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First Issue Choice: Poverty, Housing and Katrina Recovery

Quick, name the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (keep quiet, RedStar).

Betcha can't - it's Alphonso Jackson. He ran the St. Louis Housing Authority for 12 years, and the Housing Authority of the City of Dallas for 17 years.  But mostly, he's a friend of George Bush (naturally) - and he was President of American Electrical Power in Austin, when Bush was Governor. There are rumors he's about to be replaced (it would be an easy switch to replace him with failed Maryland Governor candidate Michael Steele). Jackson replaced Mel Martinez, the new head of the RNC.

I start here to give some sense of how under the radar the public housing issue is right now.  That's likely to change, as a number of urban-based Representatives move into major committee chairmanships (Charlie Rangel, in particular, comes to mind). 

But public housing - like many issues for the poor - has simply languished for at least six years, and really more; while the Clinton Administration did implement a number of good ideas (including reforming the administration of public housing authorities, and ending the "warehousing" concept of high-rise boxes that isolated poor people and helped create havens for drug crime). But the moderate DLC approach they favored, combined with a Republican Congress after 1994, led to embracing schemes that have resulted in an abandonment of a long term commitment to providing housing solutions for all -  in exchange for an emphasis on improving gentrification in major cities and decreasing public housing stock via the program HOPE VI, and implementing a voucher system to encourage dispersement (vouchers which rarely are accepted as widely as they should be in a program which has been underfunded), a program called Moving To Opportunity (MTO).  And let's just say the last six years haven't helped (Republicans, urban policy, government programs... you do the math), and leave it at that - the overall results of these programs have been mixed, at best. 

This is a roundabout way of bringing in some recent posts from RedStar, who has made redevelopment in New Orleans part of her graduate work at MIT (we are very proud of her), and who has written - with considerable brio, anger and sadness - some terrific stuff on the dilemmas there.  I do not want to steal her thunder (or excessively plagiarize), so I mostly encourage looking at them (start here, go here, and check here... for starters). I'm not sure even RedStar knows, but my searching for information led me to an interesting fact - Mary Landrieu's father was HUD Secretary in the Carter Administration (after being Mayor of New Orleans), and economic development was important to him.  It's sad to see that legacy being torn apart in the aftermath of the hurricanen (and it gives some additional insight into why Senator Landrieu is so passionate on rebuilding in NOLA).

The point is that it's not at all clear that the social engineering that's been going on in HUD programs and with Welfare Reform hasn't simply made the "invisible poor" just that - invisible.  The welfare rolls have decreased; fewer people are using the MTO vouchers, and they are winding up in more mixed-level housing where fewer people are likely to be poor.  It may be that things are vastly better, but really, we have absolutely no idea (and little data) to really back that up.  Discouragements across the system have put barriers in place to people seeking help.  And as Ezra noted recently, getting out of poverty requires a support system most people don't have.

RedStar wrote to me (as I was preparing this post):

One thing that I harp on over and over in my own work about Katrina is how much this Administration used it to advance their ideological agenda about government and rolling back social support programs.  They denied host states access to Medicaid for evacuees, they used trailers instead of section 8 vouchers (which were used post-Northridge earthquake so successfully they re-housed ~14,000 pp in a matter of weeks...I'd have to double check the #s but it's something like that...Clinton got a lot of props for that, as you can imagine), and these kinds of actions went largely unnoticed by the public eye.  We're not particularly knowledgeable about what to expect after a major disaster, and Iraq quickly resumed being a major distraction, and Americans generally missed that the Admin actually used Katrina in the worst possible way - to deliberately discount programs like Medicaid and HUD by putting all the responsibility w/FEMA - i.e., people's post-storm lives were an act of God, therefore our disaster unit should deal with it (against the rules, btw), and also, if they used HUD and medicaid and people saw how these programs can be an overall safety net for all Americans in time of crisis, then oh no!  we might think they have some value.  And we can't have that....

