There are times when coming upon a news story, one becomes intent on gathering as much information as possible to better understand, to practice "deep listening," about what an event means, what it portents  historically.  

The life of Kenneth Foster and the events surrounding the tragic murder of Michael LaHood is such a time.

The shooter has been executed. Two of the three men remaining in the car, those who "cooperated" with authorities, were sentenced to prison, the third, the driver, Kenneth Foster, is scheduled to be executed on the 30th of August.

The issue is at hand and time is running out.    

We have all been blessed over the last several years by the on-line journal known as ChickenBones: A Journal We have had everyday access to original intellectual work by some of the most important artists and theorists of the past 100 years, made possible by the dedicated and selfless labor of the singular Rudy Lewis.

Rudy has been performing the same kind of cultural labor that earned Langston Hughes his respect as a midwife of the Harlem Renaissance and Dudley Randall his own as the man behind Broadside Press and the Black Arts Movement. One glance at the ChickenBones website is enough to convince anyone of this idea.

We need feet here folks...if you can't attend, support the effort, eh?

Thanks MITM!

United Progressives announce a

MARCH ON GRETNA

Monday, November 7, 2005

Rally at 10:00 a.m. at the New Orleans Convention Center

March begins at 11:00 a.m.

The ALA's Adopt-a-Library program is one on one: your local library and a library devastated by the storm.

In addition, the ALA is running a database of info/news on library damage status. I've posted pages from MS & LA state library sites as well (couldn't find anything on Alabama, yet. Link please someone?)And there's the link to
SOLINET Response Site For All Libraries Needing Assistance or Offering Assistance

may all beings benefit, yada, yada
under the bodhi tree

LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE
The Neo-Griot New Orleans Project

This project is designed to document, archive and share the life experiences of New Orleanians. While we will focus on Katrina-related events, we plan to include selected life stories.

Although 65% to 70% Black, New Orleans had a rich mix of people. For example, one of, if not the largest community of Hondurans outside of Honduras was located in the greater New Orleans area. Over 12,000 Vietnamese lived in New Orleans, principally in New Orleans East, which was entirely flooded. Additionally, the adjoining parishes (counties) of St. Bernard and Plaquemines contained large populations of poor whites. Listen To The People will focus on Black residents, but we will not disappear or ignore other ethnicities and races who lived in the New Orleans area. All voices will be included.

[http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/09/whirlwind.html]

Corporations of the Whirlwind:The Bush-friendly companies that ate Iraq are preparing to do the same in New Orleans.By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse,September 14, 2005 In the decade before September 11th, 2001, "globalization," a word now largely missing-in-action, was on everyone's lips and we constantly heard about what a small, small world this really was. In the aftermath of Katrina, that global smallness has grown positively claustrophobic and particularly predatory. Iraq and New Orleans now seem to be morphing into a single entity, New Oraq, to be devoured by the same limited set of corporations, let loose and overseen by the same small set of Bush administration officials. In George Bush's new world of globalization, first comes the destruction and only then does one sit down at the planetary table to sup....