Hello 2003

MR JACOBS SALAMI
BANK OF AFRICA (B.O.A)
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO,
WEST AFRICA.
Tel:+226 79218199

Dear Friend,
                                         Greeting to you!!!

I know that this mail will come to you as a surprise as we never met before. I am the Director in charge of Auditing in Bank of Africa (B.O.A), I Hoped that you will not expose or betray this trust and confident that I am about to repose on you for the mutual benefit of our both families. I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of Twenty Two Million and Five Hundred Thousand united state dollars ($22.500 000mUSD) Immediately to your account.

The fund has been dormant (in-active) for 11 years in our Bank here without any body coming for it. I want to release the fund to you as the nearest person to our deceased customer (the owner of the account) who died a long with his supposed next of kin in air crash since on December 26, 2003. I don't want the fund to go into our Bank treasury as an abandoned fund, so this is the reason why I contacted you, so that my Bank will release the fund to you as the nearest person to the deceased customer.
Please I would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret and delete it if you are not interested. Upon receipt of your reply, I will send you the application form you will fill and send to the bank for transfer of the fund into your bank account and also note that you will have 40% of the above mentioned amount if you agree to help me execute this business.And also 10% had been mapped out for you for the expense you will make in this transaction and 50% is for me. I need your informations so that Iwill send you the application form.
                  
                                   YOUR FULL INFORMATIONS

Your Name.........
Your Home Addresses.. ....
City.. ......
Country.. ......
Home Telephone.. .....
Private Telephone.. ......
Fax No.. ......
Marital Status.. ......
Sex...............
Age.. ......
Occupation.. .......
Religion.. .........

waiting for your urgent response so that we will proceed immediately.

Best Regards,
MR JACOBS SALAMI

+226 79218199

Best email I've gotten all day!

Ciao
Renee Claire

Ridiculous

Yes, I am ashamed that I take these pictures, but I cant stop myself.

Georgias monday morning playtime.

Exciting Friday

Besides rescuing another dog on Friday, I also flew over the Mississippi to the end of the Delta in a small private plane with a couple colleagues from Baton Rouge.


Here are the photos:

It's a strange thing to fly over an area you drive everyday. It really put the coastal erosion we are experiencing into a whole new understanding. Seeing what should be land but is now only water is shocking and to know I probably only have another 20 - 25 years left in New Orleans, makes me really sad. (Yes even after only 9 months here) When I am forced to move because my city is permantely under water, I'm not sure how I will be able to assimilate back into United States culture. May need to move to the islands.

Must work. Must work.
Renee Claire

Another Fucking Dog

This city is ridiculous. Today at the park there was a little puppy running around with a broken leg. An older man allowed his dog to attack her while people all around the park screamed at him to stop his dog. I ran from across the park to help the poor little thing. When the douche bag was leaving, the puppy continued to stumble around and then the dude mentioned to us casually that she belonged to one of the kids on the playground side. It's like conflict looks for me even when I'm just taking Georgia for a run.

I asked all these people on the other side of the park if they had a puppy on this side. Finally about 5 kids around 7 years old said yes, one even younger was in superman pajamas. I talked to them about the fight and how I thought their puppy was really hurt. I walked with them to look at her. Then after some tense time, I convinced them that she was really hurt that I should take her for the night and bring her to the vet tomorrow. Three of us coordinated the rescue mission. I gave them my phone number and name, mostly to gain their trust so I could take the dog without having to push off a handful of kids while I take their fucking dog, while another friend called Dogs of the 9th Ward, a neighborhood dog rescue group, to find a vet and another friend agreed to take the puppy in for the night. The kids were nervous about just giving me their dog, but they were the age of following what adults tell them.

When the three of us were formulating the plan someone at the park asked me 'can you just take some kids dog away from them?" I looked at the puppy with a broken leg and looked back at the kids climbing to the top of a 20 foot fence to break into the park's neighbors backyard to steal oranges and said 'yes . . . i can'

It was so weird. Everyone at the park knew that we were the adults, that you don't allow animals to be abused, but everyone was terrified. No one really wanted to do anything. But we all stood there looking at this puppy and those kids and our own dogs and each other. My two other friends and I wouldn't leave the park, even though we had packed up and put our dogs on leashes. We just couldn't leave that dog. So we didn't. I've started keeping an extra leash and food in my car, because I so often find hurt dogs in the city.

Tomorrow we are taking her to the vet and my wonderful cousin agreed to pay for the bills.

It's like these situations find me. I swear I don't look for them. I'm always in a position to fix things, to coordinate the fixing of things. It's annoying. And really expensive. But I guess that's lot I got.

Ciao
Renee Clair

The Big 4-0

"Greenpeace is here to call out the naked Emperor, to point out the folly of viewing a melting Arctic as an invitation to drill for climate changing oil rather than as a warning and a provocation to invest in clean green energy sources: to invest in a green economy, which also offers real job creation possibilities."

This dude is pretty awesome. 

