I met Ethan Casey at a talk he gave last winter for the Pakistani Students Association at the University of Michigan. Todd Shea, who founded Comprehensive Disaster Response Services after the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, was supposed to speak at the event. Shea was in Haiti, however, coordinating relief efforts after the earthquake that hit Haiti just weeks before.
Casey has written two books about Pakistan; he met Shea through their mutual connection to the Pakistani American community. Casey, who funds his self-published books through pre-orders and donations, is now working on a book about Haiti. His father co-founded a nonprofit organization in Haiti when Casey was a teenager, and Casey traveled frequently to the Caribbean as a result.
About the same time I attended Casey’s talk, I met one of my editors in person for the first time (we’d corresponded by email). I mentioned the event, but being in the habit of forgetting names, I couldn’t recall the name of the speaker. My editor, however, quickly informed me that he’d been there too, for not only did he know Casey, but they’d written a book together.
All this is to say, as both Casey’s words and Shea’s actions affirm, that the membranes between life in X [Pakistan] and Y [Haiti] and Z [America] are very thin and should be handled with the proper care and reverence.
My review of Casey’s latest book on Pakistan is here.
9/05/2010
my head is shaking, but the ground is not
Eighteen-year-old Genevieve Blain says that after the earthquake, she prayed every day for New York. She left Haiti a few weeks after the January 12 earthquake—her family had tourist visas to the United States—but there are still times when she feels like the earth is shaking. “My head is shaking, but the ground is not,” she says.
I met Genevieve at the Haiti Earthquake Family Support Center, an operation supported by a triad of church-based programs in New York City. The center, which opened just six days after the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, offers a variety of legal and social services to Haitians throughout the city.
Genevieve and her parents visited the center to continue their application for deferred action status, which essentially guarantees a stay from deportation while petitioners file for residency, work, or citizenship benefits in the United States. While this program is generally restricted to extreme cases, in July, US Citizen & Immigration Control announced that it would consider applications from Haitians who arrived in the country after the January 12 earthquake. Temporary protected status (TPS), a separate program granting temporary immigration status, is limited to Haitians living in the United States prior to the earthquake.
There are many, like the Blains, who arrived on tourist visas or as a guardian for a U.S. citizen child. Unable to work or, in some cases, attend school legally, they often rely on friends and family for lodging and financial support—a difficultly compounded by the challenges of life in New York and its small apartments, thin paychecks, and $2.25 bus and subway fares.
Genevieve wants to study medicine, maybe at The King’s College, but she first needs to study English so she can pass her TOFEL exam. She spent her last semester of high school in Miami, where she got her first C. She was bored, she said—the classes were so much easier than in Haiti, so she stopped paying attention. Equally astounding was that many of her classmates knew Creole—“my Creole!” she exclaims.
“I wasn’t like this in Haiti,” she says, looking down at her jeans, which are tighter than she would like. Her mother and father go out, but she doesn’t have a key to the house they share with her uncle and his family, so she mainly just sits inside, “watching SpongeBob.”
In Haiti, Genevieve’s father taught music at the National School of Art. He plays violin and piano, and was joyfully reunited with his violin after a friend brought it from Port-au-Prince earlier this summer. “For days, it was, ‘Oh, my violin! My violin!’” says Genevieve. Still, says her father, he cannot play. “I am not ready,” he tells me. “I feel too bad.”
I met Genevieve at the Haiti Earthquake Family Support Center, an operation supported by a triad of church-based programs in New York City. The center, which opened just six days after the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, offers a variety of legal and social services to Haitians throughout the city.
Genevieve and her parents visited the center to continue their application for deferred action status, which essentially guarantees a stay from deportation while petitioners file for residency, work, or citizenship benefits in the United States. While this program is generally restricted to extreme cases, in July, US Citizen & Immigration Control announced that it would consider applications from Haitians who arrived in the country after the January 12 earthquake. Temporary protected status (TPS), a separate program granting temporary immigration status, is limited to Haitians living in the United States prior to the earthquake.
There are many, like the Blains, who arrived on tourist visas or as a guardian for a U.S. citizen child. Unable to work or, in some cases, attend school legally, they often rely on friends and family for lodging and financial support—a difficultly compounded by the challenges of life in New York and its small apartments, thin paychecks, and $2.25 bus and subway fares.
Genevieve wants to study medicine, maybe at The King’s College, but she first needs to study English so she can pass her TOFEL exam. She spent her last semester of high school in Miami, where she got her first C. She was bored, she said—the classes were so much easier than in Haiti, so she stopped paying attention. Equally astounding was that many of her classmates knew Creole—“my Creole!” she exclaims.
“I wasn’t like this in Haiti,” she says, looking down at her jeans, which are tighter than she would like. Her mother and father go out, but she doesn’t have a key to the house they share with her uncle and his family, so she mainly just sits inside, “watching SpongeBob.”
In Haiti, Genevieve’s father taught music at the National School of Art. He plays violin and piano, and was joyfully reunited with his violin after a friend brought it from Port-au-Prince earlier this summer. “For days, it was, ‘Oh, my violin! My violin!’” says Genevieve. Still, says her father, he cannot play. “I am not ready,” he tells me. “I feel too bad.”
8/10/2010
in memory
My father attended high school in the mountains of northern India. I grew up on the stories of this time: chasing soccer balls down the mountainside, feeding monkeys, holiday hikes, contracting dengue fever (this recounted by my grandmother), meeting the Dalai Lama—and trying to shake his hand. Tantamount to all this was his departure: After he graduated in 1965, my father, five of his classmates, and one set of their parents drove across Asia, the Middle East, and into Europe to meet a ship bound for New York. My father helped build a rooftop carrier for the station wagon so that they could fit all eight passengers in the station wagon. The carrier was held down by metal clamps and body weight—somewhere among his Indian bangles, carved ivory lamps, and jade cuff links, my father has saved the one C-clamp that made it all the way to Amsterdam.
By the time I was old enough to understand the magnitude of such a journey, and to wish I could repeat the trip with my father, I was old enough to realize the near impossibility of doing so. Indeed, the route became impassable not long after the Volkswagen drove it, when the Cold War seeped into the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and American foreign policies tested sovereign hospitality throughout Asia and the Middle East.
It’s this road trip I’ve kept in mind while working on a book review of Ethan Casey’s Overtaken By Events. Casey, a freelance journalist, spent six weeks traveling around Pakistan in the early spring of 2009, arriving shortly before the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. He’d come to follow up on a book he’d written in 2004 about a semester he spent teaching journalism in Lahore. Both books lack a certain sophistication of style, but certainly not of effort or intent, and in that sense they are the type of reporting I would wish to gather on a Eurasian road trip with my father. Overtaken By Events, writes Casey, is an on-the-ground narrative, the “kind of book that rarely gets written about Pakistan, and one I felt the country needed and deserved.” While he realizes that it is impossible to not write about politics when writing about Pakistan, he doesn’t think it necessary to always address them directly. Instead, he “made the contrarian decision to write about everything else and to let the politics seep in.”
