Good evening, Kibitzers! Hey, wasn’t there just a debate five minutes ago?
Happy Mardi Gras! I know it’s terribly unfair that I am always the KTK diarist who gets Mardi Gras, but you know, it’s always on a Tuesday, so what can I do? ;) I don’t always write about it, although I did in 2015 and in 2018.
This year, I might not have written about it, but after I read Denise Oliver Velez’s Sunday morning diary about the significance of Mardi Gras Indians, and its rich comment thread, I outright asked to steal the music and she said I should (“I think everyone needs to hear this music”). So if you heard all of it on Sunday… then you’ll probably want to listen again!
Seriously, though, if you are somehow not aware that Prof. Velez gives what amounts to a cultural anthropology class every Sunday morning, you’ve so been missing out, and that linked diary from this week is a great introduction to the ongoing course. I’m not re-posting here all the documentary clips and informational text, so if you want to really understand the black Indians, the second line, the Spy Boy, the Flag Boy, and the lyrics to Iko Iko, I urge you to go there and read and watch/listen.
Here, we will just have music, but by no means all of it. I’l just pause to say that a lot of this music is from the comments, and not all from Denise — the commenters there always have much to share of their own knowledge and experience. We’ll start in the diary, though, with the Dixie Cups’ famous track. If you want to join in on the chorus, it’s
Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-né, jock-a-mo fee na-né
Dr. John. If you know anything about Denise, it won’t surprise you to hear he was a friend of hers.
I’ll wrap up the Iko Iko section with the Neville Brothers, but you’ll need to go to the diary to learn who Brother John was.
Professor Longhair joins Dr. John and The Meters to sing this one.
More Nevilles, because you can’t have too much.
Crashing Vor stopped in to drop this, from Danny Barker, in the thread, so you know it’s a good one because CV will never steer you wrong about music.
And this Lizzie Miles track came from Onomastic, who made sure women were represented!
So then, mlharges added this, from the great Irma Thomas with Marcia Ball.
1BQ offered a fun one (or two) from The Radiators, with band members’ comments in between.
I’ll close with one more Neville Brothers track, this one offered by pines of rome. It features Herbie Hancock and John Hiatt, for extra musical goodness! And, it opens with a specific introduction of everyone, for those who like to know who they’re hearing. Also, at about 3:30, there is a brief shot of the late Ed Bradley dancing with a little kid on his shoulders, which is pretty adorable. (I had no idea, until I went to grab his Wikipedia link, that Bradley was such a huge Neville Brothers fan that he had performed with them on occasion and was known as “the fifth Neville Brother”.)
Okay, I said I was closing, and I said I wasn’t re-posting the documentary stuff, but I found this five-minute video from HuffPo so endearing and illuminating, I just had to bring it here. Really, though, do go check out the rest.
⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE MARIA 🌊 ⛈️
💥 AND 2020 EARTHQUAKES 💥
888 days since Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico
on September 20, 2017.
Puerto Rico and USVI are still struggling to recover.
And now,a swarm of earthquakes is adding to their misery.
PLEASE FOLLOW Denise Oliver Velez and the SOS Puerto Rico group for the latest news about developments in Puerto Rico and the USVI. Denise continues to collect resonant tweets on the subject, and post them in comments daily in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup (APR) and twice weekly in the Black Kos diaries, to make them easy to retweet. If you tweet or FB, please share something about Puerto Rico and USVI regularly.
Find links to help HERE (now including earthquake relief).
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🐨 🔥 AUSTRALIAN FIRES 2019-20 🔥 🐨
Enormous bushfires have burned over 12 million acres in Australia, so far in that continent’s summer (which is far from over). The fires have forced widespread evacuations, and have been large enough to generate their own weather, including fire tornadoes and dry lightning that set more fires. Nearly half a billion (with a B) wild animals are estimated to have died so far.
Find links to help HERE.
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🚒 🔥 CALIFORNIA FIRES 2019 🔥 🚒
This piece from Wonkette is a pretty concise explainer about how climate change, overdevelopment, and greed are fueling the California fires. (Spoiler: failure to rake the forest doesn’t figure into it.) Even your dumbest FB friend can probably get something out of it.
Find links to help HERE.
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⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE DORIAN 🌊 ⛈️
Denise Oliver Velez posts what news there is on the Bahamas in the APR thread. This Black Kos thread has coverage of the scale of the damage.
Find links to help HERE.
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🌟 GOTV 🌟
🌟 POSTCARDING: If you are looking for a way to help and can’t do things like canvassing or phoning, consider hand-writing postcards asking people to vote. It’s easy because you’re given specific talking points from the campaign you’re working with, so you don’t have to think up what to say, and no one will be coming back at you with questions. And if you like to color, you can get creative decorating the cards. Note that you are responsible for buying postcards (and stamps if you don’t use pre-stamped ones.) Postcard stamps are 35 cents each; pre-stamped postcards from USPS are 39 cents each; two different pretty designs. If you can spend a little more, the two postcarding sites below sell their designs; or, searching the phrase “postcards to voters” on Amazon will show you many designs.
To get started:
🌟 PERSONALIZED LETTERS: Similarly, you can do more good than you might expect by writing personalized letters (from a template) to Democrats who are unlikely voters, adding a brief personal statement about why you VOTE EVERY TIME. Studies have shown this can boost turnout by enough to make a difference. As with postcards, you get names/addresses for these voters in targeted districts from the website, fill in the letters, address/stamp/fill the envelopes, but then, you hold them and mail them on Oct. 27, a week before election day! Note that, as with the postcards, you are responsible for buying envelopes, paper (no special paper required), and stamps. First class letter stamps are 55 cents each. (A new Gwen Ifill stamp just came out!)
For more info:
🌟 CONFIRM YOU ARE REGISTERED, REPEAT REGULARLY, AND GET YOUR FAMILY AND OTHERS TO DO THE SAME!!! FIGHTING VOTER SUPPRESSION STARTS AT HOME!
- Many folks here have been surprised to find that their or a family member’s registration has mysteriously disappeared, even though it had been active. Don’t wait until too late to catch and correct this bullshit.
- HEADCOUNT.ORG will direct you to your state’s Department of State/Division of Elections (or similar) webpage, which is the horse’s mouth, as it were.
- Or, google something like “am I registered to vote” plus your state, and go to your state government’s page directly.
🌟 If you can do more, do it! These are just things you can do at home at 3 am. Some of us have the wherewithal to do more, and we should! No one is coming to save us. Act accordingly.
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