-> MY GLASS HOUSE
8th Anniversary Gala Celebration DAY ONE G21 AFRICA G21 EUROPE AMERICAN DREAMS G21 BOTTOM 10 OF 2003 G21 Digital Internet Postcards JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. The A-LIST starts here. IRISH EYES LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA NEW YORK STATE (Of Mind) MY GLASS HOUSE POWERSSOUND RADIOACTIVE RDR THE RIGHT STUFF VOX POPULI RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT ARCHIVES. LAST WEEK's EDITION MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week. HOME TABLE OF CONTENTS & BACK ISSUES |
NEW ORLEANS - 16 March, 2004: It is the summer of 1974 and the first thing I notice upon landing in Rome, my first footfall in Europe, is the prominence of armed carabineri patrolling the airport. As a young American on his first trip to Europe, I'm startled. I'm not used to seeing dangerously armed men in an airport. They are there to intimidate, that's for sure. In this case, they are there to intimidate potential terrorists. I quickly learn that the threat of terrorist attack is taken very seriously in Europe; they have been dealing with terrorism for years through coordinated efforts, most specifically by the intelligence they share through an international police agency, Interpol.
Lest we forget, here in post-9/11 America, the Europeans have been combatting international terrorism for decades. Given the choice, between organizations with years of experience dealing with the seriousness of the threat of terrorism and having broken numerous terrorists cells and a Johnny-come-lately who only "awakened" to that threat two years ago, which would you choose to take the lead in the current effort?
My vote's with the Europeans.
On the political side, I can easily predict the spin the Bushistas will put on the latest election results in Spain. It's a spin they are face-saver bound to use. IF I was credulous enough to waste time watching Fox News, I'm sure I'd have heard Bill O'Reilly painting Spaniards with the Neville Chamberlain brush by now. But Spain has been fighting both domestic and international terrorism for over fifty years. It is presumptuous and insulting for anyone on this side of The Pond to presume to lecture Spaniards about how to deal with terrorism.
Spin aside, the truth is that the Spanish election is not a victory for or appeasement toward terrorism, it is plain and simple a repudiation of the Aznar government and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Many, many Europeans -- and a few thoughtful Americans, I might add -- feel that the invasion of Iraq did nothing to staunch the growth of international terrorism. On the contrary, it helped to foster more terrorism and hatred. If anything, Mr. Bush's war has drained off needed resources from his maladroitly misnomered "War on Terrorism." As our commentator, KEVIN CAREY, correctly notes in this edition of The World's Magazine, terrorism is not a military matter, it is a police matter.
To our shame, as Americans, we behave as though international terrorism did not exist until that first plane hit that first tower in New York City. But Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, et alia, have dealt with both domestic and international terrorism for decades. Terrorism did not begin on 9/11/2001.
Meanwhile, the United States has cut funding for first defenders -- police, emergency and fire personnel -- across the board, as contender John Kerry has pointedly noted, in order to invest in further military adventurism.
The wrong people are leading the U.S. effort against terrorism. A "War on Terror" will prove to be the same kind of sham as the "War on Drugs" was and is.
Let me go one step further: The international media was far more gracious and considerate in the aftermath of 9/11 than the U.S. media has been in the wake of 3/11.
Rather than showing sensitivity, sympathy and shared remorse, too much of American media has been involved in the effort to focus on political support for an American war rather than on the deep grief of the Spanish people and the families involved in the recent tragedy.
It's shameful.
Throughout Europe, there was a moment of silence held for those who perished on 3/11 and their families.
Throughout the United States, there was an effort to paint the Social Democratic party of Spain as the "Socialist" party. (Read: Soft on "our" enemies.)
It's shameful.
I would suggest that antipathy toward the Bush Administration, specifically, and the United States, in general, has to do with the gracelessness, the lack of concern for any sufferings except our own, the quick-fix, bomb-them-back-to-the-Stone-Age nature of how we react to too many complex international situations. It is shameful that a nation that would presume to lead the world has so little interest, let alone, sympathy, if not empathy, for the peoples o f that world.