Tragically, the politics have seeped into my father’s own stories, as we learned that his good friend, Dan Terry, was one of the ten aid workers shot and killed in Badakhshan Province last week. Terry and his parents were three of the passengers in that overstuffed station wagon over 40 years ago; it was on that trip, my father recounts, that Dan Terry fell in love with Afghanistan. He lived and worked in the country for over four decades, supporting aid groups and community development projects. He spoke Dari and Pashto, and was deeply knowledgeable about the country and its people. I can imagine the joy with which he summitted the 16,000-foot pass the medical team traversed while on their way through the Hindu Kush.
Growing up, his name—always the first and last together—carried the lush air of adventure and far off places. We saw him rarely, but his name lived large in my father’s, and many others’, esteem. Earlier this week, a writer for the Afghanistan Analysts Network recounted that in 2000, Dan Terry was jailed for overstaying his visa (he was working in one of the rural areas, and paid scant attention to the calendar):
Both Dan Terry and Dr. Tom Little had requested to be buried in Afghanistan; alumni from my father’s high school hope to raise enough money for Terry’s wife and three daughters, who were raised in Afghanistan, to attend the burial.
By the time I was old enough to understand the magnitude of such a journey, and to wish I could repeat the trip with my father, I was old enough to realize the near impossibility of doing so. Indeed, the route became impassable not long after the Volkswagen drove it, when the Cold War seeped into the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and American foreign policies tested sovereign hospitality throughout Asia and the Middle East.
It’s this road trip I’ve kept in mind while working on a book review of Ethan Casey’s Overtaken By Events. Casey, a freelance journalist, spent six weeks traveling around Pakistan in the early spring of 2009, arriving shortly before the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. He’d come to follow up on a book he’d written in 2004 about a semester he spent teaching journalism in Lahore. Both books lack a certain sophistication of style, but certainly not of effort or intent, and in that sense they are the type of reporting I would wish to gather on a Eurasian road trip with my father. Overtaken By Events, writes Casey, is an on-the-ground narrative, the “kind of book that rarely gets written about Pakistan, and one I felt the country needed and deserved.” While he realizes that it is impossible to not write about politics when writing about Pakistan, he doesn’t think it necessary to always address them directly. Instead, he “made the contrarian decision to write about everything else and to let the politics seep in.”
Tragically, the politics have seeped into my father’s own stories, as we learned that his good friend, Dan Terry, was one of the ten aid workers shot and killed in Badakhshan Province last week. Terry and his parents were three of the passengers in that overstuffed station wagon over 40 years ago; it was on that trip, my father recounts, that Dan Terry fell in love with Afghanistan. He lived and worked in the country for over four decades, supporting aid groups and community development projects. He spoke Dari and Pashto, and was deeply knowledgeable about the country and its people. I can imagine the joy with which he summitted the 16,000-foot pass the medical team traversed while on their way through the Hindu Kush.
Growing up, his name—always the first and last together—carried the lush air of adventure and far off places. We saw him rarely, but his name lived large in my father’s, and many others’, esteem. Earlier this week, a writer for the Afghanistan Analysts Network recounted that in 2000, Dan Terry was jailed for overstaying his visa (he was working in one of the rural areas, and paid scant attention to the calendar):
He went off good-naturedly, seeing it as a rare chance to have the time to learn Pashto. He was released from prison after a couple of weeks and then re-arrested after the authorities decided he had not served enough days. He arrived back to the prison to cheers from his fellow inmates who were now newly-found friends. He finally emerged with tales of beatings and the hardness of the lives of those he had come into contact with.While it remains unclear who killed Dan Terry and the other aid workers—be it Taliban, loosely-linked insurgents, or bandits—to read the Taliban’s declaration of responsibility is to peer into the scaffolding of their propaganda: Their false claims that the group was proselytizing and distributing Bibles demonstrate their willingness to torque a massacre into political gain. Terry was a man of faith and peace; both of which led him to a life in service of the poor—a life of respect for a people and country he deeply loved. Whoever the killers may be, it is proof that they value power and violence over the lives not only of Dan Terry and his fellow aid workers, but of the very people they chose to serve.
Both Dan Terry and Dr. Tom Little had requested to be buried in Afghanistan; alumni from my father’s high school hope to raise enough money for Terry’s wife and three daughters, who were raised in Afghanistan, to attend the burial.
7/05/2010
and the rats of Little Rock
Driving into Little Rock, these are the first things you see: road signs for Little Rock Air Force Base, billboards encrusted in glittering diamonds, advertising engagement rings of the weight that truly signal commitment, or at least 10-year payment plans; and a 1st Pentecostal Church so large it seems to have sucked the 2nd and 3rd churches into it's footprint.
My sister works as a technician at a local research site, where she runs tests on the Ts65Dn mouse, whose 16th chromosome resembles mutations found on the 21st chromosome of an individual with Down Syndrome. The research she assists with has found that what is generally viewed as a lack of work memory in those with Down Syndrome may actually be a delay in learning: The Ts65Dn mice demonstrate an increased ability to execute trials after ongoing and repeated practice.
One of the trials she runs take place in 12 x 12 boxes; the mice are trained to activate one of three NPH (nose-poke holes—perhaps the most delightful acronym I have encountered) after hearing its affiliated tone.
It costs approximately $100 to purchase and train a set of Ts65DN mice. They are housed in a quarantined section of the research site, and fed pellets according to their trial schedule (they’re kept at 80-85 percent of their body weight, in order to incentivize them to complete the trials, which reward them with drops of milk.) My sister pulls out a “mouse pie” from the cupboard, which is a plastic round sectioned into 12 spaces, for moving mice from their cages to the trial boxes. “I just transfer mice, that’s all I do,” says my sister. She prefers working with the rats, who are less inclined to bite and run away, even though both species are the culprit of workplace oddities such as having a tail swung into one's mouth during a transfer.
The Ts65Dn mice are housed in the same room as those undergoing methamphetamine tests. “Why is meth appealing?” asks one of the posters in the lab. “It’s intensely rewarding…for awhile.” The meth mice are underweight and visibly agitated; they gnaw on the metal bars of the cage and look generally crazed. My sister isn’t supposed to publicize the fact that she works on animal trials. Occasionally someone from PETA or another animal rights organization organizes a protest or applies for a job in an attempt to expose what they view as cruel research methods. “Mice have saved more people than #911,” reads a poster in my sister’s office. “They’ve been involved in most every important medical discovery in this century.” (I believe this was referring to the last century.)
