Day Watch

Day Watch; the counterpart to the Night Watch. I just watched it on Netflix streaming. Saw Night Watch at the Minor theater in Arcata a few years ago. These are really good films. A particularly interesting item in this film is the sub-titles. They animate and add to the story. Tres Kul.

Oh. Марія Порошина

toasted tos

Cousine Sylvia, when in Swahililand during the Peace Corps service, was fond of the local practice of saying tos when they referred to bread. Untoasted bread. So she would say toasted tos. I do that now, with affection.

I had a similar irritation with language in Haiti. Many of them, but one in particular to comment on. A Haitian, for instance, when asked where is this [thing,person,place], will reply lot bo. (another place). Oh. That is real helpful. What other place? Where? lot bo. Ay ay ay. Mezanmi.

One time I was in Saint Marc and went next door to talk to the Madam about the little shack in her front yard. I asked the young man ki kote li? "where is she?". li pa la "she isn't here". Ok, I see that. Where is she? li sorti "she left". Ok, where is she? Finally I did get an answer. I can only roll my eyes.

Chicago Bridge and Iron

Chicago Bridge and Iron, of which I sold 100 shares at $20 (a loss) some months ago, does not build bridges and is a Netherlands company. The Hague. How about that?

Last friday they traded at 8, today above 12. Good thing I sold at 20 after buying at 25. Too bad I didn't buy again below 10. Probably a short squeeze tho.

Louisiana elections

Dollar Bill Jefferson has been defeated. By Ang Cao, whom no one had heard of a few months ago. The only person to bother to file for the republican party spot in the election, he picked up most of the disaffected democrats around here.

I didn't vote. It was on Saturday, Dec 6. Frankly, I forgot. Low turnout. The November general election was the democratic primary runoff. Runoffs in primaries? yup. California has no such thing. I thought the southern penchant for actually requiring a majority to be elected was for general elections, but this time it applied to primaries while saturday's general election was won by Cao with slightly less than 50% Malik got 3% for the green party, some nut case got 1% for the white peoples party and Jefferson came in with 47% for the old demo machine. Black dog democrats.

I wasn't gonna vote for the republican, how could I? I would have voted for Malik as the Rasta green anti-Bill Jefferson guy. Or maybe voted corrupt party line. Voting for a universally acknowledged thief would be a good southern comfort.

But this Cao looks fun. The first Vietnamese in the congress. Good idea. That scumbag Steve Scalise was on stage rooting on the victory. Scalise had Dick Cheney come to Metarie to campaign for him. Incredible.

The traditional democratic party machine has fallen apart here. There were 5 young african-american guys running against Jefferson and one cute young texan woman. Moreno was her name; she came in behind Jefferson but ahead of all the experience political challengers. Some elders were required to anoint a designated assassin of Jefferson. The elders have evaporated. The result? A seat falls to the party of the resurrected confederacy.

my first taxi job

I've been driving a taxi for a week now. For A Service Cab of Metarie. I've submitted applications for a number of driving jobs but nothing has come thru. A Service Cab actually gave me an intent to hire letter. So I got my Jefferson Parish taxi drivers permit and got a cab. It is one of those operations where you pay rent to the company and keep their cab full time. Drive whenever you want, as many hours as you want.

It does appear that 12 hours a day is required to make any money beyond paying for the cab and fuel. I have an old CrownVicPoliceInterceptor. Pretty old cause the certified speedometer is way off. The GPS tells me actual speed.

With Lucienne working at a hotel in the French Quarter and doing private house cleaning many days that she is not working (at the cash only, no Social Security Card required job at a major hotel) it is hard to put in enough hours. I haven't made anything in a week. But, I do have a third vehicle outside the house!

If I got rid of two pickup trucks (at whatever loss is necessary) and bought a van to do taxi conversion It might be a little better.

Big Mac work shirts

So I went to Penny's yesterday. J.C Penny's is required for google earth or the GPS to find it. At the Causeway mall; some other name, but it is off of Causeway. I was looking for the work clothes catalog. The women working there had never heard of a work clothes catalog and I sure did not see one. Looked in the main catalog; not there.

