Smoke & Mirrors

After April Fool's

2006-04-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.

30 March, 2006: Things have been very hectic since our Tenth Anniversary Special Edition and my birthday. First of all, thanks to all those of you who sent me birthday greetings, called to sing, sent gifts, etc. (Rhonda & Bill, Cheryl, Dragana & Dragan, Rudell & Leon, Nelson, Barbara & Rich, Riley, Ripple and Graham.) The Old Magician is much appreciative.

Secondly, there was getting caught up with my Day Job of being a freelance journalist. My friend Matt telephone after reading one of the stories I filed and said, "Man, you really sound authoritative in that piece."

I chuckled. I think people often forget that I'm a professional journalist when they read my noodling here. Or maybe it's just that most people don't think of writing as a real way to make a living.

We received a wonderful review of Africa Fresh! New Voices from the First Continent in the Kenyan daily Nation from premiere literary critic and Northwestern University professor Evan Mwangi, which you can read here. (Free registration required.) I was quite overwhelmed with Dr. Mwa ngi's kind assessment of our effort.

MPHUTHUMI NTABENI sent me an e-mail with the wonderful news that another publisher was considering a work he had shown me - he'd begun a rewrite on it. And then these notes:

Did I tell you about the wonderful surprise I got when reading a biography of Nadine Gordimer - she's South Africa's first Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature - was finding myself quoted in the book by the author, Ronald Suresh Roberts. The book is called No Cold Kitchen. Here's the passage:

Gordimer has been read as a cultural hero of South African liberation and variously re-read as a writer residually submerged in the attitudes of colonialism or elitism, even Jewish self-hatred. She remains a polarising presence among South African blacks and whites alike. Near her there are always embers. "Unlike Nadine Gordimer, [JM. Coetzee] does not borrow courage of other people's convictions," wrote Mphuthumi Ntabeni, the African correspondent for the online magazine Generator 21: "This might be the reason he was so unpopular in political circles, where attitudinising is the order of the day."

And it goes on. I'm told there're other small passages.

Another great news is that the plays we're doing for the Environment and Tourism Dept. have started their performance along the Eastern Cape Heritage Route. We'll be on tour along the Eastern Cape for about three weeks - coming home on weekends. The great thing is that we've won funding from the Lotto to take the plays to the Grahamstown Arts Festival ...

We'll also be submit proposals to the SABC (South African Broadcasting Cooperation) to serialise the plays for TV.

I offered him my Good Luck wishes and congratulations.

I was flattered, also, to receive a request from one of the people in the Blogosphere, Steve Sanders of AmericanLiar.com, to reprint one of the articles I wrote for the Huffington Post Contagious Festival in February. You can view Steve's reprint, and thus visit his blog, by following this link. In his announcement e-mail, he wrote to his mailing list:

You've probably noticed that media criticism is a regular feature of American Liar postings. We rail a lot about the corporate media's responsibility for the generally apalling ignorance of the American public and its state of impairment when it comes to distinguishing fact from fiction, truth from lies, and in using deductive reasoning and rationality to sort out the affairs of government and society. (I don't mean to paint with a broad brush-yes, there are millions of aware citizens, and more are beginning to wake up every day, but as a whole the public is still in a generally sad condition in terms of being able to think and act as informed, responsible citizens. This is my own opinion; please let me know if you disagree.)

But is it the corporate media that is entirely to blame? The old "chicken and the egg" question comes to the fore in our guest commentary by Rod Amis (of G21.net), republished here from its appearance on Huffington Post. There's a strong case to be made that the American public bears its own share of responsibility for the state of ignorance and stupor it's in; we all make choices as to what we believe, who we believe, and what we believe in. The fact that the body politic has not been appropriately discriminating in making these choices places the American citizenry squarely in the docket, along with the nation's compromised and sold out "news" professionals and corrupt politicians, when we consider apportioning blame for the mess we're in now.

To paraphrase Edward R. Murrow, the legendary journalist, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not entirely in our scapegoats, but also in ourselves."

Well put, and as I said, I was flattered.

Photograph of actor Humprey Bogart.I was excited this past week when I received an inquiry from a producer for the BBC World Service radio programme "Outlook." It seems they had seen (probably the Reuters UK) announcement about Africa Fresh! making the short list for the Blooker Prize (which should be announced today, by the way) and wanted to feature one of the writers who contributed to that book. As this is the first book to be released under the new G21 BOOKS imprint we've begun, I was chuffed.

After days of frantic telephone calls, e-mails, pacing and smoking too many cigarettes - not to mention downing pots of coffee - I managed to arrange for our GAYNOR PAYNTER to conduct the BBC interview.

It would seem that this actually is becoming the "G21 Decade" as I've proclaimed with tongue firmly planted in cheek. For those who don't know, it's a take-off of the old joke that Al Franken had when he was part of the Franken and Davis comedy team on "Saturday Night Live" many years ago. He proclaimed the 1980s as "The Al Franken Decade" in a running gag that I found amusing. (I know, I'm showing my age, again.)

Too Sexy For My Cat

2006-02-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

Busy? I'm not even sure what that word means anymore. Lord knows that my project It's Only Smoke has eaten a lot of attention this month and gained me unexpected new friends for my writing at The World's Magazine, while adding to my list of obligations, as well.

Trying to gear up for celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the latter effort while also planning to travel across country and back ("One of my biggest problems is that I've never thought of a thousand miles as too far to go. You talk eight, nine thousand miles and you start to get my attention") just adds to the mix.

But I thought you must have missed me here. Stay Tuned.

Going Very Public

2006-02-03T09:22:00.000-08:00

Haven't been around here because I've been a busy little beaver of late. Firstly, there's the tech columns I'm doing again at IT Manager's Journal, I've still got The World's Magazine to put out. And this month I've also decided to enter the Huffington Post's Contagious Festival to see if I can learn something about being more viral. My entry there, keeping to my new theme, is called It's Only Smoke. Wish me luck! I'll need the ducats if I'm going to make the Online Journalism Review conference at USC in March.

About Journalism

2006-01-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

13 January, 2006: In the January, 2006, edition of Z Magazine, my housemate, a self-avowed leftist, brought to my attention there is a book review my Edward S. Herman of Peter Brock's Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting - Journalism and Tragedy in Yugoslavia. Ron suggested I read this because it confirms all the reporting that was featured here in G21 during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Among our correspondents, Ratislav Durman, Dragana Vicanovic, Adam Smith and myself, we presented a very different picture of those wars than the Mouthpiece Media (MM) and I am proud to say, as with our reporting of the Cambodian elections and Hurricane Katrina's effects in New Orleans, we never found the need to retract anything we presented you - unlike members of the MM like the New York Times and the Washington Post.

That a small independent magazine, that survives on beggared $10 and $20 donations, should so consistently give you the real story on the ground when major outlets of the MM, with millions of dollars in resources, do not should give you pause.

The difference between our reporting and that of the MM is that we actually do it from the ground, where the story is, as opposed to from th e lounge of some hotel where all the "respectable" journalists are parroting each others' stories or those of the "official" sources to which they have access by dint of their prestige. Think about it.

The interesting points that Herman brings up about Brock's book are mostly messages of sadness for a journalist like myself. Of special note are his comments about two gentleman - and I use the term loosely - who garnered Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting on the Balkan wars, John F. Burns of the New York Times and Roy Gutman of Newsday. Brock documents relentlessly that the reporting these two produced about the wars constitute a tissue of lies. They totally vilified the Serbs while ignoring the facts on the ground, facts brought to light here in your World's Magazine that

* The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was not an organization of brave freedom fighters but rather a narco-terrorist organization that was one of the biggest drug purveyors in Europe at the time;
* Serbian claims of terrorism were well-founded and ethnic-cleansing cut both ways;
* Rather than a plan for a Greater Serbia, what we were witnessing was the implementation of a Greater Albanian.

As I say, these two liars went on the get Pulitzer Prizes, which speaks volumes about the Pulitzers, and G21.net went on begging for ten and twenty dollar donations.

Now ask me what I think about truth and justice.

One last example as concerns my thoughts about the MM and the art of journalism.

On the day that Slobodan Milosevic was taken to the Hague Tribunal, there was a massive protest on the streets of Belgrade. Two stories of note were filed that day. One was by Christiane Amanpour for CNN, filed from London. The other was from Yours Unruly, filed from Belgrade. Ms. Amanpour told her viewers, standing on the streets of London, that the Serbs had taken to the streets in celebration of Milosevic being taken off to the Hague. Yours Unruly reported, from the streets of Belgrade, surrounded by the Serbs chanting and carrying signs, that these people had taken to the streets in protest of Milosevic's extradition because - after years of protesting against his regime - they believed it was their right to bring him to justice.

We have two versions of the same story. The representative of the MM reported to the world from a thousand miles away. Yours Unruly reported from on the ground in Serbia. Both stories said that there was a march on the streets of Belgrade. That was undeniably true. Each story presented a different reason for why it was taking place. Both stories could not possibly be correct as to why people were on the street.

Which one of us do you suspect got the story right?

More Reviews

2006-01-04T09:28:00.000-08:00

My dear friend Lionel Rolfe was kind enough to have two new reviews of my "Katrina" book published this week.

The first is found at one of my favorite online magazines, 3 a.m. Magazine.

The second is at an arts & entertainment mag I didn't know until today. Da Belly.

Thanks, Lionel!!!

Ought Six

2005-12-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

Smoke & Mirrors
These blogs I have running have nowhere near the visibility of my formal Web site G21: The World's Magazine. The first edition of that won't appear for days. It will be another year and we shall start celebrating ten years here on the Web.

As usual, during a holiday, I am alone.

So let me share some of my new Resolutions for 2006 with you this year.

I resolve:

1 - To do whatever people expect of me without caring.

2 - To walk away from giving people I work with my real opinions; they never wanted them anyway.

3 - To keep my eyes on the one prize: my writing.

And when I've done all of this, I plan to go back home to New Orleans. I plan to settle them with a home-girl there and not look back. Resolutions.

I Hate Christmas

2005-12-24T20:43:00.000-08:00

When it's over I feel sense of relief like you wouldn't know.

People don't try to glom onto me and make me feel like I should be with them because I'm, as always alone. NO don't try to make me feel happy. I'm NOT HAPPY!!!

When it's passed, I'm back in my world of work or whatever. "NO I don't have any family and I don't fucking want to be with you. No!

"Just leave me the fuck alone! Don't you understand? I'm not up in your shite so why be up into mine?

"This is the one day of your year that I hate most of all. LEAVE ME ALONE!"

HOORAY! It's 26 December. Let's plan on New Years's Day. Secular. Let me put on some more Miles Davis...

SATYRNALIA

2005-12-21T00:38:00.000-08:00

SMOKE

"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.

15 December, 2005: When you've been writing for a while, there are two staples for your end-of-the-year column. You can either look back at the year that is coming to a close, taking stock, or you can look forward to the coming year, listing your predictions. That latter is always a risky business because people can go back and see how wrong you were about so much. This year, I'm taking the safe choice.

