'What many hands do' and racist reactions to bracero talk

I recently wrote an article about a mural honoring the braceros for The Californian, a newspaper in Salinas, Calif.

The city, in Monterey County, is known for the vast fields of lettuce, spinach and other crops that surround it, drawing migrant laborers to pluck the goods. It also is the birthplace of John Steinbeck, whose novel The Grapes of Wrath chronicled the plight of the Okies who fled the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression to settle in the agricultural valleys of the Golden State.

During World War II, a government program lured Mexican farm workers to the Southwest to fill a labor shortage, although the Bracero Program ran well past the end of the war. The braceros, so-called because they worked a pair of arms or "brazos," fulfilled 4.5 million contracts.

My article touched on the exploitation of the braceros in a city that now is 65 percent Latino. The Anglo population, vastly outnumbered descendents of those Okies, did not appreciate the sympathy, according to impressive racist comments on the article.

Quips about the mural being "another cave painting" clearly arise from bitter resentment of violent Latino gangs that roam the streets of Salinas today; meanwhile, the politically correct counter with cracks about local "rednecks" running meth labs.

Another comment juxtaposed the two factions rather colorfully: "Let us Okies paint a large target on the wall of the Steinbeck building and then line up all the gangbangers... POW! POW! POW!"

Welcome to post-racial America. Here's the article in question (there was an earlier Web-only version, too, with a bit more attitude that got edited out for the print publication).

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Salinas mural celebrates bracero labor: Alisal district office project teaches ‘what many hands do’
By Todd R. Brown
For The Salinas Californian
February 24, 2009

The role braceros played in shaping Salinas and other western agricultural hubs is more subtle than a public monument might convey.

In essence, the Mexican guest workers who toiled in the region’s fields from the 1940s to 1960s helped weave a portion of the social fabric of modern Monterey County.

On Monday morning, Rafael Silva, 75, of Salinas, discussed his contribution to American history as a bracero from Jalisco. Silva spoke at the inauguration of the "Nuestros Braceros Mural," which students are helping paint on the wall of the Alisal Union School District office.

Silva’s seven children, he said, are now secretaries, teachers, doctors and lawyers contributing to Uncle Sam’s economy.

About 30 pupils and scores of adults sat through a program to celebrate the start of the painting project, complete with songs by Mariachi Salinas and a visit from county Supervisor Simón Salinas. Students were encouraged to bring their bracero grandfathers, many of whom showed up to claim front-row seats.

The mural is one way to acknowledge the braceros, who came to remedy a World War II labor shortage and continued through the program’s official end in 1964. About 4.5 million contracts were awarded in all.

"These men, coming here, how many leaders and professionals did they give the United States? I don’t think they got the credit," said Laura Caballero of Greenfield, a coordinator for the event.

After a history talk in Spanish, students took paintbrushes and headed outside the district office to smear green paint on the bottom of the mural, which features scenes of crop picking and, more ominously, a line of workers being fumigated before heading to the fields.

Mexican artist Rafael Ramirez said he included the image to ensure that people "can see that that happened."

Jose Maria Rubio Nunez, 70, of Salinas said he was a bracero starting in 1958 and kept working in the fields until five years ago, ensuring that lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, grapes, peaches and more made it to store shelves.

"In those times, I liked everything," he said through a translator. "The joy was to do the work."

There were drawbacks. Besides foremen who treated workers badly, Nunez said, there were no restrooms — and no breaks when workers could use them. He said he earned 90 cents an hour working seven days a week, from as early as March until November or December.

Alisal High School student Ashley Collins, 15, helped the younger pupils paint. Collins said her mother is devoted to finding justice for braceros who are still fighting to get part of their pay that was withheld from their checks.

The money was kept in Mexican banks as an incentive to lure the workers back, but the funds allegedly went "missing." A recent federal court settlement will allow about 6,100 braceros to collect $3,500 each — if they can document their participation.

Esperanza Zendejas, Alisal superintendent, said her father and two of her brothers were braceros from Michoacán who labored for citrus farmers and wineries.

"It opened many doors," Zendejas said. Her father "saw what could be. As a result of that, we all ended up in the United States."

Looking at the progress of the students’ painting so far, she said: "Look at that. What many hands do."

