I have 15 minutes before the season premiere of "Desperate Housewives," which will be followed by the season premiere of "Grey's Anatomy," after which I will be headed directly to bed. Then it's about three weeks straight working because of a big event we have coming up the next two weekends, so I figured I better give everyone a quick update while I have the time and energy to blog.
Update No. 1 - I have quit watching or reading something about Katrina every day. Probably healthier for my mental stability, but when I do read or see something, it makes me feel guilty for "forgetting" so quickly when there are still so many people homeless and missing loved ones.
Update No. 2 - Things did not work out so well with the guy from Pittsburgh (I'll avoid naming names). We had a great time while he was down here, but after he left, I slowly began to realize that I wasn't really over someone else. I wanted to be honest with Pittsburgh guy and let him know I was confused, but he didn't take it so well. Told me "fuck you very kindly." Not exactly the reaction I expected from someone I thought was an easy-going guy. I feel bad that I hurt him, but I guess it's good that I got a clue about his real temperament before things got too deep.
Update No. 3 - Yes, as just mentioned, I am not over you-know-who. Not sure where to go from here. I told him almost two months ago that I was tired of waiting for him to make a decision and I was moving on, but I guess I am not really ready to do that yet. If I ever doubted for a second how he feels about me, it would be a lot easier to move on, but in all my life I've never had a guy look at me with such sincere affection. So how can I give up on him when I know what he's been through and why it's so hard for him to let his guard down?
Update No. 4 - I am 75 percent of the way toward meeting my fundraising goal for the Humane Society's Pet Parade. Thanks to all who donated, and if you haven't yet, I only need $25 more - click here to donate online.
Update No. 5 - It's time for Desperate Housewives, so I've gotta run!
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Help Homeless Pets
My roommate Randi, her dog Winnie, my puppy Alex and I will all be walking in the Charlotte Humane Society's annual Pet Parade Oct. 15 to raise money to help homeless pets. Alex was once homeless himself, until we adopted him from a rescue group. The photo above is from the first day we brought him home. At six weeks old, he weighed 3.8 pounds. Now four months old, he weighs almost 26 pounds. Please sponsor Alex and I to help other lovable pooches like him.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Johnny Be Good
Yes, I am finally writing about something besides Katrina.
I am trying to expand my musical horizons, because right now it seems as if all I listen to is Top 40 and country radio. So what better place to start than with an artist that likely spanned more genres and generations than any other? That's right--Johnny Cash.
I'd probably forgotten how prolific the amazing Man in Black was, until I started downloading songs. A search for "Johnny Cash" brought up more than 800 results. What was more amazing was the variety of artists he either sang with or covered--including Dave Matthews, U2, Alice in Chains and Ray Charles.
My parents and I don't have much in common when it comes to musical taste. But I remember hearing not only my mom and dad, but also my grandma, playing Johnny when I was a child. I've known the words to "A Boy Named Sue," "I Walk the Line" and many other classics for as long as I can remember.
I guess there is just something with that deep, gravelly voice that is imperfect enough and human enough to strike a chord in all of us.
I am trying to expand my musical horizons, because right now it seems as if all I listen to is Top 40 and country radio. So what better place to start than with an artist that likely spanned more genres and generations than any other? That's right--Johnny Cash.
I'd probably forgotten how prolific the amazing Man in Black was, until I started downloading songs. A search for "Johnny Cash" brought up more than 800 results. What was more amazing was the variety of artists he either sang with or covered--including Dave Matthews, U2, Alice in Chains and Ray Charles.
My parents and I don't have much in common when it comes to musical taste. But I remember hearing not only my mom and dad, but also my grandma, playing Johnny when I was a child. I've known the words to "A Boy Named Sue," "I Walk the Line" and many other classics for as long as I can remember.
I guess there is just something with that deep, gravelly voice that is imperfect enough and human enough to strike a chord in all of us.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Holding the shoe
"A Flower for the Graves," an editorial on the 1963 bombing of a black church that killed four children, written by then-Atlanta Constitution editor Eugene Patterson, begins with this paragraph:
A Negro mother went in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe--from the foot of her dead child. We hold that shoe with her.
America now holds another shoe, for the tragedy of Katrina.
Make no mistake--it is about race. This would not have happened, not to this extent, if the faces on the rooftops, the faces outside the Super Dome, were white. No, our country didn't purposely let thousands die of starvation, dehydration and medical complications because of the color of their skin. But whether we meant to or not, the result was the same.
Patterson continues:
We watched the stage set without staying it. We listened to the prologue unbestirred. We saw the curtain opening with disinterest. We have heard the play.