The most definitive thing about 2005, in the minds of many, is that it was a year of great loss.

Record numbers of American and Iraqi lives were lost in a ginned up war for which another round of elections are being called a "turning point," as was the last round. Oddly, at none of these turning points has America been in the position to cease being an occupying power.

In 2005, we lost Johnny Carson, Hunter S. Thompson, Anne Bancroft, Luther Vandross, Gretchen Franklin, James Doohan, Marjorie "Mo" Mowlam, Robert Moog, Rosa Parks, Sheree North, James King, Pat Morita, Link Wray, Richard Pryor, Stanley "Tookie" Williams and William Proxmire (as I write this).

We lost coastal cities in Southeast Asia to a killer tsunami, central Pakistan and much of Kashmir to killer quakes, cities on the coasts of Vietnam and south China to additional typhoons, much of the population of Malawi to starvation with half the population of that benighted country still threatened by same, parts of Guatemala to hurricanes and mudslides, part of the Gulf coast of the United States to hurricanes; we lost New Orleans.

"Oh, come on! Rod, we didn't lose New Orleans."

I can see how you'd say that but the evidence is still questionable. If you were reading the editorial page of the New York Times on Sunday, 11 December, you might have reached the conclusion that America hadn't decided whether it wanted New Orleans back or not. You might have decided that President Bush's speech in Jackson Square of that city in September had been merely another Rovian photo-op; all picture and no substance. More smoke and mirrors. As Paul Krugman commented in his column on the same day, we're doing as much to rebuild New Orleans as we have to rebuild Iraq.

If we characterize years by the measure of their human joy or sadness, celebration or suffering, than 2005 was one Hell of a year.

At this time of year, while most of you are celebrating one holiday or another in the bosom of your loved ones, while the spendfest of America reaches orgiastic proportions, some of us continue to go about our daily grinds.

Cicero, with whom I've taken common cause in this space before, retired to the country during the Saturnalian holy days; Pliny the Younger retired to his rooms.

It is not by accident that I reference these two particular Romans. Both readily identified themselves as rhetoriticians. In our time, we have - unfortunately, in my view - come to take the words rhetoric and bullshit as being synonymous. The ancients had an entirely different view. For them, rhetoric was not simply words used to persuade and present arguments, it was inextricably tied up with the gravitas and credibility of the person using the words. Good rhetoric, they understood, is contingent upon establishing trust.

Part of this project has been - first with "My Glass House" and now with this column -- to establish trust and credibility wth you, my dears, if not always and necessarily gravitas. Only you can let me know if I've succeeded.
19 December, 2005: I only have one news item I'd like you to consider in this section of the column this edition.

The Independent (UK) on 4 December - " What planet are you on, Mr Bush? (and do you care, Mr Blair?)" by Geoffrey Lean and David Randall reported:

GLOBAL MELTDOWN

The catalogue of disasters that are happening right now

Across the planet, rising temperatures are taking their toll

CARBON DIOXIDE

New research has found that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the main cause of global warming - are higher than at any time in the past 625,000 years. HOTTEST EVER

This year is expected to be the warmest ever recorded; 1998 was the hottest so far, but the past three years currently occupy the next three places.

DESERTIFICATION

The giant Kalahari desert, already four times the size of Britain, threatens to become larger still, covering farmland in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.

EXPANDING OCEANS

The level of the world's seas and oceans is rising twice as fast as in the past, as their waters expand in rising temperatures and glaciers melt.

OCEAN EXILES

The people of the Carteret Islands, a scattering of atolls off Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, have started to leave as their homes succumb to rising seas.

HURRICANES

Hurricane Epsilon - the 14th of the year - is forming in the Atlantic, even though the worst recorded hurricane season by far formally ended on Wednesday.

GLACIER MELT

Greenland glaciers have suddenly started racing towards the sea and melting. Much the same is beginning to happen to glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

WATER SHORTAGE

Areas such as the western USA, which depend on mountain snows for their water supplies, are running short as less snow falls - and what does fall melts earlier.

DISAPPEARING SPECIES

Sealife and birdlife have declined catastrophically this year along America's north-west Pacific coast, after a similar meltdown in the North Sea.

CORAL REEFS

Corals on the Great Barrier Reef are bleaching out and dying as sea temperatures rise and scientists fear that the whole reef may perish by 2050.

And all I have to say is: "Thank you SO MUCH for purchasing that SUV or driving your car down that freeway alone.

"Thank you SO MUCH for NOT supporting public transportation."

The G21 READERSHIP POLL

With year's end, we continue our annual tradition of seeking your nominations for the G21 PERSON OF THE YEAR.

POLL QUESTION: What individual do you feel made the world a better place, made a significant contribution to human advancement or left the most indelible mark on the year 2005?

DEADLINE for your nominations is 1 January, 2006.? The results will be published in our first edition of 2006.

Send your nominees for the G21 PERSON OF THE YEAR 2005 to rod@g21.net with the "Subject" line "PERSON OF THE YEAR". Thank you!

MIRRORS

20 December 2005 My patron, DC, sends me all kinds of books, most of them are popular American fiction. I got The Da Vinci Code from him, for example. (I hadn't even heard of the book at the time.) Since then, he's educated me to such best-selling authors as W.E.B. Griffin ("the poet laureate of military novels"), who has grown on me, and the recently-late Ed McBain, not to mention a slough of female mystery novelists.

When I lived in New Orleans, I considered these books part of my "income." I could sell them at used bookstores to get extra cash for food, booze and cigarettes. I have not been so lucky here in North Carolina. Because my mobility is limited, I can't shop around for stores at which to sell the books. The pile up in my bedroom is creating a wall. I don't know what I shall do about this last circumstance just yet.

But during this education, I have learned something else. I now know why I do not like popular American fiction and why I have such a scant chance of being a popular American fiction writer during my lifetime.

The commonality I notice about these books is that no one - none of the characters portrayed for us, the readers, to follow -- is EVER ugly, poor, disabled, sad, crazy (in other than a funny way,) etc. There is no Dickenesque or Twainesque here. Everyone is beautiful and rich and fulfilled and - in most cases - only threatened by the vagaries of the outside world.

The people who live in popular American fiction are perfect and never face internal challenges, challenges of conscience or deficiency. They are perfect and it is the imperfect and often brutal world that intrudes on their Story Book lives. That is American popular fiction today and that is something I would rather take arsenic than write.

I could devote this entire section of my journal to what I loathe about how popular American fiction is at variance with real American lives. But I shan't. I suspect you already know what and how I feel.

I have reached a conclusion about certain types of people. I know a number of them who fit into this category. I've mentioned it to my pal Matt before, more than once. People who are constantly talking are telling you (me) that you (I )have nothing of value to add to the conversation.

What amazes - or insults -- me, depending on how many cocktails I've had, is that they fail to realize how they are denigrating the humanity of the rest of us. They have effectively said that we are the scenery in their lives.

LIFE OF ROD

A LOT has been going on. I feel almost as if I have to be in Announcement Mode.

The idea is that, as we celebrate our tenth year on the Internet, we offer you many and multi-faceted new views of your World's Magazine. (Did I sound enough like a Flak then?)

As you can see from the sidebar on all the pages of the magazine this edition, I've finally got the G21 AFRICA anthology, AFRICA FRESH! New Voices from the First Continent available for your purchase and encourage you to check it. After the Holiday Season, the Promotional Machine goes into full force.

Today, (okay, well, maybe TONIGHT, since Tom has family in town) Wednesday, you can actually hear Rod's voice - in case you are wondering, yes! I'm actually a real person -- in a podcast that talks about working up to our tenth anniversary here at your World's Magazine. I get to talk to Tom Parish, a great guy from Austin, Texas.

What I love about Talking Portraits is the music that they use to introduce and provide background for their podcasts - but that's just me. You should go there, often, for the content.

Tom's blurb claims that I'm an Internet pioneer and visionary. I certainly wouldn't go that far, but am flattered that he and his team did.

You can listen to the podcast (play it on your iPod or stream it to iTunes while you're running around.) Tom's Web site, which you should visit even when I'm not there, is called Talking Portraits. I enjoy it.

AND, oh yeah, I've gone back to be a columnist on technology. Some of you met me while I was doing that. Quite a few of you met me while I was writing for IT Manager's Journal, while I worked for a company known as Andover News Network. Today it's known as Open Source Technology Group (OSTG.) You can read my "new" premiere column here

So, if you're into reading about technology, or just into reading me, you can now find me at itmj.com.

SATURNALIA. This season is different for me than it for you.

Because I am - for reasons that I don't fully comprehend - attached to the Old Ways, I look at things unlike most people. The moons mean something more to me. I find it difficult to sleep. The words of the ancients resonate for me and have real meaning. And when I talk to you, I am talking into a long conversation, a stream of words that have flowed, sometimes I feel, for thousands and thousands of years ä

When I look at our "modern" problem, too often all I see is mistakes that I have already seen made before.

So I relish this time when the Old King must pass ä pass away ä so that the New King may stand for an instant. But I also remember those words, that the Romans were smart enough to whisper during the Triumph, "All - all Glory is fleeing."

Like Cicero, I find myself in an empire that calls for me to be gone.

Then the Twainesgue Rod pipes up and he says: Remember when people used to say, "America: Love it or leave it!"

Well, as you probably know by now, my response has always been: "Where's my fuckin' ticket? You're buyin', my flyin'."

Thanks for coming back this week. Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.
THE HOLIDAY ROD IS
1 - Working on multiple projects.

2 - Hopeful that the new year will be better.

3 - Tired of being lonely.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "

Love,
Rod

Becoming a Brand

2005-12-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

Among the upcoming events on my agenda is being the subject, this week, of an interview for Tom Parish's podcast from Austin, Texas, TalkingPortraits.com. We'll talk about the fact that G21: The World's Magazine will be celebrating its tenth year of continuous publication in March, my book on the Hurricane Katrina and The Lost City of New Orleans, and the fact that the magazine is launching a book imprint in 2006. A lot going on -- besides the fact that I'll probably also be going back to being a daily technology columnist, covering Open Source issues.

More on that once the columns starts up.

All of these things make me look at accepting the fact that I've become an online brand over the years. I'm a product, in that sense, that people have begun to identify and have certain expectations about/for/from. It's just a bit bizarre, I think, to have view oneself that way. But there I am.

I'll have more to say on this in future entries.

A Little Recognition

2005-12-08T18:47:00.000-08:00

All of a sudden, people are talking about Yours Unruly's Book. Who Knew?

http://www.tashitagg.com/forum/weblog_entry.php?e=1658

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2005-11-28-triksta_x.htm

And today, Danny Schecter over at http://www.newsdissector.org/blog/ mentioned our nod form TashiTagg under the heading, "A Book I'd like to read." Thanks and a tip of the hat to Danny. He's a good guy. We interviewed him for his great documentary here: http://www.g21.net/gb28.html.