I wore Big Mac cotton work shirts, with two breast pockets and button flaps, for years as a hippy. Sometimes I wore Big Mac overalls with no other clothes but huaraches. The cotton chambray shirts have a nice slot in the left pocket flap to keep your toothbrush in. For when you don't know where you will be sleeping that night. They call it a pencil slot.

The women working the catalog department had never heard of Big Mac except as a product of McDonalds.

I found it on the JCP website. Just search for big mac. It'll be in the list, but big mac work shirt will not reveal it. Strange.

Ah. Link won't work. Illegal characters. Here it is:
http://www5.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6.aspx?ItemID=14745df&ItemTyp=G&GrpTyp=SIZ&ShowMenu=T&ShopBy=0&SearchString=big+mac&RefPage=SearchDepartment.aspx&s4PageSize=15&CmCatId=searchresults&Search1Prod=True&S4Filter=N|0|Ntt|big+mac|Ntk|search_all|Nao|0|Nty|1|sid|11DDDA311080|Ntx|mode%2bmatchallpartial|Ntpr|1|Ntpc|1

Taxi Driver

So I finally gave up on finding a truck driving job here. Surprisingly almost everyone requires previous experience already. Driving school graduates only get to go to the big over the road companies. And Schneider doesn't accept a graduation more than 3 months old. I was going to work with my brother Kevin driving his new old truck; Team work. Delays, etc, all the jobs he is finally getting are Kentucky centered, blah blah.

So I am going to do the Taxi gig in Metairie; Jefferson Parish, just up river. Spent a few weeks getting fingerprinted yet again, and drug tested again and paying about a hunnerd bux to various departments and agencies but I now have a Jefferson Parish taxi permit. Spent two days training with two different drivers at A Service Cab. Louis bought his own Suburban, Jiggs drives a company Crown Vic.

The plethora of Suburbans in the Taxi biz here has really surprized me. They seem like they would use a lot more fuel than a Crown Victoria. I still want to call the big Ford a Galaxie or LTD. They should bring back the Galaxie 500 name.

Louis says it doesn't use much more fuel than the Vic and many loads require a bigger car. Lots of the biz here is hauling Tow boat crews to and from the River. The Mississippi is one huge industrial canal.

I do not recall another town with so many Suburbans in the Taxi biz. Toronto had mostly Taurii in the trade instead of Crown Victorias. Perhaps the front wheel drive of the Taurus is better in the snow. But why doesn't Chicago use Table/Saurus then? Ah. Perhaps Taurus/Sable are built in Ontario and Crown Vic/Marquis are not?

Mumbai/Bombay television

Streaming online, you have your Deccan terrorists taking over the Wall Street of South Asia. NDTV seems to be a Mumbai/Bombay television station with live streaming.

office of President Elect?

Change dot Gov? The President in waiting is an office? Has this been so before? There is an official website for the President in Waiting.

Now, I am very happy that Barack Hussein Obama won the election. I was a little worried when McCain started running the ad with all the Berliners chanting Obama, Obama. It did seem a little cultish. And one of Obama's campaign appearances had him behind a faux president to be seal. Now there is a President Elect seal. This is a little over the top.

armistice day

Yesterday was what the USA calls Veterans Day. We used to call it Armistice Day, for the day the Armistice was signed in Europe in 1918. Apparently at Verdun the French shot 600 soldiers for desertion. Must have been a tough battle.

election 2008

Wrote this on election nite:

Last night I saw my first presidential campaign advertisement in
Louisiana. An anti-Obama one; attacking the reverend Wright, saying he
is dangerous. The night before the election, first ad. Strange.

There are a lot more positions subject to election here. Some parish
down river has a 'constable' for each of seven districts up for
election. There used to be elected district assessors here; they were
eliminated after the post-Katrina re-organization.

there are lots of judges being elected; the State Supreme court has
someone endorsed by the Family Research Council (according to his ads)
I'll vote against him; Guidry.