Next year, Zendejas said, she hopes to arrange a local stop for a Smithsonian Institution exhibit called "Bittersweet Harvest — The Bracero Program, 1942-1964." The traveling show opens in September in Washington, D.C. Its story gathering involved San Jose and Salinas residents.

Students and parents can help on the mural from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the office.

Laissez les bon temps rouler, Bay Area

Carnaval San Francisco, as immortalized by yours truly in
2007, won't be for several months, but there is plenty to do
Tuesday for Mardi Gras. All rights reserved, Todd R. Brown.

That headline is French for "let the good times roll," but I likely didn't have to tell you that, Left Coast hipsters.

Tuesday is Mardi Gras in those Latinate locales that celebrate the wanton holiday before a period of atonement beginning Ash Wednesday.

Locally, I found a few things to do to celebrate Fat Tuesday, which as frequent readers know has a special place in my "wish I was in New Orleans" heart.

In downtown San Jose, according to a Mercury News article, the cops are ready to rain on the drunken parade should things get out of hand at bars and clubs that have adopted the day before Lent as a time to pour fast and furiously.

Previously, such informal celebrations have led to "car tipping, rock throwing, vandalism and stabbings," the Merc reporter said. We'll see what happens manana.

In "The City," the Extra Action Marching Band heads up a concert bill Tuesday night at a Mardi Gras ball at The Independent in the Fillmore District. Check out the band in full kinesis:

In the East Bay, there will be an all-day Mardi Gras parade in Berkeley that triangulates at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in People's Park; you can get details and check out pictures from previous parades here.

For a do-it-yourself Mardi Gras experience, the San Francisco Chronicle published a list of thematic Mexican recipes, including something zesty called Vuelve a la Vida, which sounds a little risque to my Protestant-raised ears.

Of course, the crowning event for Bay Area Mardi Gras fans won't take place for several months, when better weather will allow greater comfort in skimpy, Brazilian-style carnival costumes.

The annual Carnaval San Francisco parade and festival typically occur in late May in the Mission District. Several photos of the 2007 event by yours truly are floating around the official Web site, including the one above of some flamboyant femmes.

Enjoy!

For more info: A detailed history of Mardi Gras in New Orleans is here. Lessons on the other grand Mardi Gras celebration in our hemisphere, in Rio, are here. For shameless self-promotion, here's another couple of my Carnaval pics.

Find more self-promotion at my Examiner.com blog.

All aboard: 'Untold Story of Black New Orleans' revelaed in documentary about the Treme 'hood

Musician Glen David Andrews is "king of the Money Wasters Social, Aid & Pleasure Club" at a second line parade in New Orleans. Image by Sausalito photographer Michelle Elmore.

If you watched the dramatic rooftop rescues and the Superdome suffering in New Orleans after Katrina struck and thought, "I had no idea there were so many black people there," you were hardly alone.

I heard that notion expressed several times during the televised disaster, which I scrutinized helplessly as a copy editor in San Mateo. In 2005, most people only had a Disneyfied impression of the tourist-dependent Gulf city, and most visitors barely left the orbit of Bourbon Street except to access the airport.

Tonight the medium that is the message will return to the story of race in the Crescent City when "Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans" is broadcast on KQED. The film won an award at last year's San Francisco International Film Festival.

The documentary debuts at 11 p.m., and there are several encores if you can't tune in today. A list of showtimes is on the film's Web site; here are the Bay Area broadcast details:

KQED, 11 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19
KQED, 5 a.m. Friday, Feb. 20
KQED Life, 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20
KQED Life, 4 a.m. Saturday, Feb 21
KQED World, 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21
KTEH Life, 10 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20
KTEH Life, 4 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 21

In a nutshell, the Treme (pronounced "Trem-EE") is a tiny neighborhood next to the French Quarter that was home to perhaps the earliest "free" black community in America. It was a center of civil rights activity a century ago and incubated the jazz scene that eventually swept the world.

The area was commercially devastated when an interstate highway displaced its small-business boulevard, and later by the crack epidemic, not unlike San Francisco's historic black neighborhood the Fillmore, which nurtured jazz on the Left Coast.

