The Importance Of Being Ernesto (II)

This seems now like an annual ritual. I see a map like the one above. I write this essay or one like it. The hurricane projections seem to be pointed directly at my front door in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. I didn't invite Ernesto, but here he is, threatening a visit. Doesn't he realize that he, Ernesto/Algernon, is supposed to decline this and all other invitations to visit his invalid friend, Bunbury, in the country? No? This storm has no lit cred. None at all.

So, once again, it's time to make offerings to Chac and Kukulkan, asking them to spare us, to turn the storm away from us. And it's time to note that indigenous architecture-- palapa roofs, windows without glass-- is the best way to deal with the tropics, and that huge, towering McMansions with glass sliding doors, windows, air conditioning, and tile roofs are just a bad idea. At least if you want to have a house after a big storm. With traditional buildings, after the storm, you just shovel out the sand. And maybe you replace a few palm leaves in the roof.

I've talked about exactly this at length in my novella, Tulum.

And of course, the turtle nests on our beaches will now have to be moved indoors, so that storm does not destroy them. The turtles are endangered. We do what we can despite the storm to keep them going.

But this isn't about commerce. Or the joys of Mayan architecture. Or what we have to do to protect endangered sea turtles. No. This is about something really big: the fact that this is a small planet, and that humans have raised its temperature, including, of course, the temperature of the Caribbean. And so tropical storms like Ernesto are far more likely. And those of us living on the coasts or near them know that despite whatever the deniers say, hurricane seasons like this one, with more intense storms, are our current reality. They are what we now expect. They are what we have to deal with.

More in the next few days, when it's clear whether Ernesto is coming ashore here.

Meanwhile, may all be safe, may they find shelter, and may all be well.

I Do Not Like It, Sam I Am

So. The forecasters say that what is now called Tropical Depression 5 has "potential." So we have to watch it for the next few days, to see whether it thinks it has an invitation to come in the front door of our house in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. No, it's not welcome. No, we do not want that. But sometimes these storms don't get the message, so we sometimes have to turn them. And sometimes we have to make offerings to Chac and Kukulkan. And sometimes we have to call the curandero, Don Obdulio, and ask him for a protection ceremonia. The best of what Don Obdulio does to turn storms is in here.

So it's that time of year, again. May all be safe, and may all have appropriate shelter. And may the glorious summer Caribe and its sun bring delight.

A Slow Motion Train Wreck: Haiti

A picture is worth a thousand rants. The big island to the right of Cuba is Hispaniola. And the country on the west side of that island, the country that is about to be run over by Hurricane Tomas, is Haiti.

What do we know about Haiti's current situation? Well, it's dire. The Earthquake destroyed the infrastructure. Many thousands of people are homeless or in shelters that don't really provide shelter or in badly damaged, unreliable housing. There's a cholera outbreak. And now, Hurricane Tomas is coming. If it arrives with any intensity at all, and it appears that it will, it will create even more havoc: loss of life, loss of shelter, loss of food, loss of drinking water. Medicine will be even more scarce, and even more people will need it. The cholera will expand. There will be flooding. Unsanitary conditions will abound. Because of extensive deforestation, there will be mudslides. Roads that are barely repaired from the earthquake will again be impassable. Hospitals will again be overwhelmed and unable to care for the injured and ill.

I know that tomorrow is Election Day in the US, and that the Traditional Media are all focused on the T-party and the horserace aspects of the electoral process. But please. Could we please also spread the word on what is happening in Haiti and urge our fellow writers and readers to begin making donations to Doctors Without Borders? That could actually save some lives.

Haiti: Yet Another Disaster Lurks

Hasn't Haiti suffered enough? Centuries of grotesque exploitation and purposeful neglect. And most recently, the devastating earthquake. Then an inadequate relief effort that has left thousands and thousands homeless or stuck in makeshift, flimsy camps, without adequate housing, food, medicine or sanitation. An outbreak of Cholera. And now, on top of all of that, the unimaginable: a possible Hurricane this week. And a very big one at that.

The model predicts the storm will make a right turn. In fact, almost all of the models say it will make a right turn. And when it does, it will come ashore in Haiti. This will cause loss of life, flooding, further outbreaks of disease, loss of even temporary shelter, unavailability of food. A nightmare for those living in Haiti.

I've asked before that we contribute to Doctors Without Borders, specifically for Haiti Aid. Now I'm asking again. What else can be done? What else can I or you do?

Money for specialized aid is extremely important. As important, and perhaps more important in the long run, I think is for US citizens to being to know Haiti's history and the story of its relationship to the US, in other words, the story of how it got to be the way it is now. I'm sure we all realize that Haiti didn't get to its present horrendous situation all by its self, without a lot of US and European "help." To ferret how all of this has happened, a great starting point is this dailyKos essay by allie123. It's part of a series. Each piece is important on its own. Please take the time to read them.

For now, though, please consider an immediate, small donation to Doctors Without Borders. It might save some lives in Haiti. It might alleviate some of the suffering.

Tropical Storm Karl Coming Soon (To Me)

Please pardon the extremely low tech, wordy approach this extremely brief essay takes. I'm writing it "borrowing" Internet from my neighbor (who is away), so my laptop is sitting on the barbecue (no, it's not on) while I write this. I will not regale you (sorry for the wind pun) with why I don't have my own Internet this evening.