The war on the poor has been underway for the last 3 decades.  First economic restructuring (Bretton Woods, etc.) got everyone feeling a little uneasy about their own security; then Reagan came in and set the tone with his welfare queens nonsense, by the time Clinton the appeaser was in charge, 16 years of backlash and globalization and widening inequality led to welfare reform; since '96 we've just set about trying to erase the poor from our rolls and minds, esp. as their ranks swell with undocumented workers, immigrants, etc. etc. (Though Americans seem to totally miss the point that only among white Americans did poverty rise when last measured in 2004; for Asians it fell and for all other ethnic groups it held. It also rose in the Midwest more than elsewhere,  I think.)  The poor are mostly white, but blacks, Latinos and Am.Inds. have disproportionate percentages of poor in their ranks.  But people confound this info and think the poor are minorities different from them and trying to steal their jobs and make too much noise in their streets and rob their houses and hurt their wives.  Or so it seems the rhetoric goes.  And economic liberalism just leaves us thinking no one's responsible for one another anymore; that we're on our own, hopefully for the better; all we have is the market.  No one realizes that the government makes the market.

If we're serious as Democrats about being in charge, then it's how we deal with the uncomfortable, undealt with issues that matters.  I'm all for creative solutions to familar problems.  But I'm with RedStar and others - gentrification in the cities (of which I am a part) hasn't solved the housing crisis, it's worsened it.  And given that HUD has languished now, for years, I am disheartened at the prospects for improvement.  But we won, dammit.  And that means digging under the rocks and bringing some ugly facts into the light. 

And then dealing with them.

Choose Your Issue (But Choose Carefully)

It's a strange political time - I don't think I realized quite what winning meant when it first happened; but indeed it is as if the world is righting (no pun intended) itself, and part of that sea change is making politics less all-encompassing than it has been the past six years.

Of course, any breaking news could completely upset that theory, but I'm struck by how quiet the news boards and political blogs are.  Not much is happening (save for Iraq, and that has been careening headlong to disaster for a while, and is really beyond anyone's control), and even hard core activists admit there's just not much to say.

So it may be time to just pick an issue... and what I've discovered is - I don't really have one.

I'm afraid I was all about the whole Inside Baseball thing, to be honest, and now that things are, well, real, I got... nuthin.  Big ol' nuthin'. 

Well, not really.  Over the next few days, barring something calamitous (like a new worst song, or Britney exposing herself - again - or more opportunities to talk about Gene Tierney or Hedy Lamarr), I think I'll try and explore a few pressing issues, like housing, health care, education and such.  This is new territory for me, and I'm sure you'll let me know if I mess up... JUST KIDDING.  We all know you never leave comments - except for Kate, RedStar, J in Balto (with the bionic ear), Chrystal and Jenn... but y'all want to talk about hair and clothes and bad eighties bands with me.  I have a mind you know (I'm more than my ample bosom).  And I know you do too.  So share thoughts, or give me a pressing topic to investigate - ideas welcomed.

My Love Is Going Nowhere

... on an extremely slow news day, I have to start with news on the podcast front - I discovered a new podcast of good deep house, lounge and other great dance sounds - The Velvethead Lounge, from DJ Joel Antipuesto.  I went and found Joel's blog - where, thankfully he has a track listing for his last podcast, so now I know who did that cool Joyce Sims track I liked so much. :)  He is also seriously into Pet Shop Boys, so he must be a genius. :)  Rock on, Joel.  If you like some of my other favorite sounds, I really think you'll get into this one (this means you, RedStar).

More thoughts to come, including a Worst Song Ever update.

Have I Stayed Too Long At The Fair! (And How!)

In the end, it seems clear I overstayed my welcome in New York; the city itself was sending me signs that it was time to go (I found the one Starbucks in Manhattan without wi-fi), and coming home tonight, Boston welcomed me like a long lost relative, as I shared those friendly WASP-y grimaces people make when stuck on a bus after a long day of travel.  New Yorkers do not make these faces.  They're really too busy, and frankly, do I even know you, goes the logic... or something like that.

Like RedStar and her thoughts about returning to New Orleans, I have this life that's between worlds.  In fact, I tend to think of myself as part of The Travel Class - they may not be a recognized demographic (although I think some advertisers account for them), yet, but they will be.  They... We... are the people who are most at home in the land of airports where time exists in absolutes - the minutes to your flight, the hours in your layover.  It's never quite morning, never really night, and commerce rules.

