Empowerment is born

I am so excited to hear that New Orleans turned out their school children on a field-trip to demonstrate!!!

This represents a huge shift for me. When I went to live on the West Coast after living in New Orleans for nine years, I was so struck by how people out west felt that the government was actually a reflection of themselves: that they had the power to vote on issues that they decided. While in Seattle, people constanly approached me to sign petitions to put issues on the public ballot for the citizens of the city to vote on. I had no idea, until I was 33, that this kind of thing could even be done.

I was so amazed at this concept, having come from an enviroment where there was such an "us vs. them" mentality. While living in New Orleans, the general impression I had was that laws were made by the unapproachable, intractable power structure, which had nothing to do with regular people. Even recently when I visited I heard my local friends speak with this same sort of feeling of helplessness when it came to matters of government decision.

So to see this article, where the organizer was a first-time demonstrato, made me tear up with joy and hope. With all the destruction and sadness that the hurricane has wrought, I feel like this development is truly a silver lining. People have been empowered to become active in the decision making of their own city. This is a real paradigm shift.

I'm so proud of the citizens of New Orleans!

On a personal note: trying to shake the feeling that I'm taking all the wrong classes. There's just so much to chose from!!!

Best words of advice this week were from second-year student and fab chick future GIS informationist Tracey Hughes, who said, "You're gonna have to accept you won't be able to do everything you want to do."

These are zen-like words that apply to life in general.