#and trying to cram all of napoleons policies into my head

[cult-of-the-eye]

I'm going to bash my head into a fucking WALL

[pcurrytravels]

Thoughts: New Orleans (Part V)

It was day three in New Orleans, and once again we woke up early for breakfast. We found out that there was a location of Daisy Duke’s in the CBD that was even closer to our hotel so we went there. I decided to just go ahead and get breakfast this time…..with a side of crawfish hushpuppies. I have to say, I actually liked this location of Duke’s better. The service was quicker, the prices were slightly cheaper (might have something to do with how the other location is in the more touristy French Quarter) and the sweet tea was even better. Oh, and they offered crawfish hushpuppies here while the other location didn’t. And yes they were delicious.

After we finished, my mom went back to the room while I took a little morning stroll, exploring the CBD some more before I decided to give PJ’s Coffee on Canal a try. PJ’s Coffee is the ubiquitous coffeehouse in New Orleans (I literally only saw two Starbucks the entire time I was there), and after trying their product I can easily see why. Remember when I said in the Mini-Guide how their blended Granita drinks are like Frappuccinos but better? Well, they are. They’re smoother, sweeter, and likely made with better quality coffee beans (I mean, New Orleans is a port city so I imagine they’d have pretty easy access to a number of things, including coffee beans). So yes, if you visit New Orleans and see a PJ’s Coffee (and you definitely will), be sure to stop by and give them a try.

Going back to the room to chill for a minute, we then set off to the National WWII Museum. We used the St. Charles Streetcar to get there, and I must say, riding this one was a much more pleasant experience than any of our rides on the Canal or Riverwalk streetcars. Although it can still get crowded, this line is rarely ever standing-room only. Unlike Canal, it also has windows that open, which is surprisingly a very effective means of keeping things cool on board (the Riverwalk line has windows that open too, but that line is usually packed with people and, thanks to the resulting heat attracted to human bodies, an open window is not very effective). It felt nice being able to easily grab window seats without having to worry about having to push through people upon reaching our stop.

Down St. Charles Avenue, through the CBD and Warehouse District, we got off at Lee Circle which was, almost appropriately, right next door to the Civil War Museum and a block away from the National WWII Museum. Why am I saying it was appropriate? Because Lee Circle is named after Robert E. Lee; you know, the Confederate general?

Yeah, modern New Orleans may be a fairly liberal, morally loose and open-minded place, but it’s still the South. There’s going to be reminders of the antebellum and Jim Crow eras all over the place, and that includes public “memorials” to the Confederacy. Ugh. Thankfully, last year the local government decided to remove the statue of Lee that sat atop the pillar pictured above. As they should, because reminders of the more shameful parts of American history such as that need to be in museums, not shamelessly displayed in public (now what they need to do is change the name back to Tivoli Circle or something but I guess that’s none of my business).

Speaking of museums, the National WWII Museum is great……if you’re into the topic. I don’t know if it’s because I learned all about it in school (I remember having one history teacher in high school who was particularly passionate about this era for some reason so I already feel like I studied it to death) or what, but it just didn’t do much for me. Aside from the exhibit about servicemen of color in the War, the Japanese internment exhibit, an infographic which detailed the threat of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Japanese Empire and the C-47 hanging in the lobby, nothing about the museum really caught my attention. I honestly feel like it was just too small as my mom and I were in and out of there in less than thirty minutes, which is weird when considering how highly regarded the museum is (I’m also VERY happy we got in with the power pass as the admission price is WAY too high at face for what you get in my opinion). It’s a shame the Civil War Museum next door wasn’t included in the Power Pass as I always found the Civil War more interesting than World War II to be honest.

Once we were done, we hopped back on the streetcar to Canal and from there made our way to Jackson Square once more. We first stopped inside the PJ’s for a moment to enjoy frozen lemonades and air conditioning. You’d think we would have an easier time getting used to this weather, seeing that our family originates out of Alabama and Mississippi in addition to being the sort of climate our ancestors were forced to do unpaid labor in for hundreds of years but I digress. Upon cooling down, we stopped to listen to the live brass band for a few minutes before heading into The Cabildo.

