If there’s a story that I have become obsessed about, it is Hurricane Katrina. I remember it like it was yesterday. My husband and I were visiting some good pals in South Carolina and recall looking at the giant mass on CNN of Hurricane Katrina heading for the Gulf region. I, like so much of the country, stood by stunned and helpless as we watched the news flash of Hurricane Katrina’s fury.

And then the levees broke…

Honestly, I’m traumatized by the events and I was not even there. In NO WAY do I want to take away from anyone who had to live through the experience firsthand, but I just want you to know that it broke my heart. It literally broke my heart to see a moment in the US of A, one of the richest and ablest countries in the entire world, my country that is busy defending me from evil in Iraq absolutely fail to organize an immediate call to action. I remember it was when I first discovered Craig’s list as I was frantically googling how I could get to the Gulf region and do something after seeing Mayor Ray Nagin meltdown on CNN. Craigslist had all kinds listings from people organizing rides to New Orleans or people looking to ride with others. I was millimeters away from just doing it, but my obligations to grad school and some sense talking from my hubby and mother kept me at bay. Those are those moments that if I only had myself to be responsible to and for, I would’ve just jumped in my car. Instead, I immediately signed up with the local Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity, but to this day I have not been down there to do my part.

It just amazes me, as a girl from the ‘burbs, how quickly housing communities arise even in a depressed housing market, but we are still pecking away at rebuilding New Orleans and so many nearby areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. How is it possible to still have someone living in a trailer 3 YEARS LATER?!? This was a defining moment and Bush absolutely dropped the ball.

I have been to New Orleans for a short weekend trip about a year before Katrina hit. I honestly can’t get myself to go back there even to support the economy because I can’t get the images out of my head. People died in the Superdome! To me, that’s now sacred land. There’s no way I could sit and watch a game or a concert in a place today for the sake of folly when so many evacuees went there as a last resort.

The following youtoube video from the Real News Network is extremely powerful. Please watch it and tell me what you think.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlkTMQLAE8A&hl=en]

I guess I’m just starting this post to generate some current dialog on the subject. I want to hear from people who were directly affected by Hurricane Katrina and also the added nightmare of the broken levees. I also want to hear from any of you who, like myself, maybe had little to no direct impact and what you have to say when you think about it today. I want to hear from any of you who have gone down for relief efforts. Send me pictures, blog links, articles, books, documentaries and films, more youtube footage, etc…

Let’s keep the dialog going until our fellow citizens in the Gulf region (many former citizens now, I guess) have put the pieces of their lives back together again.

One more thing…

I’m a documentary fanatic and have watched several on this subject. Most recently, I watched “Desert Bayou“, by the masterful Master P, that talks about New Orleans evacuees (black evacuees) that were dropped in Utah to resume life. It’s a good one, if you’re interested. I think I saw something about it on the side pane of Field Negro’s blog and added it to my Netflix list.

More posts to come…

(story rewritten 5/29/08…)

They smile in your face
All the time they wanna take your place
The backstabbers
Backstabbers…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVC2j_Kdw8c&hl=en]

I don’t know…this song came to mind when I kept hearing the McClellan story pon de replay this morning…

How dumb does our national “leadership” think we really are? It does not take a rocket scientist to know that the war waged in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. It was comical to hear the news outlet this morning reporting about former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s revelations in his new book “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”. It’s definitely rough times for Republicans when even they sound confused about this war. McClellan himself is guilty as charged, and in my opinion, the media at large pushes the same propaganda to feed the emotions of the people.

Rather than give McClellan free publicity for his book, I’d rather see more info on the affects of real people who have been affected by the war in Iraq. The news media reports soldier casualties so casually if at all these days. Look at http://icasualties.org/oif/. There are some interesting statistics on there like the percent of casualties by race or the percent of casualties by city, state. The state I reside in now, Ohio, has one of the largest at 169 (at time of this post) of the approx 4,000 fallen soldiers to date.

Honestly, our US casualty count was not as alarming to me as I expected to be. However, what is alarming is the number of Iraqi’s who have been killed since this war started. For example, roughly 42,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since 2005 vs approximately 7,000 Iraqi Security Forces. How can I believe in America’s leaders who managed to stand together for a photo opp and denounce the genocide in Darfur when we are killing so many innocent people ourselves? Why are we being so reckless? How smart are our smart bombs?

What have we gained?

I now pay 70 bucks to fill up my 10 year old fuel efficient Honda Accord.

I, and many other women in particular, now have to stuff all of our toiletries into a stupid 1 quart bag or have to choose to check my bags and wait forever for them at my destination…if they arrive.