Over half a century later, Little Rock Central High School is still as beautiful and formidable as it must have appeared to the Little Rock Nine. Their names are etched in benches surrounding a reflecting pool at the base of the stairs. My mother throws a penny into the water, and all is still except for the broadening ripples. If anything, the most seismic shift is the demographic somersault that occurred between 1950 and today: Little Rock Central lies south of I-630, in that part of the city that everyone has told my sister and her husband to avoid. This is the translation [you have to click on the image; the lighter the color, the greater the white flight]:
And then it was down to Houston, with a slight detour to Gurdon, Arkansas, after the Queen Mary stalled out on the highway, twice. Despite two cell phones and internet service, it took a desperate call to my father to send the tow truck in my direction, all of which was worth it when the tow truck driver climbed out of the cab and told me: “Our guy in the shop talked to your daddy.”
After a 20-minute tow and 5 minutes under the hood, they found the problem: The battery had shaken loose in the heat and southbound highways. “Who put in your battery?” they asked.
That would be my daddy.
My sister works as a technician at a local research site, where she runs tests on the Ts65Dn mouse, whose 16th chromosome resembles mutations found on the 21st chromosome of an individual with Down Syndrome. The research she assists with has found that what is generally viewed as a lack of work memory in those with Down Syndrome may actually be a delay in learning: The Ts65Dn mice demonstrate an increased ability to execute trials after ongoing and repeated practice.
One of the trials she runs take place in 12 x 12 boxes; the mice are trained to activate one of three NPH (nose-poke holes—perhaps the most delightful acronym I have encountered) after hearing its affiliated tone.
It costs approximately $100 to purchase and train a set of Ts65DN mice. They are housed in a quarantined section of the research site, and fed pellets according to their trial schedule (they’re kept at 80-85 percent of their body weight, in order to incentivize them to complete the trials, which reward them with drops of milk.) My sister pulls out a “mouse pie” from the cupboard, which is a plastic round sectioned into 12 spaces, for moving mice from their cages to the trial boxes. “I just transfer mice, that’s all I do,” says my sister. She prefers working with the rats, who are less inclined to bite and run away, even though both species are the culprit of workplace oddities such as having a tail swung into one's mouth during a transfer.
The Ts65Dn mice are housed in the same room as those undergoing methamphetamine tests. “Why is meth appealing?” asks one of the posters in the lab. “It’s intensely rewarding…for awhile.” The meth mice are underweight and visibly agitated; they gnaw on the metal bars of the cage and look generally crazed. My sister isn’t supposed to publicize the fact that she works on animal trials. Occasionally someone from PETA or another animal rights organization organizes a protest or applies for a job in an attempt to expose what they view as cruel research methods. “Mice have saved more people than #911,” reads a poster in my sister’s office. “They’ve been involved in most every important medical discovery in this century.” (I believe this was referring to the last century.)
Over half a century later, Little Rock Central High School is still as beautiful and formidable as it must have appeared to the Little Rock Nine. Their names are etched in benches surrounding a reflecting pool at the base of the stairs. My mother throws a penny into the water, and all is still except for the broadening ripples. If anything, the most seismic shift is the demographic somersault that occurred between 1950 and today: Little Rock Central lies south of I-630, in that part of the city that everyone has told my sister and her husband to avoid. This is the translation [you have to click on the image; the lighter the color, the greater the white flight]:
And then it was down to Houston, with a slight detour to Gurdon, Arkansas, after the Queen Mary stalled out on the highway, twice. Despite two cell phones and internet service, it took a desperate call to my father to send the tow truck in my direction, all of which was worth it when the tow truck driver climbed out of the cab and told me: “Our guy in the shop talked to your daddy.”
After a 20-minute tow and 5 minutes under the hood, they found the problem: The battery had shaken loose in the heat and southbound highways. “Who put in your battery?” they asked.
6/02/2010
from the mixed-up files of the county courthouse
Incident A.
During this time, the suspect ran 22 stop signs.
Incident B.
While conducting a helicopter search for marijuana fields, state police observed a man and woman sitting next to a mobile home. While one can’t know if this sight inspired suspicion, the man’s response, which involved running into a nearby lake, led them to contact on-the-ground law enforcement. Police reports indicate that they found the man treading water in the middle of the lake.
The man had no identification and gave his name as Mr. K– [not his real name]; he spoke with an apparently phony Irish accent.
The subject in question was avoiding capture after allegedly absconding on bond from a previous incident [see Incident C]. When he claimed that he had not fled his court date, prosecutors argued that:
A man who shaves his mustache, dies [sic] his hair, assumes a false identity, and affects a phony Irish brogue to avoid capture, has a good understanding that he is likely to go to jail if and when he is caught.
Incident C.
Two men entered the defendant’s property to serve a subpoena for a murder trial [unrelated to all incidents mentioned here]. It is likely that one of the servers had a vendetta against the defendant; he and the defendant were previously acquainted and he had volunteered to serve the order. The defendant came to the door with a gun and a mouthful of cuss words. He attacked the man he knew, although he and the other server eventually managed to leave the property:
We got into our vehicle and at gunpoint waited for traffic to clear. As soon as it did, we drove away.
Records submitted in defense of the assault.
March 10, 1998
Now the alleged Defendant is NOT an attorney nor does the alleged Defendant wish to become an attorney, but the alleged Defendant is stuck having to undertake his defense to the charges because of several factors out of his control. One, the alleged Defendant is a public person who is clearly constrovershal, because of his defense of the United States Constitute and this Constitutional Conservatorship has made it very difficult to obtain competent Counsel, who is willing to go to bat for the alleged Defendant due to this notoriety.
April 15, 1998
Did Mr. G– not understand the Kings English or was he here for no good deed. Now lets see, I’ll take Door No. 1, NO GOOD DEED!!! I do not think it took a ROCKET SCIENTIST TO FIGURE THAT LITTLE BRAIN TEASE NOW DID IT.
April 22, 1998
This is because Mr. G–’s brain is pickled in chemical valley, and he just does not think that he is going to get caught. They will believe every little morcel I drivel to them Mr. K– and remember I have friends in high places who would clearly like to roast your butt Mr. K–and I am going to help them!!!!!! Yeah and I’m the tooth fairy Mr. G–!!!!! Do NOT count on ANYTHING UNDER YOUR PILLOW MR. G–.
April 24, 1998
WRONG DOG BREATH!!!! I will jail you says the prosecutor or make you post a big bond.