My Celebration

2005-12-07T22:32:00.000-08:00

My Celebration used to be that every person was a Universe. Every person was a Universe waiting to be discovered and explored.

But then - as I became an Adult - I leaned that some Universes had decided that you (me) did not exist. You/I was the background to their splendour and had NOTHING, NOTHING to contribute to their Magnificence.

They were like Caesar, Napoleon, Louis Xiv (Apres moi, le Deluge.)

That was the hardest to accept. It made me an Adult.

That almost extinguised my childish dreams.

But then -- I looked into the eyes of another little person like me. She was not and never wanted to be Just the Audience. She was still alive and childish. Wonderfully childish.

I saw she and I flying a kite for the first time. I saw us chasing a red balloon. I saw, for the first time, a star burning brightly in the dark sky that we both wanted to wish on about what our lives, how our lives could be -- well, nice. It was a cold, bright star, so very far away, so very far away from where we lay in the grass, twinkling above our heads in the magical way that I could not understand, but loved, like the girl lying next to me.

There was something BEYOND and around me.

There, for that little moment, was something miraculous and good in what I felt. I was looking up. I was not audience or background. I was me. It felt wonderful to be with someone who made me feel that I was me.

Dystopia

2005-12-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

What happens when you become the Maxi-Blogger?

Do you know what I mean? Like when you can't keep up anymore. I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten that I had one on auto-pilot. This one: My Life at Xanga.

And then I could pretend that I don't have another on in South Africa.

All of them engendered because of what I do here.

So then what? Alice in Blogger Land?

I started to ask myself: Does the fact that they *almost* look all the same mean that you know -- really know -- what you are writing about? Or does the fact that you are asking yourself this question mean that it really all is "Smoke & Mirrors?"

"Hey, Mate, you're takin' it all too seriously. No one reads most of this shite anyways. Care for another pint? Good chips these, ain't they?"

WOLF SONG

2005-12-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

SMOKE

"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.

24 November, 2005: The end of the year is rushing toward us, the feeding-frenzy of "I want" and "I wish" and "Let's buy" dominates most of American media, with the exception of the leftists who are totally preoccupied with the Rubik's Cube of how to get the Democratic Party in the United States back in power - a misguided effort if ever there was one. I keep waiting for the people on the left, with whom I have a little sympathy, to realize that the D party is just another side of the awful corporatist coin. I'm not hopeful that they will, of course. Liberals still believe things can be fixed, as I've said in this space often.

They refuse to admit that the system itself is toxic.

It takes a radical dissident to recognize that we need innovation, meaning a new system altogether, and there are precious few of us around these days in the empire.

Evidence? Look at the people the D party has testing the Presidential waters for 2008. Not a one of them has taken a courageous stand and said we need to get out of occupying a country that never did anything to us. Instead, they offer milquetoast variations on the "stay the course" mantra of the criminals in the White House. That's not the stance of an opposition party; that's the stance of Losers.

Which brings us again this week to:
NEWS TO ROD
26 November, 2005- ITEM ONE: You've heard a lot pro and con about what Rep. John Murtha said in the Mouthpiece Media (MM) but have you noticed, as I have, that none of the MM actually quotes Murtha's now-infamous spe ech. Alexander Cockburn, in a great article over at CounterPunch helps remedy that. Here's just a snippet:

It truly was a great speech, as the Marine veteran (37 years in the US Marine Corps, then 31 years in Congress) actually delivered it with extempore additions to the prepared text handed out after his news conference.

Listen to Murtha and you are hearing how the US commanders in Iraq really see the situation. Murtha is trusted by the military and has visited Iraq often. "Many say the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on a third deployment. Recruitment is down even as the military has lowed its standards. They expect to take 20 percent category 4, which is the lowest category, which they said they'd never take. Much of our ground equipment is worn out."

On Iraq's condition: "Oil production and energy production are below prewar level. You remember they said that was going to pay for the war, and it's below prewar level. Our reconstruction efforts have been crippled by the security situation. Only $9 billion of $18 billion appropriated for reconstruction has been spent. Unemployment is 60 percentClean water is scarce and they only spent $500 million of the $2.2 billion appropriated for water projects.

"And, most importantly -- this is the most important point -- incidents have increased from 150 a week to over 700 in the last year."

Then, amid his tears, came Murtha's sketches of war's consequences in today's America:

"Now, let me personalize this thing for youI have a young fellow in my district who was blinded and he lost his foot. And they did everything they could for him at Walter Reed, then they sent him home. His father was in jail; he had nobody at home -- imagine this: young kid that age -- 22, 23 years old -- goes home to nobody. V.A. did everything they could do to help him. He was reaching out, so they sent him -- to make sure that he was blind, they sent him to John Hopkins. John Hopkins started to send him bills. Then the collection agency started sending bills. Imagine, a young person being blinded, without a foot, and he's getting bills from a collection agency."

And finally, Murtha's call for rapid pullout of US troops from Iraq capped by one of the most amazing resumes of political reality ever administered to an audience on Capitol Hill:

"I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis. I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid-December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice: The United States will immediately redeploy -- immediately redeploy. All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free, free from a United States occupation. And I believe this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process."

This was no wimp. This was a 73-year old Marine veteran with Purple Hearts and Bronze Star, one of the Armed Forces' most constant supporters. What more credible advocate a speedy end to an unpopular war could the Democrats ever hope for?

ITEM TWO: David Lazarus writes in the San Francisco Chronicle ("Nations Spending Out of Line," 27 November, 2005)

Free spending big government Republicans are breaking the country. After all the talk about fiscal responsibility and small government from these guys, this is what they give us.

... Last month, the national debt reached yet another miserable milestone, passing the $8 trillion mark for the first time. As of last week, the United States was $8,084,858,891,735.31 in the hole, according to the Treasury Department.

... Here is the depressing stuff you should now consider before the 2006 elections:

In fact, Bush has borrowed more money - $1.05 trillion - from foreign governments and banks since taking office than all other presidents combined.

From 1776 to 2000, the nation's first 42 presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign interests, official statistics show. In just five years, Bush has out-borrowed them all ...

ITEM THREE: I received an interesting e-mail this week from my friend, Ric, the son of a Marine Drill Instructor (DI) who passed away a few years back. I'd like to share it with you:

Major General Smedley Butler on Interventionism
http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm
Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC
Awarded two Congressional medals of Honor: General Butler was the only recipient of two Congressional Medals of Honor.

1. Capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914
2. Capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917

Distinguished service medal, 1919
Major General - United States Marine Corps
Retired Oct. 1, 1931
On leave of absence to act as director of Dept. of Safety, Philadelphia, 1932
Lecturer -- 1930's
Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932
Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940

1 December, 2005: Today is United Nation World AIDS Day. As this day comes and goes, I'm proud of our small effort to raise public awareness of this issue in our pages this year. Special th anks to A.J., RAHEEM and MPHUTHUMI NTABENI for taking the time to contribute to our series on the Pandemic. If you didn't read their fine articles this year, I encourage you to go back and take a look.

The G21 READERSHIP POLL
Yes, Kids, it's that time again! It's the time of the year when G21 readers start making their lists and checking them twice.

No, I'm not talking about Christmas Lists. I'm talking about our now-notorious list of the Bottom Ten people of the year. It's time for the dish. As Longtime Loyal Readers know, our "Bottom Ten" list is much like Mr. Blackwell's "Worst Dressed" list. So I'll ask you the same question I've asked readers for the last nine years:

POLL QUESTION: What ten people could we have done without this year in order for the world to have been a better or happier place? Who were the Lowest of the Low?

DEADLINE for your nominations is 17 December, 2005. The results will be published in our final edition of 2005.

Send your nominees for the 2005 Bottom 10 to rod@g21.net with the "Subject" line "Bottom 10". Thank you!

MIRRORS

2 December, 2005: Language is my life, as you know. So I was especially touched by an article I read last week. John Ross did a wonderful article on the death of languages over at CounterPunch last week. Running as punctuation to his reporting was a wonderful poem addressing the issue. I'd like to share it with you. The poem is by Miguel Leon Portillo written in the Aztec (English translation: John Ross) and entitled "When a Language Dies." Here is a brief excerpt:

"Cuando muere una lengua,
las cosas divinas,
estrellas, sol y luna,
las cosas humanas,
pensar y sentir,
no se reflejan en eso espejo."

"When a language dies,
the divine things,
stars, sun and moon,
the human things.
to think and to feel,
are no longer reflected
in this mirror."

"Cuando muere una lengua
todo lo que hay en el mundo,
mares y rios,
animales y plantas,
ni se piensen, ni se pronuncian
con atisbos, con sonidos,
que no existan ya."

"When a language dies,
all that there is in this world,
oceans and rivers,
animals and plants,
do not think of them,
do not pronounce their names,
they do not exist now."

Languages, as those of us who are paying attention - and as Mr. Ross points out - have been dying off as rapidly as most of the non-human species on our planet for decades now. Some of us consider it an immeasurable loss. Perhaps you should, too.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference begins in Montreal, Canada, on Saturday, 3 December, 2005. To coincide with the opening of the ten-day conference, there will be actions in cities around the globe, most especially in Montreal, but even in places as far-flung as New Orleans, the Associated Press reported this week. The action (and we all know that in NOLA an action is just another excuse for a party) to be held in the French Quarter, in New Orleans, has the theme, "Save New Orleans, Stop Global Warming." Very appropriate.

Life of Rod

I SUPPOSE I CAN ONLY HOPE that by now most of you have gotten over your feelings of loss about the old column that used to occupy this spot and have begun to warm up to the New Kid on the Block. I hope you'll see, as I do, that this was the natural evolution up from that long-running column. (I did produce over four hundred of those, after all. It was time for a change.)

As is always the case here, expect more changes. Our gala tenth anniversary edition approaches rapidly - right after Mardi Gras - and I've got some more design moves in mind by the time we reach that landmark.

3 December, 2005: December; a few ragged colors cling to some of the trees, umber, brown, occasional dark tatters of red, but except for the evergreens most of the trees are denuded so that you can actually see the far-off houses from behind the rising, slatted trunks. The lawns are blanketed with dead leaves, brown and crackling, skittering with the same noises as squirrels making their last dashes. This is that month I so look forward to, that month when the first of the American, gathering holidays has passed; that month when the beginning of winter approaches, followed that second gathering holiday that mocks my existence. I look forward to December in the way that the condemned man looks forward to the headman's axe. What a wonderful time of the year.

"Don't you write anymore? Your column has become a catalogue of sharing the words of other people, admittedly tasty, that you have read. When do we get something from you?"

The question was bound to arise. I can only respond that I have been busy writing away from the Web for a bit. I have been editing other projects, the dead tree stuff I piled on, and yes, writing a bit for those. Writing for here has essentially ceased since Katrina hit New Orleans. My blast about that is my last for you until next year, Luvs. Next year I shall be all and only yours once more.