The Cabildo is one of two twin buildings which flank the St. Louis Cathedral. Originally serving municipal purposes, the two of them as well as the 1850 House have been repurposed into outposts of the Louisiana State Museum. The Cabildo in particular once operated as the city hall, in addition to being the site where the Louisiana Purchase commenced, but it now hosts an exhibit about Louisiana’s history; spanning from its settlement by the French in the 1600’s to the Reconstruction era. Now, it was fairly interesting and all, with paintings, artifacts and templates about the battle of New Orleans, the region’s indigenous peoples, the differences between French and Spanish colonial rule/policy, West African slaves and free people of color, the Louisiana Purchase and the area’s history with pirates, but overall, I didn’t find it as captivating as The Presbytere.

On the other side of the Cathedral, this not-quite identical building (if you pay close attention, you’ll notice it’s painted in a lighter color and has a flatter, more squared-off roof than the Cabildo /architecture nerd) was originally a courthouse, but now serves as a museum for Mardi Gras, Napoleon’s death mask…………and Hurricane Katrina.

I can remember the news reports like it was yesterday. Having been under the impression that hurricanes were just a Florida thing or something, needless to say, I was scratching my head in confusion at the whole ordeal. My fourteen year-old brain was struggling to comprehend how a hurricane could both reach and do that much damage to somewhere so far inland from a coast (I managed to figure it out a few science classes later), but I still just shrugged it off and thought “oh, they’ll be fine, Florida gets through it every time!” However, upon seeing video footage of vast swaths of houses underwater along with thousands of people crowding into the Superdome, that’s when the severity of the situation hit me.

Even more upsetting was how horribly the situation was handled. People were without food and water for DAYS after the storm made landfall (something we’re seeing a repeat of with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico basically). It definitely should not have taken nearly a week for FEMA to show up. Then again……the overall catastrophe had more to do with the failure of the area’s levee and floodwall system than it did with the storm itself. I have to ask, why were they in such bad shape in the first place? Many theories and conspiracies still abound to this day, but either way, what happened was a tragic mess that could have been avoided in so many ways.

There were a number of pictures on display of the aftermath, as well as video footage of the day the storm made landfall, and it all felt so……..eerie. Sad, but eerie. To think this eerily deserted city, under siege by a raging, violent storm, is the same vibrant, energetic place that we had been walking around in for the past several days. I almost had to look out the door just to make sure everything was alright; even though, in a lot of ways, things aren’t totally alright (…….a whole thirteen years later). Houses and buildings devastated by Katrina can still be spotted all over the city, and although I didn’t go see it for myself, it’s been said that the Lower Ninth Ward (arguably the most devastated neighborhood of all) has more or less been deemed a lost cause and they gave up on rebuilding a long time ago. New Orleans has definitely rebounded, but it’s still heartbreaking to see so many lingering signs of this catastrophe.

After finishing the Katrina exhibit, we walked through a hall that featured tidbits about Hurricane Betsy, another devastating hurricane that took place back in 1965 (although still not as bad as Katrina) before walking past the random sight of Napoleon’s death mask and upstairs to the Mardi Gras exhibit. Granted, it was more or less a retread of Mardi Gras World, aside from focusing less on floats and more on the history of the various krewes, the “throws” (beads, doubloons and the like) and costume design. It was still a lot of fun none the less. Alas, the clock was ticking, and we wanted to cram one more thing in before embarking on our cruise, so it was off to the lower Pontalba building for the 1850 House.

The Pontalba buildings are two, four-story, red-brick twin buildings which flank Jackson Square. Built in the 1840’s by an accomplished businesswoman known as Micaela Pontalba, they were originally designed as Parisian-style luxury rowhomes, with high-end retail and dining establishments being housed on the first floor. Having fallen into disrepair by the 1930’s, they were then extensively repurposed into apartments, which are still in use to this day. The portion now known as the 1850 House remained untouched, however, instead being used by the Louisiana State Museum as a time capsule exhibit. Within, you’ll be given a glimpse into the lives of middle-class New Orleanians in the 1800’s.

Through a small courtyard, and up a rickety and old-fashioned spiral staircase, you’ll be greeted to a template which provides some information about past occupants of the row home which leads to the parlor and dining room. Granted, each room is protected by a glass railing, likely to prevent damage to the various antiques as it is a self-guided tour after all. Basically, all you can really do is look on at the rooms and their vintage furnishings from the hallway. On the third floor, you’ll find the bedrooms and the nursery and going from there (the layout of the place was pretty confusing so I’m not sure what direction we were going in at this point), you’ll see an exterior room which served as the slave and/or servant quarters until you reach the kitchen and storage room at the base of the house. Now, I’m a vintage/antique nerd, so I enjoyed it, but it probably would have been just a bit more enjoyable if they offered a guided tour, thus allowing you to explore the rooms in detail.