What is perhaps most astonishing about all of the above cases is that they are not unrelated accounts, but appear in the records of one individual. Who, we might recommend, should henceforth seek only licensed counsel.
5/21/2010
my day in court
The biggest problem with looking up records at the courthouse isn’t the ban on camera phones, even if this means you have to dig up fifty cents to store yours in the line of lockers near the entrance. (This also means that the courthouse foyer rings and vibrates regularly.) Nor is the biggest problem the computer system, which is slow and furnishes records in all dialects of gibberish—everything, it seems is written in acronyms. Someone has taped a translation sheet above the computers, but the list is incomplete and I’m not sure what the terms stand for anyway.
It is a bit of a trial to fill out record requests—you must write your name, address, and phone number on every request, which means, presumably, that the people I am looking into could just as easily look into me. Fair is fair, although I don’t know about the rule that limits requests to five per person per hour. Left alone with the files, there is a moment of panic when the papers slip off the folder’s metal prongs, for the clerk has said that under no circumstances should you remove any items from the files. Furthermore, while looking at the files, you may only write with a pencil. Copies cost enough so that I’m sure they rarely have to make them.
Spelling is worrisome. It is a testament to the severity of the file clerk’s lecture that I restrain myself from taking my pencil and correcting the errors. I think of the person who stacked the papers, of all the stamps and signatures and motions that have been plunked and flourished and filed and are now tucked onto the shelves of the Washtenaw County Courthouse.
But really, the worst part about looking up court records is that there is just too much going on. There are restraining orders and name changes and overdue fines. There are defendants coming in after court appearances, and lawyers clicking around in business shoes. There are, like yesterday, two gentlemen, baseball caps wound to 7 o’clock, entering their own names into the records system.
“This isn’t no felony,” says the one.
His friend glances at the screen. “It is if you do it more than once,” he replies. He types in another name. “I’m gonna look at your dad’s file,” he tells his friend. Fourteen records—some of them minor traffic infractions, but he’s still astonished.
The son looks over. “He got another one in 1986?” he asks. A 1987 charge involves possession of a short-barrel shotgun. “I wish I could bring this to my momma,” says the son. “I’d be like, ‘You remember this?’”
“Oh, she remember it all,” says his friend. He skims his records. Of the twelve incidents on the list, three are for domestic violence.
It is a bit of a trial to fill out record requests—you must write your name, address, and phone number on every request, which means, presumably, that the people I am looking into could just as easily look into me. Fair is fair, although I don’t know about the rule that limits requests to five per person per hour. Left alone with the files, there is a moment of panic when the papers slip off the folder’s metal prongs, for the clerk has said that under no circumstances should you remove any items from the files. Furthermore, while looking at the files, you may only write with a pencil. Copies cost enough so that I’m sure they rarely have to make them.
Spelling is worrisome. It is a testament to the severity of the file clerk’s lecture that I restrain myself from taking my pencil and correcting the errors. I think of the person who stacked the papers, of all the stamps and signatures and motions that have been plunked and flourished and filed and are now tucked onto the shelves of the Washtenaw County Courthouse.
But really, the worst part about looking up court records is that there is just too much going on. There are restraining orders and name changes and overdue fines. There are defendants coming in after court appearances, and lawyers clicking around in business shoes. There are, like yesterday, two gentlemen, baseball caps wound to 7 o’clock, entering their own names into the records system.
“This isn’t no felony,” says the one.
His friend glances at the screen. “It is if you do it more than once,” he replies. He types in another name. “I’m gonna look at your dad’s file,” he tells his friend. Fourteen records—some of them minor traffic infractions, but he’s still astonished.
The son looks over. “He got another one in 1986?” he asks. A 1987 charge involves possession of a short-barrel shotgun. “I wish I could bring this to my momma,” says the son. “I’d be like, ‘You remember this?’”
“Oh, she remember it all,” says his friend. He skims his records. Of the twelve incidents on the list, three are for domestic violence.
5/20/2010
lead, stick figures, and a bagel or two
Want to design your own fundred? The art advocacy project has only collected 10.6% of its goal, and could certainly benefit from a few more bills.
A few fundred ideas:
Stick figures. For those, like Brian Banks, who declared himself to be a "stick figures kind of guy." Banks is an academic advisor at the University of Michigan’s School of Art & Design. He's been working there for awhile, so he's not too concerned about the discrepancy.
Portraits. One student at the School of Art and Design drew a fundred in honor of Banks, entitled "The Fundred Man." (Banks orchestrated the Ann Arbor fundred pick up, which included both the university and area schools.) Banks showed me the drawing, confessing that he thought the ears and neck were too big. "That looks like Will Smith!" he said, proving that artistic talent does not necessarily a critic make.
Peace signs. They are still as popular as they were during my tenure in elementary school. Overall, though, the fifth grade class I visited while working on this story was ambivalent about the project's success. One ten-year-old told me he was pretty pessimistic about the whole affair--the government, the environment, collective responsbility. He also told me that "lead is a metal and comes in three different forms."
Coincidentally, it was "wacky hair day" at Thurston Elementary. One girl was wearing bagels at the base of her pigtails. When I saw her at lunchtime, one bagel was missing. "It fell on the floor," she said. "I didn't eat it."
4/30/2010
our trespasses
On Sunday I ducked out of a Mennonite hymn sing to go stand in the rain and shoot pistols. There was a man wearing an oilcloth duster and matching Stetson and the air was thick with gun smoke and spent shell casings. The gunslinger fantasy was a bit difficult to sustain at the sight of our safety glasses and industrial-grade earphones, and dissolved completely when considering our targets, which were bowling pins donated from a local bowling alley.
The Tri-County Sportsmen’s League hosts monthly bowling pin shoots, and has been doing so every summer for over ten years. The signs order you to check in at the clubhouse, but the men at the bar wearing camouflage baseball caps tell will just tell you to head to the range—“they’ll get you sorted out down there.” They are shooting rifles on the hillside and the dogs hunched against the fog think nothing of the persistent reports. I’ve unconsciously pulled a red rain jacket from the closet, leftover reflex of a childhood measured by hunting seasons and men wandering through the back woods despite the orange and black rebuke of our neighbors’ No Trespassing signs.
I’ve just finished a book about the Haitian revolution, and guns have been much on the mind, particularly the trick of keeping gunpowder dry in tropic climates, or the logistics of moving firearms over steep mountain trails. When the French Commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax passed out muskets to former slaves, he declared, “Here is the liberty which Sonthonax gives you; whoever would take this gun from you means to make you a slave again.” The politics behind this 18th century soundbite are ambiguous—by this point the slaves had already been freed, and while Sonthonax was a noted abolitionist, he expressed as much enthusiasm for killing those colonists who were against slavery as he did for abolishing it.