There, urban renewal famously shattered the community when Geary Boulevard expanded, and housing projects replaced apartment buildings. Yet in New Orleans, of course, Hurricane Katrina also blew through town, giving disaster a whole new meaning for buffeted residents.

As the documentary film's co-director Dawn Logsdon said in a recent interview: "The present is a disaster, the future's all up in the air. It's like, 'Let's turn to our past and at least draw some lessons from it,' and I think also some inspiration and hope."

Check out the trailer:

Hearing the Rebirth Brass Band blast "Take it to the Street" is about all you need to feel the continuing vitality of the Treme despite all its challenges.

The Treme, as I wrote in December after visiting the city, "happens to be the setting for the next TV series by the creators of The Wire.

"The show, which I'm told starts production in February, will feature Wire alum Wendell Pierce, who my partner, Bea, and I saw do a second-line dance during an Irvin Mayfield concert in the Marigny neighborhood, a hot spot for live music in today's New Orleans."

For more info: Read the Times Picayune's take on the documentary here. Immerse your self in fledgling Civil Rights history and the eternal black culture of New Orleans on the Faubourg Treme doc Web site. Here's what I recently wrote about the Rebirth Brass Band.

This blog post is twinned with my entry on Examiner.com.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Filipino vets benefits - less partisan pork than well-deserved adobo

So the stimulus package may finally right a 63-year-old wrong, giving some World War II veterans a bonus denied to them repeatedly as unaffordable pork spending.

Anti-gentrification takes an ultra-ironic turn in the hipster-saturated Mission District

Get ready to find gold windbreakers more easily in
the Mission District. Fashion shoot with American
Apparel clothing by photographer Gabriel Moginot.

American Apparel opened stores in Palo Alto, Santa Cruz and even Berkeley, but the chain's San Francisco locations apparel-ently raise the most ire.

Bay Area foes of all things capitalist have turned their dagger-like glares toward already gentrified Valencia Street, where the clothier's next shop is set to open, to the delight of local ephebophiles.

Although I am obviously a blogger, I was not aware of the scope of the controversy until today, when I happened on an SF Weekly story describing the matter as "much blogged about." Whoops.

The news was a poorly attended protest of the store's planned opening, complete with a sign reading "No more hipster scum." That's intensely ironic given that the usual suspects at rallies in The City are beyond hippified, as are the young alternatoids who prowl the Mission and dress like walking billboards for the chain.

Pressure does seem to be mounting in the online world, where Stop American Apparel is leading the charge against the idea of scanty, '80s-style wares being sold next to Artists' Television Access.

ATA epitomizes the boho flavor of the neighborhood, at least pre-yuppification, describing itself as a "nonprofit, all-volunteer, artist-run, experimental media arts gallery that has been in operation since 1984."

I saw a film there about the Paris-centered Situationist International, a group of virulent anti-capitalists whose leader, Guy Debord, railed against "the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by 'intangible as well as tangible things.'"

It makes your head spin trying to digest revolutionary philosophy when you're busy looking for a job, you know? But I recall that the documentary featured S.I. sympathizer and part-Frenchie Chloe Sevigny, so it at least had some eye candy going for it.

Anyhow, you can see where the commodity-fetish clothing shop is set to open via Google Maps' Street View; it's the former glass store at 988 Valencia St. Sorry I couldn't get the code to embed right. I'm looking at you, Google programmers.

Another protest was set for Thursday afternoon at a Planning Commission meeting where officials were set to allow or deny the chain entry to the street where grunge-style culture grew like mold in the mid-'90s, when I moved to the area.

That was before all those pioneer punks spent so much "disposable income" on the Latino strip that real estate and business speculators realized loft-dwellers would be the next logical community to infiltrate the setting, minutes from downtown.

Then there was the futile Anti-Displacement Movement, which attracted attention by trashing a few SUVs and painting graffiti on new live-work lofts. Somehow, development continued.

It wasn't long before fringe-type landmarks such as the Chameleon bar (originally Chatterbox, named for the New York Dolls song, and now Amnesia) and Leather Tongue Video were pushed out by trendy restaurants and much cleaner and upstanding, though not quite Blockbuster, DVD rental stores.

