Cold Spaghetti

Remember that post I wrote a few days ago about giving and getting?  About how the arrogance and superiority of some well-intended folks ends up alienating and insulting the group they are trying to help?

EXAMPLE GIVEN.

“30 Oregonians with a wealth of compassion, community service experience and technical expertise, will show the nation what the Gulf Coast disaster looks like from inside the Gulf.  We will shine a sustained light on what our neighbors need to survive and what the environment needs to recover.”

Yes, a group of folks from Portland and it’s surrounding universe are headed to New Orleans!  (No offense to beautiful Portland and our friends doing wonderful things out there, this just happens to be where this group is coming from.)  In any case, these folks are coming here to do 6 days of visits to Gulf Coast communities which:

“…will culminate in the production of a graphic travelogue of what we saw, learned and felt.  Our experiences will be represented through the arts of drawing, writing, filming and making music.  The images and voices we capture will be engaging, powerful and influential.  And, most importantly our final documentation will contain a roadmap for individual action to minimize a second occurrence of this type of catastrophe.  The proceeds from the sale of our book, and any other money raised, will be contributed to Gulf Coast and national efforts to educate children about this catastrophe and how we can do the best possible job of cleaning up after ourselves, plus prevent this from ever happening again.“

Also, they are trying to raise $60,000.  You can donate on their website.  But no, the money isn’t for the Gulf… it’s to finance their trip.   So that they can come to the Gulf, visit as “caring neighbors arriving to help,” spend 6 days capturing images and voices, and then put them in their book.

Hmmm.

I showed this to my graduate students earlier today in class.  In the words of one of the students: “I’m not even from the Gulf Coast and this insults ME.”

Check out their website.  What do you think?


Here are are some lessons that these undoubtedly very nice, wealthy-with-compassion-Oregonians should have considered:

• The disaster is not about you!  No, really.  I’m not kidding.
• Please travel to share technical expertise where you are invited to share technical expertise.
• If you want to “show the nation” what is happening in the Gulf Coast, then work locally to build partnerships with Gulf Coast organizations, and find places within your communities to make those voices heard.  There are plenty of organizations, plenty of stories, plenty experiences — all existing without your collection, reorganization, and authority.
• We also have artists.  Many artists.  Who have and can continue to creatively express the experiences of this region in a multitude of forms.  We even have spaces to support them.  They are very much able to “shine the light” on these communities, and would probably be interested in collaboration and partnership on projects.
• Taking other people’s stories to publish in your book takes advantage of people who are suffering in a very unique and powerful catastrophe.  Particularly when mischievously veiled within the scope of a “local gathering to break bread.”
• Six days to “experience” the Gulf is tourism.  You’re tourists.  Good news — this is a fantastic place to be a tourist.  Enjoy the area, tell your loved ones, friends, your contacts on your social networking sites about your experiences visiting this area.  Just please don’t position yourself in a place of authority based on 6 days of tours.
• If you want to contribute to Gulf Coast communities through service, then contact organizations and let them find ways to use your skills.

These folks are coming here with an agenda that is their own, focused on their own needs, their own desires.  This does not help a situation, it only makes it more difficult.

—

(Hat tip to local bloggers, who found and shared the website.)

Pearl River Blues Berry Farm, in Pearl River, Mississippi — the same organic farm that we gave our cast iron tub to years ago when we started renovating the back of the house.  (The tub is in the back.)  Beautiful farm, wide space for running and jumping, friendly people and animals, and lots and lots of blueberry plants.  No chemicals in the growth process — which means that you can eat them fresh off the vine.

Which means, a lot (a LOT) of blue-tinted kid poops in your future.

One of the great things about New Orleans is how nicely the city has promoted tourism interests to remain neatly tucked away from the rest of the city.  Bourbon Street, as I’ve been told, was created to keep tourists out of the rest of the city and as far as my experience has shown, it’s done a fantastic job.  In general, the frat boys, the wanna-be-frat-boys, the remembering-the-days-of-being-a-frat-boy, and the associated hangers-on stay in a few blocks within the French Quarter and leave the rest of us alone.

