Revelation

I recently had a sit down with my grandmother which started with talking about the proposed health care bill and ended on our family history. My conversation with my grandmother always start with one topic and end with a new understanding of our family tree and history.

Growing up I have always assumed my identity was straight forward. My last name was Italian (actually Siciliano di Ustica) and my mother was Trinidadian, therefore, I was Trinidadian-Italian-American. However, I knew deep down there was French-Cajun in my blood but I never sought to find out just how much, until now.

Through much deliberation it was finally understood that I am more French (Cajun) by way of Nova Scotia than Italian. This is a revelation because my family has always self identified as Italian. I pointed this out to my grandmother and even she has admitted that this is the case it was never really understood. My guess, it is the way of the "West", one takes their father's last name therefore you take his identity as well. Needless to say, a lot is left out, especially in America culture and identity politics (it is my opinion). Therefore, for 26 years of my life I have been mistaken. This does not however change anything about my love for Italian culture, i.e., way of life, music, food and language.

It is important to note, this does not change the fact that I am half Indo-Trinidadian. Just the other half is a little Siciliano di Ustica and mostly French-Cajun.

Political Simulacra

I am truly impressed with the conservative political machine right now.  Not impressed with the tactics or the message, but by the abundance of meaningless power.  This is the age of "political simulacra", defined by the engagement of mass amounts of people for a cause that has no substance and virtually no factual truth.  It is truly astounding that so many people could be caught up in the black hole of health care politics and know virtually nothing about the "real" issues at hand.  There are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed, just as President Obama took upon himself to do (and he is doing it very well, I must add; watch the Portsmouth town hall, it's incredible politics).  Yet, the simulacra is still winning (read ‘Public Option’ in Health Plan May Be Dropped: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/health/policy/18talkshows.html?ref=us).  Rather than an education tour of America, the "town hall" meetings instantaneously morphed into political refuse, where fear-mongering and hooliganism reigns supreme.  And behind it all there is a media juggernaut that is watching its deeds spread like wildfire.  We are suckers, the lot of us, tuning in to the mass political simulacra.  

The Culture Wars are back

We are back in the 1960s.  I thought that it was kind of scary to have lived through the 1950s during the last eight years, but I am equally tired of living through another failed "Great Society".  Here we are at the cusp of one of the greatest chances in our lifetimes to overhaul our society to face the onslaught of a broken economic system, a failed health care system, and a threatened environment (to name just a few).  Yet, all we do is fall into deep partisan rancor, splitting each other apart through lies, deception and slogans of totalitarianism and fear.  It is terrible to think that we might never, and I repeat never, get any "real" reform in this country.  Yes, we have staved off some of the more extremist factions of our society from ruling the majority, but we have also shot down some of the best policy that our people can devise.  And that is where we are today.  We would rather go through another cruel cultural civil war than actually reform our society to meet the challenges of our modern world.  Is it deception, or is it true mediocrity and, dare I say, "idiocracy"?  

If it were only this simple...

If it were only this simple...

New Orleans, LA, USA

Dick Hyman: The best name and one of the best songs

Yes, Dick Hyman is my man.  I stand by him until the end of the universe, the Dick or the Hyman all the way.  Enough absurdity, his song "The Minotaur" is one of the titan's of electronic music.  It has one of the most pronounced solos on the Moog, with so much flare and such class that it deserves the greatest of praise.  Not only this, but it cleanly fits into that great category known as Psychedelic music.  Yet it comes from a suit wearing square that would fit better on the moon than at Woodstock.  Truly, a cross cutting genius.  And thanks to Robert Moog (RIP, sweet electronic prince) for making the device that saved the 20th century.

A joint post from The Playground and The Psychaedelic Playground (the new project of dj Naked Twister)(PS. Click on the header for a link to Amazon for a listen; sorry it's the only free site I could find for this one)

More Health Care Posts: Ok, this one is actually good and funny

This is good stuff by Brian Unger (comedian, writer, and a satirist).  Figured I would just quote him and let it speak for itself:

"The health care debate is toxic, revealing a lot about us as a nation. And it feels embarrassing — like the whole world can see our underpants. Or hear us fighting in the kitchen.