IT'S BEEN a rather strange year for me. First back to New Orleans, then leaving New Orleans again - just in the nick of time - before New Orleans left itself. North Carolina and the exile to "Green Acres," the abortive shot at the Kiplinger, three book projects in rapid succession. And now? I sit eating my liver. I await a kill-fee from a publisher in Texas who tanked. No idea when it will arrive. Because my main contact is Ric on that one, I get cryptic assurances at best but no time-table. There is a small check ($25) from one of the advertisers but because it was sent to New Orleans and landed at Matt's I've known it was there for two and half weeks but Matt hasn't seen fit to send the proceeds on to me. He's out at the bars, as per usual.

You know how some days you wake up with song lyrics in your head? I'm having one of those days. All morning, as I drank my coffee, went out to cut wood to start the fire for the wood stove with which we heat the place, thus saving on the awful expense of fuel this year, the lyrics to David Bowie's wonderful "Life on Mars" have been rattling around in my brainpan. Especially the refrain.

She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

It is one of those tunes that lonely kids play in their heads, looking around themselves at all those people with whom they seem to have so little in common. During this season, especially, I feel like the alien. There is little in this month for me. What a wonderful time of the year.

Thanks for coming back this week. Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.

THINGS I PRAY FOR THIS WEEK
1 - Money.

2 - A brainstorm to help me kick-start book sales.

3 - Seeing the end of the tunnel.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "

Love,
Rod

Ayes Only

2005-11-24T05:32:00.000-08:00

SMOKE

"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.

22 November 2005: The Buzz in the Mouthpiece Media (MM) over the last week has been all about the revelation that Bob Woodward, the Assistant Managing Editor of the Washington Post withheld for the months the information that he is himself up to his ears in the Plame affair. It's been interesting to watch this formerly lionized celebrity journalist follow his celebrity journalism peer, Judith Miller, down the slippery slope.

Talking Heads in Washington are in bed with Bush administration officials, figuratively if not also literally? Heaven forfend! I'm shocked! Shocked!

Like most of you, I assumed all along that it was talent and hard work that landed them the television talkfest seats and the million-dollar book deals, not some tawdry and shameless fawning to the rich and powerful. Now what am I to think?

That said, I suppose it time to move on to this installment of
NEWS TO ROD

ITEM ONE: J.L. Chestnut, Jr writes eloquently in this article about how U. S, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice does not identify with the civil rights movement that took place in the South when she was growing up and disdains many of its leaders in an article over at CounterPunch.org that you can read here: Her Father Taught Her Well. It's an interesting piece of background about a woman that many of us have learned to loathe.

ITEM TWO: Longtime Loyal Readers know that I've avoided using that other F-word, fascism, for four years now. I've ice-skated around that word because, as I've said, as soon as you use it, a number of people close their ears to every sentence and argument you make after the F-word.

But it gets harder and harder NOT to use that word every day. I could not but think of that word, and the SS officers appearing on the streets in old movies depicting Germany during the 1930s and '40s, when I read the story of the Debra Davis case in Denver, Colorado. You can read it yourself at the PapersPlease.org Web site and cringe as I did.

ITEM THREE: One of the essays that I'm including in the "My Glass House" book is this one I wrote on globization back in 1998. Little was made of what I had to say at the time, though now I feel that it might have been a moment of prescience.

I thought of this article again when I read this recent post by Jane Smiley over at the Huffington Post Web site. Ms. Smiley seems to be thinking now along the lines I was seven years ago.

In this instance I'll share a brief snippet to whet your appetite to follow the link.

... To these corporate types, the public safety of one's own fellow citizens is as much a matter of indifference as the public safety of people ten thousand miles away.

What most Americans, indeed, most people, normally think of as desirable, such as stable communities with histories, jobs, and a middle class, is not what the corporations have shown themselves to care about. They do not care about the actual substance of the US, a set of geographical areas with a varied population of human beings. The taxpayers present themselves to the corporation much as consumers do-a bunch of suckers to be fooled and robbed for the sake of shareholder profit. The way you rob customers is by dressing up something cheap and worthless to look desirable. The way you rob taxpayers is by constantly challenging them to defend their patriotism and their religion. The average American has a long history of being reflexively xenophobic, so getting him worked up about enemies from abroad, especially dark-skinned ones, has always been an especially effective way of distracting him while you pick his pocket. But I say, let me be exactly as patriotic as some corporate executive who has outsourced his American workforce to India, bought homes around the world, made sure his children don't have to fight in American wars, and banked his money offshore so that he can avoid paying taxes.

In exchange for the towns that Big Ag has depopulated, the cities that Big Manufacturing has hollowed out, the healthcare that Big Pharma has helped destroy, the environment that Big Chemical has contaminated, and the public school system that the corporate tax giveaways have hobbled, what has the average American gotten? Only the sense of grandiosity and self-righteousness that come from thinking of oneself as part of a "superpower."

"Ah, Cicero, must you continue to wail about the lost Republic?"

The G21 READERSHIP POLL
Yes, Kids, it's that time again! It's the time of the year when G21 readers start making their lists and checking them twice.

No, I'm not talking about Christmas Lists. I'm talking about our now-notorious list of the Bottom Ten people of the year. It's time for the dish. As Longtime Loyal Readers know, our "Bottom Ten" list is much like Mr. Blackwell's "Worst Dressed" list. So I'll ask you the same question I've asked readers for the last nine years:

POLL QUESTION: What ten people could we have done without this year in order for the world to have been a better or happier place? Who were the Lowest of the Low?

DEADLINE for your nominations is 15 December, 2005. The results will be published in our final edition of 2005.

Send your nominees for the 2005 Bottom 10 to rod@g21.net with the "Subject" line "Bottom 10". Thank you!

MIRRORS
If you're like me, you have to hate this time of year. The holidays are that time when someone like myself is most reminded of how alone he is in this world. While others gather with friends and loved ones to celebrate and consume calories, I am most often doing what I'm doing right now.

Frankly, it's a toss-up between having an awful time with people I barely know who are trying to make me feel convivial but are only reminding me of what little actual connection I have with them and spending the time alone working on one project or another.

This year, for example, I'll be spending Thanksgiving, that old American holiday, alone. I'll most likely make myself a sandwich and spend the wonderful free time in solitude editing one or the other of the book projects I have before me. No seasonal cheer here. I'm trapped out in the woods. The nearest store is miles away and I don't have the money to purchase anything anyway.

My greatest fear right now is that I'll be forced to do something jovial on Christmas Day that - given my druthers - I'd prefer not to; what's the point? I hate pretending to be jovial when I'm not. Bah! Humbug! [Yes, Ngozi, writing is a very lonely life.]

The absolute best that I expect from this so-called Season of Giving is that I'll sell enough copies of the New Orleans book by the first of the year that 2006 won't find me in the same state of penury as 2005. SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: Still working on your Christmas list? This book makes a great stocking stuffer!

G21 Book News
My own edit (the Second Printing) of Katrina & The Lost City of New Orleans is now available at Lulu.com and will be available soon at Amazon.com. (They have to sell the remaining inventory of the first print first, I presume.) Early reviews tell me that it's a far superior product than the one rushed out by the other editor. It's actually the book as I intended you to see it.

Yes, it was Huge Mistake allowing someone else to edit my book. I admit that. I've been editing and designing pages for a decade. I should have known better but it was my first foray back into the "dead tree" arena and I trusted the advice I was given. I certainly won't make that mistake again.

Meanwhile, I'm pleased to share with you that Katrina ... gets a mention in USA TODAY's Books section on Tuesday, 29 November, 2005, and is being considered for a stand-alone review there later in the year.

Also, thanks to the good graces of my friend Logan Bentley in Rome, it's being considered for a review by the Washington Post Book section. Light candles for me.

On Thanksgiving Day, LIONEL ROLFE's review of the book is scheduled to appear in the Pasadena Weekly out in California and thanks to MATTIE LENNON a newspaper in Dublin, Ireland, will run a blurb for me this weekend and a review as soon as the book crosses the great ocean.

(Thanks, Lionel, Logan, Mattie, MAX ADAMS and all the dear friends who have tried to help me make this project a success. We ALL know I can use the dosh.)

I'm still hard at work on the second title G21 plans to sponsor this year. It is an anthology of the works of writers you've gotten to know through our G21 AFRICA section. I had hoped to have that title ready for release by the 20th but am still awaiting suggested re-writes from two or three of the contributors. So, it looks like December for that title.

Also in December, I plan to have completed the long-promised "My Glass House" book version.

It seems that dead-tree versions of writing you've seen in your World's Magazine, by other writers here and myself, in the form of a G21 Books imprint, has become the order of the day. Wish me luck!

Has the Old Editor been busy? Hell, no.

LIFE OF ROD
Before Ron left to spend the holiday in Massachusetts last week, he had commented that we have many more weeks of temperate weather here in central North Carolina ahead.

Turns out he was wrong. The day after he left, we entered a lingering cold snap accompanied by rain and high winds. Not a good thing because, he told me, the fuel prices this year are twice what they were last year. I've tried to keep the heat on a low setting, use a little space heater he left me in my computer room when things get chilly sitting next to this window.

My hands, especially my right hand, have been cramping up painfully a lot, of late. Always a bad sign.

When coming East, I forgot about experiencing actual seasons and what that means for a person like me, who has had rheumatoid arthritis all of his life. I think that's part of the reason I've been so driven to write lately. My mind's eye shows me pictures of my mother's gnarled hands toward the end of her life. For a writer, the image of hands like talons that no longer want to type is a nightmare. I'm writing as fast as I can ...

The other thing about being here on the right coast of the country is that its weather doesn't suit my clothes. So I wear layers these days. I even sleep in the last layer on the colder nights rather than in the buff.

Of course, that latter makes it easier to dash outside in the morning, while the coffee is brewing, to have my first cigarette of the day. That's something, I suppose.

The first picture accompanying this paragraph is a Rod's Photo Album shot sent to me by one of my friends. I think it speaks for itself. (For those of you losing your eyesight as quickly as Yours Unruly, the captions above the figures read "No Brain," "No Heart," "No Clue," and "No Courage," respectively.)

I don't know about you but I got a chuckle out of it.

Poster satirizing U.S. world domination.The second pic is from a series of posters you can find at MiniatureGigantic.com. You should check them out sometime.

23 November 2005: Woke up at 6:30 this morning (deadline pressure, deadline pressure) and went up the driveway to get the newspaper. Let me tell you something, it was fuggin' cold out there, Mate! Jeez! I couldn't believe it! Winter is in the air around here and I have a sense of dread.

Winter! I don't really know what that's like anymore but from what I remember it ain't that much fun ...

As usual, by the time I come to this page, I'm quite exhausted. I tried to pump myself up for the Home Stretch with coffee but I think all I did was produce a temporary high and leads to a crashing low accompanied by the jitters. (Do you go through that One cup won't hurt dilemma? I sure do.)

So look as I have for Grace Note on which to end this week, it simply isn't there. I shall simply make an end until next time.

Thanks for coming back this week. Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.

THINGS I PRAY FOR THIS WEEK

1 - Money.