Thinking of this, of our equally ambiguous right to bear arms, of how one might shoot through the paradox at the heart of “a militia being necessary to the security of a free State” and manage, unlike Raskolnikov, not to mangle something genuinely resembling freedom, I take a .44 and shoot down five bowling pins in 7.62 seconds.
Except Edd, who works at Cabela’s in the firearms department and wishes he could buy the .44 Smith & Wesson semi-automatic with its red dot sight and retails for over $1,000, which essentially makes it the Cadillac of pistols, although you can purchase a custom engraved replica of Smith & Wesson’s 1917 Cenntential for $7,500—Edd tells me to count the pins and shoot them in a circle because that way I won’t think so much, and this does work, at least as far as time is concerned: the next set goes down in 6.34 seconds and by then I’m pretty much hooked.
They give me a .44 special and a 460 Smith & Wesson revolver and then a tiny .22 which feels, in comparison, as light and harmless as a songbird. For never having handled a handgun, it is amazing how much I know after 27 years of murder scenes, military invasions, and bank robberies. There is that moment, standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, where you grip the metal rail, listen to the stones under your feet, and contemplate tossing your body down into that stretch of vertical space. Shooting pistols, the line between imagination and homicide is horizontal; I aim for the pins, albeit poorly, never doubting that any member of the league would hesitate to shoot me down should I suddenly decide to turn towards them and pull the trigger.
The Tri-County Sportsmen’s League hosts monthly bowling pin shoots, and has been doing so every summer for over ten years. The signs order you to check in at the clubhouse, but the men at the bar wearing camouflage baseball caps tell will just tell you to head to the range—“they’ll get you sorted out down there.” They are shooting rifles on the hillside and the dogs hunched against the fog think nothing of the persistent reports. I’ve unconsciously pulled a red rain jacket from the closet, leftover reflex of a childhood measured by hunting seasons and men wandering through the back woods despite the orange and black rebuke of our neighbors’ No Trespassing signs.
I’ve just finished a book about the Haitian revolution, and guns have been much on the mind, particularly the trick of keeping gunpowder dry in tropic climates, or the logistics of moving firearms over steep mountain trails. When the French Commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax passed out muskets to former slaves, he declared, “Here is the liberty which Sonthonax gives you; whoever would take this gun from you means to make you a slave again.” The politics behind this 18th century soundbite are ambiguous—by this point the slaves had already been freed, and while Sonthonax was a noted abolitionist, he expressed as much enthusiasm for killing those colonists who were against slavery as he did for abolishing it.
Thinking of this, of our equally ambiguous right to bear arms, of how one might shoot through the paradox at the heart of “a militia being necessary to the security of a free State” and manage, unlike Raskolnikov, not to mangle something genuinely resembling freedom, I take a .44 and shoot down five bowling pins in 7.62 seconds.
Except Edd, who works at Cabela’s in the firearms department and wishes he could buy the .44 Smith & Wesson semi-automatic with its red dot sight and retails for over $1,000, which essentially makes it the Cadillac of pistols, although you can purchase a custom engraved replica of Smith & Wesson’s 1917 Cenntential for $7,500—Edd tells me to count the pins and shoot them in a circle because that way I won’t think so much, and this does work, at least as far as time is concerned: the next set goes down in 6.34 seconds and by then I’m pretty much hooked.
They give me a .44 special and a 460 Smith & Wesson revolver and then a tiny .22 which feels, in comparison, as light and harmless as a songbird. For never having handled a handgun, it is amazing how much I know after 27 years of murder scenes, military invasions, and bank robberies. There is that moment, standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, where you grip the metal rail, listen to the stones under your feet, and contemplate tossing your body down into that stretch of vertical space. Shooting pistols, the line between imagination and homicide is horizontal; I aim for the pins, albeit poorly, never doubting that any member of the league would hesitate to shoot me down should I suddenly decide to turn towards them and pull the trigger.
4/27/2010
roaring twenties
Today is B's eighty-first birthday. "How much makeup should an 81-year-old woman wear?" she asks me as she examines her face in the mirror. She is delighted when her son calls her to sing happy birthday and all the members of her Tuesday social group join in too. She says she wonders how many more birthdays she will celebrate.
I've become so accustomed to reciting her birthday to pharmacists and doctors and customer service agents that I hand the grocery clerk a six-pack and don't understand his confusion when I tell him my birth date is April 27, 1929.
I've become so accustomed to reciting her birthday to pharmacists and doctors and customer service agents that I hand the grocery clerk a six-pack and don't understand his confusion when I tell him my birth date is April 27, 1929.
4/05/2010
3/27/2010
in a day
The Roman Empire has not fallen: It merely moved to west Houston. Yes, took the brick walks and the arched piazzas and the rococo gateways and landed with a weighty sigh right off the beltway (the outer beltway, that is). The pansies and wide, sturdy grass are American additions, planted perfectly among freshly spread bark dust, which coats the adjacent air with the heavy, medicinal smell of treated wood. Rome, now, is luxury condominiums and tasteless jewelry stores and thickly sauced entrees. There are fountains—birds and angels and abstract figures, although there are few, if any coins glistening beneath the water. Marquis. Miramar. Empire Lofts. Plantation. These are places people call home. “Sweet home Plantation. Where the skies are so blue,” and, one suspects, the eyes are too.
Few zoning laws in the fourth largest city in the United States will get you this: high-rise apartment towers casting shadows on the arches of infinity billion served, and the woman on the sidewalk with two overweight Chihuahuas. Parking lots—many parking lots, empty but for a figure cutting across their right angles, running through sound waves issuing forth from fake rocks. Roads are unreliable, ending at fences or passing by guarded kiosks. In the service lot behind Aurturo’s restuarant, a man is watering a bed of basil. “You like?” “Si!”
The only sidewalk leading to the hotel ends at a locked door; the front entrance is tucked up against the highway exit ramp, and thus fleet footed folk must hedge the corner carefully to avoid the valets on their way to the garage. The Texas Ski Council SkiBidFest is in full swing, which has something to do with skiing and Texans who love it, and means women in sparkly shirts and suntanned men and all of them clutching glasses of wine and talking about the snow in Park City.
We, meanwhile, are in professional dress and tap tap tap our heels to meeting rooms with names like Topaz and Saphhire and Glass Palace and click click click our way through the day on a wave of endless PowerPoint presentations. Miracles exist: the east wall of Topaz is a sheet of windows. The blinds are only partially drawn, and through them is a highway, and all around shines natural Texas light.