Oh wait, what time is it? Oh, time for the Creole Queen Paddlewheel Cruise! We hopped on the Riverwalk line of the streetcar once more and took it to Spanish Plaza (a monument to Spain’s colonial legacy in the area) which is where the boat was docked. The Creole Queen is one of a number of paddlewheel boats in New Orleans which offer old-fashioned river cruises. Once you hop aboard, you’ll be treated to stunning views of the city and the river (provided you can ignore its gross and oily brown hue) while the guide gives you a little history lesson. Granted, most of the stuff he was saying I already found out from the other tour guides and museums I went to, but it was still enjoyable nonetheless. As I looked around and took pictures of the CBD skyline, Jackson Square from afar, Algiers, the New Orleans port, the old Domino sugar factory, the plantations in the distance and even more Hurricane Katrina ruins, we came to a stop at the Chalmette Battlefield and National Cemetery; the site of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.

We got off the boat and walked towards an old (creepy-looking and probably haunted) plantation home known as the Malus-Beauregard House, where a man dressed in 19th-century military regalia waited for us. From there, he walked us to this spot underneath a very large oak tree, next to a small bayou, where he began to talk about the Battle of New Orleans. And honestly? I don’t know if it was the story itself or if this particular guide was just boring, but he wasn’t able to hold my attention. It was also hot AF and there were mosquitoes and dragonflies swarming all over the place, so I just took a few pictures of the battlefield and the house before making my way back to the air-conditioned, bug free boat; savoring some bread pudding while waiting things out.

Upon arriving back in New Orleans, we rushed over to Audubon Aquarium, seeking to cram in one more attraction before resting up for our ghost tour in the French Quarter. You better leave the lights on for this one.  

[radioleary-blog]

Burning Flags and Hosing Native Americans

11/30/16

"Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag," Trump wrote this week, after a college student in New Hampshire burned a flag to protest the election, "if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!"

This from the guy who called for registering Muslims and imprisoning his political opponents. “If these people don’t like things the way they are, they shouldn’t burn the flag, they should do what I did, and burn the Constitution!” Trump said, “You think I could get away with all the crazy shit I have planned for this country if I just burned a flag? No way, I’d be in a prison cell right next to Hillary. So the Constitution had to go. You say flag burning is protected by the First Amendment? Let’s get rid of it. Shoot the First Amendment with a gun from the Second Amendment. A Bill of Rights? They sold you a bill of goods! It’s a Bill of Wrongs, folks, that’s all it was. A Bill of Wrongs.”

Trump released his statement through what has become the official White House press briefing source: Twitter. Oh, he loves his Twitter. Probably because 140 characters is just about the upper limit of his attention span. And 140 characters is the perfect length for saying something stupid, and saying it loud. With a lot of exclamation points!!! Trump loves Twitter because he knows he never has to provide details or logically support his arguments in 140 characters. Of course, he couldn’t support most of his bullshit with logic if he spent ten years writing them into a Russian novel. Hmm, I wonder, what would the title be of a Russian novel written by Donald J. Trump? “The Gulag Mara Lago” ? “One Day in the Life of Ivanka Denisovich” ? “Abortion: Crime and Punishment” ? “War and Pussy” ? Actually, Napoleon plays a prominent role in “War and Peace”, and Trump reminds me a lot like Napoleon. Except Napoleon’s hand is always thrust into his shirt, whereas Trump’s hand is usually thrust into a woman’s pants.

And Trump’s other hand is always on Twitter. And since he’s limited to 140 characters, the Donald doesn’t even have to demonstrate he understands the issues he’s tweeting about. Trump somehow manages to always tweet with the same grandiose level of outrage, bluster and threatening huffy-ness on absolutely any topic, especially when he has no clue what the fuck he’s talking about. Just try him, on any topic:

@surrealDonaldTrump:  “Quantum Theory? It’s a hoax invented by the Australians! Scott Bakula is a great actor!! Why no Oscar, academy? Shame!!

@surrealDonaldTrump:  “Picasso and Cubism? There must be penalties for (so-called) artists who support Fidel Castro’s ideas! Cubism!! And only 90 miles from our shores!