When I was in London a few years ago, I attended a small Dia de los Muertos party given by my host - an expat American I had met in New York, living in London with his Filipino (as I recall) boyfriend.  We were joined by a Spaniard who had lived in London for several years, a German who traveled a lot for work, and a Frenchman, I think.  And we talked about, oh European things, and travel and it was all very chic in this house where my host rented the basement apartment (but we used the living room of his landlord, who had everything done very tastefully in chic minimal modernism). I especially liked the Spaniard, as he reminded me of my friend Enrique, only his broken English was British, as opposed to Enrique's American; and I think of how I would like to compare notes with Enrique on Volver, because he hung out with the Alamdovar set (it's not all it sounds - I lived in Baltimore.  I met John Waters. Everyone did.  Best not to overplay these things.)

I realized that we all (even Enrique, really) talked like people who'd seen more than a few airport lounges, talked casually of jetting here and there (they were richer, really, than I, but only so much), and were in many ways all rather rootless, drawn to the energy of the urban life, but really any urban life, and indeed mostly by the idea that urban life was at its best when experienced in more than one place.

In the end, I think we know our real homes when we are in them - it's a feeling, a sense of belonging.  I could say it was just serendipity that bought me to the apartment I had in New York - someone else found it and rented it (there, I said it in print); but when I got there the first day to move in, I knew I was home.  Likewise, in my 4 room flat in what RedStar calls The Mansion (it's a South End row house with a lot of rooms), I know where I am.  It is familiar, it is comfortable, it is mine.  I am happiest when I have the ability to roam (and indeed my favorite work experiences have been the ones involving frequent travel), but roaming includes the ability to return to home base.  Here I am.  And here I shall stay.  For a while.

Through The Eyes of A Child

One more Thanksgiving moment (since other people talk about kids and Thanksgiving) - our Thanksgiving was enlivened, as usual, by the presence of The Most Adorable Nephew in the Universe.  He's 4, going on 5, and he is a bundle of energy and usually very well behaved (for a 4 year old).  And he spent the time before dinner playing with a Lego blocks set that my Mother keeps for him at her house.

Using the blocks he made a series of machines - a machine to take away our minds, and then a machine to put them back, a machine that turned us into pie, a machine to make you super strong (which he used on himself, so he could pick each of us up - so we had a role to play in that, too).  You get the idea.

Watching him come up with these machines - and other precariously built structures - we were all surprised, and amused and enchanted.  But of course all good things have to come to an end, and my nephew was beside himself when he found out that the machines had to be taken apart and put away.  He began crying and throwing a tantrum (he's a very good performer; unfortunately, he comes from a line of expert performers, so frankly his tantrums are nothing I or my sister - his mother - have not already tried ourselves.  We're a tough crowd).  He tried to bargain - and I tried to help - by asking that we just save one machine (the mind stealing one, I believe).

But to no avail.  And so he wailed, "But if I take them apart they will be gone and I will never get them back."

And we all stopped for a moment, because it was true... and a whole metaphor for childhood, if you ask me.  I now understand why we hate to see kids grow up - it's such a joy to see the imagination given free reign, and like soap bubbles, you can't keep the machine that turns everyone into pie.  You have to take it apart and put it away.  And then it's gone.

Random (Possibly Disquieting) Thoughts

Just a few random, possibly fun things:

• As I mentioned podcasts before, I wanted to add that one of my favorites - Next Big Hit (a weekly compilation of new music) has a "B Side" mix of more mid-tempo music that they call "perfect for relieving after work stress," which indeed it was, and I loved the selection of music. They do other B-side mixes as well, all interesting.  Give it a try.
• Just a random thought about torture (I was catching up on an old article in GQ about Abu Ghraib), as I was working out at the gym - do you suppose that people into bondage and domination might be able to withstand certain torture methods?  I mean, if you like being tied up in uncomfortable positions to begin with, would it really be torture to be put into an uncomfortable position when tied to a chair, say?  Should we be recruiting B&D enthusiasts for spying?  Just wondering out loud...
• RedStar is back in New Orleans and has some interesting thoughts posted... as well as a threat to stop posting "personal stuff" (or starting a separate blog) which I am opposed to - we are whole people, our blogs should be Whole Blogs.  That's just me.
• Speaking of Whole Blogs - Kate has a horror story about shipping via UPS.  We feel ya, girl. :)

Let's Twist Again

Well, since the blogging didn't seem to be working out today after all, I went and saw Pedro Almadovar's Volver to try and free my mind and get the creative juices going.  Didn't really work - while I liked it well enough, Volver is no Mala Educacion or Todo Sobre Mi Madre (though more coherent than Talk to Her, which is something, I suppose).

