I always knew that Global warming, and the whole green house effect thing was bad. I didn't know however that the higher temperature of the water in the gulf is what made Katrina stronger, and what let her cross the gulf into New Orleans. Check this page and specifically this article.

How sad it really is that more of us don't fight for our environment. I know there are other terrible things in the world, but this is our home. Not the US or North America. I mean Earth. We fight to "protect" our homes so much, why can't we all fight for our first home. Shit without a planet we can't have countries to have stupid wars over. That should be the government's first incentive. Bush should fight for the environment so he could still have stupid reasons to go to war. Where could Halliburton destroy and then build without an earth. Shit there wont be anymore oil in Saudi Arabia to fight over if there was no Earth. If not for the right reasons then do it for all the wrong reasons. What can I say?

Those who know me a bit know that I had a love affair with Anne Rice. Not the actual person but with her books. I read 15 of them. She made me fall in love with New Orleans before I ever got to see it. I've never seen it before. She describes the swamps, the Garden District, the Parish Neighborhood, the old Irish Canal, The French Quarter. I still remember what the garden district smells like on Ash Wednesday, when the elder Mayfairs would go to every church. Some of the ground still littered with the celebration of the day before. I remember Merricks neighborhood. The Black mayfairs with powers stronger than their white counterparts, and without the haunting of the spirit of the Taltos. I remember the house in the Garden District. The one where so many Mayfairs have died, but where all of them still call home, ever since the old swamp house fell in the time of Marguerite. I bet Julien's ghost is still wandering, even after the flood. And Lestats Cafe Du pont. How lovely it was. When he sat with warm cappuccino that he could never consume in his vampiric form, but he still appreciated the warmth, the scent, the aesthetics. Louis, the sad Vampire with memories of lost Claudia. She still haunts the city. The vampire destined to never know what the body of an adult feels like. Tarquin Blackwood and his swamp with all the mosquitoes in the world. His Blackwood farm, the spirit of his twin brother constantly torturing him. The cemeteries, the churches, the restaurants. No matter how many people they take out of it, the essence is still there. I also studied a bunch of New Orleans in College. Remove the people and still see the spirit of the slaves dance in Congo Square. Watch them, move and do the fake dances for their white masters. So they would think that was it. Never knowing that the Queen would never show the true dances during the day. Out in the open. Wait till the night comes. Go to the secret places. Dance, Dance. Broken Levy, city under polluted water, watch their spirits still dance. In the Congo square, from plantation to lake. The Quadroons dancing for their white husbands to be. Have children who will marry white, try to make the skin as light as possible. How else would they live with the fact that they too own slaves. They too trade them like baseball cards. Even if some are children of the White Husband, who has his white family on the plantation, and his quadroon family in the city, and his black kids serving all of the above.

Wow. Some from research, some from books Some from Anne. And if you think she only writes about things that go bump in the night, read "Feast of all Saints". It doesn't have anything to do with vamps and witches. It deals with slavery and the things between white, black, mulatto, and quadroons. It deals with a quadroon boy knowing that even though his family has money, even though he has acceptable privilege, the man on the auction block is his brother, and does not deserve to be there. It is some deep ass shit. And if you aren't gonna read the book at least watch the showtime mini-series made a few years ago. It will shine a bright shinny light.

And you'll See New Orleans.

Her son also wrote about NO in his first novel. He writes completely different. His first Book, "density of souls" ends with a great big hurricane that destroys New Orleans. Ironic isn't it?

Enough

I love you all...