War in The Dog Days of Summer
The Dirty South Bureau has been quiet a bit lately, as the heat, the humidity, and the constant complications of the first post-Katrina summer in New Orleans have impaired my abilities to do much beyond mere survival. Of course, I am far from alone in this.
Things just often don’t work in New Orleans. It’s something that outsiders, like myself, have to either get used to or leave. You may have a very clear idea in your mind of what you want to get done, and in what timeframe, and those ideas may even be realistic given your experience in other cities, but that does not matter. Things happen here on their own time, which sometimes means not at all. And the ability to handle this with grace is another invisible marking of the natives and the successfully adapted here.
Right now, the primary reason is the heat. I was having a conversation with Sean Benjamin of the Iron Rail library today, and we agreed that it is essentially foolish to try to get anything done between the hours of 11AM to 3PM. In the summer, it is wise to plan your day around the three to four hours of scorching heat alternating with thundershowers which will make up a usual New Orleans summer afternoon. So you stay inside, you sleep, you talk, you make love- whatever keeps you in the air conditioning and out of the oppressive conditions on the street.
Regardless, the rest of the world does not run on our schedule, for instance the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and occupation of Gaza. And while outsiders might think that New Orleanians are content to sit on their porches and drink either their 1. beer or 2. mint julips (depending on the socio-economic status of your ‘hood) over one hundred New Orleanians showed up at the federal building this Friday to protest the invasion and occupation. One thing that did not show up in the picture the Times-Picayune ran on the back page is that the demonstration was roughly half Arab-americans, of which the New Orleans metro area has a significant and beloved community. Of course the DSB, which is very critical of the Israeli government, was there, and I bring you an audio recording of the event, which included speakers from the Muslim American Society, local Palestinian rights activists, INCITE women of color against violence, and other groups. The first speaker is Dana Kaplan a young Jewish-American woman, whose organizational affiliation I have forgotten.
Pro-Lebanon/Palestinian rally at City Hall 1
I also interviewed Al Judah 1 2, a local Palestinian-American restaurant owner who came out for the event
Abdul 1 , a young Palestinian-American man
And Amr Achmed 1 of the Musim American Society