US Senator is the only race that may be a contest here. The only one I

know enough to vote on. Landrieu the conservative Dem. Kennedy the
imaginary Conservative Republican; last year he was a liberal Democrat.
I'll have to vote in that race.

Oh, my Congressional seat is held by William Jefferson, famous for
keeping his savings in cash in the freezer. He came in first in the
'first' primary without campaigning. There were five black guys and one

young white woman running against him. Today is the runoff between Wm
Jefferson and Roberta Moreno. She is cute, a former television weather
reader or something. Then later we will have the actual general election
between the socialist and fascist and vegetarian parties.

We have a hot District Attorney race between two Italian guys. Last time
a black guy was elected who immediately fired most of the white lawyers
in the office; the ensuing civil rights suit is costing the city many
millions of dollars. He dismissed
tons of cases, or declined to
prosecute, and was at his girlfriends house over the river in Algiers
when a friend of hers came over to ask the D.A. what to do after the
shooting he had just committed. Eddie Jordan was his name. He was a
stylish dresser; he resigned last year and we've had fill in temps since
then. A murder a day.

No black DA candidates came close in the primary this time. So now it is
Cannizzaro or Capitelli. Vote for the Italian guy!

first grade

Today's homework; first grade, Oct 30.

Next week, we will be electing a new President for our country. What do you think makes a good President? What kind of person should the President be? What kinds of things should he or she believe? What should he or she do in the White House? Think about these questions and write at least five sentences telling what you think a good President would be like.

Roxanne doesn't know what a president of the country is. She cannot form any notion of what would make a good president. Write five sentences? Was first grade this hard when I was six? I sure don't recall that.

Calpers a sign of collapse?

California Public Employees Retirement System, CalPERS is selling stock to meet obligations. Like any hedge fund driving down the market by selling at the lowest price seen in years. This news comes today on Marketwatch and is a really, really bad sign. CalPERS is one of the most important institutional investors in the USA. They pay my retirement benefits.

The Stock Market

The
Stock Market

Due to today's rapidly changing stock
market, the following terms have had to be revised.

This should help investors more clearly understand today's economic condition:

CEO -- Chief Embezzlement Officer.

CFO -- Corporate Fraud Officer.

BULL MARKET -- A random market movement
causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET -- A 6 to 18 month period
when the kids get no allowance the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets
no sex.

VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low
and selling lower.

P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors
wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER -- What my broker has made me.

STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a
nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just
downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her
lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone
has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you
buy stocks.

CASH FLOW -- The movement your money
makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO -- What you yell after selling it
to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS 2000 -- What you jump out of
when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Last year
investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in
use

Voting on the Debt Debacle!

C-Span live streaming is really, really bogged down. Lots of people watching the vote on the new, more expensive, Debt Dummy buyout bill. The Bailout. I think it is necessary, thought so two weeks ago. We can start lining the suits up against the wall in February. Right now we have to nationalize the banking system. Started to, actually. Sell it back after it is straightened out. This is a Mexican divorce with Amurkans love for Wall Street and gettin the guvamen offa my back.

That Sarah Palin interview

Couric. Katie Couric? Is that her name? I haven't watched network news in years, but since using a TV antennae here in La Nouvelle Orleans I have happened to tune in. So she spoke with Governor Palin. Missed it. I saw part of the earlier interview by some guy. He did seem rude and supercilious to me. I have been a political junkie for years and couldn't tell you what the Bush Doctrine is.

But I guess this last interview is unnerving some self described conservatives who are now calling for her to resign from the Republican ticket. There are people who vocally supported Gov Palin who now call for her to quit? How can people like this take themselves seriously? If they didn't know anything about the creationist governor how could they have said anything in public in support?