2 - Successful completion of the many projects on my crowded plate.

3 - Seeing the end of the tunnel.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "

Love,
Rod

How About a "Take Back"?

2005-11-16T06:11:00.000-08:00

A lot of folks have been talking about impeaching the President, all things considered. But you know, I don't think that's the right way to go. I'd like to suggest an alternative.

The American people are basically a good humored folk and, besides, we've done that impeachment thing too recently. It would never carry in a Republican controlled Congress anyway.

So what I recommend is that we get to do a "take back." You know, like when you're playing a game and make a move and suddenly your brain cries out, "Du-ude! You blew it! You don't want to do that! That was an awful mistake!" So you ask for a "take back." I think we should be able to do that with elections.

So why don't we all just start a drive for a "take back." And ask that a new Presidential election be held as soon as possible. We WERE lied to after all.

Time To Expose the Phonies

2005-11-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.

3 November, 2005: There can be no doubt any longer that the man sitting in White House, to employ the term made famous by former President Richard Nixon, is a crook. It is patently impossible, unless one is in denial, to ignore the compelling evidence in the public record today that points to the President and His Men violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. In other words, this White House acted deliberately "to interfere with, impede or obstruct a lawful government function by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest."

If the much-touted "Rule of Law" is obtain in the United States of America, these phonies must now be exposed in our courts and our Congress and removed from office. As former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega makes painfully and directly clear in her essay for the 14 November issue of the Nation magazine ("The White House Criminal Conspiracy") the record of violations of the law is now there for all of us to read and remember and we are compelled as a nation to act upon those crimes.

As I write this entry, protests are taking place around the country under the rubric "The World Can't Wait," in two hundred cities where our fellow citizens have taken to the street demanding just this. The United States Senate went into a closed session over this issue this week because the so-called opposition party was pushed to show som e backbone by the growing outrage of the American people.

Was this a political maneuver? Yes. Was it also an action that was called for? Again, yes. The stink coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the capital city of the United States is so noxious that it has begun to spread across the land.

Broadcaster Mike Malloy, now with Air America radio, has long referred to the coterie occupying the executive branch as "the Bush Crime Family." His rhetorical appellation now takes on new meaning as we are faced with not just the suspicion but the veritable certainty that we the people were defrauded into going to war -- while simultaneously giving over the wealth of another sovereign nation to cronies and their associated corporations -- by this President and his minions.

If the American people had the same grit as their ancestors, the lot of them would be driven out of town riding a rail.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands have been killed or maimed, and our national wealth squandered in pursuit of a criminal enterprise. If you are not outraged, you simply are not paying attention.

In the last edition, we published an article by H. SCOTT PROSTERMAN honoring the late Rosa Parks. Am I the only person who noticed that the sitting President of the United States was noticeably absent from her memorial services?

7 November, 2005: Former Senator Tom Daschle (Dem.-S.D.) went to Iowa this past weekend.

When a politician goes to Iowa, we all know what is on his/her mind. This man thinks he should be President.

Wait a minute. How many people are there in South Dakota? Maybe eight? How can anyone from South Dakota believe that they can be representative of the interests of a nation of over 250 million people?

That's what amazes me, frankly, about these people. When I hear names like Daschle or Brownback bandied about as Presidential candidates, I can only be amazed at the amount of delusional thinking that has become the stock and trade of the civic discourse in this country.

Which, of course, leads me to another political point, the weakened position of the United States in world opinion.

COMMENT on SMOKE Intro 10 November.
Argentina!
President Bush's visit to Argentina last week to push the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) led to massive protests in the cities of South America. Many South American countries, in fact, balk at the notion of the U.S. pushing through its agenda of forcing a deadline to ratify another "free trade" Agreement down their throats.

For those of us paying attention to foreign policy and international relations, this was simply more evidence of the loss of international political capital by the United States of America.

Looking at this country from the outside, particularly after the Hurricane Katrina debacle and the on-going news from Iraq, the rest of the world is certainly looking at an empire in crisis. The crisis is political, as indictments begin to be the highlight of the Bush second term, and spiritual, as we are clearly a country divided.

Sadly, this crisis is not as clear for Americans themselves. We are too busy watching the latest episode of CSI on television and kvetching about gasoline prices. But the crisis is very real. Start to believe your "lying eyes" for a change and you'll see it immediately.

As your government pushes the interests of corporations toward privatization of basic services and infrastructure, hold onto your wallet. Watch out for your future. This is not only true in New Orleans but all over the United States.

As the reaction in South America illustrates, its easier to see it from outside the United States than from inside the United States - where the propaganda machine operates 24 and 7.

8 November 2005: IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, Amy Goodman's DemocracyNow! ran exclusive footage from a documentary by RAI News 24 television (Italy) that provides compelling evidence that last November, the United States government used chemical weapons in its assault on Fallujah.

What was one of the Talking Points for the United States in its run-up to the war in Iraq? Wasn't it that Saddam Hussein was an evil tyrant for using chemical weapons against the Iraqi people?

The RAI report includes some very graphic footage that it says documents the use by U.S. forces of not only white phosphorous bombs (a chemical weapons that burns through human skin while not affecting clothing at all, all the way to the bone.) Don't look at this report if you can't handle graphic images of human death.

The report further asserts that while napalm, used to such effect in Vietnam, has been banned, the U.S. military now uses a weapon called MK 77 that does exactly the same thing as napalm and your government has used this weapon in Iraq.

As reported in this space earlier, we have incontrovertible evidence that the U.S. has been using depleted uranium weapons for over a decade now, including in the former Yugoslavia and most recently Iraq.

Ask yourself a question: How do you define evil?

COMMENT on "Argentina" and the RAI News 24 Story
Cities in Space II
I'm the one who is supposed to be snarky here. Nonetheless, I got a few SN comments from some of my Loyal Readers about the "Cities in Space" piece last time out.

Well, in my own defense, let me say I'm not the only person thinking this way. Even the U.S. National Space and Aeronautics Administration (NASA) have been working on the same idea for years.

Artists rendering of a space-based habitat.Wikipedia has this to say:

A space habitat, also called space colony and orbital colony, is a space station which is intended as a permanent settlement rather than as a simple waystation or other specialized facility. They would be literal "cities" in space, where people would live and work and raise families. No space habitats have yet been constructed, but many design proposals have been made with varying degrees of realism by both science fiction authors and engineers.

A space habitat could serve as a proving ground for how well a generation ship would function as a home for hundreds or thousands of people. Such a space habitat could be isolated from the rest of humanity for a century, but near enough to Earth for help. This would test if thousands of humans can survive a century on their own before sending them beyond the reach of any help.

You might want to check out these two URLs in your spare time: Stanford Torus, More on Standford Torus and Space Colonies

When I was a child, I would look up into the sky at night, at the stars, and have what we would call today "a Spielberg Moment." I would know in my heart of hearts that one day, one day we would be there among those shining specks and part of the greater part of the cosmos. I still believe that, rather than the eschatological dream of the end of our species.

I do not see the great war between the forces of Light and Darkness -- the Eschaton -- but rather a move onward to something brighter and more challenging. Life rather than Death as the fate of humanity. And, in the process, allowing our great grandmother Earth to be healed, to repair herself from the damage which rapacious consumerism and the European ethos has perpetrated upon her.

In this dream of mine, the White Man's Way is repudiated and we go back to a pre-Christian love of our world.

COMMENT on SMOKE/CIS II

MIRRORS

An animated butterfly image. 4 November 2005: Speaking of phonies, I almost managed to watch last year's acclaimed film "Sideways" a couple of nights ago. I'm mad for movies, and hate advertisements on television, so I watch of lot of movie channels and films. This was one of though few instances where I couldn't sit through a film to its conclusion.

There were too reasons I couldn't sit through "Sideways."

1. This was a California movie trying very hard to pass itself off as a New York movie. Paul Giamatti was doing the Woody Allen role. Thomas Hayden Church was doing the wild side-kick role made famous by Tony Roberts. I kept waiting for them to start calling each other "Max."

It simply doesn't work with California as the backdrop because most people in California are more shallow than that -- especially most people from southern California. Phony.

2. Going to the San Barbara area and saying you're in the Wine Country is an insult to anyone who knows and loves California wines. The best varietals outside of France come from northern California in the famed Napa and Sonoma valleys NOT from the San Joaquin valley or anywhere near Santa Barbara. Again, phony.

I simply couldn't abide Giamatti's pretense of being a wine snob while staying around the Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo area. Anyone from California who really knows wine could not but be insulted.

These two facts were so maddening that I couldn't watch the film.

10 November, 2005: As predicted, I did not find myself among the lucky six getting a Kiplinger Fellowship this year. I received the letter yesterday while editing here. I simply continued working as toasting the wisdom of the committee.
Rod's Photo Album
Joke photo of infants made to look like they're playing poker.This time out, I'll share another pic from DC. He sent me this one while capping on fathering without the benefit of wife. I had to admit that IF I had personally had any children, they would very likely have ended up like these tykes.

I used to joke about the children of friends that when Uncle Rod came over they should be capable of mixing martinis and lighting up cigars.

I know two young men up in my former home, Connecticut, who took me up on that prediction.

So playing poker, downing pints and smoking cigars? Rod's kind of kid.
BASIC RULES OF LIFE
7 November, 2005: Have you ever noticed that one of Basic Rules of Life seems to be that person (in a relationship) who loves the most always loses? It's true. You see any two people, the one who is most in love is cruising for a bruising. Period. I've never seen it fail.

I've been on both sides of this equation and have to admit that I felt better when I was on the winning side. It's marvelous to be adored and just plain scary to be the one doing the adoring. If you're the adorer, you're always wondering if someone might come along who does a better job of it than you do.

You're always looking over your shoulder, wondering when you'll be overtaken because you know that it is INEVITABLE that you will.

Photo of a dark butterfly.No matter what anyone tells you, people in relationships are always looking to trade up.

It leads to the Hot Chick Syndrome, constant paranoia.

I developed this reputation after my divorce of only going out with bimbos. I didn't personally agree with the characterization but it was hurled at me by certain of my friends. I was thinking, What does it say about you if you have an unattractive date?

What did this lead towards for me? Every time I went out to a club with my woman, I go to the bathroom, I come back and find three other dudes competing to chat up my woman.

How am I to know whether one of these bozos managed to come up with just the right line? How do I know if she's slipped his cell phone number into her handbag while I was gone?

I know you know what I mean. Being the one who is grateful and adoring, who wakes up every day thinking, How did I get so lucky? also means you are the one waiting to crash and burn.

But the alternative is just sucky. Again, period.

I keep thinking that ONE DAY I'll run into a literate lioness who is ready to settle down on a cliff side in Rio and make cups of Earl Grey or Irish Coffee while I pound out the next book. I don't take her out to the club, I don't deal with the three chat-up droogs who appear while I'm off taking a leak. It's possible.

A FEW RANDOM NOTES: The rioting in France should serve as an object lesson. It's probably not the best idea to refer to angry people outside of your house brandishing Molotov cocktails as "Scum."