But occasionally we get a visitor who wants to get New Orleans.  And man, oh man.  Showing someone from another part of our lives just why we live here?  This is one of our favorite things in the world.  The only thing better than that Reconcile Bananas Foster Bread Pudding is having someone new to share it with.

We were thrilled to share these past five days with a good friend of mine from college — a guy who gave me my most lasting nickname (Hosh), studied with me in Switzerland and Italy, and who I hadn’t seen in more than a decade.  We went out, hung out at the pool, hung out in the park, played with the kids, ate good food, explored random parts of the city, and just generally enjoyed the awesomeness of having someone so open and positive about all the things we love about our home.

On Saturday afternoon, Jeb and I, along with a friend of his who had recently moved to the area, went to Commander’s Palace for the Jazz Brunch.  Commander’s Palace is the long-standing launching pad of culinary royalty; Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse are among its dignitaries.  While there, enjoying the music and company and food and all that comes with it, I mentioned the odd fact that every time Paul has eaten at Commander’s, he’s been ill within 24 hours.  No, it is never because of the food… just really bad timing.  Paul enjoys a completely fantastic meal and four hours later it’s floating down the Mississippi.  Bad timing.

Of course I had to tempt the fates by telling Jeb all about it.

The next morning, we didn’t hear from Jeb.  We thought maybe he’d gone jogging in Audubon Park, or perhaps needed some extra sleep to compensate for late night music at Les Bon Temps.  So we went blueberry picking in Mississippi in the morning.  On the way back, we spoke to him for the first time that day: it had been a rough night.

No, it wasn’t the food.  It was just bad timing.

And completely my fault.

Thankfully, he bounced back in the afternoon and enjoyed the rest of the blissful weekend.  Then Sunday night, last night, the fates rolled over to Kate.

She had eaten her body weight in blueberries at the farm so we expected a certain amount of tummy disturbance.  But it wasn’t until 3 am that the disturbances truly made their intentions clear.

Yikes.

The weekend then was like any other time in New Orleans — incredible highs and miserable lows.  We accept both and appreciate the need of each.  It is just that sometimes, we’re surprised at just how they materialize.  And in Kate’s case, the incredible monochromatic palate that results.

In honor of Jeb, quoting NOLA’s beloved John Goodman… Strikes and gutters.  Strikes and gutters.

Driving back from Mississippi this afternoon, we decided to take more scenic US 90 into town.

The photos below come from less than a quarter mile southwest of Fort Pike. (The “A” marks Fort Pike.)

Here is the map closer in — the photos come from about where the “90” is on the map, between Lake Saint Catherine and Lake Pontchartrain.

For orientation, the I-10 bridge over the Lake is visible in the background of several of these photos. These were taken over a span of a few hundred feet along US 90.

I’m not an expert in environment, oil, or marshland ecosystems. Nor was I searching for a smoking gun. But this does not look right to me.

This part of the marsh looked a lot different than the rest.

Tell me it’s a normal look.  Tell me that the green isn’t there temporarily (these photos are not photoshopped).  Can someone who knows more about these things tell me that this is a healthy marsh?  I honestly don’t know.

Claudia at The Bottom of Heaven kindly invited me to blogging event around the 40th anniversary of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.  I was thrilled to participate.  It is one of my favorite books.  I had wonderful experiences with it as a student and later as a TA, teaching it to undergraduates in a women’s studies course.  Although I am not a literary scholar, I deeply appreciate the symbolism and metaphors used in this book.  It was where I first experienced quality classroom learning on issues of race, class, and gender; and the first time I learned to facilitate those discussions.  Without question, I wanted to celebrate this with Claudia and the other bloggers.

At the end of The Bluest Eye, Claudia describes Pecola as a contrast:

“All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed.  And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us.  All of us – all who knew her – felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her.  We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness.  Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor.  Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent.  Her poverty kept us generous.  Even her waking dreams we used – to silence our own nightmares.  And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt.  We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.”