New Orleans swimming pool

Saturday we found a swimming pool finally. The New Orleans Recreation District has a dysfunctional web site with pdf links instead of web pages. I cannot find directions to any swimming pools there. I did read a newspaper article about pools opening this summer but no one I knew could tell me where one was. On friday Roxie and I had a teacher parent conference at Lusher School. She is having reading problems. Was first grade so demanding when I was six? So I asked Miz Fitz if she knew of a swimming pool. There is one by Audubon Zoo. (Audubon was born in Jeremie, Hayti). By the Audubon Tea House actually. So we drove by late friday after checking out trailer storage in Belle Chase. Yup, it is there. Saturday we went to the pool: Emile et Roxy and myself. It is free! And they let kids use those buoyant noodles. The Arcata pool does not allow them, only Coast Guard approved vests. Had a good time. There was swimming class practicing. The director of the pool was working his youngest, a not yet three year old who was swimming by himself! Kul.

Go Wm Tecumsah Sherman

on 24 Sept Cramer took a caller from Louisiana chanting "go Tigers". I guess that is the team name. Yup, Fightin Tigers is the official team name, from the War of Southern Slavery.

So, Cramer said to the caller "LSU, started by William Tecumsah Sherman". I guess his Lenin portrait did him some good, he knows Sherman.

Capitalism leads to Communism

Wall Street Journals Marketwatch:
As free-market-loving Americans, we all know overregulating an economy amounts to socialism. We're now discovering what happens when you underregulate -- communism.

Brave New World

The New Deal returns. Last nite the Kaesars of finance hinted that they may do a 'bad bank' solution for all of the Enron style 'creative finance' mortgage backed bonds which seem to be bringing the worlds capital system to its knees. Traders swooned in ecstasy.

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.

September weather

Since the second hurricane left the weather has been nice. Cooled down, in the 70's and the humidity is lower. July and August are the hot, wet months?

OS X live planet

Live planet as a desktop background.

trying out blogspot

So I just switched this thing over to blogspot. I have been hosting on my own server at www.lyalls.net. Hosted by webmasters.com. But customizing the layout is much more difficult that way.

Now, I wanted 'http://devoid.blogspot.com/' but it is taken. And had one post years ago, never used since. Titled Audible Silence, a nice name, but I want that name back!

non-Hindi Hurricanes

Gurricanes? We evacuated to Meridian, Miss for six days to celebrate Hurricane Gustav. Returned last Friday, 05 Sept. Meridian was friendly to all the refugees and the trailer court we stayed at, Bonita Lakes RV Park put on crews to wire a bunch of extra plug-ins for all us extras to use. They parked in driveways, in between existing spaces, by bath houses.

So, I'd like to thank them for their hospitality.

Now we have Hurricane Ike hundreds of miles away from New Orleans, heading to Galveston and the water is rising here. It looks like half of the Gulf of Mexico is being affected by this huge storm. The satellite pictures show it is almost as big as Texas itself.

Galveston was destroyed in 190(?) by a hurricane. They raised up the entire city afterwards. Then it was the major port. Now Houston has taken that role away with the dredging of the sloughs. Will they raise it up again? New Orleans needs to be raised. Or have all the houses raised.

हुर्रिकानेस ऑफ़ २००८

Why am I writing in hindi?

amusing racist rants on usenet

Usenet, the newgroups came along long before the WWW thing; the web browsers that you are using now. Usenet was for civilized discussions by interested people.

It has become polluted with strange spam and lots of racist rants. For some reason many people in the USA are possessed with passionate fear and loathing of dark skinned people. Like, folks descended from Africans within the past few millenia.

