NOLA "exile" blogs for Houston daily

The Hurricane Katrina catastrophe has awakened the Inner Blog of Houston's daily paper.

Yesterday, they started blogging from the Astrodome, giving us a rough draft, seat-of-the-pants look at what's happening inside the one-time 8th Wonder of the World, and now they've turned over the blog keys to a New Orleans "exile" who's staying in Houston with his mother in-law.

Looks like they made a good choice in Abram Himelstein, who was teaching inner-city kids how to write before the hurricane and broken levees wiped out New Orleans.

He has a lot to say and he says it well, even though he avers that he's still operating at half speed, brain-wise:

Something that is not much on our minds: the stuff. Not even the houses matter. Most of us don't know for sure how much of our stuff is gone. And when I say stuff, I don't mean the electronics and clothing. I mean the only copy of a picture of my great-grandfather holding me. I mean the best Mardi Gras Indian Suit Buck ever made. I mean the documents and treasures of our lives. But even those things aren't on our minds much. We want our people.

We want information, news of their safety. We want to find out how our best friends are doing. We want to find out how our parents are doing. we want to find out how our grocer is doing.

I'd like to hear how this blog came to be. Just curious. Maybe he'll tell us. Or maybe one of the other Chron bloggers will tell us.

Either way, Mr. Himelstein's blog is one I'll look forward to reading. Also, that's a pretty cool picture of him, wearing the white t-shit with "New Orleans" scrawled across it in black Magic Marker (see cron link).

That touch, no doubt, came from the blogger himself, who received a bit of pre-Katrina news coverage from the "best bet" section of bestofneworleans.com, which reported he created the t-shirt pictured above left:

Black marker on a white T-shirt, worn by a guy flexing both biceps: "I HATE MYSELF AND MY FRIEND. IN THAT ORDER." This came from Abram Shalom Himelstein -- public-school teacher, pizza deliveryman and co-author of Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing -- who asked 100 New Orleanians to put black markers to fresh white shirts and write the thought that they couldn't get rid of.

Well, dude, welcome to Texas.
And, no, Houston, this is not your daddy's Chronicle.

[chron.com/In Exile]
[bestofneworleans.com]