@surrealDonaldTrump:  “Handel’s Messiah at the Met? No gingerbread house! No scene where Handel and Gretel get cooked in the witch’s oven? The Met got it wrong!! Boring - cut funding!!

Of course, what he’d really like to do is get the whole Constitution down to 140 characters or less:

@surrealDonaldTrump:  “We/ people -perfect union, just perfect!! More guns- 2 Corinthians. lower corporate tax rate!! No illegal alienable rights- a selfie evidently: life, liberty, etc.”

Trump is the first Twitter President, but he’s also the first internet troll President, and that’s what’s scary; that a man who is always so angry and eager to get into a Twitter war is now able to get us all into a very real war just as fast, and just as furious. The fast and the furious, or maybe the fascist and the furious. What keeps me up until 3 AM? Worrying about what the hell Donald Trump is up to at 3 AM! He gets up at 3 AM not because he thought of something brilliant to say that couldn’t wait till morning, but because he has to pee twenty times a night. He’s not having a “Eureka!” moment, he’s having a “urea” moment. Because no matter how rich and powerful he is, he’s still an old man, with an old man’s prostate and bladder that are just about as worn-out and unworkable as his economic policies. And both his bladder and his economic plan rely entirely too much on a “trickle down” theory that never, ever provides any relief.

So he wakes up every night in the middle of the night, mad at the world and fully capable of any act of irrationality on Twitter. And now, on the world stage. I’m afraid I’m going to wake up one morning and find out we’ve been at war with China for five hours already. I can see the Joint Chiefs of Staff pleading with him, urging him not to go to war, “Mr. President, we can’t risk a nuclear confrontation, it’s madness! The stakes are too high!” To which Trump replies, “Wrong, General, my steaks are very reasonably priced! Believe me. Very high quality steaks.”

Then our military leaders would be begging him to stop the war. “Please Mr. President, there are 1.2 billion Chinese with a standing army of 200 million men! Our troops are being decimated! We told you hours ago to give the order to retreat! If we are to survive as a nation, you must give the order to retreat!” To which Trump replies, “Wait, you said ‘retreat’? My bad. I thought you said ‘retweet’!”

“But seriously, General, we should retweet. We can still win this on social media.”

Hosing Native Americans

I’m deeply disturbed by what’s going on with the DAPL. To us that stands for Dakota Access PipeLine, but to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, it stands for Damn Americans Plundering Land.

Now I’m a big fan of oil, a really big fan. Fossil fuels? Love them so damn much. They keep me from freezing to death every winter, when New York state turns into the planet Hoth from ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ for five months. More like ‘The Empire State’s Back: A No Hope.’ And even those giant Imperial Walker “AT-ATs” moved a hell of a lot faster than Northway traffic in winter.

So I love oil. I loved dinosaurs as a kid, and now that they’re fossil fuel, I love ‘em even more when they’re driving my ass around in my car. So I understand why we usually look the other way while the robber barons take the land to take the oil, and play the villain in this never-ending Western horse-opera that keeps our lights on. We usually don’t really care that there’s never a Lone Ranger to ride to the rescue and shoot the gun out the villains hand, we’re willing to let the good guys lose if it keeps our cell phones charged. And hey, how the hell did the Lone Ranger always manage to have a non-violent resolution to every conflict...by using guns? I don’t think he ever killed anybody, but he was always shooting and waving those guns around like a guy with flashlights on a runway waving in a 747. It probably was less of a moral stance than the fact that silver bullets were ridiculously expensive. But this really painted an unrealistic expectation for an entire generation of TV-watching kids; that hostile confrontations are more likely to be resolved peacefully once you break out the guns. Everything will be just fine! What could possibly go wrong with teaching kids that random gunfire solves most problems?