First, most of us can't describe accurately the details of the health care reform now under debate. That makes us look stupid or too busy to care.

Second, most of us can't describe accurately the health care or insurance we currently have, so that makes us look kind of stupid, too, or lazy.

Some of us don't care about people who don't have health insurance, so that makes us seem unsympathetic or super lucky.

Most of us don't understand that we're already paying for people who don't have health care — which makes us too busy to care, in denial or merely rich.

Some of us — a lot of us — already receive health care under some form of government plan, but don't believe in health care under some form of government plan. That makes us hypocritical or selfish. In some camps, I hear that makes us patriotic.

A lot of us are a combination of these things: too busy, lazy, a bit stupid perhaps, lucky, unsympathetic, in-denial, really rich, hypocritical, selfish ... and patriotic...."

I can't agree more.  It's hard to hear things like health care reform is "downright evil" and not get sick to the stomach.  I can't tell if I will be called a socialist, communist, progressive, or a storm trooper the next time I open my mouth.  (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/08/08/2009-08-08_sarah_palin_facebook_posting_claims_obama_health_care_would_create_a_death_panel.html)

Save Charity Now!!!

Charity Hospital

New Orleans, LA, USA

Charity is not just a historic landmark for New Orleans. It was the hospital that provided medical care for those who could not afford Ochsner Hospital. While I have nothing personal against Ochsner, my concerns over health care and the access thereof upsets me to no end. How many people have to suffer?

The Battle for NOLA schools

It is my opinion that a large portion of New Orleans post-Katrina recovery revolves around the recovery of the public school system. Arguably, and sadly, it is probably one of the worst public school systems in the United States. However, the problems that New Orleans faces with respect to public education can be lesson learned around the country. To best publicly serve the nation, the Times-Picayune and other NOLA news agencies should (at the very least) publish monthly articles nationwide on the recovery of our public school systems encouraging others to learn from our pitfalls so that no public school system should ever sink to the lows that NOLA public schools did. Perhaps places such as D.C., which also has a struggling pubic school system, can learn from our problems as we most certainly can learn from theirs. Public attention needs to be raised at a national level to ensure that all parties benefit. After all, public schools are not reformed only at the school board level but need the support at the parental level.

As a side note:

What I find most disconcerting is the lack of respect and support from all over the country for public education at the state level. The very notion that states are cutting funding to public education as a means to solve state-level budgetary problems is a short-term solution at best. Not to mention the ramifications these short-term solutions will cause to public education will grow exponentially. While the battle for NOLA public schools has been an ongoing process, it is necessary to take this cause to a higher level. Let us make our own No Child Left Behind Act that would actually hold up to its name.

The Battle of D.C.'s High Schools in the New York times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/opinion/06thu4.html

This is just to say...

"This Is Just To Say" is a poem written by William Carlos Williams. I first heard it when I was listening to This American Life. It has been said it is one of the most reinvented poems. Considering that everyone else has taken a crack at it I figured I would. Here's my version:

This is just to say...

I know you gave me fair warning

But I ate your precious fruit

They were rosy red flushed against the greenery

So loud was my first bite that it reverberated through your garden

And it was good.

Louisiana Humid Crush

Here's the first poem that I wrote in Louisiana (May 11, 2007).  I will soon post the video that Kai took of my doing it live in a jazz club (not as part of the band unfortunately) to the rhythm of the music.  

Louisiana Humid Crush

Warm wet bush and deadly cold moccasin

Blue cloud banks towering above pine forests, willow swamps and open marshes

i am sent out of cold conditioned air into wild plumes of heavy draft and birdsong

Sticky breezes carry powdered sugar  through French doors and Spanish calles

Plastic cup gets passed from tap to hand to grass, 

Southern waste tempered by wild chorus in mid-street brass band's wake.

