Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

In the ruins of New Orleans
Los Angeles Times ^ | January 30, 2009 | Richard Fausset

Posted on 01/30/2009 10:34:55 PM PST by Lorianne

Kirsten Brydum pedaled away from the Howlin' Wolf club into the darkness of another American city that she didn't know very well. It was 1:30 a.m.

She rode a black cruiser bicycle with a basket on the back, borrowed from friends of friends. In nearly every city she had visited on her 2-month-road trip, it seemed someone was willing to lend her an old bike.

The Rebirth Brass Band was on the bill that night. Brydum, 25, had danced for a while outside the club in her flip-flops. She thought that the bouncer would eventually let her in for free, and that suited her in more ways than one. She believed, passionately, that people would one day reject a basic mechanism of free-market societies: the exchange of goods and services for money.

She arrived in New Orleans in late September with a rail pass, a little red notebook and a head full of ideas about the oppressive forces of capitalism and government, and how they might be replaced with something better. The road trip was partly a rite of passage in the grand tradition of Jack Kerouac -- an adventure to mark her recent graduation from college in San Francisco. But she also hoped to report on the small, scattered outposts where fellow radicals had established alternatives to mainstream culture.

It would all end in New Orleans, four miles from the Howlin' Wolf, in a forlorn and out-of-the-way block in the 9th Ward.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: darwinaward; kirstenbrydum; leftists; liberalisim; nola
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-60 next last

1 posted on 01/30/2009 10:34:55 PM PST by Lorianne
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Lorianne

>>She arrived in New Orleans in late September with a rail pass, a little red notebook and a head full of ideas about the oppressive forces of capitalism and government, and how they might be replaced with something better.<<

Clearly an objective reporter... :)


2 posted on 01/30/2009 10:36:23 PM PST by gondramB (Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne

another idealistic foolish white girl killed by the very folks she sympathizes with

the naivete and burden of stupid white guilt has no bottom

she coulda called me and I coulda explained what the underbelly of our culture REALLY looks like and saved her life

pity for her loved ones


3 posted on 01/30/2009 10:40:38 PM PST by wardaddy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wardaddy

Naah, just like the worshipping idiots in the Slick Willard threads, if you told her the truth, she’d have called you a bigot and told you that you had no idea what you were talking about. Liberalism is a cancer of the brain and of the soul. That’s what’s REALLY killing our culture and our children.


4 posted on 01/30/2009 11:02:36 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: wardaddy

Can you say “typical leftist”? She produces nothing, contributes nothing, borrows stuff, shows up at free stuff events and rails against the capitalist world that allows her to live like a maggot. If i didn’t believe in rehabilitation, I would say the dude who shot her did us all a favor. Name one thing anarchists have done to better society as a whole. Bet the guy who shot her at least at one time had a job.


5 posted on 01/30/2009 11:04:44 PM PST by When do we get liberated? ((Ok, Im the official Pit Bull Defender/If you can't stand behind our troops, stand in front of them.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: When do we get liberated?

I hope it wasn’t Looter Guy. Our hearts would all be broken.


6 posted on 01/30/2009 11:07:15 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: wardaddy

“A head full of ideas about the oppressive forces of Capitalism and government,and how they might be replaced with something better.”

Capitalism didn’t give us Detroit and the 9th Ward.
It was corrupt Democrat policies that gave them to us.
We are trying to correct that.
RIP with your delusional beliefs.


7 posted on 01/30/2009 11:11:43 PM PST by gigster
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne

It’s for people like this that the title of Michael Moore’s book Stupid White People really applies.


8 posted on 01/30/2009 11:20:37 PM PST by denydenydeny (People in dictatorships long for truth while pampered, decadent people in the West long for myth.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne
Useful idiot bites the dust. Well, at least she didnt get bulldozed...
Stupid nose ring/thing...
9 posted on 01/30/2009 11:50:14 PM PST by 45semi ("Islam has bloody borders" - Samuel Huntington)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne
Quite an elogy from the LA Times about a person as clueless as they could get.
Liberalism is a mental disease.
10 posted on 01/30/2009 11:54:57 PM PST by IrishCatholic (No local communist or socialist party chapter? Join the Democrats, it's the same thing.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne
Central to her thinking: "She didn't believe that we lived in a world of scarcity," Viola said. "That scarcity was a myth that was used to keep people divided. And so if resources and goods are taken care of and shared equitably, then there's enough for everybody."

