Mexico. And if I were to move there, I'd live in Sedona not Santa Fe. I read a Martha Grimes novel set in Sedona, and it seemed like an outrageously interesting place. But the problem with New Mexico, in fact with that whole SouthWest-ish area, is the heat! It gets crazy hot there! So, clearly New Mexico is out. And Arizona, and Texas.
And that whole area to the right of Texas.
The middle won't work, because they have various and sundry devastating storms on a regular basis.
People complain about California and earthquakes, but for the most part, our earthquake issues are pretty tame in comparison with many kinds of scary storms that carry away with wind and flood with rain certain places in the middle...every year!
Fugedaboudit.
Plus, I require water. I need to be near an ocean. Something about having the tidal push and pull nearby regulates my temperament.
Does that make me Xenophobic? Or do I mean the other thing?
--dB
Tags: artistic activism, nonprofit, philanthropy, zine, artists, bakery of the poets, xenophobia, northern california, books, powells
Bakery of the Poets: The Store. Here is my brand-new money making scheme. heh heh. We have become partners with the grand folks at Powell's Bookstore and will be selling books through our website. So please, take a look at few of my favorite titles and use our search engine to shop for more books. There's more to be done in store. (Hah. I made a rhyme. I'm a poet and I didn't know it. Look, I did it again. Am. I. Not. Brilliant? Let me take a moment to reflect) Yes, in the coming weeks more things will be added to the store as soon as I figure out how to do the shopping cart thingy.
***The New News***
I love Powell's. Seriously, they are the only bookseller on the web that doesn't make me feel as though I've sold my soul to the devil when I buy from them. They are a bookseller and are so clearly about books. Author interviews, essays, criticism, really great, kinda funky editor's/staff picks. They're the Berkeley of online booksellers. Even if they are in New York.
I try not to hold that against them.
I live in Northern California, which is this place of temperate climate and at times, astonishing beauty, and a cool, eclectic population. And I love it. I am, however, ruined for almost any other state.
Now, I'm a pretty easygoing girl, the past couple of days of whining notwithstanding, but after 27 years in Nor Cal I don't think I'm capable of moving to another state.
Actually, I should rephrase that, most other states. I could live in Washington, I'm pretty sure. It does rain a lot, but I like rain. Plus, they have islands...and ferries. I like ferries a lot.
I could live in Maine. I think. They have foliage and poetry. (don't they?)
I love the idea of New Mexico. And if I were to move there, I'd live in Sedona not Santa Fe. I read a Martha Grimes novel set in Sedona, and it seemed like an outrageously interesting place. But the problem with New Mexico, in fact with that whole SouthWest-ish area, is the heat! It gets crazy hot there! So, clearly New Mexico is out. And Arizona, and Texas.
And that whole area to the right of Texas.
The middle won't work, because they have various and sundry devastating storms on a regular basis.
People complain about California and earthquakes, but for the most part, our earthquake issues are pretty tame in comparison with many kinds of scary storms that carry away with wind and flood with rain certain places in the middle...every year!
Fugedaboudit.
Plus, I require water. I need to be near an ocean. Something about having the tidal push and pull nearby regulates my temperament.
Does that make me Xenophobic? Or do I mean the other thing?
--dB
Tags: artistic activism, nonprofit, philanthropy, zine, artists, bakery of the poets, xenophobia, northern california, books, powells
28 August 2005
The Sting, Part 3
..."(Starting to get mad, she knows durn well we can't "just add to the order" the has already been invoiced and staged, and we have customers waiting I've only said so five times)"...
So,eventually...when the first order was delayed...'shipped' via a different carrier. Time was wasting, so we placed a second order.
The long and the short being we paid for 10 computers, were expecting two computers and no computers came. Eventually, I understood that we had been scammed, (although the 'general manager' was sending me emails, swearing that I should expect a delivery later that week) I called to inform Paypal, emailed my customers, the bank, the FBI and many others...and waited for the sky to fall. Which it did.
It's horrible, I can't seem to escape the feeling of how much I've let people down. I can't seem to stop going over and over the things I did, the precautions I took that made me feel as if it would be okay climb out on this limb.
And finally there is this pain.
People lie, people cheat, people steal, this I know. But knowing that did nothing to prepare me for how it feels to be cheated, lied to, and stolen from. For days I was paralyzed. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to find out what to do. I no longer trusted my own judgment. At the same time, I knew my own judgment was needed to help extricate me from my current pickle.
And I was hurt. I mean like, my feelings. I didn't know how to put it into words until a few days ago. But, I assumed when going into business with these people a certain amount of good will. A sense that we were attempting to reach out across the ocean and each of us better our situation. They were a company attempting to break into new markets; I was an idealist attempting to finance a dream. I enjoyed the idea of buying and selling in a foreign land, like the traveling merchants of old, trading in one place after another. Nowadays we can touch the world from our keyboards.
Yeah...I touched. And got my fingers burned. And I felt it.
--dB
Tags: artistic activism, nonprofit, philanthropy, zine, artists, bakery of the poets, internet fraud, stupidity
So,eventually...when the first order was delayed...'shipped' via a different carrier. Time was wasting, so we placed a second order.
The long and the short being we paid for 10 computers, were expecting two computers and no computers came. Eventually, I understood that we had been scammed, (although the 'general manager' was sending me emails, swearing that I should expect a delivery later that week) I called to inform Paypal, emailed my customers, the bank, the FBI and many others...and waited for the sky to fall. Which it did.
It's horrible, I can't seem to escape the feeling of how much I've let people down. I can't seem to stop going over and over the things I did, the precautions I took that made me feel as if it would be okay climb out on this limb.
And finally there is this pain.
People lie, people cheat, people steal, this I know. But knowing that did nothing to prepare me for how it feels to be cheated, lied to, and stolen from. For days I was paralyzed. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to find out what to do. I no longer trusted my own judgment. At the same time, I knew my own judgment was needed to help extricate me from my current pickle.
And I was hurt. I mean like, my feelings. I didn't know how to put it into words until a few days ago. But, I assumed when going into business with these people a certain amount of good will. A sense that we were attempting to reach out across the ocean and each of us better our situation. They were a company attempting to break into new markets; I was an idealist attempting to finance a dream. I enjoyed the idea of buying and selling in a foreign land, like the traveling merchants of old, trading in one place after another. Nowadays we can touch the world from our keyboards.
Yeah...I touched. And got my fingers burned. And I felt it.
--dB
Tags: artistic activism, nonprofit, philanthropy, zine, artists, bakery of the poets, internet fraud, stupidity
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)