Neighborhood blog Mission Mission preserves some folk memories from those heady hipster days.

Still, Valencia Street remains home to many independent boutique stores. Yet the reality of having to sell things for a living while being outspokenly anti-chain -- even hip chains -- leaves many locals conflicted about American Apparel's appearance.

For example, as Mission Local reported:

Wayne Whelan sells American Apparel clothing at Therapy, his shop near 16th Street. Though he said the company’s products fit the neighborhood, its presence would welcome a host of other chain stores to also open shop.

“American Apparel in itself won’t affect the flavor of the community,” he said. “But it sets a precedent that will allow other big businesses to come here. Soon we’ll have Jamba Juices, Starbucks and Cheesecake Factories.”

Mission Mission recently posted American Apparel's response to the brouhaha positioning the brand as a force for good wherever it may roam:

Our first store was in Echo Park, a small artsy district of Los Angeles, which is a lot like the Mission. Since we opened the store in 2003, the neighborhood has flourished with new, independent businesses.

American Apparel is committed to the community, to ethics, and to leveraging art, design and technology. We ... frequently speak out on political issues that are important to us. For that reason, we respect the fact that your community activists are unsure about us moving into the neighborhood.

I can appreciate the confusion. When I lived at 21st and Valencia streets, near where the store wants to move, the feeling was both invigoratingly avant garde and unpleasantly grimy. There has been progress.

For example, the very nice capitalists who run Valencia Whole Foods at that intersection shared their success with residents, adding benches and outdoorsy, trompe l'oeil artwork along the sidewalk. They don't just sell organic goods to the crunchy natives but share their independent-business, anti-processed-food philosophy.

Ultimately, I traded the pricey lifestyle of the area, where I spent almost $200 a month for parking and almost $1,000 on rent, for smarter budgeting and convenience in the ultra-suburban East Bay.

I miss the vibe of the old 'hood, but I get to enjoy some more important things as a result: a serious relationship, easy access to hiking trails, and both a BevMo across the street and an absence of "independent" bottle recyclers waking me up at 3 a.m.

What I'm saying, I guess, is sometimes change is good. It's not always easy, but a new perspective can engender its own reward.

For more info: American Apparel ads delight in the youthful female form, including that of former adult movie star Sasha Grey, a Sacramento native who turns 21 next month. I coincidentally mentioned her here. Keep an eye on SFist for news on the store's opening.

Note: This post is twinned with my San Jose Culture Examiner post.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Super-sexy bowl broadcast for desert dwellers

Some "Fight Club" fan inserted a half-minute of porn into an Arizona Super Bowl broadcast.

Gotta love professional initiative!

San Jose Culture Examiner: Rebirth for bass man in Rebirth Brass Band

Sousaphone superstar Phil Frazier retakes the stage with his glorious music group the Rebirth Brass Band.

Where y'at, New Orleans lovers!

San Jose Culture Examiner: Collapse of newspapers inspires little action or hope for change

Wherein I join the chorus of current and former staff reporters wondering what the heck will become of our former full-time business, newspaper publishing.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Toyota plant tours will screech to a halt in Fremont

In the small victories department, I scooped my former employer, the incredible shrinking local newspaper, and broke the story of the only auto plant in the West ending its public tours.

San Jose Culture Examiner: Summing up the presidential inauguration

So that's blogging -- take one part YouTube video, another part someone else's news article, mix 'em up in your own writerly style and collect the hits from the community, for the few cents the clicks are worth. Hmm.

'Meltdown, ba-da-la-da-na-na neer-neer-neer'

That's supposed to be to the tune of the Meat Puppets' "Meltdown," but it doesn't quite translate phonetically, or without music.

Yesterday my computer basically melted down thanks to a blizzard of viruses clamoring for domination over my Web surfing ability. This wasn't your typical infection, but something nastier and more tricky to defeat than anything I'd seen before.

The first clue something was up was when all my browser window ads turned into penis enlargement commercials. I just figured all the sites I surf had given up on ethics and started taking ad money from any ol' vendor, but no.

Then I happened to run disk cleanup and got a bunch of alerts from my Spybot asking me to approve or deny changes to my registry. I figured the two phenomena were related and ingeniously clicked OK to every change request.