So here is a Usenet post which started off as a hate screed towards Les Negre and ends slamming the Scotch Irish. that's me

My kids, btw, are Scots-Haytian

************************
>>> >>> Blue state urban nigger...
>>> >>>
>>> >>> We need to face the reality that these creatures aren't quite human.
>>> >>> They have been inbreeding for decades and are now a sub-human
>>> >>> indigenous population genetically different from normal humans.
>>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>perfect description of the hillbilly sub-human sub-culture,
>> >>
>> >>don't try to project it onto others
> >
> > RE: Hillbilles; the lowest economic class of White students score
> > higher on the SAT tests then the Blacks in the highest economic
> > level. Check that Bell curve!
> >
> > ted
first off that's bullshit, but it is bullshit intended for simple and feeble
minded hillbillies, so you did good

but, damn gomer, you're a world class dumb ass aren't you ?

let's see now,

it wasn't you ignorant, retarded, deranged, gutless yellow hillbilly
cocksuckers, but blacks who got us :

$4.40 gas

a professional ass kicking at the hands of goat herding, dung burning, rag
headed freedom fighting girls, at a cost
of $521 million a day for 7 years

how many drowned children in New Orleans, or don't they count because
they're black

1 million murdered, innocent civilians in iraq

a failed economy

25 million illegal immigrants

outrageous food prices

low paying wal mart jobs

good jobs exported to china and india to help wal mart make more $$$

a destroyed and demoralized, non fighting ability military

the russians bitch slapping nato and that bush cocksucker, and there is
nothing they can do about it

tax cuts for the rich and super rich

the destruction of the American auto industry among countless other
industries

the trans America , mexico to canada highway, to let mexicans take american
trucking jobs and keep the
companies costs down

old people dying from lack of nutrition and health care

57 million people without health care

a high percentage of homeless veterans

wounded and disabled veterans on subsistence payments if they get anything
at all

3rd world medical care for wounded soldiers

etc.,etc.,etc.,

yeah, you hillbillies are some bright boys allright,

keep up the good work brownie

you retarded asshole

NOLA cycle

Nolacycle has a bike mapping project. Kul.

7.3 powerstroke diesel cam position sensor replacment diagram

This site has pictures! Pictures of the steps to replace the cam sensor in the 7.3 liter powerstroke diesel. In Fords and Internationals? Like?

interesting political .sig

On the Democratic side, you have a bytch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, trying to defeat a lawyer who is married to a bytch who is a
lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to an extremely wealthy woman with large breasts who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there a contest here?

Biofuels not cost effective

This OECD report criticizes subsidy of biofuels. Considering the earlier link about the USA subsidizing the export of biodiesel instead of using it domestically, this is good news. Maybe some congressman could look into it? I think my congressmember is Wm Jefferson, soon going to trial.

What does Microsoft want from Yahoo?

The link is to a great article about a patent that Yahoo owns, called the 361 patent. Yahoo bought Overture paid search and got a patent covering the whole nasty business of paying for search result placement.

Louisiana's science revolution?

Djes, Louisiana has passed a law allowing school boards to provide supplemental materials for science classes. "including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

The inspiration seems to be some intelligent design wackos. May I suggest that Biblical mathematics be taught in math classes? Like, pi is equal to 3, not the egyptian/greek 22/7 or that decimal horror, 3.14159....

Or possibly evidence that the sun orbits the earth? There is ample testimony to this fact in the ancient testaments. Let's get supplementing!

Exporting american bio-diesel?

I'd seen mention of this before, but now it really gets my attention. American bio-diesel producers are exporting. To Europe. With USA tax subsidies. Why aren't they selling it here? Blending it here? Diesel is almost $5 a gallon in Louisiana and we are exporting subsidized bio diesel to Europe? This is pretty outragous and a trade violation. And we don't allow Brazilian ethanol to be imported to compete with our corn/maize ethanol. Brazilian sugar cane ethanol is the worlds cheapest. Comparative advantage. We don't believe in capitalism unless it means subjecting other countries to our dominance.

Here is another post on re-exporting south american biodiesel with a USA subsidy added. Incredible.

how many freewheelin' roads?

Today's Fresh Air was the story of the cover art for Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The wonderful woman on the cover with Dylan, that is. Suze Rotolo. I'd never heard who she was before. It has been 45 years and I'd never heard her name. We used to talk about her and no one knew if her identity was public knowledge. Was she an actual friend? Or just a cover shoot model?

