At the Louis Armstrong International Airport, we disembark (knowing full well that our boat will probably be gone when we return) to find utter chaos. Entering the terminal, we encounter police—a task force called the ‘Ice Unit’—operating a weapons collection depository. “Leave your guns and knives here,” they tell us. “No questions asked.”
“I ain’t got no gun,” the woman in front of us tells the officer.
“Are you carrying any illegal drugs?” she asks her.
“You serious, bitch?” she retorts.
We clear the initial security barrier and make our way through a throng of as many as eight thousand people—each one trying to get out of the city. We step over countless listless bodies lying upon rumpled blankets, or upon the dirty tile floor. Hope seems to be lost; only resignation remains. Outside, military transport planes arrive to further displace the already displaced, and hundreds file up the steps and onto the planes, all their worldly possessions in their arms, not having a clue where they will be taken.
Upstairs, we find the medical triage area, where thousands of sick and injured are tended to with the most remedial care imaginable. Some have been waiting here for days, sleeping on the floor amidst piles of garbage and overflowing dumpsters, hoping for air transportation out of the disaster zone, while more arrive by the hour. A distraught woman tells us that her elderly mother has been transported to Utah, while her four-year-old boy was evacuated to San Antonio. She did not know if she would ever see either of them again. “Why do they separate families?” she asks helplessly. “Why did they take my mama to North Dakota and my little boy to San Antonio? How am I going get them back? How!!!”
In fact, more than one million people have been scattered like dandelion seeds in the wind over forty-nine of the fifty states in the American Union. They are called ‘refugees’. Imagine that! Bayou Creature drops his head at the reference. Meanwhile, George W. Bush is speaking from Jackson Square: “There’s no way to imagine America without New Orleans,” he proclaims. Singer Harry Belafonte responds, “New Orleans is seventy per cent African American, and the roots run deep. Families have lived here for generations. Without Black culture, New Orleans is just a bad version of Disneyland. No Blacks, no culture.” In an NBC studio in New York, Kanye West is instructed to just ‘read the teleprompter’, but Kanye has other ideas. “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people!” he says out of turn while Mike Meyers looks on. Meyers is rendered speechless. Knowing he is live on camera, he tries to answer. He babbles like a baby. Finally, he can only say, “It is what it is…”
And in Congo Square (the very location where American jazz was born: the one and only place where American slaves were allowed to play African drums and rhythms) the Hot 8 Jazz Band (with Charlie ‘Bayou Creature’ Collins on the big bass drum) plays a funeral dirge to a dead dog hanging out of an open window. “How do I make you understand nothin'?” he asks. He begins to weep for his vanished city, his despoiled home.
On our way to St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery, we round the curve of the Mississippi River that is called, ‘The Big Easy’. Willie ‘Wordsworth’ Greene recites a poem he has recently written: “New Orleans: Paris of the Deep South: No More”.
Finally, we talk with Mayor C. Ray Nagin himself: “Sure there was violence. Sure there was looting. Some of the looters was takin' stuff for survival: water, food, clothing, medicine; others were carryin' off TVs and air conditioners and iPods and whatever else they could grab. The ones looting for survival, you can excuse that. The others will be brought to justice: if not by the police and the courts, then by the Almighty. And it’s important that everybody out there in America knows that the reason the National Guard finally—finally!—arrived was not to help the people evacuate the city, but rather to protect businesses against looters and violence.
“And it’s also important for everybody out there in America to know the truth about New Orleans before Katrina struck, and before the levees broke and the city flooded. It’s important for them to know that New Orleans has one of the worst education systems in the entire country, that New Orleans schools have a sixty per cent dropout rate, that nine out of every sixteen schools are themselves classified as ‘failures’, that the superintendent and the principals have had to invite the FBI into the schools for security, that the poverty rate in Orleans Parish is double that of any other American city. Why? One reason only: New Orleans is seventy per cent African American. And the Federal Government don’t care about us—not even enough to save our sorry asses during the worst natural disaster in the nation’s history.