Few zoning laws in the fourth largest city in the United States will get you this: high-rise apartment towers casting shadows on the arches of infinity billion served, and the woman on the sidewalk with two overweight Chihuahuas. Parking lots—many parking lots, empty but for a figure cutting across their right angles, running through sound waves issuing forth from fake rocks. Roads are unreliable, ending at fences or passing by guarded kiosks. In the service lot behind Aurturo’s restuarant, a man is watering a bed of basil. “You like?” “Si!”
The only sidewalk leading to the hotel ends at a locked door; the front entrance is tucked up against the highway exit ramp, and thus fleet footed folk must hedge the corner carefully to avoid the valets on their way to the garage. The Texas Ski Council SkiBidFest is in full swing, which has something to do with skiing and Texans who love it, and means women in sparkly shirts and suntanned men and all of them clutching glasses of wine and talking about the snow in Park City.
We, meanwhile, are in professional dress and tap tap tap our heels to meeting rooms with names like Topaz and Saphhire and Glass Palace and click click click our way through the day on a wave of endless PowerPoint presentations. Miracles exist: the east wall of Topaz is a sheet of windows. The blinds are only partially drawn, and through them is a highway, and all around shines natural Texas light.
3/16/2010
half a grand idea
Shortly after the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, the U.S. government announced that Haitians living illegally in the United States could apply for temporary protected status, which grants permission to work legally in the United States.
It was a reassuring move on two counts: it showed that the Obama administration recognized the informal supply lines that run through Western Union service stations—it is estimated that 1 to 2 million Haitians live outside their country (half a million of who live in the U.S.) and send $1.9 billion to family and friends back home annually. This was the second reassurance: temporary protected status could provide better job security and thus a steadier stream of funds to those in Haiti.
But the money orders and the checks are written in slim, double-or-triple digit amounts—according to the Inter-American Development Bank, the annual monthly remittance is $150. It is a number nothing short of miraculous when considering the cost of rent and food in, say, New York City versus the wages paid for the type of work that most legal employees avoid.
And thus it appears that government foresight is a bit myopic. It costs nearly $500 to apply for temporary protection status. Waivers are granted, although eligibility is based on meeting criteria such as providing “a list of all assets owned, possessed, or controlled,” “your monthly essential expenditures for each of the three months prior to the filing,” and “your monthly gross income from all sources for each of the three months prior to filing.” Presenting such information would be a hassle for any individual, let alone those who likely live much of their life on U.S. soil explicitly off the books and under the table.
According to the New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security reported that thus far, less than 35,000 of the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Haitians living illegally in the U.S. have applied for protected status. Aids groups are petitioning the government to it easier to apply for a waiver.
For those who qualify, one wonders what happens when the 18-month protection period ends. Often, aliens apply for renewals, and this seems to be the proposed plan for eligible Haitians. But with the tumultuous history that marks U.S.-Haitian relations, one can understand why many Haitians living illegally in the United States might feel there are better ways to spend $500.
It was a reassuring move on two counts: it showed that the Obama administration recognized the informal supply lines that run through Western Union service stations—it is estimated that 1 to 2 million Haitians live outside their country (half a million of who live in the U.S.) and send $1.9 billion to family and friends back home annually. This was the second reassurance: temporary protected status could provide better job security and thus a steadier stream of funds to those in Haiti.
But the money orders and the checks are written in slim, double-or-triple digit amounts—according to the Inter-American Development Bank, the annual monthly remittance is $150. It is a number nothing short of miraculous when considering the cost of rent and food in, say, New York City versus the wages paid for the type of work that most legal employees avoid.
And thus it appears that government foresight is a bit myopic. It costs nearly $500 to apply for temporary protection status. Waivers are granted, although eligibility is based on meeting criteria such as providing “a list of all assets owned, possessed, or controlled,” “your monthly essential expenditures for each of the three months prior to the filing,” and “your monthly gross income from all sources for each of the three months prior to filing.” Presenting such information would be a hassle for any individual, let alone those who likely live much of their life on U.S. soil explicitly off the books and under the table.
According to the New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security reported that thus far, less than 35,000 of the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Haitians living illegally in the U.S. have applied for protected status. Aids groups are petitioning the government to it easier to apply for a waiver.
For those who qualify, one wonders what happens when the 18-month protection period ends. Often, aliens apply for renewals, and this seems to be the proposed plan for eligible Haitians. But with the tumultuous history that marks U.S.-Haitian relations, one can understand why many Haitians living illegally in the United States might feel there are better ways to spend $500.
3/11/2010
man with the orderly mind
Despite the downward screech that is the Michigan housing market, B’s house in the Detroit suburbs closes tomorrow. It’s located off what must have once been a farm road; there’s a Steinway showroom a mile away and the predictable replication of chain restaurants and grocery stores. To get into the housing development, you carry a device, much like a garage door opener; when you press the button the gate zips into the air at such a speed that makes it a tempting catapult launch. Lacking such a gadget, you speak to the man sitting in the sentry-house. “6400 P–,” I say, but this is not enough. “Mrs. H–. The house is selling tomorrow.”
“Oh yes,” he replies. “Mrs. H–.” The gate flies up.
B and her husband lived in the condo association for over twenty years; they kept up with the couples on their semi-circle, but now B runs through the ailments and the deaths. Alzheimer’s. Stroke. Deceased. And now B, a year after her husband’s death, has officially moved away. The house has that flat, forlorn look—carpet exposed for the first time in years, walls bare but for hooks and smudges.
A man comes to haul away the residual items and refuses my repeated offer to help, even after a large metal desk crashes off his dolly, so I slip into the house to give him some privacy. (One would think that with such a peculiar name as “Kosher Garbage,” employees might have a sense of humor, but he didn’t appear in the best of spirits, even after I reassured him that I really was kidding about the “Oh, I forgot—there’s a couch” comment, which I had saved up for the moment he began pulling tie-downs over the overflowing bed of his pickup truck.)
The garbage cans are stuffed with hangers and headless broomsticks and rusting screws harvested from the toolbox. A frequent mover of homes, I am loathe to leave the garbage and cannot believe my luck when I spot the garbage truck lurching its way through the neighborhood. “You saved the day!” I exclaim, fearful that the garbage man will be annoyed with two stuffed cans and my poorly parked car. But this is indeed a day for miracles. The M– Village garbage man, who must not be unaccustomed to medical rubbish and the non-bodily remains of the deceased, looks at me, upends one of the cans into truck and replies, “You know, with the way people are leaving this earth, I’m just grateful for every day I get.”