We have set the stage, as we ignored the vicious cycle of poor education and poverty that kept much of black New Orleans, and black America, trapped in its grip. That devastating poverty is the factor that kept many of those remaining in the city from evacuating--they had no means of leaving.
We can sit back and say it's not our fault they're poor, but as a nation, it is. As a nation, white America enslaved, then repressed and segregated, black America for centuries. And that was just a few decades ago. The results of that kind of oppression do not fade away overnight.
When I was an education reporter, I heard it often: Two of the biggest determinants of a child's success in school are the education level of the parents and the income level of the parents. Knowing that, it's easy to see how poverty perpetuates poverty. Poor, uneducated parents simply can't give their children the same resources to learn that more well-to-do parents can.
But the poverty of New Orleans is not the only reason this tragedy is about race. The mishandling of the response to this disaster is appalling. What was more appalling, though, was the lack of an uproar by America over the slow response. I would hope there were few Americans who looked at their TV screens and said to themselves, "Oh, they're black, it doesn't matter." But I think, as a whole, America saw those faces, and did not emotionally connect to them in the same way that they would have if the faces were white. If the faces were white, the uproar across the country would have been evident within two days of no food, no water. Instead, it took four.
And when the faces of the looters and the faces of the victims looked the same, it made it easier for outright and hidden racists alike to group them together and say, "We're trying to help them, but they don't want our help." If the looters had been black or Hispanic or Muslim, and the victims white, the response would have been more like, "We've got to find a way to help those people--look what they're going through, and those looters are making it worse."
Yes, America this is our fault. It's our fault for not planning, for not providing a means for the poor to evacuate, and for not responding as quickly as we should have. But in a larger sense, the blame rests with each of us, for not learning the lessons of history, for not learning how to live in harmony, and for not learning how to lift up those who need help every day, not just when disaster strikes.
We know better. We created the day. We bear the judgment... With a weeping Negro mother, we stand in the bitter smoke and hold a shoe.
A Negro mother went in the street Sunday morning in front of a Baptist church in Birmingham. In her hand she held a shoe, one shoe--from the foot of her dead child. We hold that shoe with her.
America now holds another shoe, for the tragedy of Katrina.
Make no mistake--it is about race. This would not have happened, not to this extent, if the faces on the rooftops, the faces outside the Super Dome, were white. No, our country didn't purposely let thousands die of starvation, dehydration and medical complications because of the color of their skin. But whether we meant to or not, the result was the same.
Patterson continues:
We watched the stage set without staying it. We listened to the prologue unbestirred. We saw the curtain opening with disinterest. We have heard the play.
We have set the stage, as we ignored the vicious cycle of poor education and poverty that kept much of black New Orleans, and black America, trapped in its grip. That devastating poverty is the factor that kept many of those remaining in the city from evacuating--they had no means of leaving.
We can sit back and say it's not our fault they're poor, but as a nation, it is. As a nation, white America enslaved, then repressed and segregated, black America for centuries. And that was just a few decades ago. The results of that kind of oppression do not fade away overnight.
When I was an education reporter, I heard it often: Two of the biggest determinants of a child's success in school are the education level of the parents and the income level of the parents. Knowing that, it's easy to see how poverty perpetuates poverty. Poor, uneducated parents simply can't give their children the same resources to learn that more well-to-do parents can.
But the poverty of New Orleans is not the only reason this tragedy is about race. The mishandling of the response to this disaster is appalling. What was more appalling, though, was the lack of an uproar by America over the slow response. I would hope there were few Americans who looked at their TV screens and said to themselves, "Oh, they're black, it doesn't matter." But I think, as a whole, America saw those faces, and did not emotionally connect to them in the same way that they would have if the faces were white. If the faces were white, the uproar across the country would have been evident within two days of no food, no water. Instead, it took four.
And when the faces of the looters and the faces of the victims looked the same, it made it easier for outright and hidden racists alike to group them together and say, "We're trying to help them, but they don't want our help." If the looters had been black or Hispanic or Muslim, and the victims white, the response would have been more like, "We've got to find a way to help those people--look what they're going through, and those looters are making it worse."
Yes, America this is our fault. It's our fault for not planning, for not providing a means for the poor to evacuate, and for not responding as quickly as we should have. But in a larger sense, the blame rests with each of us, for not learning the lessons of history, for not learning how to live in harmony, and for not learning how to lift up those who need help every day, not just when disaster strikes.
We know better. We created the day. We bear the judgment... With a weeping Negro mother, we stand in the bitter smoke and hold a shoe.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Socks
Louise, Randi's former boss from her internship at Wingate's PR office is now the head of PR for the Charlotte Red Cross. The Red Cross has set up a shelter for Katrina evacuees at the Charlotte Coliseum, so Louise called her yesterday to see if we could help filling media requests, taking photos etc. Randi's voicemail is kind of screwy, so she didn't get the message until today.