Tuesday, 8 November's elections in the United States suggest that the Governator in California is loosing his charms and Republicans all over the country might want to consider learning how to play nice.

The lack of serious relief for the victims of the earthquake in South Asia is a bad sign for people faced with the future effects of natural upheaval. People living in places prone to hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis and earthqukes should take note.

Thanks for coming back this week. Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.

COMMENT On MIRRORS 10 November
THINGS I WANT THIS WEEK
1 - Getting a focus on the writing and editing projects.

2 - That my stress level goes down.

3 - The success of the book project and some genuine, rather than lip-service, cooperation from my publisher.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "

Love,
Rod

The New Orleans Book

2005-11-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

IF you've been following this blog for a while, you know that I've written a book about New Orleans. And I'll tell you right now, learning that most publishers don't promote your book and that you have to become a guerilla marketer if you're going to sell books is a precinct of Hell.

I'm damned proud of the book, know it's good writing but now it's my job to convince the rest of the world. So-o-o, I'm having to take marketing lessons and glom onto all my friends and contacts. (I think they call that "networking".) I call it a pain in the arse.

I have to wonder if every other writer I know has to deal with this shite.

Good Interviewers Deserve Notice

2005-10-31T10:52:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing I've noticed over my years as a writer, editor and publisher, it is that good interviewers – with the exception of very highly compensated people working at big media firms, like the ones at CBS News' "60 Minutes" – seldom get their due. The example that immediately comes to mind in Brad Balfour, who writes for my magazine.

He had one of the most consistently read columns I publish and has done some top flight "gets," including Spike Lee, Sir Michael Caine, Gina Gershon, Mira Nair and Atom Egoyan. The latter being Brad's current interview at g21.net. His questions lead to real information about the artist or the current body of work. Nonetheless, he almost never gets mail from our readers. The essayists or columnists get mail all the time. Brad writes into a void only occasionally getting kudos from his fellow journalists or myself. It's a shame, in my view.

I've been pondering why this occurs and decided that part of the reason is that, as interviewers, people like Brad are not perceived to be providing a point-of-view (a misconception, frankly, since they choose which subjects they find interesting) and thus their work doesn't elicit a visceral response. Especially on this medium, the Web, readers normally don't comment or respond to our work unless they have been angered (ninety percent of respondents) or they are seeking additional information on a particular topic addressed.

In the case of interviews, especially so-called "celebrity" interviews – at which Brad Balfour excels – most people feel there is little chance for direct contact with the subject. And, for whatever reason, though readers appreciate the access, information or resource provided, they never think to commend the interviewer.

What amazes me most is that they take for granted the time required to both make the initial and timely contact with the subject and the skill required to compose intelligent and probing questions, the kind of questions that lead to some revelation that might not otherwise be provided.

That's the shame of our under-appreciation of great interviewers I referred to above.

I'd like to recommend that you take a moment to drop a line whenever you come across an interview or interviewer that you feel was a special service or artfully conducted.

Cities in Space

2005-10-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

SMOKE

"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.

29 October, 2005: By the time you read this on Halloween, much of what I have to say about the deplorable (not my word but that of Mayor of Atlanta, GA, USA) situation for former residents of New Orleans will be news you don't want to hear. Simply because I wrote a book about the city that I called my home does not mean that I need to belabor the topic week after week. We both agree on that.

Meanwhile, because of the issues of race and class, I've noticed that the Mouthpiece Media (MM) have gone back to subjects that suburban America is more comfortable listening to on their nightcasts: Plamegate, Judy Miller and the New York Times, Harriet ("Fall on your sword") Miers. Something vanilla and non-threatening to your moral conscience.

I can't say that I wholly blame them; the MM was out of character talking about real-life issues. They need something the Babbling Classes (a.k.a the wealthy Punditocracy) can more readily relate to while getting paid to waste oxygen.

I don't know one person, trying to hold onto a job or trying to get their kids through school , who gives a rat's ass whether the Times fires Judith Miller - awful example of professional journalism that she is - or erects a monument to her at Rockefeller Center in New York City. BUT if you listen to the Babbling Classes of the MM, this is a story we the people should care about.

Maybe I'm missing something here.

Maybe this is more earth-shaking news that the natural disasters in Pakistan, in Central America and the U.S.A.-made disaster in Iraq - all of which have taken more thousands of lives than This Editor could possibly imagine.

Maybe, instead of committing these pages to focus on the AIDS pandemic that is decimating human life I should I have asked all the writers here to focus on Judith Miller, I. Lewis Libby and the Bush Administration's on-going tissue of lies.

What is important to the average person? I have to wonder, watching the shameful performance of the MM. I really do. [END RANT.]

E, the Magazine of the Environment in its latest issue (September/October, 2005 - " Cities of the Future -Today's 'Mega-cities' are Overcrowded and Environmentally Stressed" by Divya Abhat, Shauna Dineen, Tamsyn Jones, Jim Motavalli, Rebecca Sanborn, and Kate Slomkowski) focuses on the future of the planet based on the explosive growth of mega-cities. Not just the ones we usually think of like New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Mexico City but also Mumbai (formerly known Bombay,) Dhaka (Bengladesh,) Jakarka (Indonesia,) Seoul, (South Korea,) and others around the world. With goood reason.

The world has increased four-fold in population in my single lifetime and I am less than sixty years old. Think about it.

As the United Nations stated and we reported in these pages, we are rapidly moving toward a more urban world. The poor are migrating to the mega-cities of the future, in hope of finding employment, a better future for their children and the "Gold Mountain." Instead, they are finding a moment of pollution, ecological degradation and disease. They are being made more prey to tuberculosis, hepatitis, and the HIV/AIDS pandemics both in the so-called "Developed" world and especially the so-called "Third World."

Little or nothing is being done to change this trend or ameliorate the human suffering that it portends.

I'll share with you only a brief quote from the piece E Magazine offers this month, regarding the city of Mumbai:
According to a 2004 estimate, the population of metropolitan Mumbai was approximately 17 million. Every year, the city receives more than 250,000 rural-to-urban emigrants. Mumbai could be the world's most populous city by 2020, with 28.5 million, says the Population Institute.

"With this sizeable number of people, resources are getting increasingly scarce. Buildings are getting taller, with no care for where water and space, children's playgrounds and parking areas will come from," says Preeti Gopalkrishnan, Communications Executive of Population First, a sustainable human development program based in Mumbai.

Half of the metropolis' population lacks running water or electricity, and the smoke from hundreds of thousands of open cooking fires joins with the sooty smoke from two-stroke auto rickshaws, belching taxis, diesel buses and coal-fired power plants in a symphony of air pollutants. Breathing Mumbai's inversion-trapped air, experts say, is the equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes a day.

According to a 2000 estimate by the Mega-Cities Project, 70 to 75 percent of women living in slums complain of general weakness and anemia, while 50 to 60 percent suffer from chronic malnutrition, recurrent gastroenteritis and helminthic [caused by parasitic worms] infections. Malnutrition and paralysis are common causes of mortality.

The water supply situation in Mumbai is critical, reports the UN, with the level of supply so much below demand that water use is restricted and reaches emergency proportions when the monsoon fails. More than two million Mumbai residents have no sanitary facilities, and much sewage is discharged untreated or partially treated into waterways. Attempts have been made to relocate industries outside the island city, but industrial pollution remains a serious problem.
This is a view of one of the mega-cities of our near-future.

In our view, it leads to the question What can be done?

Here's one answer.
Cities in Space

The technology that launches satellites into geo-synchronous space has been around for decades. We all know that. The technology to build geo-syncronous cities has also been around for decades. This Editor studied it at university in the 1970s. As Long-time Loyal Readers know, one of my favorite and most challenging courses at the time had the same name as this subject header.

The beauty of building a city in space, capable of supporting 100,000 or more people, was that most of the mining could and can be done from our other great satellite - the moon.

I'll pause here because I realize that what I'm proposing is not what you normally expect to read in these pages. I usually keep my topics "earth-bound," so to speak. But I assure you I'm talking about the future of the earth.

Reasonably, it would take a decade to construct such a city and transport 100,000 people - with the first waves being construction crews - to inhabit it. But it is possible. The question is whether we choose to invest in weapons or such cities. It's that clear-cut.

After the first city was in orbit, building the second and third cities and so on, would take far less time. The first city would act would as a platform for future construction and the need to expend on leaving Earth's gravity would no longer exist.

Wait. I know you are starting to believe I'm talking Jules Verne fantasy here but I am not.

What I am talking about is the survival of a species that I see moving quickly toward its own destruction.

Your love affair with the automobile and consuming fossil fuels is jeopardizing the lives of all of us, whether we participate or not.

So it's the responsibility of some of us to look for alternatives. You don't like wind or solar power on this planet. Maybe, just maybe, you'll give the rest of us - who value life - an opportunity to use if off-planet.

Rather than build "Son of Star Wars" missile systems in the near-Earth regions of outer space, why not let us build livable cities? Why not?

ONE QUESTION: If you asked people to take a choice between living in Mumbai or Seoul in twenty years or living in the first space city, free of pollution, industrial waste, carbon monoxide and with jobs for the asking, as the pioneers of off-planet life, which one do you believe they'd choose?

I'm suggesting that people from the so-called "First World" would be pushing people out of the way for the chance. Mark my words.

And in this rush to be one of the first families living off-planet, what determining factors would be used? That was the question that stymied people in the 1970s and that I suspect would put the kebosh on such a project today.

The sociological issues becomes paramount because the nations that would be most willing to invest in such a project, as the United States would be least inclined toward today with its focus on weaponry and "security," those countries would want to have photo-op first citizens of the new city - and that would be entirely wrong, in our view.

Okay, Gentle Reader, stop and breathe. Take a deep breath.

What I am suggesting is no more outrageous than when U.S. President John Kennedy proposed in the 1960s that we send humans to the moon. He asked, as I am not, that we employ technology yet to be developed.

I am not.

You know, as I do, that we have had humans living in geo-synchronous orbit around our planet for years now. It's called the International Space Station. I am only suggesting that we ramp up the process. I am only suggesting that we do something we are already doing, times a few thousands.

What I'm suggesting, of course, requires taking money away from producing weapons of death and devoting those resources toward instruments of life.

Okay?

Breathe, again.

Do the math. We are talking about a planet with thousands of millons (a billion people is a thousand million, after all. Right?) and I am merely imagining that we could move a few hundred thousand to a better, if unusual, life during the next few decades.

By the year 2050, there will be billions of people living in the urban slums described in the United Nations forecasts, many of them without potable water, electricity, sewers. Which of these prospects sounds the most mad?

I am not proposing a single city. The first will be the most difficult but then we must continue. Before we despoil Mother Earth, we must give her a chance for repair and, as I write this, we are the largest problem.

I am not simply proposing a minor migration off-planet but that we begin migrating into the stars. The largest colony would be on our largest satellite, the moon.