I think a lot about this passage because, to be frank, I just don’t know.

Let me tell you what I mean.  I have this colleague or friend or relative who lives in another U.S. city.  It can be anyone of those gleaming metropolises far away from The Deep South, a place that already feels a bit superior simply for not being a slave state 150 years ago.  Maybe New York.  Or Providence.  Boston, San Francisco, Chicago or Philadelphia.  Like many, these folks from Minneapolis or Seattle or Bangor are caring and giving.  They were shocked when New Orleans was devastated.  They click their tongues in worry about people on rooftops and trapped in attics.  They try not to show their disgust when they see the grunge and filth around the edges of those images.  It’s not that they are being, you know, judgmental; it’s just that they, personally, couldn’t imagine living that way.   But they do care, so when their church started gathering supplies to send, they gave.  And when that same church brought down a group of do-gooders to rebuild homes, they came.  “We came and built a house on a street that was just terrible,” she or he or they will tell me, “there wasn’t anything left on that street, it was just a mess.”  And then, the surprise, “but you know, I recently saw a picture, and that house we built?  Well, know there are four more and you wouldn’t even know it’s the same street!”  They tell this story with pride and surprise at what can happen when do-gooders get together.  “It’s really an example of the power of people, you know?”  Also, they watch Treme.  So between the show and that house they built, well, they really get New Orleans.

“Her poverty kept us generous.”

That passage sticks with me because when I’m faced with those situations from my story above, I don’t know what to do.  I am thankful, without question.  Please don’t doubt for a second that I am so, so thankful to each and every person who thinks about New Orleans.  The people who watched those days unfold with us just as sick and angry as we were, and were so thoughtful and kind.  I am grateful that folks are monitoring the oil spill and wondering about the coast.  That is for sure.

But also?  When I hear those stories above?  I sort of want to be sick.  I want to serve back their superiority on a plate of snappy come-backs.  I don’t want to be in a place that is pitied.  And frankly, after all I’ve seen, done, heard, and lived in this place, I know that it is not a place to be pitied, period.

“And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt.”

When something terrible happens, something so awful that our common humanity compels us to act on it – why does this become a source of pity?  Before September 2005, no one cared of the poverty and inequalities that existed in the Lower 9th Ward, in Gentilly, in the Treme — places that now hold the collective imaginations as symbols of endemic and systematic disparity.  The poverty set the stage for the disaster, yet did not compel true action until it became a spectacle.  And then, it became a place of pity.

Why?

Claudia discussed this with me as I was struggling with ending this piece.  In an email, she wrote:

How can we assist people and populations in need with mutual respect (and empathy? openness?) right now, in 2010, without using their suffering to affirm our own sense of virtue and self worth? And perhaps, more controversially, how do those of us whose way of life has been weakened and is in need of repair, accept help appreciatively, but in a way that makes pity and contempt unwelcome? (That line – “and she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt” – is arguably one of the most haunting and most troubling in the book! How did Pecola “let” them? Through silent acquiescence?) Maybe the answer begins in breaking silences, naming these awful, awkward moments, and how much of our well-being is based on the illusion of “us” vs. “them.”

Within this context, part of the legacy of The Bluest Eye is in this complex issue of giving and receiving.  Disasters of unthinkable proportions will continue into our future, compelling people to act.  Is there a line between curiosity over an event so monumentally catastrophic that it must be seen to be understood – and respect for those who are living through it?

As for naming those silent, awkward moments… I agree that it is important.  But then what do we do?  Breaking the illusions of “us” and “them” means that we all take some responsibility for the inequalities in the world… and then make the hard choices required to address them.  And this, unfortunately, seems like something we will still be discussing when The Bluest Eye celebrates another 40 years.

What do you think?

(Thank you, Claudia, for the invitation to participate!)

The Just Posts for a Just World are a joint effort between Alejna and me — together, and with your nominations, we try to find posts on personal blogs about relevant social issues.  Regular people thinking about important stuff.  Ways we can inspire each other to think, do, and be all that we want to see in the world.