Randi called her back, but kept getting her voicemail, so we decided to just head down there and see what we could do. Before we left, I packed up a few bags of clothes I don't need or don't wear to take with me. When we got there, streams of people were coming and going, dropping off donations of water, clothes, etc. The woman overseeing the clothing donations said they really needed socks. A woman who had come in behind me said she had socks, and the Red Cross woman turned a tiny old man beside her, who was an evacuee, and said, "You needed socks, didn't you?"
"I desperately need socks," the man responded in earnest, taking the outstreched socks with a look of complete gratitude. Later, Randi and I were outside, trying to find Louise, and we saw the little old man again, wearing a pair of too-big jeans held up by a slightly worn belt.
A news reporter nearby began talking to him. The conversation went as follows:
News reporer - "We talked to you earlier--did you find some clothes?"
Old man - "Yes. And I got some socks. (Pulls up too large jeans to show reporter). And I have two more pair inside."
The man sounded like a kid telling his friends what he got for Christmas. No one should have to be that happy to have clean, dry socks. I almost lost it, and had to walk away to wipe my eyes.
Randi called her back, but kept getting her voicemail, so we decided to just head down there and see what we could do. Before we left, I packed up a few bags of clothes I don't need or don't wear to take with me. When we got there, streams of people were coming and going, dropping off donations of water, clothes, etc. The woman overseeing the clothing donations said they really needed socks. A woman who had come in behind me said she had socks, and the Red Cross woman turned a tiny old man beside her, who was an evacuee, and said, "You needed socks, didn't you?"
"I desperately need socks," the man responded in earnest, taking the outstreched socks with a look of complete gratitude. Later, Randi and I were outside, trying to find Louise, and we saw the little old man again, wearing a pair of too-big jeans held up by a slightly worn belt.
A news reporter nearby began talking to him. The conversation went as follows:
News reporer - "We talked to you earlier--did you find some clothes?"
Old man - "Yes. And I got some socks. (Pulls up too large jeans to show reporter). And I have two more pair inside."
The man sounded like a kid telling his friends what he got for Christmas. No one should have to be that happy to have clean, dry socks. I almost lost it, and had to walk away to wipe my eyes.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Help
I can't stop.
I am reading, watching, listening to anything I can on Katrina. I can't handle it. I feel so impotent at a time when so many people need help, and physically sick to my stomach about the way this "great" nation has failed to rise to meet one of its greatest challenges.
A guy I worked with said ignorantly yesterday, "You can't help people who don't want help." What??? Don't tell me that people without food and water don't want help. Don't tell me that a small lawless minority (that's not counting those looting for food and water as lawless--we would all do the same) is an excuse for a country with the resources we have to not help the hundreds of thousands of innocent victims of this tragedy.
His comment enraged me because I know him, and I know that his views are tainted much more by the color of the faces he is seeing on TV than they are by the behavior of the looters. He sees those that were left behind--the poor, who had no means of leaving--but he doesn't recognize the face of poverty. He sees only race.
For anyone of any income level or any color to die from lack of food or water in the United States in an unbelievable disgrace. For hundreds, maybe thousands, to do so because we respond with only a trickle of National Guardsmen and supplies to perhaps our country's worst natural disaster...that's unspeakable.
There is so much more I want to say about this, but I don't think I can. What it really comes down to is what I told my ignorant co-worker--when people need help, you help them.
I am reading, watching, listening to anything I can on Katrina. I can't handle it. I feel so impotent at a time when so many people need help, and physically sick to my stomach about the way this "great" nation has failed to rise to meet one of its greatest challenges.
A guy I worked with said ignorantly yesterday, "You can't help people who don't want help." What??? Don't tell me that people without food and water don't want help. Don't tell me that a small lawless minority (that's not counting those looting for food and water as lawless--we would all do the same) is an excuse for a country with the resources we have to not help the hundreds of thousands of innocent victims of this tragedy.
His comment enraged me because I know him, and I know that his views are tainted much more by the color of the faces he is seeing on TV than they are by the behavior of the looters. He sees those that were left behind--the poor, who had no means of leaving--but he doesn't recognize the face of poverty. He sees only race.
For anyone of any income level or any color to die from lack of food or water in the United States in an unbelievable disgrace. For hundreds, maybe thousands, to do so because we respond with only a trickle of National Guardsmen and supplies to perhaps our country's worst natural disaster...that's unspeakable.
There is so much more I want to say about this, but I don't think I can. What it really comes down to is what I told my ignorant co-worker--when people need help, you help them.
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