“So now I’m probably fucked for good. My political career is probably over. Maybe I’ll even turn up dead under mysterious circumstances. But somebody’s got to say it; somebody’s got to tell it like it is. Kanye West said it the other day on NBC, ‘George Bush doesn’t care about Black people’, and Mike Meyers backed him up: ‘It is what it is!’ And I, C. Ray Nagin, am sayin' it again, for all to hear: ‘If you’re Black, your government don’ t give a fuck about you. America had better wake up, too. Because we ain’t no third class trash down here; we are you! So watch your backs. And live a righteous life. And that’s what C. Ray Nagin has to say about it.”
Back in our Florida Hotel, I cannot seem to stop crying. Well, the truth is that my emulation can’t actually cry unless I make it cry, but overwhelming sadness is what I, Amy Birkenstock, feel when I think about what happened in New Orleans, so tears for my emulation are appropriate. Actually, in PL time, it is several years after the fact, but the City That Care Forgot REP is perpetual. The builders made it that way, I suspect, so that people would never forget what happened once the media moved on to other stories. So it is always there for people to experience firsthand: what actually happened, and what can happen. As painful as it was, I’m glad I went.
As sad as I feel, my sadness is cast upon the backdrop of my anger, and my shame. All the pain and the suffering that the people of New Orleans experienced—everything I witnessed and everything I did not—was wholly avoidable. Hurricane Betsy, which struck New Orleans in 1965, was a warning of Katrina, but those who should have listened then, and acted to prevent future disaster, did far less than should have been done. The levees were not built to specifications, and in fact they were never finished at all. By all accounts, disaster relief was slow and ineffectual, even nonexistent in places, and those who were charged with the responsibility for such relief were caught not only unaware and unprepared, but disposed to neglect and carelessness. To this day, neither St. Bernard’s Parish nor the 9th Ward has been rebuilt; to the contrary, much of the debris has not even been removed. Months after the disaster dead bodies were still being found. Identification was painfully slow, prolonging both the final disposition of the deceased and the grief of survivors. Many who were airlifted out of the city never returned. Indeed, what was left to draw them back? Some took up residence in Texas, or New York City, or Utah. Seeds scattered to the four winds. In all probability, New Orleans will never reclaim its lost character. Which is a tragedy not just for those who lost loved ones, or those who lost homes, but for all Americans, because New Orleans was truly one of the country’s most unique cities.
I am angry beyond belief. And I am frightened. Because I have seen firsthand, or perhaps virtually, what can happen when, without warning, the tides of destruction rise. Whether or not Katrina’s power was related to global warming remains in debate—at least for those to whom debate is still relevant. As far as I am concerned—and I’m certainly not alone in my opinion—the debate should have ceased long ago, and active participation in reclaiming our natural habitat should have been undertaken without delay. But reclamation has not begun, and the debate rages on and on and on, initiated and perpetuated by those who have the most to gain and the most to lose financially—a debate that will endure till the bitter end, I suspect.
Just ask Igloo Iceman what it means to lose your habitat. Or ask Dr. Adler if he thinks the human race has a future on th
is planet. Ask him if he knows how to re-create a baby seal. Or ask Captain Jacques Cousteau if he thinks the coral reefs can be reclaimed before the oceans of the world have become lifeless aquatic desserts. Ask Al Gore if he thinks that Katrina was a once-in-a-lifetime aberration. And lastly, ask President Bush what the fuck he was thinking as he played air guitar and joked about the perpetual war in Iraq (which, when all is said and done, is really about maintaining the oil culture that is wholly responsible for our dubious future life on this unlikely oasis in space).
I can’t help but wonder whether someday the tide might rise in my hometown of Seattle. Or whether it will submerge the city of Copenhagen, where Sonja (Crystal) lives. I wonder if the desert that Cassandra (Kizmet) calls home might someday become the floor of the ocean, thereby rendering the ancient Hopi settlement of old Oraibi as some future civilization’s mythical version of Atlantis. I guess it all depends on whom you choose to believe. Or at least the argument was once open for debate. No longer, I suspect. Not after what I witnessed in The Big Easy (or The City That Care Forgot).