And it is shameful, shameful that even as Spain is rocked by grief and fear, we Americans are leaping at the opportunity to blame them for not understanding how to "stand up" to terrorists by supporting our occupation of Iraq. Shame on us.
WILLIAM RIVERS PITT, the editor of the wonderful TruthOut Web site provided a thought-full essay on the Spanish election which it would be worth your time to read and consider, my Love. Here's a snippet of what he had to say:
The timing of the attack on Thursday is deeply troubling. If al Qaeda was indeed responsible, the terrorist organization certainly planned the blast to happen on the eve of the election. While many may rejoice at the repudiation of a party that brought its nation to war against the will of the people, the fact remains that this repudiation came after 200 people died. Terrorism, slaughter and fear owned the ballot boxes in Spain on Sunday, a precedent that is simply horrifying.America's role in the Iraq invasion itself played a central role in the Thursday attacks, and bears a lion's share of responsibility for the horror. George W. Bush sprinted to attack a nation that posed no threat to his country, or Spain, or any other. He has poured hundreds of billions of dollars and nearly 600 American lives into the endeavor, in no small part because of now-debunked claims that Iraq and al Qaeda enjoyed an operational alliance.
Had Bush chosen to press the fight against al Qaeda itself, and not against toothless red herrings like Iraq, it is entirely possible that the bombings in Spain would never have happened. The force and funding of American wrath would have been brought to bear against actual terrorists, severely impeding actions like the one which so shook Spain. Had Bush chosen to press the fight against al Qaeda itself, and not Iraq, Spain and Aznar and all those dead would not now be on the forefront of the carnage.
Again, many will find some grim satisfaction in this, but the facts auger towards a deepening gloom. Clearly, the Iraq war has not made America or the world safer. It has, in fact, further imperiled many nations and many peoples. The people of Spain were right to resist it. The hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans who took to the streets to resist it were right to resist it. The 30 million people who protested in every capitol on Earth on February 15th were right to resist it.
Though they have been proven right, there is no comfort in it, for as the terror in Spain has demonstrated, the people of the world face more of a threat now than ever before. This will be further articulated on March 20th, as yet more protests to mark the first year of the war will again boil in the streets of the world. There is no comfort in it, for the war grinds on, and the consequences continue to claw at us all.
I highly recommend this 15 March essay to you, Darling. Read and consider its implications, as I have.
HAVING LIMITED ACCESS to the Internet has certainly taken its toll on my ability to get all the news I'd prefer. For example, I know from a quick photo flashed across the screen during a news reader's session on television here that Mr. Aristide is back in the Caribbean and saw that he held a press conference upon his arrival in Jamaica. BUT I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE SAID. There is a total news black-out, if one is to judge by the major television networks and PBS, on Aristide's pronouncements now. If I had Internet access on a regular basis, I could at least depend on the international and foreign press, as I have in the past, to allow me the chance to consider that information. Here in the United States, we might as well be living in the former Soviet Union for all the access we get to any perspectives from the outside. GE, Disney, Viacom, and Murdoch are in locked-step as far as keeping us uninformed about outside opinion. I've used the term Mouthpiece Media (MM) but maybe I should just shorten that to Pravda.SO IT'S YOU'RE BIRTHDAY
In most recent years, we drifted away from celebrating my own birthday and The World's Magazine anniversary on the same date. It was our practice to do that in the early years of this effort because both events took place in March and it gave me a roaring good reason to throw a party; I could claim it was for the magazine, rather than admit I was throwing myself a party for selfish reasons. As this effort matured (or I did, depending on your viewpoint), it seemed more appropriate to publish the magazine's anniversary edition closer to the date of its first appearance, which was 11 March. I did not come along, year's earlier of course, until 24 March.As the card's fell this year, and because of tugs on my own time, a couple of power failures here in Nawlins and my perennial lack of funds, we are again celebrating both anniversaries on the same date. The World's Magazine is now fourteen years old overall, eight years old on the WWW, and I am fifty-two.