So, she has written a book. A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties. Good. I guess it is time to read such a memoir. That cover sure looked romantic to me in the 60's. Lesse, I was a sophomore in Provo High School when I bought that album. We put things on layaway back then. Pay for part of it, come back later when you could afford to pay the rest. A record album was a layaway item. It had been out a while when I bought it. I think I listened to Highway 61 Revisited in the booth of the record store in Provo.

Bob Dylan was a comfort to a misfit in a place like Provo, Utah.

Pascha, Pak, Paska

Otherwise known in English as Oester/Easter. Today is celebrated 'he is risen. Indeed he is risen'. We went to the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in New Orleans this morning. Last night was the Pascha Liturgy, but it was raining hard and the kids and I are sick. So we didn't go. The midnight Liturgy is very Kul.

The link above is not to Pascha, but to a Buddhist blog about Christianity in Tibet. Thomas the Apostle was sent to India by the risen Christ, and the Nestorian church was all throughout central asia and china. The Malankara church of India, founded by Thomas brother of Christ, was not Nestorian, but what is today called Oriental Orthodox, along with the Copts of Egypt and Ethiopia.

Grand Turismo 5

Came out last night at 11pm central time. On the Playstation network. For PS3. Like that.

So, I bought it. Took a long time to download, there were tons of people downloading. I played until 2:30 in the morning and there was someone playing online at that time with a Suzuki Cappuccino, tuned. Tuned means that it has been modified to make more power. Changing tires is about the only chassis work that might be needed, it handles wonderfully in the game.

Now, to get to modify a car in GT5 you have to have completed three separate levels of races, meeting a minimum standard in 8 or so races in each level. Within two hours someone had completed all these levels to be able to modify a Suzuki Cappuccino! Yikes. To race against boring Honda Integra's in the small car class.

It took me hours to get third place (minimum passing grade) in the B level toughy. That one starts from 16th place and one is required to pass everyone in one lap. Well, everyone but two, to qualify. The aim is to pass everyone. Cheating is required. Cheating in the sense of taking unorthodox racing lines, bouncing off walls and hip checking cars into turns.

This is the 'Prologue' to the full Grand Turismo 5, which is more than a year away yet. It costs $40 and well worth it. I'll be shopping for a wheel now. Racing with a play controller is rather tricky.

Last Testament

Michael Diebert wrote a good book about the excitement in Haiti this century. Some wacko in the pay of the terrorists wrote a newly dubious book, which Deibert debunks here. There has been amusing repartee back and forth.

some kinda recycling in New Orleans

This morning around 6:30, while picking up the Times-Picayune and letting Jacques Chien out to pee I saw a renegade garbage truck. Not one of the blue ones from Richards Disposal which comes twice a week and picks up huge trash cans. This was a white one. I waited for it to drive down Lowerline and found that PhoenixRecylingNOLA was painted on the side.

Ok, found the site. It is a full home and business pickup service for glass, plastic, metals and paper. But. It costs $15 a month for once a week pickup. I would fill maybe one milk crate sized recycling thingie a week when in California. Course, I couldn't fill a 30 gallon trash can for a weekly pickup either, while here we get a 55 gallon can which is picked up twice weekly. That service is mandatory, a city contract.

Why is every household given trash pickup service sufficient for a small restaurant, but no recycling service? There are not even any drop off recycling centers and Louisiana has no bottle/can deposit system. There is lots of trash compared to Kalifornya.

Songwriter's Notebook: If I Can't Dance...

Songwriter's Notebook: If I Can't Dance...

daylite sucking time

I hate daylight savings time. this time of year is about the only thing i like about arizona; they do not honor daylite savings time there. It saves no daylite. It makes the school bus start pickups in the dark. It makes the sun set go way past dinner time.

In Swahili land noon is numbered as the sixth hour. Because it is the sixth hour of the day. The day meaning actual daytime, starting at daylight. And Galileo used the Egyptian year with a full 365 days inside 13 months, same as Ptolemy and 4000 years of astronomers before him.