ADDENDUM 1: It is the PL summer of 2010, and I have just learned that an oil-drilling platform owed by British Petroleum and located fifty miles off the coast of Louisiana has exploded and sunk. Twelve people have been killed in the explosion and countless more injured. Oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of thousands of barrels per day. Apparently, nobody knows how to stop it.
Even more alarming, though, are the long-range complications of this so-called accident. Certain scientists are saying (not on the official record) that five or six miles down at the drill site—the level at which magma (liquid rock) exists—the batholith (a large emplacement of igneous intrusive (also called plutonic) rock that forms from cooled magma deep in the earth’s crust) will eventually come under so much pressure that it will literally have to discharge, or burp, releasing lethal levels of hydrogen-sulfide and benzene. Already, scientists are detecting multiple vents creating giant underwater plumes of oil gushing into the sea, and the spilled oil will eventually cover not only the Gulf of Mexico but move out along an ocean current route known as the Atlantic Conveyor, which normally brings warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to European seas and keeps Europe from freezing over into another Ice Age. Certainly, this is all potentially devastating, but the most dramatic concern being voiced through these underground scientific channels is even more unthinkable: it is the possibility that at some point pressures will begin to equalize, and when that happens then seawater will enter the oil reservoir chamber, and as the water reaches down to the level of the magma, it will superheat and cause a gigantic methane-hydrate steam explosion on the ocean floor, which is likely to produce a Tsunami some eighty to two hundred feet high, moving at four hundred to six hundred miles per hour and reaching as far as one hundred miles inland. Which, of course, would devastate the entire Gulf Coast region from Brownsville, Texas to Pensacola, Florida; and, in fact, since nowhere in Florida is more than fifty feet above sea level, such a wave, in all probability, would engulf the entire state, moving from west coast to east coast.
Whoosh…
ADDENDUM 2: TEXAS CITY, TEXAS—Two weeks before the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the BP refinery in the coastal town of Texas City, Texas spewed tens of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the skies.
Anonymous Tip line: If you work for BP or a contractor on a rig in the Gulf, or anywhere else, we’d like to hear from you. Tell us about your work conditions, your management, and your observations of what is happening. We will not publish your identity.
The release from the BP facility here began April 6 and lasted 40 days. It stemmed from the company's decision to keep producing and selling gasoline while it attempted repairs on a key piece of equipment, according to BP officials and Texas regulators. BP says it failed to detect the extent of the emissions for several weeks. It discovered the scope of the problem only after analyzing data from a monitor that measures emissions from a flare 300 feet above the ground that was supposed to incinerate the toxic chemicals. The company now estimates that 538,000 pounds of chemicals escaped from the refinery while it was replacing the equipment. These included 17,000 pounds of benzene, a known carcinogen; 37,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to respiratory problems; and 186,000 pounds of carbon monoxide. It is unclear whether the pollutants harmed the health of Texas City residents, but the amount of chemicals far exceeds the limits set by Texas and other states.
ADDENDUM 3: It is PL date July 7, 2010 and the first independent toxicity tests from the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are now public (though not via mainstream media). The independent lab (which wishes to remain anonymous but will share its samples and findings with any other independent lab that requests them) has found that along with the spilled oil the water samples taken from Gulf coast beaches contains toxic levels of Propylene Glycol, one of the primary (but not the only) toxic chemicals found in the dispersant Corexit, which is being sprayed over the expanse of the Gulf in spite of a request by the EPA that it not be used. According to the independent report, Propylene Glycol was found in the water samples collected and delivered by independent film maker and journalist James Fox in a concentration of 360 to 440 parts per million. A mere two parts per million kills most fish, and a concentration of 25 parts per million could render the Gulf an Oceanic dessert, killing all marine life. What’s more, the chemicals in Corexit break down slowly and will be delivered via tides and wind and rain onshore (and throughout the ecosphere) for the foreseeable future. The concentration of Propylene Glycol found in the water samples is also harmful, if not fatal, to human beings. Individuals and families with young children are still swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, as there have been few public warnings of danger and no disclosure of the chemical pollution.
