Tasty Treats: Love it or Hate me.

The 2000 U.S. census put New Orleans's population at 484,674, but Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused the city's evacuation. Population estimates as of June 2006 range from 192,000[6] to 230,000.[7]

(This information is from en.wikipedia.org, search: New Orleans, LA)

"From a world structured and preoccupied by history we have landed ourselves in a depthless horizontality of immediate connections." ..."History becomes unthinkable."
Doreen Massey, For Space

Except in person. The first experience I ever had with a roundabout was in New Orleans, driving around it sitting next to my friend Joy, we called her Joy Beans. We left the abandoned strip mall by the levy, drove in the white van through the 'Garden District' for a few minutes, turned one corner and an overgrown field opened up to reveal 'The Projects', just like that.

We offered to jump-rope with the little girls, a small boy sat on his own saying nothing even when sweet Kreesta tried to coax him into swinging high and flying on the set in the shaded green grass.

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I sat in a small farmhouse, wrapped in blankets, wearing two pairs of jeans and sweats, drawing pictures of the Christmas decorations on the Piano. I was making cookies from the basketfull of eggs I collected every morning from the chicken coop. It was 8 degrees below 0 Farenheit. The water pipes had frozen the night before. Two days earlier, a giant Tsunami had crashed into 12 countries in South East Asia. I just heard it on Public Radio which only came in when it felt like it.

The birds played tepidly at the feeder, the fat gray cat watched them from her warm(ish) perch just inside the window, next to the candles which had melted over onto the table cloth.

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We drove around a giant three part roundabout North of London, the sun was almost directly overhead. I knew that we'd get home late and I didn't want to go back and sleep by myself. These people I half knew, have wanted to remember me.

Someone said it was magic. What? The roundabout. Oh. Didn't you know that. (I don't know much I thought.)

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Walking down the street in Chicago, it's around 0 Farenheit and it's raining. Not even, it is downpouring, lightening and thunder and I am wearing high heels and a skirt. I have no phone numbers. My family doesn't know I'm in the same country as they are. I hardly know it. I'm still two years before, sloshed on Orange Reef at Ziggys'.

The weather in the world doesn't make sense anymore. Last fall a hurricane wiped out the city of New Orleans, will it reach the same fate as New York? The proposed memorial two giant square holes in the ground, water rushing into them like the end of the world? A plastic city like all the rest.

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There are missing pieces in Beirut. Black holes where buildings and homes once stood.

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Outside the city of Prague, there is post-war destruction.

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On the North Coast of France, you still see the Battlements from these "world wars" everyone talks so much about.

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You can visit chernobyl now, just a few decades after the nuclear accident. They still worry that the site will collapse and the radiation will spread further again.

The symbol for radioactive materials was developed to seem dangerous even when the languages of the world have ceased to be in use, comprehendable. I still find this a little ironic.

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I was reading about instanteneity and global preoccupation with 'events' equalling space, and time. I was afraid to write anything after all the news of the country I happen to be from/of, saying it was 'alright to bomb the hello out of a country, for just another week'. Then we'll look at the situation again. this type of behaviour always makes you hit your palm to your forehead a few times and hope you don't 'look of' that place. I don't want to have to stick up for my government, and in fact, I don't support them but right now, I have nothing to say about their decisions either. I'm sorry if I've let anyone down.

And to my lebanese friends, perhaps you'd like to arrange a fist fight with me and an Israeli, we could ground battle the situation out, video it and send it to our respective governments, and let them know who won overall, before anyone else bothers to get involved. That should sort things, eh?

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Everyone needs a little tasteless, selfist commentary now and again eh?

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ftlsphy.