Hurricane Katrina - Complete devastation

[windhorse]

how can i enjoy my music or my drumming when the world is falling apart.

One of my favorite movie quotes is from Phenomenon, where Travolta's character towards the end of the movie is trying to get a kid to take a bite of apple, but he won't do it because to him it symbolizes a goodbye, and he doesn't want to let go. So, Travolta says, "Everything in this world is on its way somewhere.." It was very poignant in that nothing stays in its present form, everything is changing.
It also implies that NOT everything is necessarily headed to complete annihilation, but just that it will change.

I actually take comfort in the belief that people might not always populate the world.. No worries,, existance will still be changing with or without us..

So enjoy your music,, after all,, you're only here on the earth for a VERY short time!

[zaragemca]

There are a lot of victims which were brought it to Houston to wait for the relief,there are a lot of them in the Astrodome and the Reliant center.Dr.Zaragemca

[Berimbau]

Dear Friends,
It is a bit surreal being in the middle of this thing. It's not like you're the only one in town whose house burned down! Everybody's home and job are GONE. Now Theresa and I have been very blessed to be middle class educated folks, and it is quite hard for us to feel much like victims. Please keep a close eye on all the slithering politicians as they search for stricken Negro babies to photo-op with!! Bill Frist who is a liar and a multi-millionare has allready begun HIS presidential campaign maskquerading as the concerned physician which he is surely NOT. If he were that compassionate, as a Senate leader he could have gone down to the Convention Center Tuesday. He shows up a week later at the far safer Armstrong airport with a stethescope around his neck. Like most of these phony white politicians, and there WILL be some democrats doing much the SAME, he waits for all the scary niggers to be dispersed before he shows up!!!! Anyone with any compassion or a hair on their ass would have been there Tuesday!!! Harry Connick, Jr. seems to be one of the very few who were concerned at all!! God Bless him and all the regular people out there who are doing so much MORE than the empty suits who claim to be our leaders!! We ALL have to confront OUR collective RACISM and really re-examine where this world needs to be going.


With Love We Will Survive,


Berimbau

[ABAKUA]

Big ups to John Travolta - (click here for newstory)

[Roc]

thanks for the comfort Windhores today is better for me and i let the drums sound again,it is pain but i appriciate that i do feel,yes exsitence changes and continues and we are all passing through,
politians flap there gums and do nothing while Travolta said nothing and did something.honor to you John.
staying alive!

[rumbaman]

Hey ,to you richard and anyone one else in this great furom that has been effected by the hurcane may god be with you and your families , have patience and only look forward . I was displaced after andrew here in homestead actually the red land area . I was out of my house for about 6-8 months but i was lucky to have my parents to help me out they took us in . I was lucky and it still was very hard . All i can say is look to the future and do what you have to do and do not get frustrated if you have your drums relax with them when times are tense its good therapy ......... GOOD LUCK


rumbaman

[Berimbau]