Doggy Daycare Delinquent

I love alliteration, but I hate when Georgia gets kicked out of doggy daycare for being too wild. When I went to pick up Georgia from Central Bark in Kenner, they told me she was no longer welcome. She was fighting through the fence with other dogs then jumping over the fence to finish the job. Barking in other pups faces while they stood in their crate when she was let out for more play time. And biting the dog next to her when they all crowded around new dogs that were walking into the area. Oh well. She's still the cutest thing I've ever seen.

I've complained to all 3 of you who read this blog about my current job. There are big giant waves of grotesqueness that fades into ripples of simple complexity. Right now I'm seeing ripples. I spent the evening in Pensacola, FL with a couple folks who run two Florida based water quality organizations. Overall it went well, but conversations highlighted the challenges our entire society is facing. Again and again the conversation returned to a new reality of not working for the greater good. We seem to hit walls on collaborative projects because we are working to find the path that doesn't work. We are no longer working towards the path or the side trials that might work. That isn't just Washington. That's New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Galveston, Mobile, Pensacola, Atlanta, and Apalachicola. All of those places facing serious environmental degradations but whose activists can't find a common path to move forward. Everyone wants what they want when they want it. Maybe Tupac could have helped us out on this.

Tuesday was the 15th anniversary of Tupac's assassination. The boy is impressed with my Tupac knowledge, both as a white girl and a girl. But seriously once you have any curiosity into why there are conspiracy theories about his death or listen to him speak about education and prison at the age of 17 or see him at Baltimore School of the Arts or listen to him speaking at a luncheon to older black Americans in Atlanta or hear what he meant by Thug Life or how he brokered a deal between gangs in LA to stop the reckless violence, you will say to yourself 'wait who is the guy? and why haven't I been listening to him all this time? and why did the media and politicians make me believe he wasn't anything but a stupid young black guy from the ghetto that shot two cops?'

And because I love him.

Ciao,
Renee Claire

Because Oprah is Awesome After All

This month's O Magazine features an incredible environmental justice advocate from Port Arthur, TX, Hilton Kelly. He's amazing! I've only met him once, but truly someone who is fighting tooth and nail to protect his community from being just another poisoned poor community of color.

Former Lost Causes

This City is Destined to Break My Heart

Just found this little sweetie, though she was too skittish to get into the car with me. I did leave her some yummy breakfast. I'm trying to find somewhere to bring her, if I can grab her later in the day.

The boy told me this morning, "you can't save all of them Renee", to which I responded in activist cliche "But I can save this one!" I think with that he realized how much trouble he has gotten himself into.

Meanwhile I am fixing the window unit, Zuki tried to free from the window yesterday. And sanding down the door and door frame he tried to free from the house last week. Not to mention fixing the two cages he broke free from the week before. But the morning cuddling with two little precious pups, makes it all worthwhile.

Renee

My House Didn't Flood During Katrina

Hi Folks,

I'm sure the news across the country is talking about the Gulf Coast being battered by Tropical Storm Lee. And on the coast and in the bayous the flooding is  . . . well . . . like it always is when it raise . . . extensive. Fortunately, my neighborhood didn't flood during Katrina and isn't flooding today. Though Zukes, the newest pittbull rescue in my home, did knock out the air con window unit paneling while I was away at brunch. He is slowly chewing up this shotgun. He's the sweetest thing on the planet, but he might have to go somewhere else. Or at least I need to get that last cage he broke out of back in working order and buy some more zipties.

I'm hosting the first 'FUBP Monthly Salon' tomorrow evening. This is part of my invitation email:

* Because 'F#*&$  You BP' has run through your head more than a hundred times over the past 17 months.
* Because you are interested in strategically and creatively confronting BP and our government for not protecting our Gulf Coast from reckless oil pollution
* Because you want to eat dinner, drink a couple beers, come up with funny songs, paint good posters, and strategize about regular creative, unique, confrontational protests on the Gulf Coast
* Because you're frustrated with all that letter writing, attending all those GCERTF/listening sessions, being pushed to a side room/corner table in a loud cafetaria/given stress balls during public hearings by our 'leaders' and playing the game set up for community involvement without any movement on an actual Regional Citizens Advisory Council and little results to show for all our hard work and time spent away from our families

Each month we will gather at my double in St. Roche to strategize interesting creative confrontations to beat the drum that no matter how much money BP is pumping into their public relations campaign nationwide, we know the oil is still here and that we are not restored and we have not recovered and we will watch BP and our state and federal governments for the long haul.

I'm hoping that this little independent side arm of radicals can help bring on some fun and effective events to help the rest of our folks who are engaging in the process and writing the letters and communicating through the correct channels of authority in this restoration process. I will keep doing those things too, but I will not sit down and ONLY play their game. I will help create our own game with our own rules, because this is about our communities and our coast and our people that BP and the rest of the extraction industry has fucked up for decades. I refuse to become a resident of Monroe. (that's what Southern Louisianians say to get people excited about finding solutions to coastline erosion, Monroe is in North Louisiana, you might as well live with the Yankees)

so FUBP!

Renee Claire