It does not only amaze me that I have produced over five hundred editions of this magazine on the WWW during the last eight years (we didn't start numbering them until after we got our domain name, two years in), but also that I've kept it up this long, despite adversity, homelessness and traveling all over the United States and the world while this was on-going. It must be love!
As many of you know, during the last six months, I've seriously contemplated stepping down from the helm of this endeavor and moving on, both in terms of my writing and my personal life. Fourteen years is a very long time to write for, edit and publish any magazine, let alone a Web magazine peopled by the disembodied voices of hundreds of writers (cumulatively speaking) most of whom one has never personally met.
As I've mentioned before, I've now been producing GENERATOR 21 (G21) longer than I was even married. I've resisted the depredations of friends and colleagues to simply give it up. I've resisted my own inclination(s) to just go off and produce some other type of Web publication, as well.
I HAVE MADE A WEALTH OF WONDERFUL FRIENDS BECAUSE OF THIS MAGAZINE. I can never deny that. I have "met" so many people on this medium who have offered me emotional, technical, spiritual and even financial support since we came online in March of 1996. I have been inspired, amused, angered and entranced by many of the people who are now part of my life because of this magazine. I've enjoyed meals, cocktails, sleeping accommodations, offers of sex, and many, many other fine gifts from people I "met" through G21. And I've read some of the most sincere and inspiring writing on the planet in the process, as far as I'm concerned.
During my most recent trip to Europe, back in 2001, I was entirely feted by people I had never met face-to-face (f2f) but whom I had come to know and treasure because of G21. A significant portion of the financing of that hejira came from G21 readers and contributors, many of whom I still have yet to meet f2f.
In other words, this magazine has given me back as much or more than I have given it over the years. I shall never regret having created this cathedral of words or the sacrifices I've had to make to keep it alive.
In fact, my only regret is that I could never come up with the Magick Formula to make it an endeavor that could pay for itself and pay its writers and contributors. Historically, this has always been a money-losing endeavor. During that brief period when the writers were being paid, the money came from my Day Job, out of my own pocket. When my income went South, s o did paying the writers. In recent years, writers caught at the end of that period have worked out what I owed them in trade. A bit of editing here, some promotional activity there. I'm more than willing to make good on my debts, it's simply that I can't necessarily do it with cash. (As I write this, my net worth is twenty-seven cents, for example.)
ABOUT THE COVER: The lovely young woman on the cover of this week's edition is my friend Kathleen Hawes. Kathleen works for a local film production company and also bar tends one day a week at an establishment three blocks from my flat. She and I have been friends since I moved to New Orleans and, in certain ways, she embodies the charms of our Crescent City. She is insulted when friends ask her why she remains here in New Orleans. She loves this town. Where I have always had a love/hate relationship with the place, she manages to accept it as it is and makes me want to do the same. She is kind to this old gentleman in so many ways.
As I was agonizing over whose image should grace our cover for this anniversary, a friend said, "Why not your friend Kathleen? She's certainly beautiful and smart. That goes with what you're about, right?"
I realized that he was correct.
When I suggested the idea to her, Kathleen gladly assented and recommended that we do the shoot at the Saturn Bar, one of the more famed and unusual haunts of this unusual American city. The Saturn Bar, like my friend Kathleen, speaks volumes about what it means to be in New Orleans. It has been written up in a number of national and international publications. Under the two giant, multicolored neon lighting fixtures on the high ceiling, you can sit at the bar bathed in a haunted reddish blue light or retire to the booths, their seats covered in leopard spots, and turn on the soft yellow lamps. It is a place of collected things, fifty years of collecting. From photos of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean to old baseball caps, crockery, dead air conditioners, hub caps. The old jukebox still plays vinyl 45s. On the night of our shoot, there was a small cage in the back where two baby chickens wobbled around drinking water and pecking at corn meal. A lazy grey striped cat almost made it into the shot of Kathleen lying on the bar. A little dog stumbled around between my feet as I played photographer.
There are pictures of Nicholas Cage and other Hollywood types sitting in booths with their pals. Celebs love the place. So do locals because the drinks are inexpensive and the ambiance is dive chic. As you'll see from the photos we've offered, it's a hodge-podge of collected life. It's a rarity in a world of homogenization. It's eclectic, like this magazine, this city and your interlocutor. As soon as Kathleen suggested it, I knew it was just right.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER: The mere fact that I have found it difficult to publish weekly, as has been our practice for 80% of the last eight years on the Web, speaks volumes. There was a time that G21 updated daily, long-time readers will recall. Now, with special effort, I manage to push out another edition every two weeks. I find this circumstance distressing, both because I know that the writers are anxious to have their work see the light of day as soon as possible and because many of you have learned to expect weekly updates here. The fact that I have not been able to keep to a weekly schedule these past few months is disappointing to me and vexing. It seems to be a symptom of my personal inability to maintain a centered existence here in New Orleans.
(I believe it's also a symptom of the spiritual restlessness I feel and my own exhaustion with the constant struggle to simply make ends meet. I spend too much time being anxious and worried and too little time in reflection. It seems that the longest respite I've had from anxiety in the past six months lasted about two days.)
And now? No food. No money -- except the twenty-seven cents. No cigarettes. No hope.
I've been here too many times. I'm exhausted.
SUPERMAN'S TURN: Let's Dance!
19 March, 2004: Faced with no prospects of income or employment and down to my last twenty-seven cents, I went into despair. There was no reason not to let Superman, my alter-ego and nemesis, have his head. He couldn't spend all my money this time, because there was no money to spend. He would have to use his own resources (Rod's bank of Goodwill) in order to have his day.He did. He took us out dancing and flirting with various women we've had the hots for a long while. He got us drunker than skunks for two days running, which wasn't that difficult, considering that we had no food to eat.
I was awakened tonight by Matt, who had come over to borrow a modem I have and give me $20 for food and cigarettes. "You're just waking up?" Matt said. "I see Superman's been around again."
Yes, I told him. Superman's been having a party the last two days.
"Remarkable," he said. "Even when you don't have any money, Superman manages to have a good time!"
Regrettably, yes. Superman can party all night. He's got a reservoir of Goodwill that I built for him. That fool will see us both dead rather than stop partying.
"You need to eat something, man," Matt told me.
Yeah. Thanks for the cash, Dude. You're right.
It's beans and rice again, of course. My usual peasant meal. If you are what you eat, then I'm a bowl of rice.
"What you usually do," Matt said, "is get really depressed, then you get really drunk and come up with a new plan of action."
I don't think I have a plan this time, Matt, I told him. I think I just have despair. Yes, despair is what they call it.
I told Matt about the time, years ago, when my pal Terry and my ex-wife consulted some kind of actuarial table and determined that If I kept living the way I do I'd be dead at the age of fifty-two. As this is my fifty-second birthday, I'm haunted by their (half-joking) prediction. I still drink and smoke and dance with young women deep into the night. I can't give up dancing.
Fifty-two: bang! you're dead, Rod.
I'm too superstitious. I shouldn't let jokes like that haunt me. But I do.
Are You Talking To Me?
Watching the PBS program "World Business" from the United Kingdom, I learned about AYTTM (Are You Talking To Me) free software from an Indian company that allows us to do instant messaging across languages. What a wonderful and novel idea perfectly suited to the World Wide Web(WWW)! I'm chuffed. When I next jack-in, I certainly plan to download it.I'm recommending it to you now because it appears to offer the best features of Yahoo's Instant Messenger and IRC chat. Not much of a chatter myself, historically, but this could change all that. I have a number of friends abroad and would love to speak with them in their own languages without spending hours in a Berlitz course or few. Wouldn't you?
Awaiting the Dragon Slayer
21 March, 2004: Fifteen years ago, I could depend upon the dragon-slayer to come to my aid. When things seemed darkest, I could summon him up from some internal well of strength and have him staunch the wound. Then he would go forth and conquer for me. He was like a damned magician. He could create things out of thin air. He had no fear and no regrets. I thought then that he would be with me always. But he left without warning and no amount of pleading or prayer will make him come back to me.
He has left me alone with my words.
"The writer thanked the producers for the lovely paycheck. Then he shot them." writelikegod.com
When is the last time you talked politics with your dog? dogshatebush.com
Now, when I summon the dragon-slayer, Superman appears instead, that prick. He has little love for me. He is only there to do me dirt and then laugh as I clean up after him. Superman's favorite thing is to embarrass me in public. He chases women who I would never be successful with and then leaves me to explain to them why I'm "suddenly" so cold and distant. Superman's favorite thing is to leave me wondering what I could possibly have seen in her.
Where the dragon-slayer had some bit of nobility about him, Superman is all about trawling the depths. Where the dragon-slayer wanted me to aspire toward a better and larger life, Superman is taken with "downward mobility", as my friend Darryl once put it.
If it's up to Superman, I shall indeed die here in New Orleans, the American Haiti. He is counting on it.
22 March, 2004: I MAKE IT A POINT to go for at least one walk every day ("... my daily constitutional") in order not only to get away from these four walls and the computer screen, but also to clear my head, get away from my anxious preoccupations and appreciate that there is still natural beauty in the world, if not necessarily in my own life. The flowers still bloom in their resplendent royal purples, bright oranges and pale yellows; the birds still sing and flit about as though without a care; the trees still rise old and majestic. I usually make at least one of these jaunts on the route that passes a nearby park. The weather here in Nawlins has been particularly pleasant lately, hovering in the mid-seventies (Fahrenheit) most days and only going into the fifties at night. It's a joy to be outdoors when it's neither brisk nor sweltering. This is our perfect season in New Orleans. It is to be savored.
That's my New Orleans contradiction, my version in this city of versions: I'm both romantic and cynical enough to write the next great New Orleans book -- BUT it's a toss-up (especially for me) whether I'll allow myself to live long enough to do so.
You can't imagine how many days I've awakened where the first thought in my mind was "Where is my Klause von Bulow?" Use the insulin. No one will know.
You can't imagine how many nights I've fallen asleep praying, "Oh God, please, please, just let me die now." Death would be a Blessing.
And I am thrown back on this rocky shore, this endless (for me) day after day of struggling and agonizing and enduring -- TO WHAT END? ... CLOSING NOTES: 23 March, 2004 - At this point, in the original version of this diary entry, I went into an angry rant. You know, the kind of thing you say when someone who should really know better has carelessly hurt you with a know-it-all comment. I can be very effective at angry rants, as long-time readers are aware. It felt good and I got in some serious jabs. But the more I thought about the rant, the more I realized that I didn't actually have to respond to someone else's meanness just because they had hurt me. I don't need to hurt them back. That serves no useful purpose.
I've got enough problems without wasting good verbiage on people who probably won't ever change and think of their own cruelty and callousness as being "instructive."
I got a lot of the anger out of my system simply crafting the words. Not all of it, of course. But it's not anger that I need to share with you, my Love.
That kind of anger is what dartboards and punching bags were created to absorb. I haven't tossed my darts in a long time. Maybe I'll find a way to toss a few of the little arrows on my birthday. Wish me luck!
See ya' next time, Luv.
Things I Need This Week
1. The relief of knowing I'll keep the lights on and the roof over my head this month.
2. Relief from despair.
3. Food and a lover.
Thanks for coming back this week."Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "
Rod
Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.
In 2002, he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's
been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Our Resident Philosopher is attempting to secure enough part-time work to perhaps equal the income of a single good full-time position. In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider. 
Rod barely survives in New Orleans, Louisiana. This town is eroding his normal sense of driven purpose. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.
Rod is "noodling" with idea of a Glass House book. (Are you listening, Timothy?) He also has a screenplay and a(nother) proposed novel in queue.
He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.
| HOME | THE PREVIOUS GLASS HOUSE | THE NEXT GLASS HOUSE |
CREDITS || AWARDS || SEARCH ENGINES || LINKS ||
VOX POPULI is YOUR PAGE to talk back to us. I'm glad you're not bashful. Keep those cards and e-mails comin', Kids!
Our Editor does listen!
© 2004, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your kudos, brickbats and suggestions to rod@g21.net.
