orbis quintus

We are already starting to see attention shift ever so slightly away from the devastation in Mississippi and Louisiana. There was a lot of outrage, and rightfully so, but WE NEED MORE.

Keep on talking about this. The administration’s blatant cronyism and bumbling incompetence has been displayed for all to see, and has predictably been obscured by third rail bickering, partisan snipes, and vapid talking points.

“Kill politics” is my new motto.

Now some thoughts about the future:

-There is a huge diaspora of New Orleans urbanites, many of them will never return. What does this mean for the city’s future? What does it mean for the region’s future? I’d be curious to see if there has EVER been a comparable demographic shift on such a massive scale in American history. Look for political ramifications in ’08.

- I think that the rebuilding of New Orleans presents a wonderful opportunity for progressive city planning. A cleaner, more efficient, more storm-resistant New Orleans would be a boon to Louisiana and the South. I hope for mixed income housing developments in place of projects, “greener” layouts, more and better flood protection. Wait…. who won the no-bid contract to rebuild? Whoops, nevermind.

- The fact that the French Quarter was largely undamaged is a SPECTACULAR thing. Like it or not, the French Quarter represents much of the city’s soul. As long as it stands, New Orleans will be New Orleans.

- Nagin for House of Representatives? Senate? Remember, “Kill Politics”! I would love my Senator to drop an F-Bomb every once in a while and refer to drug addicts trying to “take the edge off of they Jones”. Recall that it is the duty of every American citizen to spread this interview. All you Europeans need to spread it as well. Spread it! In an ideal world, this audio “slice of history” would be on every hipster IPod and every playlist on every American PC.

- Will there be incentives to move to a rebuilt and resurrected New Orleans? Something to keep the old ears open for five or six years from now…

Before it is too late, I’d like to make a few remarks about the Orhan Pamuk situation.

Most of the lit blogs have covered this but I have seen none of them mention the irony that literally screams for attention in every article, blurb, and gloss of this whole abhorrent affair.

Orhan Pamuk may demonstrate with his freedom the very thing that his written works have been eloquently and beautifully asserting for years: Turkey has no coherent identity. The charge, then, is almost meaningless. Now he may proove it.

Turkey straddles Europe and Asia, its past drenched as much in Byzantine opulence and ceremonial as it is in austere and elegant Islamic sobriety. Istanbul itself huddles like a dying Janus on the Bosphorus, one eye on Anatolia and the other on the Balkans. Turkey is at war with itself. We read it as an allegory in The White Castle, we considered it at length in the guise of a philosophical approach to aesthetics in My Name is Red. Pamuk practically beats us over the head with it in Snow. Turkey is divided between its past and its future, between East and West… all of this is cliche, all of it has been pointed out over and over again in discussions on Turkey’s bid for EU membership. Pamuk has built a career on this very fact. He has been the West’s dragoman, and if we don’t do all we can to stop this deadly-serious farce, he may well become a martyr.

I am a bit of a romantic, I’ll admit, but I cannot sit idly by and let a great artist (an he is that, let there be no doubt) suffer for something as banal as the truth.

A team of Iranian and French archaeologists were recently in northwestern Iran looking for evidence of the Kura-Araxes culture. There’s more on the Kura-Araxes culture both on the Wikipedia entry and on this site, which has a proposed map of the lands that they inhabited, in the Caucasus, from 4,000 BC to 2,200 BC.

(via ArchaeoBlog.)

Never mind the rumors of the sneaky classifications of death, which some people have been claiming only count actual drowning victims, not anyone who died of dehydration, starvation, injuries, or murder, which i’ve read has been debunked…. but i’ve seen the debunkers debunked before. I’ll just have to be patient for the truth on this aspect of the story.

We’ve seen the photos of the oranges X’s spraypainted on the side of buildings, with the code of how many live and dead people are in the building, and when it was searched. According to this story in the Orange County Register:

In the past few days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has ordered searchers not to break into homes. They are supposed to look in through a window and knock on the door. If no one cries out for help, they are supposed to move on. If they see a body, they are supposed to log the address and move on.

What the fuck? No wonder the body count has been remarkably low!

Note that the searchers on the ground feelings about the FEMA directive:

They were frustrated further when they were given the FEMA order that they weren’t allowed to force their way into houses to search them. They hope Hollingsworth’s rescue will coax FEMA to rethink its directive.

It seems that they see no sense in FEMA’s lame search strategy either, and hope to change it. The Orange County Register article is actually about a last minute rescue of an unconscious man. There are still living survivors in those houses that might not be able to respond to a knock on the door.

Jayne County & the Electric Chairs “Wonder Woman” The real Hedwig & the Angry Inch. A little goes a long way, but this is the only song of hers that has stuck with me over the years…. probably because it’s closest to the New York Dolls. How predictable of me.

Jayne County & the Electric Chairs “Storm the Gates of Heaven” Was anyone ever really offended by this? Transsexual goth-rock from 1978!

Pamuk‘s still in trouble. Turkey is still intent on prosecuting him for that interview that he gave back in February in which he stated thirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians have been killed in Turkey, yet it is not open for discussion. The law is:

Article 301/1: A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years. To compound matters, Article 301/3 states Where insulting being a Turk is committed by a Turkish citizen in a foreign country, the penalty to be imposed shall be increased by one third

The law is in conflict with both the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights. This idiotic Article 301/1 of the Turkish Penal Code is going to cause considerable friction with Turkey’s admission to the EU. It baffles me that Turkey does not even contest that the deaths occurred, but instead focuses on this absurd “insult” strategy.

This is from the International PEN site:

Please send appeals:

- Expressing concern that Orhan Pamuk is to tried for a statement made in an interview for an overseas publication;

- Pointing out that this is in direct contravention of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the Turkish government is a signatory;

- Therefore protesting the decision to bring Orhan Pamuk to trial.

Prime Minister Racep Tayyip Erdogan
TC Basbaskanlik
Ankara
Turkey
Fax: +90 312 417 0476

Cemil Cicek
Minister of Justice
TC Adalet Bakanligi
Ankara
Turkey
Fax: + 90 312 417 3954

Ambassador O. Faruk Logoglu
Turkish Embassy
2525 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: (202) 612-6700
Fax: (202) 612-6744
E-mail: contact@turkishembassy.org

HE Akin Alptuna
Turkish Embassy
43 Belgrave Square
London SW1X 8PA
Phone: 020 7201 7043/44
Fax: 020 7393 9213
Email: turkish.emb@btclick.com

Ambassador Aydemir Erman
Turkish Embassy
197 Wurtemburg Street
Ottawa ON K1N 8L9
Phone: (613) 789-4044
Fax:(613) 789-3442
Email: turkishottawa@mfa.gov.tr

Fight the power!