Critics have been waxing rhapsodic about Penelope Cruz, and while the film is a vast improvement over some of the dreck she's been in lately, it's not her best work, and it may be time to face that Cruz, while lovely, is just not the greatest actress.  Here she plays Raimonda, a young-ish mother raising her teenage daughter and supporting the family on at least three menial jobs, until a disastrous turn of events leads the daughter to kill her Dad (who was, in fact, her stepfather), and Raimonda to take desperate measures to cover up the crime.  Meanwhile Raimonda's sister Sole (So-lay) is dealing with the death of their Aunt, who may possibly have been visited by the ghost of their Mother (Carmen Maura).

As it turns out Mom is very much alive, and her return leads to resolution of a couple of deeper mysteries around the women's lives, as well as that of the family's friend Agustina, who is dying of cancer - and Blanca Portillo provides the film's most touching performance.

If this sounds a bit busy, it is - Almadovar's more than able to keep track of all of this, but he's not in top form here - the script is not where it needs to be, Maura has little to do except look winsome, and the revelations feel artificial and forced (as opposed to say, Mala Educacion where the revelations spring from the story in all sorts of unexpected places).  I knew where this was going well before we got there, and I suspect others will as well, and without a sense of surprise, what should be dramatic revelations fall rather flat.  What's left is clearly a love letter to Penelope - Almadovar shoots her like Loren in her prime, with "drab" looks that only highlight her beauty (and her breasts), and va-va-voom sequences that show what she's capable of as a Screen Goddess.  Like Tarantino and Jackie Brown, focusing so closely on one female star throws eveything off, and both films drag in a way that's really unnecessary.

But I will say this - this season seems to be a season of creepy, twist-y films for me; aside from Volver, and Oldboy, which I mentioned previously, I'm also the lone holdout who thought Brian DePalma's adaptation of The Black Dahlia was just as twisted as it needed to be (I am a big James Ellroy fan for just such weirdnesses).  Another film I haven't mentioned - which I watched on the interminable trip home from Montreal - is The Shanghai Gesture, a 1941 flick that was the last studio film from Josef von Sternberg (Dietrich's Blue Angel director).

In fact, to see what a director can do when focusing on a great beauty without losing sight of the story, this is a good place to start, and von Sternberg, who had an eye for such things (Dietrich, after all), is working here with Gene Tierney, one of the most beautiful women ever onscreen (see photo). Also along for the ride is Ona Munson (Belle Watling from Gone With the Wind), also well photographed. 

Based on a John Colton play, The Shanghai Gesture stars Tierney as Victoria "Poppy" Charteris, the daughter of a wealthy financier played by Walter Houston, who gets sucked into the seedy gambling and bars world of prewar Shanghai.  Munson plays Mother Gin Sling, an ex-hooker who runs one of the gambling dens and helps lead Poppy astray, particularly when she realizes that her father is trying to drum her out of business. 

Events culminate in a nightmarish dinner party, where secrets are revealed, lives are changed, and the possibilities for the future are shattered.  Tierney, who went on to play Laura in that classic story, as well as the icy bitch in Leave Her to Heaven, gets off to a rollicking early start here.  Her accent is atrocious, but she plays a willful rich girl with aplomb, and gowned by her husband (to be at the time) Oleg Cassini, she looks nothing short of breathtaking, though only a promise of her future stunning looks.  Munson, gowned by a different designer, is also a sight to behold, in a series of Asian-inspired fantasias that pay homage to the traditions without following them slavishly or becoming cartoonish, as so many films from that period do.

Indeed von Sternberg shows that it was perfectly possible at the time to cast realistically - his bar is populated by beautiful Asian extras where many forties films take Europeans and try to make them up Asian.  And Mother Gin Sling's club is a triumph of a set design - a series of concentric balcony circles overlooking the roulette wheel that will bring Poppy to her doom - an obvious reference to circles of hell that von Sternberg makes brilliant use of visually.  I am all about twisted parent child relationships this year, and The Shanghai Gesture is an unexpected gem - proof that those Amazon recommendation lists can provide some real finds.

Do You Want Me Baby, Down On My Knees?

I'm back... more or less.  Less, actually, than more; I have a lot of stuff I want to write, but the combination of feeling overwhelmed with writing, decompressing from yesterday's travel escapade, and general post-holiday blahs, has left me a little blocked this morning.

