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The Multitudinous
The Muslim trim carpenter from Iran asked me in his child-like Engish what the other trim carpenters thought of his work and I could not resist telling him, "they think you suck," and when he said "what?" as if he did not understand, I repeated it slowly for him, "they-think-you-suck." I was smiling when I said it and so he was able to guess I making joke. He is in truth an excellent trim carpenter and I told him everyone that matters thinks the same.
Last Saturday a diagonal city block from here a man in a black Taurus was found dead, shot several times in his chest, and this in the middle of the day, but you wouldn't know it if you didn't know it, unless you were very much in tune with the spirit world, or, maybe that feeling you get at certain times is actually your ownself being in tune with it, the death. I mean deaths, multitudinous, on the these city streets of New Orleans. We carrying on though, better at least than the dead dude.
The mayor in New Orleans is worried about having to get a real job now that his eight years are up, but the Democrats who promised him work in Washington did not win the right to do the hiring so the mayor, Mark Morial, is trying to change the rule which allows a mayor only two terms. He's doing a lot of last minute promising, he'll make the schools, the roads, and the crime rate better, and his biggest boast, the hiring of Richard Pennington as police chief is really a bunch of hot air because even though Pennington promised and delivered on his pledge to cut the murder rate in half, nobody seems to understand that the murder rate in half is still way too many. It is easier and more productive to forget the dead and carry on. So that's what we're all agreeing to do, I guess.
And the local school superintendent, Al Davis, who made the mistake of urging kids back to non airconditioned schools because the "slaves had it rougher" than that is clearly not making enough difference. The schools aren't getting more better. And if Davis weren't himself black he would have undoubtedly been fired. But he's still here, and I honestly believe he means well but but I'm not sure he is up to the task. It is a huge task though--the restructering of a school system-- so his failure is not really a fair reflection of the man's abilities.
The other day I saw two kids standing in the neutral ground at Canal and Broad blowing their horns for the passing traffic.
Terrell just came in and is playing rap music while racing muscle cars on one of the computers.
I started building my front porch this weekend. It rained most of the weekend but I was able to get much of the more difficult aspects of the job out of the way despite the rain.
Some other stuff happened this week but I'll be damned if I can remember what they are, although one of the things had to do with remembering.