GOING HOME AIN"T EASY

Dear Friends,
My wife Theresa and I just got back from what's left of our
Waveland, MS. home in the once beautiful Sundance community. I've been without sleep for over a week so I'll try not to ramble too much. We took our good friend John Jennes with us, he has a GREAT spirit, more tools and gadgets than batman, and is about 8 feet tall by 6 feet across. There would be NO trouble with him along. Semi-tropical Waveland is now as barren as the dark side of the moon and it literally reeks of death. 90% of the houses are GONE! It looks like a war zone, the entire 100 mile stretch of tranquil white beaches along the Gulf Coast have been obblitterated by a simply unimaginable force. For whatever reason, ours was one of a handfull of houses that still had
a little structure left, although every single door and window has been blown out. It looks like a poor man's pagoda, a tattered roof held up by toothpicks. So much for boarding up your house! All the contents swirled around inside it as if it were a giant Werring blender. Most of the furniture was deposited in a giant debris field that is just blocks and blocks wide. We found some furniture and women's shoes in our garage that did not belong to us!! Most of our living room and dining room furniture is completely unaccounted for. Just think, all BRAND NEW appliances; frig, microwave, washer, dryer, oven, dish washers, computors, flat screen tv, dvd, not to mention my fine collection of some 400 musical instruments, 2,000 cds, dvds, a huge library of books, my unpublished manuscripts, original anthropological research,
just 100's of hours of video, audio, field notes, etc. from Brazil, Italy, Jamaica, Africa, the Southern U.S. ALL GONE!! But in the end it was all just stuff and we got out of there alive. I kissed Theresa this morning and told her how much I loved her. I do this every day anyone but today it was VERY SPECIAL. We feel SO BLESSED that our love has endured. It fills my heart with hope.
Our town is just heartbreaking, once green and serene, semi-tropical Waveland is now smeared with a thick e coli/petrol sludge that is ubiquitous, permeating everything and filling anything that will contain it. Don't pick up that shoe!! It might spill on you! You've never smelled ANYTHING like this, trust me. There is NOTHING left of the magnificent 2-5 million dollar houses that the rich folks built on our beautiful beaches. NOTHING. Just miles and miles of slab and a bit of debris along the desolate beach. Talk abot a great equalizer, these folks are now just as homeless as I am. I wonder how many will become democrats before it's over? Nearly every standing tree has been denuded of all it's leaves, including once proud live oaks dripping with Spanish Moss, and a variety of stunning palm trees and other exotic flora. The ensuing week of 90% plus days has withered these spectral remains into the most hideous of ghostly apperitions. As nightfall set in there sillouettes loomed menacingly over the broken beach boulevard, and it was easy to imagine one of them plucking you out of your vehicle for one final sacrifice. Shades of Stephen King! Packs of frightened animals foraged through the noxious garbage heaps for sustanance but could find only the tainted
poison of sludge coated debris. No looters here, slim pickin's! It is a ghost town. Other than the occasional National Guardsmen patroling in humvees only a few dazed residents were to be encountered, grimly searching their tree-strewn yards for the odd treasure that somehow survived. None of them felt much like talking, and neither did we. Please don't
believe the media about this thing, 99% of the people effected by Katrina are GREAT FOLKS! Some just happen to be poor and Black which ain't illegal! In contrast the government is much less so virtuous, and the empty
lying suit currently occuppying the aptly named WHITE house just has to go. Homeland security has always been the National Guard's job. I'm quite proud of my brother Bill's 14 years as a N.J. Guardsmen. His Mississippi and Louisiana counterparts were away from their homes and families fighting the Exxon-sponsered "War On Terror." That is why
the response sucked. The guard was out of town fighting for oil for Bush and his millionaire friends. I've been talking with Guardsmen all week and they all tell me that they came in from places FAR away from Waveland. One told me
that he is the ONLY Ripley, MS. guardsmen NOT currently in Iraq!!! Now how can he defend or assist his fellow Mississippians if he is the only one not deployed overseas? Please tell me and I'll pass it on to him, he'd really like to know. Trust me, it's OUR kids, OUR military, NOT Bush's, and they are sick of his LIES! Someone buy this Bozo a bus ticket back to Crawford!!!
The most surreal sights and sounds stunned our senses. Home alarms beeped back and forth to each other in a horrible cacaphony, punctuated by the percussive sound of
copters flying overhead. The reek of decaying flesh, swamp water, and industrial pollutants still burns my nose. I have to go to FEMA today and get the requisite shots for tetnus, hep A & B, and God only knows what else. Around 8:00 PM we had to depart due to the curfew, so we dropped off all our donated relief supplies (thank you friends in Memphis!) at the Waveland police station, which is now just a series
of blue tarps stretched over stacked boxes of canned goods, bottled water, potato chips, diapers, and medicine. A loan red kitten played in the lap of a crew cut officer who kept saying how much he hated cats. I pretended not to notice the tears in his eyes as he gently stroked it's ragged fur. It was obvious that this kitten was DEFINATELY going home with him. They desperately need each other to heal, and I hope that they do. We finally headed down Hwy 90 and watched the pulsing blue lights of a cop car disappear into the blackness of the Mississippi night. We don't know where we're going, but we know it's not back there. Now please help a stranded family, donate canned goods or old clothes, and if you can, send a donation to a suitable charity such
as the Red Cross or Habitat for Humanity.


Thank You,


Richard Graham
Berimbau

[ABAKUA]

Richard, where are you posting from? Are you staying with friends or in temporary shelter?

I read your words and its as though I can see it, feel it, hear it and breathe it.
Your strong spirit in the circumstances of this tragedy is greatly evident.

Hopefully you will receive the much needed assistance asap.
As for your government... Utter Criminal Negligence without question. Do not even get me started on Bush's administration...

Again, our prayers are with you.



Edited By ABAKUA on 1126361318

[windhorse]

Here's a great T-Shirt that shows support for REAL Homeland Security:

http://www.cafepress.com/ndnpress.5390575

[Berimbau]

Dear Windhorse,
Last year they were selling these great t-shirts at the Millington Pow Wow but had run out of my size (extra fat). Along with the Impeach Bush bumper sticker and a Harry Connick cd, these will be my first post-Katrina purchases. I allready put my last $10 in the relief jar at the Memphis WalMart last night, so I'll have to wait for a gig or God forbid, a FEMA check. FYI - they fired that FEMA Bozo Friday night just in time for the weekend news cycle, and as exactly as I predicted it. If the heat don't stop, look for Condi "I really am a Black Woman, really" Rice to take an extended vacation in her home state of Alabama. I predict she'll write a faith-based confessional book, tour the U.S. and get a much needed make-over on Oprah next year. Now will any poor Black child be safe from the clawing paws of phony White politician's and their akward photo-op hugs in the coming weeks? I seriously doubt it!!! In the wake of the NOLA flood they should all be prosecuted as child molesters!!!!!!


Saludos,


Berimbau


Saludos,


Berimbau