Not to mention the countless errors with the above statement. Just a week ago, I made it through good old Columbus airport security with several bottles of lotion that I had inadvertently left in my carry-on bag (not the first time I might add and I’ve seen major airports make the same mistake). I have been refused entry through the security checkpoint only once for a misspelling of my name (one extra letter is on my license…I have been too lazy and quite honestly annoyed that I have to pay to get the DMV’s stupid error fixed…that’s what I get for not double checking after waiting in lines for 4 hours…). I was just as annoyed as I was impressed to see a TSA agent pay that much attention to something that minor. Or the time that I made it to the gate with the wrong boarding pass (it didn’t even have me departing from the city I was in) accompanied by TSA signatures. It was so infuriating that the gate agent for the airline asked to keep it to turn in (as a complaint I guess).

I have been humiliated by the “frisking” of me and my belongings. They have made me take of my doo rag sometimes (don’t ask a black girl to take off her doo rag! that’s just not cute). Not to mention those security people with latex gloves fondling my underwear and rifling through my tampon stash. Uggh! There were days in my consulting years where I was literally fighting back tears because I felt so violated by the process…And it was worse when they would comment on my stuff (I had one guy try to have small talk with me about a cd I owned).

Need I go on?…And that’s just the small stuff.

Check out http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/. This MIT managed site looks at the human cost of the war in Iraq (the photos are amazing…I got the one above from that site). Beyond my little inconveniences in the name of national security are way more deep affects of people who have been directly impacted by the war. You’ll see info on the Iraqi children who aren’t able to go to school or get clean drinking water. Where’s our humanitarian aid for that?

Who wages a war on evil? That’s some shit for comic book characters.

Well, Scottie, I hope you get some good publicity for your book while you hypocritically finger point at Bush and clutter our airwaves with your own propaganda. There are countless news articles on Scott McClellan’s assertions in his book like the one linked to this phrase.

After watching one of the VH1 countdowns of the greatest hits from the 90s, I felt compelled to sit down and start typing this book review…

Ladies…and gents (if the shoe fits), if you traded in your Sweet Valley High books for shows like Living Single, Sex in the City and Ugly Betty, then debut novelist Mahlena-Rae Johnson’s Steve the Penguin is right up your alley.

With one week remaining before her much anticipated 10 year high school reunion, Johnson invites us into the life of Bianca Reagan Erin-Dempsey- a smart, accomplished 27 year old gal from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands who now lives in Los Angeles, the grand poobah of superficiality. Bianca has landed a great job assisting senior exec Stacey Macguire for a women’s tv network called Shake in the “business we call show”. As so many of us African-American women on the go know…all that glitters ain’t gold y’all. When Bianca’s personal inventory takes us through her career, friendships…including her BGF (best gay friend) Rick, family, and men, her insecurities abound as Bianca worries that she will not measure up to the expectations of her friends and family back at home and perhaps her own. Topping the list, is Bianca’s longing for a set of friends that really get her (quirks and all) and the genuine affections of her knight in shining armor.

As the story progresses, Bianca also takes us back 10 years to her friends and more importantly crushes from high school. Do her friends and family back at home meet her with open arms even though she arrives sans a husband and 2.4 children? Does the dork she was in high school interfere with her chances for romance? What’s up with DannyOcean112 and The Lawyer? Who the hell is Steve the Penguin? Why do we all seem to have that friend who latches on to the worst men in the name of having a man? For those answers, my friends, you need to read this book.

All in all, Steve the Penguin is a great read, very current in its adaptation (love the use of online chatting in some of the chapters) and composed with wit at the helm but without sacrificing gravity of the longings of main character, Bianca. As an added treat, those of Caribbean descent will identify with missing great food from home and the contrast of life in the islands to life in the states.

Oprah honey, when you read this post make sure you check out Mahlena-Rae Johnson’s first novel Steve the Penguin, add it to your book of the month list, and invite her on the show. She promises not to jump on your sofa. Oh, and tell Gayle that she’ll like it, too!

For the rest of youz, buy the book http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Penguin-Mahlena-Rae-Johnson/dp/0979935709

and check out her blog http://stevethepenguin.blogspot.com/

Mahlena-Rae is currently working on a sequel, so stay tuned for more from this blazing author on the rise.

I’m working on a list of black film classics or at least were popular enough to be on a must see list. Please comment with more, and I’ll be updating this frequently. Eventually, I’ll get it organized but I wanted to at least get the post started. Some aren’t necessarily black films but celebrate accomplished black actors or cover topics related to race relations.