And The A-Team? They were an even worse example, they fired guns all day long and nobody ever got hurt. Every episode, the A-Team ended up in a ten minute shoot-out with machine guns at close range, and they still never managed to successfully shoot somebody. These guys were supposed to be ex-military? What branch, the Kiss Army? They must have fired ten million rounds of ammunition over five seasons, but they never managed to kill a single goddam bad guy. Not even accidentally. You’d think someone would at least get hurt tripping over the mountains of spent cartridges. No one ever got seriously wounded or maimed, either. Never a realistic depiction of the awful consequences of close-quarter machine gun fire on the human body. Never a bad guy laying there screaming at the end of the episode, writhing in a spreading pool of blood, desperately trying to cram his intestines back into his body as the A-Team smoke cigars and high-five each other in a freeze-frame over the closing credits. No, when the show was cancelled the body count was still zero. No wonder these guys were kicked out of the military, they were just wasting valuable ammo and helicopter fuel! I guess B.A. stood for Bad Aim. Was it poor eyesight? I think maybe they called them The A-Team because that was the only letter they could read at the top of the eye chart.

But I digress. Back to the pipeline. So the oil companies dig and bulldoze, raze and deforest, drill, lay pipe and pump. That’s where the oil comes from, and we write it all off as Progress. Although, in all fairness, “drill”, “lay pipe”, and “pump” is also where orgasms come from, so let’s not rush to judgement.

The DAPL is a 1,172-mile, $3.8-billion pipeline, which would transport up to 570,000 barrels of oil a day. It’s nearly finished except for a section scheduled to go under the Missouri River. Native Americans of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe are protesting the pipeline, saying any oil spill will contaminate water sources that serve over 17 million Americans. So last week, authorities attacked the tribe with water cannons in sub-freezing temperatures, which put 17 protesters in the hospital. You think we’ve really advanced as a society? In 400 hundred years of Native American relations, we’ve only gone from intentionally giving them smallpox, to intentionally giving them pneumonia. Slightly less life-threatening, I guess, but not a big improvement. Who knows, maybe in another hundred years we’ll only intentionally give them a head cold. Not a bad one, but one that may cause them to call in sick to work and lay in bed all day catching up on TV.

Authorities defended their use of the water cannons. “We warned them repeatedly,” Morton County Sheriff ‘Buffalo Bill’ said at a press conference, “It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again!” Sheriff Buffalo Bill then tucked his penis between his legs and tweaked his nipples for the remainder of the press briefing.

And do we truly appreciate the sheer fucked-up-edness of using water cannons on people who are protesting to protect water? What Federal Agency was behind this? Did they call in the Bureau of Irony Enforcement? What was the plan, was this psychological warfare, to hose the Native Americans until they say, “You know what? Fuck water. I’m going back to the casino. We have towels there, and our odds of winning are better.”

This is like, say, if there was a protest by PETA, and the police came to break it up by throwing cats at them. “This is a legal order to disperse!” Raawr! “You must leave the area immediately!” Mrowwl! “Sir, the protesters are deploying countermeasures, they have balls of yarn!” “Hmm...get me that big tomcat named Pepper, we’ll see how they like it when he sprays!”

This whole situation shows that we as a people can no longer effectively stop large, powerful corporations like the oil industry from doing whatever the hell they want to us and our land. They determine public policy, and they have lawmakers and law-enforcement to back them up. They aren’t even afraid of lawsuits and litigation from this tribe, and this tribe is called the Sue! Sure, they spell it ‘Sioux’, not ‘Sue’, but everybody knows the Sioux were the most litigious of all the tribes. The Apache were the most renowned warriors, but the Sioux were legendary litigators. Man, they were a formidable legal opponent. Their raiding party would ride silently into settlements under cover of the night, and as the settlers awoke, they would hit them all at once...with subpoenas.They were ruthless; issuing restraining orders, ‘cease and desist’ orders, and injunctions (I think that’s actually where the offensive slur injun comes from; injunction).

Then they would tie them up. In court. For years. Led by the great Sioux warrior, Red Tape. They still talk about the greatest Sioux leader, Chief Council, and his partner in the firm, Running Billable Hours. The Sioux were the tribe that successfully negotiated a class-action settlement against the Iroquois League over faulty tomahawks, and they are the tribe that got the zoning variance for the Grand Canyon. They were also, by most accounts, the nation’s first litigators to use peyote to consult a Spirit Guide during jury selection, but Alan Dershowitz later perfected the technique. It’s sad how little of this you learn in school these days.

But take heart! As I write this, an estimated 2,100 U.S. military veterans were bound for the frozen Standing Rock reservation to aid and support the Sioux and their allies battling the oil baron villains. Maybe I was wrong, it looks like there are a whole hell of a lot of Lone Rangers riding to the rescue. Of course, Tonto was really running the show.

If anyone was offended by any of this, please don’t Sioux me.