Hurricane Katrina - relief organizations to donate to.

i know no one looks at this but us, but i thought it couldn't hurt. i may try sending it to the other iowa blogs, too.

this is from a blog called instapundit - i got the link from slate
-------------------
August 31, 2005
FLOOD AID UPDATE: Here are some places you can donate to hurricane Katrina relief: (Bumped to top -- scroll down for current posts.)

American Red Cross

Catholic Charities is involved, and probably has lots of resources to draw on in the heavily Catholic New Orleans area.

Austin Bay is recommending Episcopal Relief and Development.

Liz at Rightalk suggests that animal lovers donate to the Humane Society.

Here's a link to Mennonite Disaster Services. The Sanity Inspector says they're highly efficient.

Reader Peter Viditto recommends The Mercy Corps

Here's the link for Methodist Relief.

Lisa Larkin recommends Operation Blessing.

The Salvation Army does good work. (WalMart just gave them a million dollars, but that's just the barest beginning of what's needed.)

Hugh Hewitt recommends Samaritan's Purse

Scott Ott recommends Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.

I'll keep updating this as I get new suggestions.

Jay Allen has a further suggestion:

I would suggest people donate through their companies whenever possible. Most major corporations offer matching funds to the dollar for charitable donations. Find who's collecting money for relief efforts, then file for a match through your employer instead of sending to the agency directly.

---------

Tonyyy Does Drugs. Tonyyy Eats Furniture. Bad Star, Tonyyy!

(I was going to respond to you in the comment box, Lauren, but I don't want to cramp tonyyy's marketing vibe. And maybe it's too late to ask everyone, but is it all right that I invited him to join the blog? Seriously, ever since I met that guy he has been just full of helpful offers and services, and he really helped me out when we were in jail together. Also, some of his physical tendencies are really far out!)

(For Tonyyy

your withered hand
looks like a tree branch
all dessicated
and rap metal
gonna get you flies

still if palmistry's your thing
you have to warn them in advance
with kind of glittering
phone calls
or else

someone's going to scream her
psychic head off
think about it wouldn't you
if autumn was all stabbing
dirty forks in your wig's face

plus scratching plates
in a glassy kitchen look
the sign says don't feed the tree
but tonyyy only
wants to help with cleaning

up wait
listen yes
is high-strung but a good watchdog
friends with your friends
and these

extra y's in his hand
look all yellow
when he sits next to freaks

and he will if anyone
here lets him in the door

)

So, Ronald Johnson -- let us at him! How about this as a plan: try to find The Book of the Green Man first, Lauren, because from the little I've read Ark sounds pretty daunting as an entrypoint into RoJo's pool. I know Jared was also pumped about GreenMania, too. If you can't find it, though, no sweat: we can either do something else smallish (the Valley book also seems fairly processible) or else just strap on the scuba gear and go straight into Ark. Maybe Rice's library will end up determining our direction, a la ouija. I like this idea of library as a gargantuan mythical beast or oracle, actually. Reminds me of the huge 1000-year-old turtle in The Neverending Story. Then again, God.

Maybe Catherine can get swept up in any wake we develop, too. I hope she might. Maybe we should pass word to her via e-mail at some point?

Congratulations very much on your plans with Tony, Lauren. It's always so nice to get wonderful news like this. Yes, I'd love to visit in April -- for some reason I'm imagining a scrim or curtain of yellow gauze, and people moving and laughing behind it so that the curtain moves. Yes, people, yes! Do not marry Tonyyy. Marry Tony! Off we go, then.

i am worried about new orleans

i would love to do the ro jo reading and am definitely on board. (my own dorky abbreviation reminds me that tony used to eat a product named 'rojo fries' at shakey's pizza in midland. theme song, 'shakey's pizza, we're shakin' up a lot of pizza.')

my parents are here in houston right now - they helped me and tony move today - and zac just came through on tour - it was great to see him, you have a good fun shaggy brother on the drums, jared - also, new orleans, again, is about to be washed away by a hurricane. luckily my parents are here, by happenstance, and i think my grandparents are provided for. but if everyone would think hard for the welfare of my city it would mean a lot to me.

steve, my dear, tell us what to read and i'll find it...the rice library is pretty lame on poetry, but i do have a copy of ark, and i'll check to see what all they have.

also, maybe blogtown is a bad place to announce, but i would like to announce to you, steve, that tony and i are getting married next year in april, you will have to come and carry us around. i would like to hear more about merced -

lots of love to all,

la

Plastic Owl on Life Support. Plastic Owl Schiavo. I Think It Smiles At Me.

An idea to run by you, Lauren, and you, Cathereen: I recently checked out some books by Ronald Johnson from the Merced Public Library, and when I mentioned to Jared how much I've been enjoying them we began to talk about getting some kind of group-read thing going on here. Would either of you be interested in digging into either The Book of the Green Man or Valley of the Many-Colored Grasses? Seems like it ought to be possible to find copies of these at nearby libraries, even if they aren't currently in print (or maybe they are, I don't know -- until two weeks ago the main Ron Johnson in my life was my walrussy landlord on Ronalds Street). And although I've only looked through the books briefly, I came away convinced that they're worth a stronger attention. So, any takers?

(If not, be warned that I'm perfectly happy to fill the blog here with Ronald Johnson-related raps. Witness the following, and tremble:

Reading Ronald Johnson 'cuz I don't give a fuck.
Course I know the Green Man! Dude's chilling in my truck
and screaming at the hotties eating blizzards on the curb.
Only way I'd like this better'd be if Whitman wrote the blurb.

Capische?)

(Boo-hoo.)

(Re-nob.)

Merced, of course, is totally kicking. I'm sure you all expected nothing less. Yesterday I hit the one secondhand bookstore in all of downtown and was shocked to find that from the looks of things Mercedians don't really give a shit about experimental verse from the 60s and 70s. I know, it's staggering. Picked up a Roots and Branches from 1969 and this old City Lights edition of Malcolm Lowry's selected poems -- you know, just because. #1 of the Evergreen Review, with Beckett reprints and Sartre talking about Hungary and Henri Michaux taking clinical notes on his mescaline trips -- again, why this isn't red-hot in Merced is totally beyond me. I almost picked up The Cities by Paul Blackburn and think I'll grab it next time. Also a nice find was Creeley's wonderfully piecemeal Pieces. I'll sign off here with a random poem that I flipped it open to this morning.

Citizen

Write a giggly ode about
motherfuckers -- Oedipus --
or Lysergic Acid -- a word
for an experience, verb

or noun. Count down, count
Orlovsky, count up --
in the air, you filthy
window washer. Why

not clean up the world.
You need it, I
need it -- more than
either one of us can get.

littles

we would always enjoy edible plants - but how do we get to them?
thanks for the offer - maybe you have a transport in mind?

can you all come to new orleans april 22nd of next year?

i think flaming t section 3 is drafted in typewriter form - i'm about to start typing it up, taking a break before.

we may have a new place for next year, hopefully. with screened-in porch! it would be nice (in october) for typing.


i found jared's jose lezama lima book in the rice library, am flipping through it a bit. i like this poem 'the adhering substance'. here's the very beginning:

"If we left our arms in the ocean for two years the toughness of our skin would be strengthened until it bordered on the greatest and noblest of animals and on the monster that comes at the call of soup and bread."

xo, lbl