So, to get started: The paid gig is up - please take a look. 

And then, on a far more somber note, please take a look at this.  One thing that a blog allows for is raising awareness on stories that might otherwise slide by unnoticed.  I don't know what to do with this story, but someone must. The event recalls Norman Morrison, who set himself on fire in front of the Pentagon to protest Vietnam... but I am more struck by the parallel to Waking Life - one of Richard Linklater's quasi-animated films (and a bit of snore) which included a self-immolation scene that upset my mother quite a lot.  I don't know what else to do but to pass this along...

More to come once I get into the Big City...

...and in case you wonder where the title for this post comes from...

Things Fall Apart, It's Scientific

As far back as I can remember - and as I mentioned below - I've found the week of Thanksgiving frustrating for the political junkie in me.  Everybody's on holiday, government shuts down, people go home to their families and essentially hibernate.

So maybe it was just the election results this year, or my new career, but I found it easier than ever to tune out.  All the debates in Washington about Pelosi/Hoyer/Murtha/Harman/Hastings etc. had the feel of inside baseball (no one really knows these people out in the real world, and until Pelosi takes charge, it's a lot of bald speculation about what could happen), and with the President looking stunningly ineffectual in Asia ("Please, Mr. South Korea, will you start actually enforcing searches of North Korea's shipments...?"), a definite nap seemed in order. (And, unfortunately, I think RedStar got lost in the shuffle - and her thoughts on Labor issues in New Orleans are important.)

Don't get me wrong, I had a nice time relaxing and traveling.  But nap time appears to be over.  While New York gets roiled with a big local mess, on the world stage, Iraq has reached disaster mode.

I'm sort of fascinated at how things have fallen apart so fast - I mean, we were debating the more troops/less troops conundrum over Thanksgiving dinner, and now that discussion seems largely moot.  The question of what Iraq has become seems much more settled in the past 24 hours alone - this is a Civil War we can't stop, and I don't think we even have a good idea whose side we're on.  I suspect by the time Bush meets with Maliki in Jordan - if the meeting actually occurs, and note that it's happening in Jordan, and not Baghdad - whatever they decide may well be beside the point. And because this White House thinks mostly about its own hide and personal politics, how convenient that Mr. "Send A Lot More Troops" (a/k/a John McCain) will now be twisting in the wind as it becomes clear that more troops can't possibly fix this.  Why do I sense the hand that will push Jeb Bush into the election maelstrom of 2008?

Two other political entities seem to also be severely affected by this turn of events - James Baker and The Commission That Will Solve Everything For Us All, which now has the political cover to suggest almost anything, including major withdrawals without probably a lot of objection - if they could agree on something; and the new Democratic Congress, which keeps turning up aces while playing a dicey hand.  It's not that Democrats have the big solution in Iraq - indeed, our dinner conversation seemed to make clear there isn't unanimity or a good idea to be had - it's that, with things falling apart so clearly, they won't really need one.  The Administration that got us into this mess - the one that flails around without Don Rumsfeld or a clear idea of what to do next - will be the one holding the bag of ideas having to come up with what to do now.  And those of us who oppose war get the grim satisfaction of knowing we were right, the most meaningless sense of victory in the face of such needless destruction and death.

You Left Me Standing At The Altar

...and I said to Ray, as we got the first news reading from CNN, "I hope that the man who got shot wasn't a black man."

But of course, he was.

I'm not playing faux naive when I say I don't understand how these things happen.  I really don't.  What on Earth would cause Sean Bell to get killed in a hail of some 50 rounds fired when his car crashed into an unmarked police van (the strip club where he went for his bachelor party was under police surveillance) and his friends to be critically wounded.  Or why the two survivors would wind up shackled to their hospital beds. I'm not going to say I'm thrilled about the way bachelor parties at strip clubs lead to drunken carousing, but getting shot by police is usually not how these things end.

What I know is that we are in for another round of anti-police commentary from the black community, and more defensiveness from the law-and-order right that anything the cops do should not be questioned or controlled, somehow.  In between, good people will shake their heads, mutter about the tragedy of it all, and fret about how little has changed and how little can be done to prevent future incidents. 

But sometimes you gotta say... the way this keeps happening, there's something to what Al Sharpton and others keep saying about somebody having it in for the black man.