What do you think of us in fuzzy endeavor, you whose directions are
“Oh yes,” he replies. “Mrs. H–.” The gate flies up.
B and her husband lived in the condo association for over twenty years; they kept up with the couples on their semi-circle, but now B runs through the ailments and the deaths. Alzheimer’s. Stroke. Deceased. And now B, a year after her husband’s death, has officially moved away. The house has that flat, forlorn look—carpet exposed for the first time in years, walls bare but for hooks and smudges.
A man comes to haul away the residual items and refuses my repeated offer to help, even after a large metal desk crashes off his dolly, so I slip into the house to give him some privacy. (One would think that with such a peculiar name as “Kosher Garbage,” employees might have a sense of humor, but he didn’t appear in the best of spirits, even after I reassured him that I really was kidding about the “Oh, I forgot—there’s a couch” comment, which I had saved up for the moment he began pulling tie-downs over the overflowing bed of his pickup truck.)
The garbage cans are stuffed with hangers and headless broomsticks and rusting screws harvested from the toolbox. A frequent mover of homes, I am loathe to leave the garbage and cannot believe my luck when I spot the garbage truck lurching its way through the neighborhood. “You saved the day!” I exclaim, fearful that the garbage man will be annoyed with two stuffed cans and my poorly parked car. But this is indeed a day for miracles. The M– Village garbage man, who must not be unaccustomed to medical rubbish and the non-bodily remains of the deceased, looks at me, upends one of the cans into truck and replies, “You know, with the way people are leaving this earth, I’m just grateful for every day I get.”
What do you think of us in fuzzy endeavor, you whose directions are
sterling, whose lunge is straight?
2/27/2010
awry
I have thought more than once this week of the times I quoted Burns to my students, wondering if the care I spent explaining how language could evolve from gang aft agley to oft go awry made me neglect the underlying lesson.
And thus, after an afternoon session on hold with Delta (Northwest has now merged with Delta…), and an evening with Spirit (You can book one of the big front seats. Did you know that Spirit offers Spirit snacks and drinks? Spirit offers snacks and drinks!), I am trying to remember the lessons easily forgotten. How my indignation, righteous as it may be, is oxygenated by life in a place where we expect airlines to contact us in a timely fashion regarding canceled flights. A place where $500 plane tickets can be purchased with little forethought, and are guaranteed some degree of recovery. A place where letters can be written, questions can be asked, and it is not unreasonable to expect a reply.
Certainly, this is not black and white. I am still waiting for an answer as to why it might take a week to inform a customer of a canceled flight; as well as why one airline may fly, but not another; which also spurs the question: In the temporary absence of competitors, is it merely good capitalism for an airline to increase its fares, or might that carry a hint of crime about the starched white collar?
One needn’t travel outside of the United States to learn that what often gives money its strength is the convenience it can buy. Yes, dear choir, I hear your robes rustling, and so here is the lesson of gang aft agley: My record for trips to Haiti is now 1 in 3. The frustration of such a record pales, however, with details drawn during the 10 days I have managed to spend there. The assassination attempt, suspiciously political, that remains unsolved after 10 years. The long journey to the capital, merely to obtain a drivers license. The hours spent studying for a high school exam written in French and not one’s childhood tongue. The impossibility of paying for the apprenticeship required to become a lawyer.
Did you know that Spirit Airlines sells snacks and drinks?
And thus, after an afternoon session on hold with Delta (Northwest has now merged with Delta…), and an evening with Spirit (You can book one of the big front seats. Did you know that Spirit offers Spirit snacks and drinks? Spirit offers snacks and drinks!), I am trying to remember the lessons easily forgotten. How my indignation, righteous as it may be, is oxygenated by life in a place where we expect airlines to contact us in a timely fashion regarding canceled flights. A place where $500 plane tickets can be purchased with little forethought, and are guaranteed some degree of recovery. A place where letters can be written, questions can be asked, and it is not unreasonable to expect a reply.
Certainly, this is not black and white. I am still waiting for an answer as to why it might take a week to inform a customer of a canceled flight; as well as why one airline may fly, but not another; which also spurs the question: In the temporary absence of competitors, is it merely good capitalism for an airline to increase its fares, or might that carry a hint of crime about the starched white collar?
One needn’t travel outside of the United States to learn that what often gives money its strength is the convenience it can buy. Yes, dear choir, I hear your robes rustling, and so here is the lesson of gang aft agley: My record for trips to Haiti is now 1 in 3. The frustration of such a record pales, however, with details drawn during the 10 days I have managed to spend there. The assassination attempt, suspiciously political, that remains unsolved after 10 years. The long journey to the capital, merely to obtain a drivers license. The hours spent studying for a high school exam written in French and not one’s childhood tongue. The impossibility of paying for the apprenticeship required to become a lawyer.
Did you know that Spirit Airlines sells snacks and drinks?
2/23/2010
tu petit
Since the January 12 earthquake in Haiti (there have been aftershocks as recent as this morning), two language learning programs have released a portion of their Creole content for free, which I, both lacking in income and Creole, have taken advantage over the past few weeks. (Google also launched a beta translation program, although user beware—someone tested the phrase I feel bad, which you certainly would after telling someone mwen santi move, which actually translates to I smell bad.)
Thanks to both Pimsleur and Ann Pale Kreyòl, I’ve been doing my best to banish the Spanish from my brain—if you’re speaking quickly enough, for example, pa le poko (not as yet) sounds an awful lot like un poco (a little), which is what I thought I heard my sister say when her Haitian friends asked if I was married.
Beyond phonetics, what is most interesting about the language programs are what they teach. Pimsleur’s exclusively aural program is a bit confounding for the visual learner, but most bewildering was today’s lesson—one in which I: invited myself over to my companion’s home for lunch, asked directions to the restaurant, and inquired if my companion would prefer beer or wine.
Ann Pale Kreyòl is a highly regarded program, and has a bit more savoir-faire. Lesson one asks after the companion’s child. Lesson two includes a section on how to answer the question How are you? Five possible answers are given. By the fourth, you realize this is not just a lesson in language.
Thanks to both Pimsleur and Ann Pale Kreyòl, I’ve been doing my best to banish the Spanish from my brain—if you’re speaking quickly enough, for example, pa le poko (not as yet) sounds an awful lot like un poco (a little), which is what I thought I heard my sister say when her Haitian friends asked if I was married.
Beyond phonetics, what is most interesting about the language programs are what they teach. Pimsleur’s exclusively aural program is a bit confounding for the visual learner, but most bewildering was today’s lesson—one in which I: invited myself over to my companion’s home for lunch, asked directions to the restaurant, and inquired if my companion would prefer beer or wine.