Here are the Just Posts of June 2010.

• Zoom of knitnut with What really happened in Toronto?
• subWOW of Absence of Alternatives with Do Over: A perfect comeback is a terrible thing to waste
• Sherry of Chaos Theory with Being a refugee for a morning
• Rebecca of Flying Tomato Farm with Single Female Farmer
• Paul of Give a Damn about Poverty? with The World Cup’s in Africa The richest fans are there. So are the poorest…
• Morganna of Lizbeth’s Garden with Ode for the Dead
• Maitri of Maitri’s Vatulblog with Women In Science … Again
• Maggie of okay. fine. dammit. with Pain is pain
• Linda of The Task at Hand Musée des Petroleums Arts
• Lily of Witch Mom with As a Mother, I Parent the Whole World Now…
• kittenpie of Life of ‘Pie with Meaning is Lost
• Emily of Wheels on the Bus with Wrapping and Spirit of it
• becky of I’m just sayin with Father’s Day Do-over
• Bayou Woman of Life in the Louisiana Wetlands with Unofficial Local Oil Leak Update
• antropologa of antropóloga with Evil socialist medicine
• alejna of collecting tokens with petroleum junkie and trying to cut down

The posts of this months roundtable were nominated by:

Elizabeth (Morganna)

Lily (Witch Mom)

Holly

alejna

Thank you for your continued support of the Just Posts!

Is it normal for a 6-year old boy to just be, I don’t know… off?  For like, weeks?

Will, the boy who has never in recorded history sat with both bum cheeks touching the same chair at the same time, is worn out.  At least, we think.  This conversation about Will’s health has been going on since late May.  Granted, he WAS sick, for sure, about two weeks ago.  Lost his voice.  Had a fever.  Stayed home for two very inconvenient days, where he was oddly sweet and slept a lot.  He didn’t even whine, which made me wonder whether last rites were necessary.  No whining?  Let’s be clear: I didn’t take him to the doctor because he had a fever and mysteriously lost his voice.  No whining and I’m searching for a pulse.

So he’s been hot, it seems, quite a lot.  And tired.  But I figure it’s summer and he is probably dehydrated all the time.  And he’s at Summer Camp at the JCC, which involves swimming, sports, field trips, and daily 10K fun runs where they carry 40 pound backpacks.  This is our best guess, because when we pick him up, he is so tired he sometimes falls asleep during the 1/2 mile back home.  So, then, maybe it’s normal for him to seem tired and be warm?

But wait.  Last Sunday, Will slept until after 8am.  AND, took a 3-hour nap.  No exaggeration.

I know, I’m looking up and waiting for the sky to start falling, too.

Now I’ve got you worried.

I’ve taken him the doctor twice.  Once for the virus where he lost his voice (which almost happened again last weekend, actually) and then again because he had ear pain (swimmer’s ear).  Today, he has had fluid pouring out of his head all day.  Like when you use a neti pot, except it’s out of his ear.  All day.  Does it hurt?  No.  But then again, this is the kid whose eardrum exploded in a dramatic wash of colors and textures and he was all, “eh.”

So is this normal summertime for grade school kids?  What is up with my kid?

I have a hard time with predictability.  It’s just too boring, too rigid.  I even need to switch sides of the bed every once in awhile just to keep fresh perspective during sleep.

The exception to the rule seems to be visits to Disney World, whose wonders we can’t quite exhaust.

We were there in late May/early June… a trip timed at school’s (almost) end and with a few days of summer camp shaved from the front.  The fact that it was during one of the 3 “Star Wars” weekends hosted yearly at Hollywood Studios was also a key part of our last-minute-travel decision-making.

The trip was wonderful.  We met up with several groups of friends — from Virginia, New Orleans, Miami, and Orlando.  I don’t think we were there for even a day where we didn’t meet up with friends.  We stayed on the monorail for the first time (in the Polynesian) and were upgraded to concierge level, all of which was amazing.  We ate in Cinderella’s Castle (another first) with one of Kate’s best friends from school (and her big brother, a friend of Will’s).