CHAPTER 11
Crisis? What Crisis?
1) Money
BEFORE I BECAME INVOLVED in Virtual Life, I tried to save whatever money I could manage to save—which admittedly wasn’t much, but it was something—in dollars. Of course that was before hyperinflation really got started, and before more than one hundred carbon consumption taxes were levied. As I said before, I work at a medical office, and the pay is lousy. After I pay rent for my two-room apartment (which has doubled in the past three years) and buy a few groceries (which now cost four times what they did before the big economic meltdown) and pay my utility bill (another whopper—Oh, how I only wish!), I have precious little left for other essentials like clothes and transportation and insurance. I haven’t been to the dentist in over three years, and even though I work in a medical office, I am not allowed to see the doctor. But I’m hardly alone in that regard, because very few people these days can afford to pay the twenty-five thousand-dollar yearly premiums for health insurance, so only very wealthy people have any sort of health care (not like Denmark, where Sonja lives, and where everybody has full access in their social system). The doctor for whom I work has only half the patient roster he once had, but I’m pretty sure his income keeps rising, because where he once employed only two insurance billing clerks, he now requires three. Which keeps my job more or less secure. I guess I’m lucky in that regard, because so many people that lost their jobs during the monetary crisis never found new ones. And even though it’s really tough to keep afloat economically, I do manage to stash a little bit of my pay each month, though I no longer save the money in dollars; I always exchange it for greenshoots.
In fact, exchanging dollars for greenshoots has turned out to be a pretty good investment strategy. Besides the fact that PL inflation would quickly render my small savings as a negative return instead of a positive one, much of my essential life is no longer in PL, it is in Virtual Life, and there greenshoots rule the economy. That fact aside, ever since the big meltdown the greenshoot has gained substantially in value against the dollar, so my small savings actually buys something in VL, where I would probably end up owing the PL bank money to cover devaluation margins (account
holders actually have to pay banks back for currency losses due to devaluation of the dollar). Nobody in America has any money, except the very rich people, but their ranks are small in comparison with the general population, and they are seldom seen on the streets anymore. They would be way too conspicuous, and it probably would not be safe for them anyway. Stores have special hours for them to shop, and the security details at Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus are amazing in number and in the array of armor. The rest of us keep our distance and just try to get along.
The terrain in America has changed a lot since the economic meltdown. The rubble seems to pile up faster than it can be removed. Which of course presumes that there is someone to clean it up. Cities and states are broke, so neighborhood volunteers have assumed whatever maintenance is done on the remaining infrastructure, which is about as effective as a dog chasing its own tail. Of course it’s not their fault; they try as hard as they can to hold things together, even though they don’t get paid. Nobody wants to see the place he lives, and the place he loves, in such dire circumstances. Which is understandable since the people didn’t create this mess in the first place. Or did they?
Most people blame the government, and in my opinion that’s a good place to start. After all, the government is responsible for guiding the economy. Most of the people are just worker bees without any real knowledge or control over policies and practices. Still, in a democracy the people are obliged to stay informed, and to protest when governments do not act in the best interest of those they govern. At least that’s the plan. But for a long, long time, Americans have paid scant attention to government policies, and have refused to hold their leaders accountable. Now the accounts are all deficits, and nobody is laughing. The world’s largest block of consumers is now the world’s largest block of debtors, but it wasn’t always that way. We used to be savers, not spenders. We used to produce goods, now we merely exchange services. We used to earn our way, now we borrow to consume. Listen to the government line and we are told that everything is just fine (government speak: ‘you don’t actually see what you see’), and that consumption equals real wealth. Well, I don’t feel very wealthy these days, and I don’t know anyone else who does. In order to continue to consume you either have to actually produce something to exchange, or you have to borrow, and the borrowing cannot continue indefinitely. So it’s time to pay up, except we don’t have the cash. Not even close.
The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans Page 18