Of course she was fed this drivel by her "New College" professors. Just another naive, misguided young woman who didn't understand that some people don't care about scarcity, or sharing resources. They have their own stuff, but they want what YOU have, and they don't care what they have to do to you to get it.

11 posted on 01/31/2009 12:05:40 AM PST by SuziQ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne
Kirsten Brydum pedaled away from the Howlin' Wolf club into the darkness of another American city that she didn't know very well. It was 1:30 a.m.

Young white girl biking around in black neighborhoods in the wee hours of the morning in any urban city these days is just asking for trouble.

12 posted on 01/31/2009 12:24:48 AM PST by whatisthetruth
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne

You can make a dream world for yourself, but at some point the real one is going to come crashing in. This girl reminds me in some ways of the hippies, either living off Mama and Daddy or whatever she can get from the rest of society. And the whole time complaining about how rotten and cruel the people who give the handouts are. At 25, it’s way past time to start pulling your own weight and contribute something to society. As a father of 2 daughters in their twenties, my heart does go out to the family though.


13 posted on 01/31/2009 12:36:08 AM PST by Jubal Madison (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne
Her cherished Utopia she so desperately seeks, where all will share a plentiful harvest, is actually a dream perpetrated by the weak and or lazy who can not compete in the game of survival of the fittest.
14 posted on 01/31/2009 1:08:52 AM PST by WesternPacific (I am tired of voting for the lesser of two evils!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne

“When the news reached the Bay Area, some of her fellow activists wondered if there had been a conspiracy. Some suspected the CIA.”

*places head in hands at the absurdity of it all*

I’m sorry the girl lost her life, but it’s even sorrier that her “fellow activists” have learned nothing from her death.

Also, I (sadly) suspect they will never, ever catch the creep or creepette who killed her.


15 posted on 01/31/2009 1:48:16 AM PST by DemforBush (Somebody wake me when sanity has returned to the nation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne

Shot four times in the face.

Lots of anger there.

That is why it is called a double tap, or two in the hat. That’s enough for a pro.

Four is anger. My bet, white hating black.( you know, for slavery and such)


16 posted on 01/31/2009 2:15:55 AM PST by Leisler
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wardaddy
You see kids like her all over NO, especially the Quarter, Frenchmen and Magazine, riding their bikes without a care in the world, but thinking they are going to save the world. I talk to them and they are usually working with a non profit, rebuilding.

I worked with a few gutting and rebuilding houses, many of these kids are brilliant, Yale educated and they think they can rebuild and reshape a culture as easy as they can rebuild a house.

99% of the people of NOLA are good but that one percent would kill you for a snowball.

Me, I have never had a problem in New Orleans or other cities like Rio, Mexico City, Bogota, Cairo or even Lagos.

Instead, I had 38 year old white guy who drove a Mercedes Benz jam a gun in my chest in a neighborhood of million dollar homes in Houston.

17 posted on 01/31/2009 2:15:55 AM PST by trumandogz (The Democrats are driving us to Socialism at I00 MPH -The GOP is driving us to Socialism at 97.5 MPH)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: trumandogz

Yale? Why didn’t they stay in New Haven. Plenty of houses to gut and remodel. Thousands.

(Oh, yeah. Bush did in New Orleans. I forgot)


18 posted on 01/31/2009 2:18:58 AM PST by Leisler
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne

Her “college” now defunct. http://www.newcollege.edu/default.aspx

Wonder why?


19 posted on 01/31/2009 2:42:35 AM PST by realpatriot (Some spelling errers entionally included!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lorianne

“She was shocked by Detroit’s vast landscape of blight. The broken city seemed to support her ideas about the folly of capitalism.” There is NO capitalism in Detroit.

“Sure, there’s some romanticizing of a place like this: a post-industrial workless wonderland free for the taking, ripe with opportunities to create a pirate utopia,” she wrote. “But in reality, the scene was sad. Some people do still live in Detroit, and the few that I met from the activist scene were bitter and burned out. It’s hard to create the world you wish to see when there are no resources, few comrades to inspire, and no spare energy.”
And for a fair-weather revo-wanna-be it was just to much work.


20 posted on 01/31/2009 3:00:22 AM PST by truemiester ((If the U.S. should fail, a veil of darkness will come over the Earth for a thousand years))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-60 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson