KATRINA & THE LOST CITY OF NEW ORLEANS by Rod Amis New Orleans is the Lost City of America. New Orleans has disappeared as surely as the lost city of Atlantis or the lost city of Pompeii, which former mayor Marc Morial and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA.) have compared us to in their statements. That New Orleans, the New Orleans I mean to tell you about, that will never, ever, exist again--that city of love, lust, death and sex--will never exist again. A portion of the proceeds of this book will go to the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Fund. The cooks, servers and restaurant workers of New Orleans have provided fabulous times and memories for millions. Now we must remember them in their time of need. Buy the book or get a downloadable PDF Copy now! To order on Amazon.com, go here! A small, independent and outspoken magazine like this one can't reach you every week without the support and patronage of its readership. As our way of thanking those who have committed to keep your World's Magazine here on your desktop through their generous donations, we feature their names and cities here in our Roll of Honor. SUSTAINING PATRONS RON DIENER, Wendell, NC, USA DARHL STULTZ, Largo, FL, USA TIMOTHY MEADOWS, Anaheim, CA, USA TERRY TERRIAN, Sebastopol, CA, USA CHERYL HILL NATION, West Fairlee, VT, USA DRAGAN & DRAGANA VICANOVIC, Belgrade, SERBIA LESZEK MICHAELWICZ, New Orleans, LA, USA MARIE SINSABAUGH, Granville, OH, USA BECKY ALTEMUS, Houston, TX, USA Supporting Patrons BARBARA ATWELL, Berkeley, CA, USA MATT STOWELL, New Orleans, LA, USA LARS KEFFERSTAN, New York, NY, USA MEREDITH TUPPER, Tampa, FL, USA NGOZI RAZAK-SOYEBI, Jos, NIGERIA NICK ALLEN, New Orleans, LA, USA RIC WILLIAMS, Austin, TX, USA ROBERT PURVIS, Montclair, NJ, USA IAN CRYSTAL, Ph. D, New Orleans, LA, USA STEVE VIVIAN, New York, NY, USA STUART ALTMAN, ESQ., New York, NY, USA We encourage you to add your name to this Roll of Honor. GENERATOR 21 cannot continue and thrive without your support. Thanks in advance. To support G21, please send checks or money orders to: G21: The World's Magazine Attn: Rod Amis 1116 Crestline Road Wendell, NC 27591-9245 USA To donate by credit or debit card, please go to the Western Union website by following the highlighted link. Should you donate via Western Union, please notify us via e-mail. Please make all remittances payable to Rod Amis. Again, thanks. G21 at FeedBurner Rod Amis at the Huffington Post in February Rod Amis at the Huffington Post in May ENJOY WHAT ROD DOES! (From our Link Partner at Calabash Music. Merci!)

Rod Amis - Unbound

SMOKE & MIRRORS - FRIDAY FISHWRAP: ROD AMIS shares tidbits of things friends have shared with him, explains our long hiatus and concludes with some of his current peeves.

SMOKE

"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.

28 April 2006: The Big Buzz this week was about Neil Young's new album, "Living with War." Fox News published the lyrics to his song, "Let's Impeach the President" on Thursday. Friday, TrueMajority.org offered a free stream from the album. Along with Pearl Jam, it could be asserted, Neil is bringing the protest song element back to rock. This would be earth-shaking if you had not realized that Merle Haggard went this route last year, as my pal Ric Williams of the Austin Chronicle pointed out to me. When a Merle Haggard song has the lyric, "Let's get out of Iraq/And get back on track" you know that most of America is NOT behind the Bush administration agenda.

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30 April 2006: I noted with some dismay this morning, despite the fact that over a quarter million people marched in Manhattan on Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and the potential war in Iran - representing a broad coalition that included representatives of labor unons, the National Organization of Women, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans for Peace, various civil and immigrants rights organizations, and on and on - the Mouthpiece Media responded as though the demonstration never took place.

Between 300, 000 and 350,000 people clogged the streets of the New York City and it was like it never happened. I checked the cover of the New York Times: nothing. Washington Post: ditto. Los Angeles Times: nothing. The first national paper I could find any mention at all, any coverage, was the Village Voice. I'll act surprised.

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17 May 2006: Before "Elizabeth" left me for good, I had a brief exchange with Dr. Robert Jensen, of the University of Texas in Austin. During our "talk" he exchanged with me the link to this wonderful interview with a man I consider - and hope you will, as well - a true role model, Abe Osheroff. Enjoy!


MIRRORS

From the Writer's Notebook

27 April 2006: Filed a few stories ("Finally," I hear them say) for my two editors this week and either asked for an assignment or promised to pitch more stories, respectively. That is what my Day Job life is all about. Like producing this journal, being a freelance writer means you are on a constant treadmill of either pitching stories or begging for a new assignment. Then the process moves into the research, reading, begging sources to cooperate with you and give you some insight into their areas of expertise. Depending on the complexity required to produce a marketable piece, you spend from two weeks to a month and a half to produce a couple of thousands words. Then you send out your invoices and check your mailbox everyday hoping that a check has arrived.

It's a lifestyle I wouldn't wish on a dog and I love it to death. It's called, "Buying back my freedom."

When things fall together and the actual writing comes easily - usually after the second or third cup of coffee - you enter "The Zone" and it's the best feeling on Earth. When things go poorly, it's a living Hell.

When all these elements fall into place, I can knock off a couple thousand words in half a day of writing and self-editing. When this process goes poorly, it can take me up to two days to punch out a thousand words I pray someone might deem worthy of buying. I'm sure that fellow scribes reading this overview can identify with the circumstances described.

what I HATE about Rod

29 April 2006: I really have to lose doing my column last at this magazine.

I go through the magazine and read all the columns and notice that I'll edit everyone else's pieces perfectly and then leave my own as the proverbial "sow's ear." Yeah, yeah, I know that you, Gentle Reader, get the overall sense of what I was trying to say but it chap's my ass, as we used to say in Texas, that I don't bother to vet my own work the same way (here, at least, unlike when I'm being paid) as I do the work of the rest of the team.

This little rant is engendered by the fact that I only got around to reading my "Smoke & Mirrors" column from last week, because Technorati informed me that someone had mentioned it on their blog, TODAY!

I was too busy working on my paying (read: "Day Job") writing.

I get caught up in the Day Job routine and say to myself, about this diaristic page of mine, "Bokra." Or, worse yet, "Badi Bokra" and, the next thing you know, days have gone by before I let Rod the Editor look at Rod the Writer's work. My bad.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I need a Rod for Rod.

Sheesh!

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BTW, if you don't click on the "ENJOY WHAT ROD DOES" link on this page, you are definitely missing half the fun of my little blog. A word to the wise.

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You'll love this one, Kidlings. One of the flaks for the Huffington Post Contagious Festival, Jonah Paretti (Do follow the link to find our how cool the NYT thinks he is. Registration required.), sent me an e-mail today asking if I'd rejoin the Festival because my contribution back in February had done so well. (It was actually in the upper 50% and suddenly started getting hits and reprints from other bloggers - after the fact.)

In an uncharacteristic situation for the HuffPost, when I e-mailed back the following:

Jonah,

Frankly, I'm surprised you're inviting me back, considering how poorly my entry did.

Please advise.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards, Rod

I almost immediately got back this response:

On Apr 28, 2006, at 2:03 PM, Jonah Peretti wrote: Contagious media is hit or miss. Maybe you will rock the house this time. ;-)

Jonah

Tag. I was It. So I wrote back:

Jonah,

Let's be honest: as one of the other entrants stated, the only people who rock the house are the ones that you at HuffPost promote.

RA

(You're starting to love this post now, arent' you, Kidlings?)

So Jonah wrote me back and I wrote him back and it was clear to me that being in the Huffington Post Contagious Festival, based on what the editors at HuffPo were all about was about my putting my journalistic efforts - even enhanced with great video feeds - against CARTOONS. Homie don't play dat.

And to think that I used to think that Arianna Huffington might be more than just involved in the pop-culty, Limousine Liberal hype of this country. For shame!

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Ultimately, I did make the decision over the weekend to give the HuffPost Contagious Festival one more chance. Not that it does anything to enhance the offering of this publication of mine. Pure vanity, Luv. And somewhere to "play" when I'm not around here. This was is called Murrow's Ghost. Visit me there when you're not here. It would be appreciated.

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16 May, 2006: As all of the writers and contributors here learned and some others of the Loyal Readers know, my "new" used computer, an eMac, that I called "Elizabeth" went kablooie, never to be revived on 3 May. That definitely caused a major problem. I was referred to a repair shop on the other side of the nearest large city to Lizard Lick, Raleigh, that meant paying over $100/roundtrip to see if they could salvage her, plus their initial fee. They advised me that it wasn't worth the effort.

SO, considering that I can't make money (as a freelance online journalist) or produce this magazine without a Memory Machine, I was backed against a wall, just as I had garnered a new freelance job doing some behind-the-scenes work for Slashdot. I can't catch a break - well, almost. The repair shop let me rent a loaner so that I could keep working (the Slashdot effect) and then, Matt, my pal in New Orleans offered to loan the dosh for an actual new machine.

Loyal Readers, meet "Merlin's Staff." (no more names of English monarchs for this boy!) Merlin's Staff, meet our Loyal Fan Club. Merlin's Staff is a laptop - meaning that I'm more mobile again. (Yayy! Never was into that desktop moment.) And it's blazingly fast, as they say. Let's wish him luck - and me,too.

LIFE OF ROD

NOBODY LIKES BEING DISSED. Unfortunately, I'm the kind of mild-mannered reporter who people think it's okay to diss at will because I won't do what lots of other people do and tell them, "Fuck off! You're not the Boss of me." That doesn't mean, of course, that I don't get hurt, offended and angry.

I've simply learned to control my anger a bit better than some people I know. I don't believe it's "passionate" to tear some one a new one simply because they have no regard for respecting others.

Like now, I'm in a situation where I get asked one question every day: "Is that food ready to eat yet?" That's it. That's all. The sum total of my existence has been reduced to paying for expensive cabs to purchase the food, the act of the preparation thereof and then providing the clean-up. Diss.

OR it's always great when someone (calling themselves a friend) decides to provide a capsule portr ait of the entire fifty-plus years of your life and then pontificate about The Definition of You. Gimme a freakin' break. Most people barely know themselves (yes, including me) so how on God's Green Earth can they presume to know anyone else? Just asking.

OR I especially love those people, with all my heart, who hold the august opinion that - if only you were more like them - you would enter into the Nirvana of the Enlightened. What a crock! Anyone who believes that anyone or everyone (which usually sounds their preference while they are lecturing you) should be more like them has serious individuation problems, in the view of Yours Unruly. What I'm saying is, unlike Nature, they apparently abhor diversity.

Those are the pet peeves of the last few weeks in Life of Rod. You are now free to talk among yourselves.

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My friend Natalie Davis of All Facts and Opinions has started a new music project, Grateful Dread Kind Electronica, you'd might want to check out.

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The ladies of Artesanas Campesinas, of Taxco, Mexico, and I have been in near-constant contact for over five years now. As the immigration debate in this country is on the front burner and President Bush has announced his plan to deploy National Guard troops on the border between our two countries, I have found the e-mails they have sent me, linking me to pictures of the flowers they treasure, endearing. I thought I'd share a couple with you, my dears.

Hola Rod

The Flower of the Moon blooms only one night each year

By the time the sun comes, the Flor de la Luna is dead.

Here is a picture of this amazing flower.

We have one in the patio of our workshop here in Taxco.

http://www.artcamp.com.mx/laforja/Humboldt/index.htm

Eusebia Flores
Artcamp Taxco Mexico
"Artesanas Campesinas"


We do not know the name of this very pretty flower.

It blooms outside the window of our workshop in Taxco Mexico.

http://www.artcamp.com.mx/laforja/Humboldt/flores/misterio/

I hope you are well in health and spirit - Rod Best Wishes!

Eusebia Flores
Artcamp Taxco Mexico
"Artesanas Campesinas"
www.artcamp.com.mx

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Finally, I was able to let the writers of our new book, Africa Fresh! New Voices from the First Continent know they'd received their first royalty check this past week. I was chuffed.

Thanks for coming back this week.

THINGS ROD HOPES FOR THIS WEEK

1 - Pitching enough articles to my various editors, and getting them approved, so that I can finance my relocation plans.

2 - Getting back on top of generating more book sales.

3 - Resuming my Hejira.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "

Love,
Rod

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ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at the (U.S.) Public Broadcasting System (PBS's) WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote on Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was 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 Internet 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, r eaching 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. He did stints as the Resident Philosopher at three separate gin mills in that city in the French Quarter and the Marigny, earning his stripes during two successive Mardi Gras seasons. 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. When he's not busy here, he writes technology columns for IT Manager's Journal and business columns for Enterprise Leadership. Rust never sleeps.

Our Resident Philosopher has exchanged his legend mobility for a means of keeping your World's Magazine going. Now he must become earnest about gaining a financial underpinning for this enterprise. (Read: Buy back his freedom.}.

In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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© 2006, GENERATOR 21.

E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your kudos, brickbats and suggestions to rod@g21.net.