(in alphabetical order)

1. 4 Little Girls
2. 8 Mile
3. A Raisin in the Sun
4. Akeelah and the Bee
5. Antwone Fisher
6. Baby Boy
7. Bamboozled
8. Before Women Had Wings
9. Beverly Hills Cops
10. Boomerang
11. Boyz in the Hood
12. Car Wash
13. Claudine
14. Cleopatra Jones
15. Coming to America
16. Cooley High
17. Crash
18. Crooklyn
19. Cry Freedom
20. Dave Chapelle’s Block Party
21. Dead Presidents
22. Deliver Us From Eva
23. Desert Bayou
24. Do The Right Thing
25. Dolemite
26. Foxy Brown
27. Friday
28. Get on the Bus
29. Glory
30. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
31. Hairspray
32. Harlem Nights
33. He Got Game
34. Higher Learning
35. Hitch
36. How Stella Got Her Groove Back
37. Hustle & Flow
38. I Am Legend
39. Jason’s Lyric
40. John Q
41. Jungle Fever
42. Love Jones
43. Malcolm X
44. Menace to Society
45. Mississippi Burning
46. Mississippi Massala
47. Mo’ Better Blues
48. New Jack City
49. Philadelphia
50. Pride
51. Purple Rain
52. Ray
53. Sarafina
54. School Daze
55. Sister Act
56. Something New
57. Soul Food
58. Sprung
59. Superfly
60. The Best Man
61. The Color Purple
62. The Hurricane
63. The Inkwell
64. The Manchurian Candidate
65. The Preacher’s Wife
66. The Pursuit of Happyness
67. To Kill A Mockingbird
68. Tsotsi
69. Undercover Brother
70. Waiting to Exhale
71. When the Levees Broke
72. Why Did I Get Married?

I ran into One Brown Girl through checking the links on the Mixed Chicks website.  I love unique tees, especially those that make a statement.  If you’re like me, check them out.  They also have a blog that (from what I can tell) keeps you up to date with their product line plans.

http://www.onebrowngirl.com/order/index.html

http://1browngirl.blogspot.com/

The tees are a little pricey in my opinion, but sometimes it’s fun to splurge in the name of personal style.  They also mention that they’re planning a children’s line.

It’s pretty much a given that if you’re not a little blond girl, if you go missing, good luck getting some media attention.  I just ran across a blog called “Black And Missing But Not Forgotten” whose sole purpose is to spread the word about missing African Americans.

Check it out:  http://blackandmissing.blogspot.com/

This one’s for North Carolina! C’mon and raise up
Take your shirt off, twist it ’round yo head
Spin it like a helicopter
North Carolina! C’mon and raise up
This one’s for you, uh-huh, this one’s for who?
Us, us, us; yes sir!

Yes! The land of Petey Pablo let the country know that we are not so stupid after all. The cheap shots from Hillary’s camp accentuated by Rev Wright and his version of “damage control” or too much time in the spotlight bounced off Obama voters like rubber bullets. I bet Obama is dusting his shoulders off. He should’ve done that move at his victory speech!

Ugggh! Is it me or is this is like the longest road trip of your life trapped with all of your family in a jumbo conversion van in hot, humid August with no air conditioning that will never end!?!? Imagine what it must be like for Mr. Audacity of Hope? When the hell is Hillary going to throw in the towel? I can’t wait to see her resignation speech.

Now all of CNN’s attention is focused on overanlayzing and hypothesizing about Indiana. I can’t bear to watch anymore.

UPDATE 5/8: So he lost Indiana by 1.7% As one of my siblings said “that’s like the margin of error” (that’s for you statisticians out there).

Hillary, shall we start playing Ruben Studdard’s “Celebrate Me Home”?

Here’s the latest from my blog surf.  I’m finding that I’m not the only one that struggles with maintaining a regular blog solely dedicated to the nappy journey, but I’m also inspired to keep the posts coming on this topic as there is so much out there and our hair issues are as diverse as we are a people.  Enjoy the links and comment with your thoughts and/or any other sites worth a read.

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Charcoal Ink is not just about natural hair, but I think you’ll enjoy checking it out anyway.  The post relating to natural hair that I originally found is below:  http://charcoalink.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/relaxers-twist-outs-wheres-my-afro/.

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Natural and Nappy is a pretty cool blog on natural hair and its care.  It has a slightly more recent update than the others below.

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Naturally You magazine has not been updated recently, but it was interesting to find a listing of natural hair shows as her most recent post.  I might even check one out if I can find some more details.

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Nikki’s Hair Blog is even more out of date (just a reminder that I need to keep this emphasis moving) but I did like the photos she shares of her natural short do (see this link for the specific post:  http://nikkishairblog.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html)  .  I wish I had the face to pull that off because I think the low fro is absolutely beautiful.  She’s moved her photos over to Fotki…whatever the hell that is.

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Taking a hot second to go back to the original premise to this blog, I thought I’d clue you in in the haircare blog on AOL’s Black Voices called Hair Apparent.  It’s not just about natural hair, but I’m finding it an interesting read of black hair care in general.

Check it out:  http://www.blackvoices.com/blogs/category/hair-apparent-black-hair-care/