Later I tried updating Ad-Aware, Spybot, Norton Utilitie, even Windows -- and all the programs said they couldn't contact their servers and that I should check my Internet connection.

So I tried Googling Microsoft Update to go directly to the Web page, but when I clicked on the result, I was redirected back to the Google home page. I searched for Lavasoft (Ad-Aware's creator) but got redirected to some other random Web page.

When I went to check whether something was up with my new AirPort router connected to my cable Internet, the AirPort Utility program wouldn't start. Its registry entry had been corrupted or deleted, just like all my malware programs'.

Ultimately I was able to search Google for "Google has been hijacked" and found this relevant explanation on the Ask Metafilter site. Someone there suggested I install Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and also SUPERAntiSpyware, which I had to run a couple times for them to succeed.

I was lucky to install them at all from Download.com, I guess. Thanks heaven the virus-making scum hadn't blocked access to that site.

In the end I turned off my WWAN to make sure the viruses weren't reconstituting themselves everytime I tried to delete them.

Today, success! All my malware programs could be updated, and I'm running full system scans with all of them now. Norton Internet Security just wrapped up its run -- and of course still found stuff.

I used to imagine that I was immune to most of these viruses that go around. For some reason, I figured that's the kind of thing that always happens to somebody else. But me? Come on, I'm special.

No longer. The moral of this story? Do your backups, update your plethora of malware programs, and practice safe surfing. Amen!

My soul is dying for the people of New Orleans

It’s so fresh in my mind, being in New Orleans in October. I lived there for a month.

I can picture my neighbor across the street from 906 Mazant St., an old black woman, probably in her upper 70s. Her dog was chained up in the driveway next to her camel-back house, and the damn thing would bark at me every time I walked by, but she was as sweet as pie to me. She just enjoyed having someone to talk with between visits from Meals on Wheels and her relatives who lived in the upstairs part of the home.

I can picture driving at 1 or 2 in the morning past the all-night frozen daquiri store with its flicking white light on Elysian Fields near St. Claude.

I remember going to Roberts’ grocery store nearby, the dark-green paint and the white, cursive logo of the store a unique trademark. There would be an armed guard inside by the entrance, or out in the parking lot to protect, shoppers from robbery. I’d walk past a counter, maybe a deli annex or a sandwich area, and head down the first aisle, salivating over the catfish and salmon fillets, shrimp, wondering whether to buy some and cook up a seafood bonanza or just spend my money on one of the po’ boy shops down the street. I’d look at Zapp’s potato chips stacked from floor to over my head, wondering why visitors such as myself loved them, but most residents seemed to prefer anything with a national brand -- Lays or Ruffles or whatnot.
I’d get a box of instant chesse grits by Quaker Oats (I wasn’t immune to the reassurance of name brands), or maybe a variety pack. I’d get beer, of course, cheap tallboys by Miller or Bud, also the favorites of the locals rather than Dixie or Abita, the native brews.

I remember driving to a newly opened copy shop to print out my resume and clips to send to local publications – OffBeat, Gambit Weekly, New Orleans magazine, Nola.com and so on – and wondering if the young, white clerks were artists or dancers or writers just working a day job while they strove to be creative people in the bohemian enclave of Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods, just southeast of the Quarter.

I can picture driving to the pier in Bywater, a few blocks from where I stayed, and just looking out across the Mississippi River at Algiers, La., and toward the Crescent City Connection bridge and the downtown. I remember creole food, brass band jazz, elabrorate wrought iron and the smell of jasmine.

It’s all gone now, the people have deserted these places, life no longer "goes on" the way it did, the way it should, normally, everyday, work-sleep-pleasure-poignancy. There’s just despair now, suffering. I couldn’t sleep last night watching report after report that the relief effort still was just a drop in the bucket for people who’d had no food and water for FOUR DAYS! The reporters were in shock, the anchors lashed out at the FEMA director and police officials about, why aren’t they sending in more supplies, why aren’t they protecting the refugees from armed gangs roaming the streets with impunity and hair-trigger fingers?