I know that this notion will be either considered "crackpot" or totally anathema to some of you reading this column. I also know that it is a solution whose time has come. In fact, in this view, it is quarter past time to consider this option.

As I hinted before, beginning this new column was a chance to allow myself to become "Unbound." That's a Promethean theme. I am attempting to offer you fire …

I realize that some of my fellow dissidents would say that the expenditures I'm proposing would be better employed solving the problems of people on this planet.

My response: the fastest way to do that is to get people off this planet.

MIRRORS

IF your still with me, NO, I haven't gone off my nut. I'm simply offering a much more visionary solution than that to which you are accustomed. I actually believe that there is a two pronged attack to saving our species:

Begin to focus on the real issues of poverty, inequality and classism; end the consumerist trend and focus on life issues, which means

Focus simultaneously on allowing the Earth to heal the damage we've ignorantly done by getting some of our burgeoning population out of the way without resorting to killing people.

That seems simple enough to me.

In this section of the column, I'll go back to being "earth-bound" and the kind of Rod you like better.

No more outrageous proposals, no more "Unbound." Just your regular Joe Sixpack. Happy?
ABOUT THE MAGAZINE

You'll note that in this edition of the magazine I've attempted to offer you a much more diverse mix of articles than we have in the recent past. There's even a bit of humor. The House of Cards page returns, for example, after being gone for years.

We've also, after conducing a poll of our Mailing List determined that the World PressWire newsfeeds that we've done for the last year doesn't add value to the site for our readers at all. So that was jettisoned.

Other changes are in the works as we move toward anniversary number ten for your World's Magazine. Rod is in Streamline Mode again.

I have to give major kudos to BRAD BALFOUR for his interview of Atom Egoyan in NEW YORK STATE this week. I found it a great read. Brad is a gem that you all should appreciate.
Life of Rod

30 October 2005: Happily, I've begun receiving submissions for the G21 AFRICA book imprint your World's Magazine plans to publish within the next month from some of the great writers you've had the pleasure of reading here.

UNHAPPILY, not a week goes by that I don't get a complaint about the difficulty some people - friends, relatives, ex-lovers - have in purchasing my own book on New Orleans from my publisher Lulu.com. The fact is even I have yet to get a copy of my own book. Go figure.

I keep getting these polite, cordial, flattering e-mails from the person at Lulu.com who is my main contact. BUT WHAT I DON'T GET IS A COPY OF MY FREAKIN' BOOK!

This past week, I swore to myself not send another complaining e-mail to Lulu. I said that I would give them the chance to make these right.

As soon as this edition of the magazine is published, I go back into MAJOR COMPLAINT MODE.

I'M WORKING MY BUTT OFF these days. Between the G21 AFRICA book forthcoming, sweating over "Katrina" (the New Orleans book, ) keeping this magazine alive and the proposed "My Glass House" book, it seems I'm either writing or editing all the time. Both ends of the candle are burnt.

And this week, I expect to go into a form of ego meltdown when I get the official confirmation that i didn't get the Kiplinger. That is what Life of Rod is like right now.

It's just NOT pretty. [Yes, yes. I'll fix the typos during the course of the week.]

Thanks for coming back this week. Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.

THINGS I WANT THIS WEEK

1 - Getting a focus on the writing and editing projects.

2 - That my stress level goes down.

3 - The success of the book project and some genuine, rather than lip-service, cooperation from my publisher.

"Work like you don't need the money,

"Love like you've never been hurt,

"Dance like no one is watching ... "

Love,

Rod

Blogger is Not Perfect

2005-10-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

But then who is?

I look at some of the claptrap here (follow the "next blog" link at the top of the page) and come away thinking, "Who cares, Loser?"

Seriously, why do some of these bozos even burn up the bandwidth? Is it because their Mom owns a computer? I can't think of any other valid reason.

My "official" column won't appear in this space until Halloween night, but if I had nothing better to put up between now and then than baby pictures or adolescent poetry, I wouldn't waste your time or mine.

File this under "Media Criticism." As in, "IF this medium is only about that tripe then we might as well declare the end of Western Civilization right now."

Sheesh! Kripes! Shite!

Maybe I should have gone for a more high-class blogging system like WordPress. I'm almost ashamed to be in the same space as some of the idyits I've read tonight.

From now on I just come here to post. Reading makes me what to go gag.

The Quiet

2005-10-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

Ahh Sunday! The Day of Rest. I slept long and late and prepare now for visitors. My housemate and I have guests coming, some local and one special guest, his favorite cousin, in from Ohio, Marie. She shall be here in only a few hours so he is off to get beer and oven cleaner (the necessities) for her arrival party and making things ready for the next few days of her visit.

She has requested meatloaf, Comfort Food, for her arrival. One of his colleague's from the state Supreme Court Library is coming over as are his brother and sister-in-law. I , meanwhile, will live in Chill Zone as I prepare to open the week by dealing with some ordering and delivery problems on my current book, Katrina & The Lost City of New Orleans (you can order here and here)
and begin the process of offering the next two books on the G21 imprint. The first is the African voices anthology I've mentioned and the second is a compendium from my old "My Glass House" column.

But that is tomorrow. Today is about food and conviviality. I would love to do the cooking myself but I suspect I'll have to defer to the head of the household. Just as well, this is a day of rest.

Blog 2.0

2005-10-21T23:28:00.000-07:00

I can't but be amused that by the time this little corner of all my machinations on the Web is discovered by people who have been reading my ruminations for years, it will have grown a life of its own, outside of my general enterprises.

That it will mirror what I do as a "serious" (at least in one view) editor and publisher, while being distinctly separate from such seriousness creates a form of freedom and adventure that I've lost in this medium – by dint of being here so long.

For example, I'm both intrigued and frightened by the fact that being new to Blogger, I'm almost invisible right now. Technorati and Google will eventually spider me out. But not for days.

My normal readers will find me when that happens. But not tonight.

Tonight, as the rain falls in central North Carolina, I can know that I am only available to those people who find me on a "Random Blog" search on this Blog server. Otherwise, I'm producing an archive for future use. In other words, I am writing for someone reading in the future --- days, weeks, perhaps even months after I type these thoughts. It's much like writing a letter to your infant child, knowing full well that he or she will not read it until years later.

That raises the kind of question that I write to: What is the world like for you? And what can I say to you about being human and the world we left you, from this distance?

One thing I can say is that it is certainly not the world I would have left you, given the choice.

I saw what the degradation that rampant consumerism, materialism and the waste of fossil fuels – fueled by the "romance" of the car – was doing to our world. Everyone said I was a fool for refusing to take part. But I watched the water and the very air being poisoned and decided that I would have no part in killing anyone but myself.

I saw a world that everyone knew was rapidly racing toward urban slums, full of people without clean water, suffering from extreme poverty, and when I railed about it, I was called a fool again. People who I considered my friends would ask me "Why can't you just become an American?"

I probably put these sentiments better in my normal and more responsible column. But I think you know what I mean here. If you want to read the journalist instead of the man, scroll down to my first post or (after this and when I "mirror" again, scroll up.

In those posting here that are mirrors of the "Smoke & Mirrors" column from G21:The World's Magazine you'll get graphics as well as text and a much more disciplined presentation, Gentle Reader. But the point of this Blog is to give you the mind-emissions that seep out between the cracks. Letting my hair down.

Perhaps there is a variety of reader who will like that. Let me know.

Call for African Writers

2005-10-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

The first thing I'd wonder about this newly instituted Blog would be why it's defined as a "mirror" of a column on a Web site.

A major reason is "reach," as the marketers would say, but a second reason is that it affords me the opportunity to expand a concept I describe as "Blog 2.0" in the debut ("beta") column at the Web site.

More than that, it gives me the opportunity to post less-considered ideas than I would in a regular journalistic column, like the one at G21: The World's Magazine, on the fly.

It opens other opportunities, as well, such as discussing in a more immediate and public forum the book project I'm working on with African writers affiliated with G21.net. That book comes out this year and, perhaps, in the Blogosphere I can find other African writers looking for an American publisher. I hope they'll find in me an editor and publisher who has a sympathetic ear and a light touch. We'll see.

Consider this an Open Call for African writers I have worked with in the past to submit work for consideration in G21 AFRICA anthology project. Deadline for submissions being 10 November, 2005.

MEANWHILE, this page will also act as a diary, a way of blowing off steam, as I attempt to put out two books and continue to publish a Web site every week. This should prove to be an example of multi-tasking at its best.

Wish me luck.

Not Only the Facts

2005-10-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.

15 October, 2005: According to accounts I've received from my sources on the ground in New Orleans, as I have reported, the Gold Rush has begun. Speculators with reputed Deep Pockets are already picking off real estate listings for $800,000 (USD) and up that had been there for months before Le Deluge.

This had been rumored in other press sources but now we can report as a fact that it is true.

As to rental listings, the phones are ringing off the hook. And, as Katy Reckdahl mentioned at the conclusion of my book, landlords are giving former residents of the high ground near the Quarter and elsewhere the Bum's Rush. My former roomie Shawn, who lived on Esplanade, got a call this week recommending that he come to New Orleans right away if he wants to keep his place. He is there this weekend.

For many of the former residents of the New Orleans I knew, ultimatums are the order of the day. Get back now, give me some money or don't come home. I'll put your stuff in storage until you can afford to come down and pick it up.

17 October, 2005: Most troubling is an article in the San Francisco Chronicle of Wednesday, 12 October, ("As locals struggle, migrants find work in New Orleans" by Eliza Barclay) stating that migrant workers in places like northern California and Arizona are responding to ads running on Spanish-language television station Univision (but not Black Ent ertainment Television, we note) offering $15-$17/hour to come rebuild New Orleans. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees a significant political motivation in this advertising/rebuilding choice.

The article states, in part,

... Recognizing the demand for migrant labor, and to help speed reconstruction in the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security temporarily suspended rules mandating employers to prove that workers they hire are citizens or have a legal right to work in the United States. ...
... The Louisiana Department of Labor says it has received requests from contractors to certify 500 illegal migrants. Agency officials estimate that the actual number of illegal migrants already working for contractors is far higher, because many employers are not bothering with the paperwork. ...
... "The local people can't participate in their own recovery," said Jack Donahue, whose Mandeville, La.-based firm Donahue Favret Contractors Inc. specializes in such construction tasks as sheetrock and flooring removal and mold remediation.
Part of the problem, Donahue said, is that local construction workers scattered during the evacuation and are just beginning to come back. Many are returning to destroyed or severely damaged homes and have discovered that the hotels in the region are full of out-of-state workers, including migrants.

This is the shape of what the "new" New Orleans is starting to exhibit.

COMMENT to "Smoke" intro of 20 October

News to Rod

ITEM ONE: SMILING JOHN UPDATE: "Real Time with Bill Maher" (on HBO television) followed our last "SMOKE & MIRRORS" mention by featuring former North Carolina Senator, former Vice-Presidential candidate (a.k.a. "Two Time Loser") John Edwards as one of its remote interviews this Friday.