And, Kate got her hair cut and sprayed with pixie dust at the Barber Shop on Main Street:

In the picture above, Kate is laughing at the parade going by the window — bright floats with characters singing and dancing.  Not bad for distraction during a haircut!

If they aren’t busy, they folks in the shop will spray your hair with pixie dust for free.  Otherwise, a hair cut with all the special sprinkles is $15.  While we were there, the Barbershop Quartet singers came in and performed.  Seeing our anniversary pins, they chose a special romantic tune just for us — complete with the crowd applauding for us to kiss at the end.

It was just that kind of magic trip.

Here’s Cinderella’s Banquet Hall in the Castle, in silhouette.  Princesses are announced and greet guests table-to-table.

When we checked into the Polynesian, the concierge staff brought us handmade leis made of live, fragrant flowers, with congratulations on our 10 year anniversary.  Kate loved the real flower necklaces.

Here’s Paul on the teacups!  (The kids are great spinners.)

Each evening, we could watch the light parade on the water followed by the fireworks over Cinderella’s castle from the pool and beach of the Polynesian.  Or, we could go up to the Concierge building lodge (where there were desserts and adult beverages) and watch them from the air-conditioned, two story room with wall-to-ceiling windows looking out to the castle.  They even piped in the music from The Magic Kingdom during the fireworks.

Each night, as people gathered on the beach to watch fireworks, the ducks and ducklings took over the pool…

The Star Wars events were fun.  Both kids were thrilled at seeing the characters.  Including storm troopers who interacted with the crowd at the entrance gates.

Different celebrities are on hand throughout the day for photos and signatures (we didn’t do much of this) and there are interviews, quiz shows, and other special events for guests.  While these may be things are kids will want to do when they are older, they were thrilled to stick with the daily Star Wars parade.

(I think my favorite part of the parade were the Sand People with Babies.)

Will was into this photo-op.

We did stand in line for a few signatures.  Jango Fett was there and took a break (yikes) when Ashoka (at least, I’m told this is her name… I don’t get the Clone Wars stuff) popped in.

Ask Kate about the force and she’ll do this for you.

Thankfully, someone who looks a bit like Jango, but in different color, came back.  That was enough for Will.  He’s got a thing for these helmet-wearing guys.

There were non-Star Wars moments, too.  (The ones below are from the Nemo ride at EPCOT.)  Will friends Bryan and Carolyn there, we had more opportunity to switch off and do more “intense” experiences — Mission: Space (simulates the g-forces of rocketing off the earth) and Test Track, which Will tried for the first time and loved.

A few days into our trip, the “Summer” Nighttime program started.  This year’s summer program includes the return of the Main Street Electric Parade, the original light parade that I remember from my own childhood.  I was THRILLED to share it with the kids.

Will passed out a few minutes before it started, of course.  We told him that it is a parade filled with Star Wars characters and everyone that is awake is given real laser lightsabers.

I got a little artsy while waiting for the parade.

Here are Paul and Kate, watching Tchoupi et DouDou as we wait for the start of the parade.

The previous parade, part of the “Wishes Nighttime Spectacular,” is a beautiful parade of white lights.  It is a nice parade, with a dreamy quality that left you with oohs and aahs.  But it is no where near the fun of the original Main Street Electric Parade!

Here’s Prince Charming with one of the Stepsisters, who is trying to put on the glass slipper.

See Peter Pan and Hook?

Here they are — sword fighting away…

Pete and his dragon, Elliot, were a favorite part of the original.  Elliot has his bumbling voice, disappears, and blows smoke.  (What?  You haven’t seen Pete’s Dragon?  With Helen Reddy, and her Candle on the Water torch song?)

We figure that we don’t have much time before the kids are old enough to appreciate Europe.  Or trekking in the Himalayas.  Or rafting the Grand Canyon.  Or finding the perfect pebble on Skye.  So right now, while they are this wonderful age, we are really enjoying the Disney magic with them.  Even if it is predictable!

Shrimp boats, docked near Jean Lafitte.