I've been listening a lot to Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" the past few days -- the anger of the music seems so appropriate to the situation there. "Who's the man with the master plan, a nigga with a mothafuckin' gun." Desperation, every man for himself, by any means necessary. L.A. riots, Crips and Bloods, total social disintegration. Just last week I was listening to Soul Rebels. ReBirth Brass Band, New Birth Brass Band, my favorite music in the world, fusing hip hop and trad jazz to create a beautiful, passionate, rhythmic, melodic, youful noise, urgent music, riveting and poignant. It seems a lifetime away now, like looking back at old black-and-white photos of a city in the '20s, a bygone culture.

Last night, I heard an interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He traveled to Charity Hospital, where the question was, "How did you get here?" The people trapped there said they were told the National Guard couldn’t get through, yet here was a civilian from out of the blue, who reported that people were resigned to death, they’d gone beyond anxiety and fear.

I sweared at the politicians on TV -- Bill Frist told Congress, "I feel that pain," but you motherfucker, you cunt, it’s not about feeling their pain -- it’s about alleviating their pain, RIGHT NOW, not after you get ready, not after you arrange deals with Carnival Cruise ships, RIGHT NOW you commandeer everything you need, you stay up all night and you get it done -- you can’t let these people JUST DIE, and they’re dying every day, hundreds and maybe even thousands.

They’re just out there, exposed, homeless, no food or water, in broiling, humid summer New Orleans. Fires are breaking out, women are raped, shots are fired all over the city, especially at night, tourists are assaulted. This is America, this is a major city of half a million people, you can’t wait, you’ve got to do something. It is inhumane to just let them suffer. It is inhuman.

Everytime I look at the pictures, through the Associated Press Web site or on TV, I choke up. I still can't quite comprehend what's happening. It truly is surreal to imagine my spiritual home destroyed overnight.

I thought about getting on a plane immediately and flying to Baton Rouge, renting a van, filling it with water and driving to downtown New Orleans. Is that what it’s going to have to take? Every helicopter, every ship, every refrigerated truck should be going there immediately, right now, not after things have been worked out and people are refreshed -- the victims of the flooding don’t have that luxury, they have nothing, they’ve been helpless for days. We CANNOT let this go on, we have to help them.

Even officials are outraged the inaction. Mayor Ray Nagin by radio said in Banda Aceh, after the tsunami, a massive air drop of food and water was done in two days, and it already had been four days, going on five, and where was the relief, where was the help? He said he heard about a plan to send school bus drivers to pick people up and said, "Are you kidding, man? I need 500 buses." We need every Greyhound bus in the country coming here now, these officials are thinking small, he said, this is a major, major deal. He had to have his curses bleeped, chastising Gov. Kathleen Blanco and President Bush, saying "somebody needs to get they ass on a plane" and figure this out NOW. He said they did send one John Wayne dude from Washington, Gen. Honore, who started yelling at people and got people moving, but it’s not nearly enough. They need to figure this the "fuck" out (I'm paraphrasing him; you can read his verbatim words at http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript/).

He’s fed up. I’m fed up. I’m in emotional shock. Those people in New Orleans are in physical shock, emotional hell, spiritual emptiness.

What are people waiting for? This is a major city, this is tens of thousands of people. For god’s sake, for humanity’s sake, something needs to be done!

It’s beyond frustration at this point. Here’s what my friend Andrea Garland of New Orleans said by e-mail (andrea@getyouracton.com), she lived in the neighborhood I have stayed in for years when visiting:

"I am a resident of the Bywater in New Orleans (9th Ward). I am one ofthe lucky ones that was able to evacuate before the storm.

"I have recently managed to speak to some friends stranded in New Orleans. They are starving and dehydrating and there is no news of when they will be receiving food and water. I have spoken to relief efforts and understand that there are plenty of supplies waiting for these people, BUT THEY ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED INTO THE CITY.

"The National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out, except the buses being evacuated. The excuse that they can not bring supplies into New Orleans because of the looting and gun fire is not a valid excuse - if they are too afraid to enter the streets of New Orleans, they need to be air dropping supplies into the city. If the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air dropping supplies into a city where the worst of the gunfire they could encouter would be from semi-automatics.

"Our government is killing the people of New Orleans. By witholding supplies, they are ensuring more deaths, and I hold them complicit."

What can any of us do but watch and cry and mourn?