earth hour

world wildlife fund's earth hour 2009 is coming this saturday, 28march @ 8:30p local time. 60minutes without running any electricity to the give the earth a brake from our constant consumption. the website provides you with a list of things to do. i'ma participate by rolling a spliff and clearing my head on the terrace. you should too.

the 3rd world of the usa

february had me busy with plenty from the job, carnival season leading up to mardi gras, a visit from the sister (a first of it's kind) and the continued settling of my apartment. these are all noteworthy topics taking away from my footballing+art, but will wait as i've gotta empty my mind of a few thoughts first. "dc is the 3rd world of the states." sweet trini said it first but it's something i've since heard repeatedly across the dc metro area; typically when speaking about dc roads. having never spent real time in a 3rd world country (not yet anyway), i trust that those who have and then made these statements know what they're saying. they do. i spent 3years driving around dc so i know how terrible those roads are; worst in america, or so i thought. 3months ago i moved to a city held in regard as the true 3rd world of the usa; new orleans - something the locals state with pride and the tag line picked up by every news station after hurricane katrina. once pirate run and french owned, the near 300year-old crescent city has preserved it's way of life through isolation from the rest of the country (the next major city is at least 250miles away). the locals work hard to hold on to their history+culture and keep modern usa out, passing traditions, food+festivals down through the generations. now as i said previous, i can't speak on 3rd world countries, but i can speak on dc roads and now nola roads and gotta say that nola roads are the absolute worst roads i have ever been on. on the surface, nola roads and dc roads are plagued by the same problems. both cities have huge potholes causing endless construction to patch the roads which somehow leaves the roads more uneven than they already were. they both have a gross of 1way streets that don't need to be, adding to the confusion; particularly for the dreaded tourists. both cities are full of asshole driver's, even though they are very plainly completing different kinds of asshole. dc driver's will cut you off, fail to signal and generally pay little or no attention to their surroundings while behind the wheel. nola driver's pay plenty attention (too much in some cases; stopping for others that don't even have the right of way) but they will run you off the road (i've seen it), run a stop sign/light and use the shoulder to beat traffic whenever they can. that said, the width of roads in nola varies from streets like canal which was once the widest road in the country (6lanes, 2streetcar rails down the middle) to roads like calhoun+pitt which are 2way streets where even 1car might drop off into the ditches that line either side of road with just a degree of error. the ditches, obviously designed to gather water and keep the streets from flooding don't work. roads flood with any decent rainstorm forcing rerouted traffic on the regular and occasionally forcing me to drive through freshly made pools deep enough to flood the car a bit (not the engine luckily). being on the mouth of the gulf means plenty cargo ships+trains blowing their horns+whistles all too often. include the bells from the streetcars and you have industrial music, you also have far too many railroad tracks; great for fucking up your already destroyed suspension and alignment. oh, and more than half of the railroads don't have operational xing warnings so you'll wanna look both ways before crossing the tracks. all of this car chaos is to say that for a city that requires a car, new orleans roads really suck shit, far worse than dc and thus, judging by the opinions of others, worse than or at least comparable to 3rd world roads. the thing new orleans got right that dc completely fucked up (something i despised while living in the district) are stop lights @ roundabouts. nola has none, dc is full of them. stop lights @ roundabouts is truly moronic. i always thought that roundabouts were designed to ease the flow of traffic from multiple directions, decreasing congestion - yield, yes, but to stop defeats the purpose completely, am i right? talk soon. ps. read sweet trini's post on the subject. she makes valid points about 3rd world-ness; tackling issues like crime, class, school systems and more instead of this sour bullshit session about poor road quality. i know nola has the highest crime rate, the highest illiteracy rate and awful school systems but hafta do more research/need more experience before i post on those things.