Stormy Weather....

Yesterday was a wild day! Most of the day, we were without power since a storm came through the area. Winds up to 67 MPH in some places, heavy rain and flooding. It was a real mess.

While I sat in the dark, I thought quite a bit about the people who didn't have anywhere to go, to escape that. When I went out to survey the damage to the house (which was fairly extensive but not irreparable), the wind was blowing me around ~ and I'm not a small girl. I can't imagine how they fared. Where did they hide to get away from it? Where did they stay warm? Where did they eat? The power was out nearly all over the entire city.

I also thought of something else far less socially conscious.

The storm reminded me of Thailand. I sat through a storm there one night that blew the windows open, blew motor scooters down the street and blanketed us in a thick hard rain that was like nothing I'd ever experienced.

It was a bit scary because we simply had no defenses against it. The storm was going to do what it was going to do. We were powerless against it.

And I'd be willing to go through that again .. to be there.

I came to the conclusion that I do need to touch base there again.

ET Wants To Go Home.

For a long time, I've tried to make it here as much as possible. The truth is though that the clothes, the furniture, the jewelry, the art, the food.. It isn't enough. There's something about being where I am understood without effort, being where I feel as though my daily life is satisfying and full, being where everything seems to fit, strongly drawing me back. Being a stranger in a strange land, even though people are certainly very nice to me and my life is hardly wretched, still takes its toll.

Balanced against the obligations I've voluntarily taken on here, I know I need to come back. And I will.

But I need that dirt beneath my feet, that air in my lungs, those people around me. I really need it. I'm hungry for it.

So.. credit cards be damned. I'm going. I'm not exactly sure of the dates yet but it will be reasonably soon.

Thanks for all your input yesterday.
:)

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Katrina put me over the edge.... (Warning: Strong Opinions)

I still remember the reporter on the asphalt of the empty freeway:

"Why isn't someone helping these people?"

I still remember seeing the people on top of their houses, some with "Help! Diabetic" painted on the roofs.

I still remember the devastation of the Ninth Ward.

I still remember the football stadium where "refugees" were crammed together like vienna sausages in a can. (This was the early coverage, before "they" decided that using the term refugees was un-PC because, after all, they were Americans, too.)

It was like watching a war zone. There were trucks without tires, only rims, packed with people trying to escape. There were pregnant women with children walking aimlessly on the freeway overpasses. There were dead bodies abandoned along the side of the road.

I still remember that the Blackwater Security Service was dispatched, hired by the wealthy, to protect their property. It didn't take long for them to arrive. In fact, they got there before FEMA.

One wealthy New Orleans businessman personally hired the Israeli firm Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) to protect the elite gated community of Audubon Place.

... because the wealthy and their property are always more important than the poor.

The National Guard and other services patrolled the streets day and night with a shoot-to-kill mentality because some of the poor had to loot for food. One doctor was arrested for looting a pharmacy to get needed medication to start a clinic.

The wealthy were protected and the poor were left to die. It was genocide based on socioeconomics. At the time, so many were talking about race, as though race was the issue.

Poverty was the issue.

And it was then that I truly got it that it could happen here.

That it had already happened here.

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