Geeky Chic

…for asking the media to stop showing photos of dead bodies left from Katrina.  We wouldn’t want people to get angry or anything.

**

New iPod Nano is available with engraving.  Curious.

Edit: Has anyome seen anything about volunteer work to help people
displaced by Katrina fill out legal forms related to relief requests?

**

I’ve read about Reverend Billy and his Times Square anti-consumerism
pulpit (I think that Times profile about him came out the day after
Thanksgiving).  I didn’t realize that he had a website, though, until today.  I may be saved.

**

Also, the Internet may be the most efficient marketing delivery machine
ever created, at least for me.  It amplifies my consumer whore
bear tendencies.  Even if I don’t see something on the Internet
first, upon “discovering” a new line that I like in a store, I can
immediately go home and find other such products.  Though it portends to “empower” me, it really just makes me an
active participant in the marketing directed to me through allowing me to search out
information about new products (though when there’s a dearth of
information about a product, it may make it more attractive.  For
instance, there was a perverse sense of smugness felt when I found few
links to this recent acquisition).  And now, I’ve
started to keep a running list of ephemeral things
that I don’t really need, but may soon buy (actually, I know exactly
what I am going to purchase on this list: the Lekker votive holder, the
Missoni teapot, Bales’s Disposable People, and the SJAL eye cream).

My mom is a good person, but sometimes she says things that represent
what I despise most, the “what about my share?” American
mentality.  In discussing the hurricane and its aftermath, this is
what she told me, “You know, all of these people are going to need
entitlements, and this makes me worry, there’s going to be nothing left
for C [my disabled sister].”*

When I asked her if she was donating any money to the relief effort,
she told me, “You shouldn’t give your money to other people, you have
your own sister to help out.”

Excuse me?

These people have nothing, nothing!  C and my mom have me to help
them already.  Why does she have to look at this disaster through
the lens of her piece of the pie being cut thinner?

Comparatively, we live lives of great luxury compared to the rest of the world.

This has also forced me to think deeply about my own personal choices
over the past few years.  Yes, I took the lazy approach to my
career, I did the big firm thing.  I don’t mind the big firm
thing, but it stems from both the aforementioned laziness, and the
whole, “I need to attain a modicum of financial stability before I can
turn to the causes/issues that will be the real purpose of my
life.”  But sometimes, I push this deferment of helping others in
a significant
way to the
next generation (i.e. “I’m meant to make partner, so that I can raise a
child who will go out and save the world, instead of going into finance
or biglaw.”)   I lull myself into adopting this false belief
that it’s the privileged children, who don’t need to worry about saving
for a downpayment or student loans, who are allowed go out and take on
these public interest projects.  But, no, the only thing that
keeps me between the two paths is my own selfish desire for incremental
financial gain.  So, now, in the interim, I simply work too much,
drink too
much, and shop too much, all with the idea of stashing away the excess
cash so that I can do good works later.  And this process is
simply making me a stranger to myself.  So, in two to four years,
folks, I count on you to goad me, to goad me into feeling inadequate if
I have not changed back by then.  The question to me should not be,
“E*, what are you making now?” but should instead be, “E*, who have you
helped this week?”

*My mother is aware that I am quoting her, and has told me, “I’m not going to tell you anything, anymore.”

Hyperlinking text in today’s bit of of rightous indignation from Mme. Dowd:

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA – a job he
trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse
Association – admitted he didn’t know until Thursday that there were
15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina
in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly?
No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday:
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

It would be one thing
if President Bush and his inner circle – Dick Cheney was vacationing in
Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo’s on Fifth Avenue
and attended “Spamalot” before bloggers chased her back to Washington;*
and Andy Card was off in Maine – lacked empathy but could get the job
done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning
lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

If I can cut weekend trips short to take on unexpected research
assignments, surely, these people could have put their lazy August /
September plans on hold.

*I am aware that this link is to a rather dubious publication, but I wanted something out of the blogosphere.

**

Otherwise, two things learned yesterday: (1) mixing HLS and Stanford
Law alums is a caustic combination; and (2) a handy phrase from SF
lesbian vernacular, “Marina Gina.”

The horrible, horrible former gourmand in me has found this one piece of good news in the Bayou,  Brennan’s (they invented Bananas Foster there) is running and feeding the NOPD:

We walk half a block down Royal Street from the Eighth District
headquarters and come upon Brennan’s Restaurant, one of New Orleans’
most venerable dining institutions. The Brennans are a high-profile
family of restaurateurs and run several of the highest-end eateries in
town. Jimmy Brennan and a crew of his relatives are holing up in the
restaurant along with the chef, Lazone Randolph. They are sleeping on
air mattresses, drinking Cheval Blanc, and feasting on the restaurant’s
reserves of haute Creole food.

The atmosphere in the French Quarter, while relatively
quiet, is decidedly tense, but Brennan isn’t worried. “We’re not too
concerned. The police let us go over to the Royal Omni, to take a
shower, freshen up, and we cooked them some prime rib. We take care of
them, they take care of us,” says Randolph. Two Brennan emissaries
whisk past, bearing multilayer chocolate cakes, headed toward the
precinct. “This has been working out real well for us,” says Jimmy
Brennan.

**

Is anyone else worried that terrorists will take advantage
of our current vulnerability, and pick another American city upon which
to prey?