When the majority get angry

Here we are in confused America, where white conservatives and moderates start to demonstrate against health reform.  One might wonder, how is it that the white majority in this country all of a sudden learned to demonstrate for the status quo like angry baffoons (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-media-consortium/weekly-pulse-angry-mobs-d_b_251959.html)?  Well, it's a bitter irony that all of a sudden conservatives learn how to get angry and demonstrate like they are fighting a social justice cause, like they are not being democratically represented (think tea baggers).  It is a scary joke that is being played out across the country right now.  And somewhere along the line, some middle class white person is going to demand justice (and probably link it to having a black president).  I don't think that I have ever been this confused about politics.  It's hard enough to understand the health care reform itself, let alone the anger people have towards it.  It certainly will be a long hot summer.  

(Great article by Paul Krugman: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/opinion/07krugman.html)

Battle of New Orleans...Is right!!!

Please watch this video.  This is the state of our country.  We have so many people hating the welfare state (and African-Americans) that a national tragedy and catastrophe can be turned into a racist political weapon like this.  

Gates Interview

Check out Professor Gates' view of the Cambridge story.  It's amazing what the media has done to this story.  

Click Here to hear the entire Interview

"Anger Has Its Place", NY Times Op Ed: Bob Herbert

"Most whites do not want to hear about racial problems, and President Obama would rather walk through fire than spend his time dealing with them. We’re never going to have a serious national conversation about race. So that leaves it up to ordinary black Americans to rant and to rave, to demonstrate and to lobby, to march and confront and to sue and generally do whatever is necessary to stop a continuing and deeply racist criminal justice outrage."  

Thank you Bob Herbert for some more thick truth on America.  Keep it coming!!

Response to a post racial president article

This is a letter that I sent to Victor Davis Hanson, after reading his article entitled "What Happened to Our Postracial President?" in the National Review.

I appreciate your candor in the article "What Happened to Our Postracial President?", but your polarization of the "liberal" left is a bit shallow.  Personally, I grew up in a near majority white progressive town and believed in what could be characterized as "postracial" politics.  I aligned myself with minorities who were systematically kept from political power, jobs, housing and the common litany of discriminatory practices.  But, as a white post-civil rights child, I never felt that I had to understand the brutal past from the perspective of both the oppressor and the oppressed.  That soon came to pass as I arrived in post-Katrina New Orleans and found myself awash in Southern racial (racist) politics and history.  I never would have believed how racist people still are if I had not moved here.  To cut to the point, this country is still deeply racist (and by this I mean something different from what you meant in reference to Reverend Wright, which is prejudice—a point I would also argue against) and has many of the same structural segregationist practices of Jim Crow.   After deeply researching the history of the civil rights movement, the urban riots of the 60s, and housing segregation, it is clear that our national debate on race never actually took place.  All that ever happened was that Congress was forced to imbibe civil rights legislation and Southern states had to adopt pseudo effective anti-discrimination legislation.  White and black southerners still feel much the same as they did before, and discrimination in many sectors continued unabated by legal reforms. It's almost like a Reconstruction mindset, where whites are just waiting for the day when they can reinstitute Jim Crow laws in some backdoor way.  Read up on St. Bernard Parish’s blood relative housing ordinance if you want some food for thought.  Housing segregation, job inequalities, and poor education for a huge majority of segregated urban minorities is still an American reality.  Quite frankly, we as Americans are not ready for a postracial president because we never “understood” (or substitute “felt”) the past injustices that were inflicted.  When you say ”Barack Obama has consistently emphasized racial identity to further his own advantage, I fear others, both black and white, will be emboldened to follow his polarizing lead” you ignore the fact that he still grew up having a similar “black” experience as many Americans have.  He, as with just about every single black American, cannot just abandon “their” history (because it is very different than yours) because we need reconciliation.  Barack Obama is human, and he might not please everyone, but he has been the least polarizing—because your perspective is a white perspective on race—president on race that we might have ever had (even JFK hesitated on civil rights legislation, and Clinton attacked black activists to get Southern votes).  Unfortunately, your assertion that “the president asserted one racial narrative as truth, while most of multiracial America accepted quite another” is a bold-faced white lie.  White conservatives have a very different narrative than the so-called “multiracial America” and they account for the majority of President Obama’s detractors.  If you want a good example of how America missed the boat to really come to a postracial society, read the Kerner Commission report from 1968.  It is an eye-opening account of how reluctant white America is to learn from our “exceptionalism”.