I only intended on staying in New Orleans for a few weeks, but that city has a unique realness, a feeling of connection and freedom. I watched people get sucked in. I arrived in New Orleans for the first time 4 months ago, here are my impressions as a newcomer.

The U.S. government orchestrated the breach in the levee following hurricane Katrina just as certainly as they orchestrated the collapse of the twin towers in NYC. If you don't believe me talk to some survivors and eyewitnesses. Why did people who were trying to escape deep rising water encounter armed men who told them to go back into the flood? Why are there recordings of distressed cell phone calls supposedly made by hostages in the 9/11 planes when cell phones don't work in airplanes to this day?

In New Orleans I occasionally saw a Red Cross truck and people said they sometimes handed out prison quality meals. I've met people who have received checks or trailers from FEMA, but somefolks from the hardest hit neighborhoods have received nothing or close to nothing. According to a major New Orleanian newspaper, FEMA is paying for over 90% of the reconstruction of the superdome roof. The city is trying to complete the multi-billion dollar project in record time so it can be open for football season.

Locals, activists, and college kids have stepped in and formed several grassroots relief organizations. One of the names you hear the most is "Common Ground." They recruit volunteers from all over and their main mission is gutting out people's houses so they won't be moldy, toxic, muddy, messes. Common Ground also distributes food, water, and clothing, creates public computer centers, and conducts research projects, among other things. For several months the S.P.A.Z. army tent housed Common Ground volunteers and Common Ground enabled the creation of the S.P.A.Z. kitchen. The kitchen is a gutted out brick house one block from the canal whose waters flooded the neighborhood last August. You can watch the levee being rebuilt from the corner of the block. Unfortunately the workers aren't building it any higher than it was before the storm. The house is on Desolonde Street in the Lower Ninth Ward. The first time I was there, mountains of trashed lined the street and the only people in the neighborhood were work crews. Four months later, families were living in some of the cleaned-up houses and flowers were growing on the front lawns. Every night Sean Logan, Charles, Green Jon, Hippy Sean, locals, and other volunteers would cook a meal and people would sit down to eat together. Often it was like a block party with music and a fire. Eventually the house got electricity, a refrigerator, a working toilet, and running water. But, the water still isn't safe to drink or even wash with. A Common Ground volunteer showed me the water test results for Saint Bernard Parish which is only a few miles down the road from the kitchen. It had taken the government 5 months after testing to reveal the results. Some of the highlights were arsenic levels over 250% higher than the "safe" amount and mercury levels about 1800% higher than "safe." Both arsenic and mercury kill people when ingested. Arsenic poisoning is noticeable immediately, but mercury can take years of accumulation before it develops into cancer. I met families who lived in the area that didn't know any of this. Never-the-less, nested among the upside down houses and gushing water mains, one block provides a sanctuary. On Desolonde Street Common Ground volunteers, S.P.A.Z. kids, and residents, disaster survivors from the neighborhood or across the city, eat and reconstruct.

Black helicopters also hover low in the sky, random men ask to see my ID while I weed the garden, airplanes make criss-cross trails overhead, and some "volunteers" ask too many instigating questions.

Everyone has stories, like swimming through streets and colliding with dead bodies of people and pets. The toxic soup of chemicals, gasoline, and sewage wasn't even mentioned in that one. Sean told me a second hand story about a survivor who thought New Orleans was being invaded by a foreign army in the first dramatic moments of the flood; because it didn't make sense that the U.S. army would shoot U.S. citizens or leave them on roof tops begging for help. I guess it became more real when the government gathered all the poor people in the superdome and wouldn't let them leave, even while they shit and puked everywhere and watched the weak die from lack of food and water. What the hell do some people pay taxes for? Even my rich ass boss who lives on high ground in the French Quarter said that he had to sneak into the hotel pool across the street to take a bath since there was no water or electricity right after the storm. "We were all like squatters then," he said.

Sometimes riding my bike down a deserted street with the smell of dead and rotten in the breeze, I felt like I was in a post-apocalyptic world. There's been a lot of natural disasters recently. New Orleanians often said that the crisis brought communities closer together. The government abandoned the people and they were forced to reach out and help each other. I figure we better get used to it. You may be into the conspiracy theory and know the man is out to get us. You may be an environmentalist and know that global warming is here. Either way, hurricane Katrina was not America's first lesson in how we must be able to take care of ourselves and survive independently of the government. We all have a gut feeling it won't be the last. Coincidence - maybe, Mutant-festers got pretty comfortable in post-K New Orleans.