Californication meets Tranpacificism

There are many blog posts that I have been meaning to do, and this one probably would have been one to be time-expired by now, but no, it turns out its not.  I’ll keep this relatively short of my commentary though.  (relatively speaking) Nobody is really talking about Hurricane Katrina anymore,  which may speak to many things.  Our much-spoken of MTV-like attention spans, the fact that we’re always obsessed with “moving on,” maybe even that we don’t like to think about things that are wrong in the world that we can actually do something about, because that takes work, and (supposedly) we’re a lazy people.  Hm, scrap that last bit, I’ll think that over later.   The reason I decided that this was not a dated blog entry is in thinking of one of the beautiful people that (prob b/c of my ”job” as an LGA) I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this year, Leanne Sutton.  Leanne went to areas affected by the Hurricane, and was continuing the work that various friends of mine have engaged in during different points of time since the disaster struck.  I’ve been a person who has been a bit skeptical or otherwise weary both of Christians and Christian groups in my life (for various reasons that need not be delved into here), but I have to give it up to groups or people that find niches, or areas of need, and give, selflessly of themselves. Leanne went with Campus Crusade for Christ (the other CCC :), for the second year in a row. To hear from her is amazing, so I unfortunately will not try to recount any of her tales for you for fear of diminishing them.

Instead, I’ll share with you others accounts from Katrina. There’s a dude named Chris who works for Cisco that is from New Orleans. I met him at an SVLUG meeting’s after-dinner, and it was amazing.  He was doing work WITH relief, awesome!  I’ve read Kevin’s email (coming below), and heard some accounts from various folks, but this was REALLY interesting because he was a techie in the disaster zone, aka someone I could really relate to. So, here are Chris’s post-Katrina accounts of the scene down in New Orleans.
Next, a brief tale of a group at HSU.  Friends of mine (among many others in the world), the closest of which is Kristina Katia Lindsay, were really affected by the tragedy in New Orleans and wanted to do something about it.  An adage from my homies in the CCC (California Conservation Corps :) was about ”finding a need and filling it,” and this is exactly what these cats did.  They looked, and found/realized that many libraries, important centers of knowledge (and etc/etc) were ravaged, and there were lists of books that schools had requested to help them reshelf.  Sometimes people who try to “help” others are critiqued, for so many different reasons. (Some valid, probably many not) But this seems like an amazing way to go–Look for how others are asking for your assistance, and hop in there.  So they proceeded, and formed a club on campus, “Books Building Bridges,” and started collecting needed books from folks around Humboldt county. My roommate’s (then) girlfriend Leah also got involved, which was great that I got to hear more accounts of their work, shortly before they were to leave to deliver the books. (Wow, what dedication!!) They got there, and ended up finding SO much need independent of book deliveries, and so ended up doing some of the same work that Leanne was still continuing to do over this past spring break - mucking houses, etc. Just slightly toxic work, unfortunately for friends like John T. Carter (who went in spring break of 2006 with Crusade) who are allergic to mold. Oops, I’m not supposed to be writing a lot, so read their tales (and see their pix!) on their website, of their time in Pass Christian, Mississippi.

Lastly, I’ll share with you the account of my friend Kevin Livingston (who was on my CCC King’s Canyon Trail Crew in 2004 (pix), hence a few of the references are for us.)

ok, theres more that i can type about this than i can handle so i will try to consolidate as much as i can. the past 7 days have been insane, going through many different emotions and stresses. first let me say that i am fine and doing great, working about 90-100 hours a week with cort furniture rental. the population of baton rouge 250,000 has doubled in three days! lots of work. traffic nightmares. people on buses with nothing but a bag. safety scares of riots or looting or crime. but really its just b.s. the coast of louisiana needed repair at the tune of 18 billion and theyve been asking for it for years. gov says no over and over, so they say ok but new orleans will be underwater one day. well that day is here and now it will cost the gov 100 billion. go figure. people here are pissed at the federal gov and pretty much everyone for letting the poor die in new orleans.
nobody did anything and that goes for big corporations like exxon who definately have the resources and money to have savved those people, instead we all left them there to die to the street gangs, the water, the diseases. the storm here in town was just a lot of wind and rain, not too bad but we lost power at 6am monday, and didnt get it back until saturday, good thing i know how to make a stove out of a coke can, and i did! ate ramen and lipton noodles. the area is in controlled chaos. i really dont know sometimes, i couldve written books in the past week but i am at a point where i am just burying my head in work and i feel good, working my butt off from 8 to 11 or 6 to 1130 one day. hard work, 5 3rd floors with sleeper sofas at night good stuff. anyway i keep thinking about hanging out with agnes in new orleans, telling her to take a good look cause one day it will be underwater. eerie. well heres my personal story about my sisters best friend in new orleans that brought it home closest to me. she stayed in new orleas through the storm to take care of the animals at the shelter hospital she worked for.
afterwards they had arranged for a reefer truck to get the animals out and the night before it was to come they had to lock themselves in a room and put the 2 meanest dogs they had outside while all night the looters shot and broke windows there and up and down the street, the dogs barking all night and possibly saveing their lives. the next day the truck came and that was the last we heard of her for 3 days, hopeing that they didnt get hijacked, but we didnt know, then we finally heard from her and they made it out. its like escape from new york. can you believe some poor animal workers organized to get a truck and rescue animals from this war zone yet the gov. cant evacuate poor black people? i bet people will say that its horrible they rescued animals instead of people, but they did their part they had a mission to do and they did it, if everyone wouldve done it, it wouldnt be an issue, and imagine listening to the radio reports of looting and chaos, and then living through the chaos and then pick up people on the way out, expecting someone to kick you and the animals out of the truck and leaving you behind or shooting you? they are heroes if you ask me and they found almost all the animals homes once they got them here to baton rouge.
she said she will never ever go back to new orleans and i dont blame her. it is an awful place and now the country will see exactly how bad the crime is there. pay attention, if there is ever a bad earthquake in ca or something else, this needs to be studied on how to handle and not mishandle these things. anyway im fine. doing good. hope all is well elsewhere.
kevin

Kevin wrote a little later (Sep8′05) a followup email:

thanks to everyone about their concern for me and the area. i think everything will be fine, but yes it is going to take a whole lot of work. if people are wondering what to do out there, cause i hear and have the feeling that since its over here and not directly there that people arent too concerned about it, the best thing to do for the area is to make sure people are aware that this really is a big deal, its not as bad but could be compared to losing los angeles to a fire or quake or something. remind people how important it is to take care of the environment. the stories i hear from the survivors are horrible, i hope they come out with real stories in books. anyway,
take care,
kevin

Interestingly? enough, the Yahoo Ad (sidenote: I hate ads) at the bottom of Kevin’s email was “Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.” with a link to the Red Cross

Anywho, that’s all from me for now, hope everyone is well, and keep up the good thoughts and good works everybody! I am so inspired by all the great things all those mentioned in this post did.. Words do you no justice. -@

After posting – I accidentally received an email with a professional photographer’s pics of Katrina aftermath!  And I didn’t link to Chris’s pics above either.  ttfn..

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