BTW I've been working 10, 12, 14 hours a day on the "Katrina / NOLA Intel Wiki":
wiki.nola-intel.org/index.php

And also maintaining my own list of contacts and resources:
hfx-ben.livejournal.com/587881.html

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I had the good fortune of meeting a kindred spirit yesterday evening ... the lack of such has made my year here a real desert.

He's a father of 4 (18 years he and his wife have been together) ... a musician / home studio stype who has suppoarted them and himself doing construction. His whole life has been around community and alternatives to consummer capitalism.

The single big difference between him and I is that he has suffered the indignities far more stoically ... partly, no doubt, becauee he has family to maintain ... partly, for sure, because he has had the benefit of a supportive partner.

His experience with those who are in "positions of responsibility and influence" has been, like mine, scaldingly unpleasant.

He agreed with me that (I call it "vending machine culture") folk don't respond unless they are manipulated, or conned, or seduced, or bought off ... unless their buttons are pushed.

I made myself vulnerable ... I put myself on the line ... again and again.

I guess that makes me a sucker.

7 days and counting ... because I dared to try a) by buying the djembe, to try and create income by busking, and b) by buying PC after PC, to try and create income through "Participatory Delibeeration" ... because I dared to try rather than sit back and accumulate cash and ignore what's going on. I dare to create opportunites for collaboration ... and that marks me as deserving abuse, in vending machine culture.

7 days and counting ... because the really villainous are active and energetic and creative, while the "nice" and the "good" are passive.

"It's an ill wind that blows no good" ... has anyone you know benefitted from authentic human kindness recently? All I see is folk waiting to be pushed and conned and seduced and begged ... a very sad state of affairs.

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In context of yesterday evenings long talk about community (the "transformative power of empathy and solidarity, of affection and love) I listened to an interview with a school cook ... he was getting kidz to eat really good food; he discribed his technique and it was just plain manipulative ... deceptive and misleading. Ok fine, all for a good cause, but not lucid and cleat and honest and authentic, not discourse ... far from it: straight up it was like benevolent dictatorship. Soooo, even the good needs to have a con involved? No wonder my life has been a catastrophy: I have vowed not to encourage attitudes of subjugation ... so I must lose. Such a catastrophe.