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Why is the rate of incarceration in Louisiana so high? How do we critique the way prisons are part of infrastructural solutions to anthropocenic instabilities? As Angela Davis writes, “prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.” One way of imagining and building a vision of an anti-carceral future is practiced in the Solitary Gardens project here in New Orleans: 

The Solitary Gardens are constructed from the byproducts of sugarcane, cotton, tobacco and indigo- the largest chattel slave crops- which we grow on-site, exposing the illusion that slavery was abolished in the United States. The Solitary Gardens utilize the tools of prison abolition, permaculture, contemplative practices, and transformative justice to facilitate exchanges between persons subjected to solitary confinement and volunteer proxies on the “outside.” The beds are “gardened” by prisoners, known as Solitary Gardeners, through written exchanges, growing calendars and design templates. As the garden beds mature, the prison architecture is overpowered by plant life, proving that nature—like hope, love, and imagination—will ultimately triumph over the harm humans impose on ourselves and on the planet.

"Nature" here is constructed in a very particularistic way: as a redemptive force to harness in opposition to the wider oppressive system the architecture of a solitary confinement cell is a part of. It takes a lot of intellectual and political work to construct a counter-hegemonic nature, in other words. Gardeners in this setting strive toward a cultivation of relations antithetical to the isolationist, anti-collective sociality prisons (and in general, a society in which prisons are a permanent feature of crisis resolution) foster.

My interest in NOLA anthropocenics pivots on water, and particularly the ways in which capitalist regimes of value and waste specify, appropriate, and/or externalize forms of water. My research is concerned with water crises more generally, and geographically situated in Flint, Michigan. I thought I could best illustrate these interests with a sampling of photographs from a summer visit to NOLA back in 2017. At the time, four major confederate monuments around the city had just been taken down. For supplemental reading, I'm including an essay from political theorist Adolph Reed Jr. (who grew up in NOLA) that meditates on the long anti-racist struggle that led to this possibility, and flags the wider set of interventions that are urgently required to abolish the landscape of white supremacy. 

Flooded street after heavy rains due to failures of city pumping infrastructure.

A headline from the same week in the local press.

Some statues are gone but other monuments remain (this one is annotated).

A Starbucks in Lakeview remembering Katrina--the line signifies the height of the water at the time.

Reading:

Adolph Reed Jr., “Monumental Rubbish” https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/06/25/monumental-rubbish-statues-torn-down-what-next-new-orleans

P.S. In case the photos don't show up in the post I'm attaching them in a PDF document as well! 

Vulnerable populations for mental health issues seem to be covered by pay exclusion. Those younger than 21 or 22 are included, which appear to be the most at-risk for mental illness.

This was created to support the existing Good Samaritan Policy. The afformentioned policy would not be applicable during biohazard or chemhazard events due to the policy that involve such events. This could cause a delay in treatment that could potentially lead to the deaths of the affected community. In order to allow for treatment without delay the hazard issues would be 'ignored' by the EPA and the responders not prosecuted. They would also receives support from the EPA and FOSC for protecting themselves from any damages lawsuits coming from the potential contamination from the response.

I read through some information about the Bhopal disaster that was referenced, as well as some other articles on Nuclear Emergency Response. I also found some protocol for Radiation Sickness. (Potassium Iodide, Prussian Blue, DTPA, Neupogen)

The author speaks of Dr. Per Bech, a Dutch Psychiatrist, and his co-author Lone Lindberg, and his patient who suffered from mental illness over the course of his life, and how the vignette Bech wrote about this patient had value and relevance for understanding the use of Zoloft.

More studies referencing corpses and their effects on epidemics

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/hygiene/envsan/tn08/en/

Emergency preparedness in developing nations

How EMS deals epidemics

EMS protocol for spit

Usual punishments for abuse by Police

Other stories of similar events

Doctors without Borders has facilities in many countries already established for humanitarian aid. For instance, they had been in Haiti since 1991, so their assistance in 2010 was aided by their already established position there. In that case they upped their projects within the country in response to the disaster.