No daylite is saved. It is sucked out of the morning and vomited up at vespers.

Louisiana Educational Assessment Program

Louisiana has something called a LEAP test for fourth and eighth graders. Students are required to pass it to graduate and attain the next grade. I am currently unclear if this is part of No Child Left Behind or if it was implemented separately. Louisiana Educational Assessment Program

On friday I went in to Roxanne's school Bauduit Elementary to deliver her backpack (supplied by the school) and pay $32 for field trips next week. Every day there is a field trip because the whole school will be given over to conducting tests for the LEAP. I have been paying attention to elementary school lately and the LEAP is what everyone at Bauduit has been talking about since we got there. All the schools are talking about it and articles in the newspaper abound.

As I left schoool there was a pep rally for the fourth graders in the hallway. The big gurls were dressed in cheerleader outfits (sixth grade cheerleaders?) and the classes had prepared chants to root on their LEAP testing teams. Interesting. It might have seemed bizarre, but producing a social imperative to do well on an academic test may be pedagogically sound. I like that, pedagogically sound.

Rather than social pressure to wear flashy clothes (they use uniforms at Bauduit) or acting tough they substitute an entire manufactured enthusiasm for passing a test.

Lusher School

Settling in to New Orleans has involved searching for a school for Roxanne. She started kindergarten in Trinidad this past Sept 2007. She was out of school for two months, joining Agnes Bauduit Elementary in early February. Just this past week we got a form from Bauduit asking whether she would be attending next year. That was a problem. It is a long way, but we have bus service. I've submitted an application to International School of Louisiana for the french program next year and we did apply to Audubon Charter trying to get into french language kindergarten this year. They wouldn't let her in; they may allow her into french language kindergarten next year. That would make her a six year old starting kindergarten. For the second time.

Well, this all has been weighing on my mind; what to do? What to do? So I stopped by my actual local school on friday to drop off an application. That school is Lusher School. It is a charter school about four blocks away. Turns out we are in fact within the attendance district, which functions as a normal school; if you live there, you get into the school.

Lusher is one of the few schools in New Orleans which gets good ratings and good test results. People resort to blackmail and bribes to get their kids in there. But it does not have a french program. We wanted to get into Audubon french program or the International School program so that Roxanne could claim her birthright Haitian citizenship and run for Prezidan d'Repiblik.

What to do?

Kosovo Polje

This week sees more absurdity in the management of the american empire. An independent Albanian Kosovo. See Balkan Analysis or this Counterpunch article or, for less nuanced views, some Serb Blog or view the many YouTube Kosovo videos and you'll see what a disaster this will be. Here is a Diana Johnstone article on Counterpunch on the subject as well.

This battle is between the Orthodox and Western Churches. All the Eastern tradition countries are opposed to this wacky US/British idea. The Roman and Protestant countries are still trying to dismantle Constantinople. Actually it was after the Saxons took over the Bishopric of Rome that they started to forbid Liturgy in the people's language.

I had never heard of Camp Bondsteel before this week. Is it an Iraqi style monster base for the future of the empire in Eastern Evropa and the middle east? I dunno, but they sure wanted to destroy Jugoslavia and hand it to the Nazi's. Like the Croatian nazi's and the Albanian Nazi's. Slovenes cannot be tarred with that I suppose, they just wanted to re-join Austria-Hungary.

That crazy John Bolton who tried to dismantle the U.N. is opposed to Kosovo even. He may have gotten an excessively bad rap in that UN deal; trying to shake up a bureaucracy steps on lots of toes.

I got turned off Counterpunch after they jumped on the Aristide bandwagon in 2003-04. For someone who was there, and thinking, the picture was a little different. Glad to see they are on Yugoslavia's side here tho.

Firefox 3

I just downloaded Firefox 3, the beta. It is pretty nice on first appearance. I've heard Dvorak complain about it but on thie, my first hour of use I rather like it.