Ann Pale Kreyòl is a highly regarded program, and has a bit more savoir-faire. Lesson one asks after the companion’s child. Lesson two includes a section on how to answer the question How are you? Five possible answers are given. By the fourth, you realize this is not just a lesson in language.
Ki jan ou ye?
Mwen la. I’m okay.
M pa pi mal. I’m no worse.
M byen. I’m fine.
M ap boule. I’m managing.
M ap kenbe. I’m getting along.
M byen. I’m fine.
M ap boule. I’m managing.
M ap kenbe. I’m getting along.
2/15/2010
packing
The first name I remember from the emails and letters my sister wrote during her time of voluntary service in Haiti was that of J–. He and my sister worked with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), and in the years following we have celebrated from afar as J– passed the stringent high school exams, received a promotion at MCC, married, and had two children.
When I went to Haiti last August, J– came to pick us up at the airport, despite the fact that he'd just taken an accounting exam and had likely been up long before dawn to attend a men's Bible study. Later that week J–'s wife prepared a delicious meal of chicken, potatoes, bean soup, rice, and grenadine juice. She had hauled in water so that we could wash our hands, and purchased ice for our drinks. We'd spent the entire week thinking about water, or lack thereof: my sister was researching the affects of floods and mudslides in a rural watershed, although such calamity was hard to conjure in a land that hadn't felt rain in six weeks. The sight—indeed, the touch and taste—of a basin of water and a block of ice melting in an insulated cooler, was generous not just of deed but of thought.
Months ago, my sister applied for an additional grant to study post-disaster situations in Haiti. All too ironically, she was awarded the grant the day of the January 12 earthquake. I'm tagging along once again, and will be heading to Port-au-Prince at the end of the month. J– and his family, like so many others, have lost their home. Tents are scarce, and I'm hoping to bring as many as Delta's weight limits allow. If you or anyone you know is interested in donating money for waterproof tents or tarps, please be in touch (sara.versluis@gmail.com). Alternatively, if you're in my part of the world, and have a serviceable tarp or tent that's been itching to feel the Caribbean air, I've got some suitcases waiting to be packed.
When I went to Haiti last August, J– came to pick us up at the airport, despite the fact that he'd just taken an accounting exam and had likely been up long before dawn to attend a men's Bible study. Later that week J–'s wife prepared a delicious meal of chicken, potatoes, bean soup, rice, and grenadine juice. She had hauled in water so that we could wash our hands, and purchased ice for our drinks. We'd spent the entire week thinking about water, or lack thereof: my sister was researching the affects of floods and mudslides in a rural watershed, although such calamity was hard to conjure in a land that hadn't felt rain in six weeks. The sight—indeed, the touch and taste—of a basin of water and a block of ice melting in an insulated cooler, was generous not just of deed but of thought.
Months ago, my sister applied for an additional grant to study post-disaster situations in Haiti. All too ironically, she was awarded the grant the day of the January 12 earthquake. I'm tagging along once again, and will be heading to Port-au-Prince at the end of the month. J– and his family, like so many others, have lost their home. Tents are scarce, and I'm hoping to bring as many as Delta's weight limits allow. If you or anyone you know is interested in donating money for waterproof tents or tarps, please be in touch (sara.versluis@gmail.com). Alternatively, if you're in my part of the world, and have a serviceable tarp or tent that's been itching to feel the Caribbean air, I've got some suitcases waiting to be packed.
2/09/2010
all the news I need
To be fair, it seems to be a southeastern Michigan thing, this tendency for the weather, proportional, perhaps, to the number of drivers who cannot handle the snow. NPR reports on the snowstorm in DC, and then breaks for a local update on all the accidents around town. It is my first winter in the fleshy palm of the mitten. It snows rarely here, I have learned—so much so that we are inexperienced in the physics of brakes and ice.
Which explains our abiding interest in the weather.
I pick B– up from the senior center; she attended a program for those with memory loss. She spent part of the time worrying about the weather: if her son would make it from the Detroit suburbs, if they’d cleared the roads yet, what to do about her dog. She knew, because the roads were glistening, that the salt trucks had come through.
Which explains our abiding interest in the weather.
I pick B– up from the senior center; she attended a program for those with memory loss. She spent part of the time worrying about the weather: if her son would make it from the Detroit suburbs, if they’d cleared the roads yet, what to do about her dog. She knew, because the roads were glistening, that the salt trucks had come through.
1/16/2010
"God grabbed me and put me outside and I am alive."
My sister, Anna, is posting messages from friends and former co-workers in Haiti. She lived in the country in the late 1990s, and worked for RNDDH, a Haitian human-rights organization. Furthermore, she studied land change and use in a rural watershed as part of her doctoral dissertation, and continues to travel to the country for geography-related research.
1/14/2010
yele
The Bob Corbett Haiti listserve warns that it is “a very active place...this is not a list for the faint-hearted and there is no digest version.”
It is, however, a preeminient source of current information about Haiti, in English, and the last 50 hours have lived up to its disclaimer.
Gleaned from the list...
Richard Morse, proprietor of the famous Hotel Oloffson and founder of the band, RAM, is tweeting.
Conversely, according to a woman at CHF International, an aid organization out of Maryland, President Preval and other leadership have little or no access to phones, as of 2 p.m. Thursday. “We just got off the phone with the Haitian Ambassador to the UN, and they are in an urgent need of 5 satellite phones for the President, Prime Minster, Minister for the Interior the Chief of Police and the Haitian Ambassador to the UN. The communication is severely limited and their ability to talk to each other as well as the US and other coordinating agencies is compromised,” she reports.
Someone at the UN base writes that,
It is, however, a preeminient source of current information about Haiti, in English, and the last 50 hours have lived up to its disclaimer.
Gleaned from the list...
Richard Morse, proprietor of the famous Hotel Oloffson and founder of the band, RAM, is tweeting.
Conversely, according to a woman at CHF International, an aid organization out of Maryland, President Preval and other leadership have little or no access to phones, as of 2 p.m. Thursday. “We just got off the phone with the Haitian Ambassador to the UN, and they are in an urgent need of 5 satellite phones for the President, Prime Minster, Minister for the Interior the Chief of Police and the Haitian Ambassador to the UN. The communication is severely limited and their ability to talk to each other as well as the US and other coordinating agencies is compromised,” she reports.
Someone at the UN base writes that,
1/11/2010
AAWSM, observed
I am in the habit of trawling for stories; when my friend said "salmon" and "collective" and "Ann Arbor", I knew it was a keeper.
Wild Salmon Minyan
Now what to do about that salmon fillet in my freezer...
Wild Salmon Minyan
Now what to do about that salmon fillet in my freezer...
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