I'm in Bahia Soliman, which is just north of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. This afternoon I (and probably everyone else in the world who cares about this) learned that what we following as Invest 92 had indeed attained Tropical Storm Status (TST) and was now named TS Karl. TS Karl, the computer models and other models (imagine I had posted a map of that right here) is planning to come through the front door of my house tomorrow morning or afternoon. What's that mean? Who knows: it probably means up to 50 knot winds and up to 8" of rain. Knots, I am reliably told, are bigger than miles.

On one level, I consider this retribution. I have been working on my novel, working title "Tulum," here for more than a week. I am working in what IB Singer called the "literary factory," i.e. I write and I take breaks, I write and I take breaks, repeat and repeat again ad infinitum. So it is I who wrote the Hurricane scenes in the book, and now I have "called" in a real storm with my maniacal focus on storms. It's "the law of attraction" gone crazy, if you will. Or it's the Damapada. I am what I think, and I've been thinking a lot about TS's and Hurricanes, if you will. If you won't, fine, but it's thundering as I type this.

On another level, I consider this a study in how most people in the US don't give a rat's ass about what happens in Mexico. They and their media are obsessing about what will happen when the storm leaves the Yucatan Peninsula and heads towards South Texas. If TS Karl decides instead to come ashore (again) in Mexico the story won't merit a 1" column on page 23 of your local newspaper. But if it should head for Texas, there will be guys with slickers standing in the surf and reporting every 3 minutes on what it feels like.

Hell, I can tell you "what it feels like." And I'm not wearing one of those jackets. It feels like tomorrow the weather is really gonna suck here. High wind, lots of rain, high tides, flooding. You've seen it before on TV, right? It makes a mess of things.

I have taken my book, all almost 80,000 words of it, and saved the entire thing on two key drives, and put them in a safe, where they will be dry, no matter what. I will also put this 10 year old lap top, whose aging memory also contains my book, in a safe place. Everything of value is in a place where it cannot get ruined. By wind. By water. By anything. Everything that's not tied down is likely to end up in the next state, which is Campeche, and in Mayan means, the place of snakes and scorpions. In other words, you will not likely retrieve any of it.

Meanwhile, many of us stand on the beach looking at the lightning, listening to the wind, watching the tide.

While We're Waiting For Godot.

I mean Hanna to arrive.

Some Perspective, Please

cross posted from dailyKos

Habit is an amazing blocker of perception. It keeps thoughts within particular, constantly used, familiar channels. An example. Think for a second, if you will about what a map of the world looks like. Do you think in mercator projection? In your map, which you probably saw in classrooms, Greenland and England are enormous. And then there's this:


There is, of course, no scientific reason why Europe and America should be at the top and Africa and South America should be at the bottom. But if we want to understand how ingrained in our thinking American exceptionalism is, the "upside down" map is a good place to begin.

There are historical reasons for perceptions. There are habitual reasons. There are artificial reasons. Sometimes we don't even recognize when our thinking is stuck in the habitual channel. The channel I'm thinking about at the moment is the belief that the US is the center of the world, that the planet revolves around the US, and that, therefore, the US is special, the US is , well, exceptional. Special.

One of the habitual thoughts most US citizens dwell on is that the rest of this hemisphere doesn't really exist, that it's essentially unimportant to us even though it is so very close to us. It is there for the US to exploit, but it is not of the same value as the US. It is somehow less, somehow not as vital, somehow not as important.

US citizens, for example, know about the destruction brought to the US by Hurricane Katrina. But fewer of us noticed that Hurricane Wilma destroyed Cancun, and even fewer of us noticed that unlike New Orleans immediate repairs to Cancun was a top priority of the government. While New Orleans still suffers, as far as I can tell Cancun has been fully repaired and, as they say, "Cancun esta de pie."

Which brings me to the present hurricane season, which has begun too soon. Tropical Storm Erin flooded Texas. We paid attention to that storm, of course, because it landed in Texas. We thought whatever thoughts we thought about how increased hurricane activity is related to global warming, and how that means that more damage might be done in the US. We thought that Erin seemed to be hitting early in the season, and maybe that meant there would be more hurricane activity this year than last year and more damage to the US.

But what of those storms that probably won't hit the continental United States, storms like Hurricane Dean, which is thrashing around in the Caribbean at this very moment? If a hurricane comes ashore in a country that is not the US, is it still a hurricane? If a tree falls in the forest, and no one...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hurricane Dean, which could strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane over the next two days, pounded the eastern Caribbean islands of Martinique and Dominica as it churned into the Caribbean Sea.

And next week Dean will likely enter the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the region's oil and natural gas facilities, which account for roughly a third of U.S. oil production, the National Hurricane Center predicted.

Overnight Dean strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane, with winds near 100 miles per hour

According to Reuters, it's too early to know where Dean will come ashore.
But Weatherunderground has this very disquieting map:



And this map looks to put Dean on a track like Hurricane Wilma, which destroyed Cancun two years ago. Maybe you can remember Wilma:



I remember it very well. And I remember the reconstruction and what some felt was the death of the tourist industry in Quintana Roo, Mexico. But this isn't about me, or hurricanes, or Quintana Roo. Or my house in Bahia Soliman, Tulum, Municipal. Solidaridad, Quintana Roo. It's about our thinking.

Wouldn't it be amazing if when we looked at the storm map of Hurricane Dean we could recognize the connections we have with the rest of this hemisphere? Wouldn't it be remarkable if instead of looking immediately for the border between the US and Mexico, something that might disconnect us from the storm, we could perceive our connectedness? Wouldn't it be amazing if it didn't really matter to us in which country Dean was going to land? And isn't this the very shift we have to begin to make in our thinking if we want to get to the roots of American exceptionalism and dig them up?