Edwards failed to mention the new Wall Street job reported here, and at BusinessWeek, in our last journal entry. Instead he was working on his 2008 Presidential campaign, as per usual. This time he was pushing yet another Web site started to help his Presidential push. This one takes a page from the Howard Dean playbook. This one's called OpportunityRocks and is promoting his college tour, attempting to recruit the young (and naÔve) and any other activists he can rustle up toward his cause.

You gottah hand it to Smiling John ...

ITEM TWO: It's reported that there is a warehouse of bodies recovered, after being delivered at Charity Hospital in New Orleans with bullets to the back of their heads. The discovery has lead to former Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Foti - mentioned in these pages in past articles - who is now Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, asking for an independent investigation.

Former Senator Max Cleland (D. - GA) seemed to imply on "Real Time with Bill Maher" that the discovery of these bodies would lead to a wider investigation of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD.) [G21 has contacted "Real Time" for a confirmation of the allegations. - RA]

We've all (in the United States) seen the videos of sixty-four (64) year old Mr. Davis from Atlanta getting a brutal beat-down by the officers of the NOPD.

I know the NOPD. There's MUCH MORE to come out of both these stories. Mark my words.

When you delve into Louisiana politics and civil affairs, you're opening up a big can of worms.

As to allowing Mr. Foti to investigate anything in Orleans Parish. Can you say "Fox. Henhouse."

ITEM THREE: Speaking of Orleans Parish, first DemocracyNow!, then Human Rights Watch, reported that the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Department had completely abandoned the Templeman III facility (where I was held during my unjust imprisonment in New Orleans, awaiting trial as many inmates there are) leaving people to fend for themselves in chest high water. Then investigators from Human Rights Watch, after getting records of those held at Orleans Parish Prison (O.P.P.) discovered that over five hundred (500) inmates were completely unaccounted for. Neither Human Rights Watch nor DemocracyNow! has been unable to determine the disposition of these hundreds of people.

G21 contacted Attorney General Foti's office seeking information about the disposition of these inmates in late September. We have received no comment to date.

COMMENT on "News to Rod" of 20 October

Lessons Learned

One thing I have to accept from the comments to the debut of this column in our last edition, people on the Web militate against newspaper style columns.

This Editor, personally, prefers them. But, while getting you used to this experiment, I've decided to bend to your preference. (I still mean to find a way to make the columnar format work, though.)

MIRRORS

14 October, 2005: Unlike most people, I don't think of my various neuroses as things to be fixed; I think of my neuroses as what my personality is all about.

I openly admit to the various internal conversations I carry on with myself all the time, the oppressive presence of my Super-Ego, and the fact that multiple personalities are something to be embraced. I let the personalities take turns defining what it means to be me. Why not? They each deserve a turn.

People viewing this manner of living, from the outside, claim that I re-invent myself more often than Madonna. From my view, it's not "re-invention," though. I just get bored easily. I have a need to try out a new "me" and see how he works out.

You do, too, I suspect. It's simply that you value comfort and security over freedom. I don't need comfort if I feel I am free to do as I like.

As lots of people -- ex-girlfriends, friends, lovers, the ex-wife -- have learned, the best way to get me to do something radical, even militant, is to hem me in, make me feel trapped. I don't like feeling trapped or controlled. I immediately start plotting my escape. That's where the "escape artist" persona comes in. I know there is always someplace else, some other container whose shape I can take - as long as I don't feel that the container wants to be a prison.

COMMENT on MIRRORS 20 October Intro

About this Column

You will have noted from the COMMENTs sections of the "beta" of this column that you, my Loyal Readers, have split almost evenly on my decision to retire the "My Glass House" column and go in this direction.

I can't say that was unexpected. Most people hate change. I take the enormous risk of losing readers whenever I make change at your World's Magazine. The enterprise would not be worth the appellation if I ever demurred from taking these risks. Each one, prior to this one, has proven to be a success.

As long as I feel that my "nose" for the Zeitgeist remains intact, I'll likely keep taking them.

Of all of the people who commented after I released it, in my view, only Tim, from Switzerland, got the game that was afoot. I am still playing "Kabuki theatre of the mind."

I owe it to this experiment to give it enough time for you suss out what my intentions and vision are. It took most of you years, you'll recall, to figure out what I was attempting to do with your beloved "My Glass House." By then, I could foresee that there would come a time when the column cried out for evolution. Thus this new approach.

Recall that I bore, too. I'd done more than four hundred of those, with only minimal format changes. It was time to make an end.

COMMENT on Mirrors/About this Column 20 October

Life of Rod

I told my dear Barbara during our telephone conversation, I expected October to be a highly stressful month for me this year. That's a lot for someone whose entire life seemed based on stress, as mine is, to say.

Firstly, this is the month when the people on the Kiplinger Fellowship Committee at Ohio State University will decide if I still have the chops and potential to go back to school for my next degree and work on the project I've proposed to produce and publish a major investigative series on the Louisiana prison system.

Then there's the Katrina book, which had brisk sales the first days out of the box and now is limping along, in my view. I have a lot of emotional freight tied up in that project.

15 October 2005: ITEMS on the SMOKE side of this journal evidence that New Orleans is still a major topic in my life.

As I've said, I'm haunted.

For you, it's a new news topic; for me, it's my old life being with me every day, every minute.

Dragana writes me from Belgrade that it's okay to be very nuts but that the notion of returning to a "wrecked and dead" city is insane.

I remind her that I have a penchant for cities that have faced destruction. I went to Cairo, Egypt, after the Israelis had bombed it in the 1970s and to Belgrade, in her native Serbia, after NATO bombed it in the 1990s. I'm attracted to places that refuse to be destroyed.

Returning from the dead is one of my themes, after all. What did Lynda say when we connected, "You're not dead yet?"

Matt called today to give me an update of the latest people returning to New Orleans -- to recover their pets or their homes.

Utahna Faith, the poet and flash-fiction friend of mine whose work often appears in 3 a.m. magazine and Andre Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse owns a house in the Holy Cross section of the Ninth Ward. The water, in her high-standing house, must have risen waist deep, Matt said. (Matt stands at six feet.) That tells me that the water in Utahna's house, near the levy, was chest deep on her street.

It fits the picture of moldy houses I've gotten from Greg and others.

"The smell," Matt told me, "was so intense that four hours later, I felt like it was still stuck in my sinuses."

I replied that other people had mentioned the smell that lingers in some parts of the city and admitted that I could not imagine what it would be like.

"Take a towel," Matt said, "put it in a bucket of dirty water. Take it out and let it air dry and mold for about a few days and then wrap it around your head all day. You'll know what the smell is like."

No thank you.

"The worst part," Matt continued, "was that I went to the Lower Nine to give Utahna moral support and help out if I could. I didn't want to say it to her but I felt damaged. I felt like something emotionally bad had happened to me.

"It's like a wasteland ... "

COMMENT on Life of Rod 20 October

Basic Rules of Life

One of the Basic Rules of Life, as far as my experience goes, is that you don't romanticize or idealize it until its gone.

"Oh really, Rod. You fickle bastard!"

Everything looks better in retrospect.

What I acknowledge is that I'm a master of idealization -- but not idolatry. I can look back much better than I can look around. For example, I'm sure that I'll look back at my life out here at "Green Acres" as one the best times I've had to read and write in too long. It's only the isolation that's killing me ...

Well, that and the on-going transportation problem. To really go anywhere I want to go (the supermarket or ABC store) I have only a few options:

Hope that Ron is around and wants to go to the store.
Hope that it won't be too much of an imposition on his brother or sister-in-law to drop over and take me shopping if and when they plan to do so. This entails their coming out here and picking me up and then bringing me back. So I try not to ask often. As recompense for their help I'm saving a few ducats to take them out to lunch. I have to do this right away as they are moving to Atlanta soon.
Pay $30/round trip plus tip to the only local taxi service out here to take me where I need to go. That means I have to shop fast and smart and not eat my liver as I watch the meter running.

The last option is the most unpleasant but the only way I can really get around, with the closest supermarket being almost ten miles away, et cetera.

For a City Boy, used to having most things in walking distance, this a precinct of Hell.

I'll look back at "Green Acres," no doubt, as a respite in my incredibly tumultuous life. It gave me the time to pound out "Katrina," after all.

Okay, like I've said before, every story begins with a woman.]

I've noted, if you haven't, that as I work on this part of my column, the moon waxes again. Within days, it will full and wonderfully glorious again.

I can't wait but it deprives me of sleep. I am, again, losing the Rules of Sleep.

Another of the Basic Rules is that we all carry a mythology inside of us. We have an iconography around which we shape our ethics, our weldanschaaung, even how we interact with others.

Some admit this Rule, others pretend they are "practical." The latter people are pretty much bullshit and we all know that.

ON ROD'S OLD SCHOOL MUSIC LIST THIS WEEK: Isley Brothers, "Voyage to Atlantis"

NOW HERE'S A SCARY ADMISSION: It dawned on me after my shower today that most of the people I've talked to (usually on the telephone but also by e-mail) for the last seven weeks are either actually in right now or from New Orleans. I get near-daily reports on what is going on in a city that barely exists and that I don't live in anymore.

Now you know what I mean when using the term "haunted ... "

20 October, 2005: IN CLOSING, there is something I'd like to explain to long-time Loyal Readers. A few of you have commented that my retirement of the "My Glass House" column strikes you as something akin to " ... losing an old friend." I sincerely regret that. Looking at the statistics for this Web site over the years and reading your e-mails at the VOX POPULI page, I could not but notice that it was a wildly popular column.

However (I think of the joke about that word even as I type it,) after doing a column for years, it falls into a certain formulaic rut. I respond to those features of the writing to which you respond, as any writer would, wanting to please, and become less "Unbound." I reach for what I called the "grace note" at the conclusion of the column and accompany it with the animated butterfly that was part of my iconography, expecting you to have a Pavlovian reaction.

When I feel that I want to be snarky (see "Smiling John Department" in the SMOKE section of this new column,) I cannot because such a comment would be inappropriate to the "My Glass House" voice long established. Thus, I am rendered, as a columnist, no longer "Unbound" at all. I am just going through the familiar motions and the expectations we have established.

Just as it has been necessary for me to retire other columns and columnists over the year for your World's Magazine to grow and continue to be challenging, in my view, once I began doing sub-sections like "News to Rod" in MGH earlier in the year, it was clear to me that MGH needed to be retired.

As I mentioned in that column months ago, I no longer wanted or needed you to have so many details of my own daily existence. The "My Glass House" formula, what had made it successful, yes, had begun to feel like a strait-jacket to me. I had other things I wanted to do and be as a columnist here and as the Editor and Publisher, therefore the standard-bearer. I couldn't do that within the confines of a column with such a calcified format and agreed upon conventions.

A new column was called for, based on the new vistas I wanted to pursue.

I regret that some of you miss the old style, but I hope that you will warm to a loosening of my approach to the pronouncements from The Big Chair. We shall see.

COMMENT on Basic Rules of Life 20 October