Agnes Bauduit playground

Yesterday, Saturday the 16th there was a playground building scenario at the Bauduit school. Our Recovery School District school. There were signs requesting 200 or so adults to help build the playground. I showed up around 9:30 and there was a good crowd assembling playground equipment and building planter/bench thingies. The strange thing was that seemingly all the brown folks were staff of the school and the civilians were all blan. This seems out of order because I haven't seen any blan students here, so I assume that the parents are mostly noir as well.

There were a ton of young blan with Americorps and a volunteer organization (name forgotten) and old folks who looked like church volunteers. There were some brown ladies who cooked a fine red beans and rice lunch, but no noir parents working on the digging or assembling or hammering that I could see. Disappointing.

Roxie is starting to like the school after one week. Kindergarted lasts from 8am till 3:15pm, quite a contrast to the 8:30 to 12:30 hours of the Trinidad Union School kindergarten.

Finding kindergarden in New Orleans

The public school system here in New Orleans is a confused mess. All the schools around us, the Carrollton district, are charter schools and application is required way in advance. We are here now, re-locating from Kalifornya, and need to get Roxanne into a kindergarten.

We've been to the Audubon school which has a Montessori system and a French system. We want to get Roxanne into the French school so she can become fluent in real French, not just Kreyol. Then she can claim her Haitian citizenship some time in the future and become Prezidan d'Repiblik. They give a real run-around there tho, and are unable to give advice on how to find 'just a school'.

Friday the 8th of February we submitted a full application to Audubon after finally getting all the required proofs of residence. Then they tell me that two full years of schooling in French is required before 1st grade. They didn't say that before.

So after tooling around the various school district web sites (no one will answer a telephone here) I discovered something called the 'Welcome School' on Poydras. There are two separate school districts within the same boundary; Recovery School district is run directly by the State, and NOLA Schools seems to have nothing but Charter schools which one must apply to a year in advance.

I went over to the Welcome School (no one at the local schools ever mentioned this place) and after explaining that I want to transfer into kindergarden, they actually found me a school and gave me a yellow sheet of paper. This yellow sheet is important; it actually gets you into school. Went over to the Agnes Bauduit elementary school with the majik yellow sheet and presto! Roxie is going to school on monday. It is a long way away, but they will have bus service for her in about a week.

The transportation system for these schools scattered all over the city must be crazy.

the generals of New Orleans

General Pershing, General Taylor, General Collins (who is he?), General DeGaulle. Do other cities have so many streets named for military persons? General Haig, marshall Foch. We have battles too: Austerlitz and some other Napoleonic battles. Oh, Napoleon is a major street as well, but he was a Field Marshall, or First Counsel or Emperor or something.

Krewe de Rex

Today is Mardi Gras, tuesday of fat. Actually, tuesday of grease/gras. The real meaning (as I figured out a few years ago in hayti) is that this is the last day before lent, therefore the last day before fasting requires the sacrifice of no fat in the diet.

So we saw our first Mardi Gras in La Nouvelle Orleans. The Rex krewe marched at 10am from Claiborne and Napoleon down to the St Charles infirmary route. Did this krewe originate as the Ku Klux Klan? their costumes sure look like night riders from 'The Klansman', or 'Birth of a Nation'. Their bio says that they started parading 130 years ago, which would put them squarely in the Klan resistance to democracy period.

Good party anyway, on St Charles. A family affair, no showing of mammaries.

The writers guild had a popular parade before Krewe de Rex came on. One sign warned that without the writers guild we would have Sly Stallone writing all the films.

that PS3 wifi antennae

So we are sitting here at Jude Travel Park on Chef Menteur; N'awlins East. The wi-fi signal from the park doesn't get thru the aluminum sides of the Silver Streak very well. The iBook gets by ok, mostly because I can sit by a window. The PS3 is inside the TV cabinet thingie and therefore behind the aluminum screen.

I've been yahoo'ing and googling for info on adding an external wi-fi antennae to the PS3 but nothing. Anyone out there know how to add to the antennae strength?