Bling Bling in the ATL

No sooner has Moss apologized to her modeling employers for using cocaine than fresh gusts of scandal are buffeting the mannequin.

Over the weekend, sources claimed in Britain's News of the World that Moss had lesbian romps with actresses Sadie Frost and Davinia Taylor, as well as a three-way with Frost and her former husband Jude Law.

Fashion p.a. Rebecca White was quoted as alleging that she'd seen Moss and pal Naomi Campbell blow their way through a "fist-sized" mound of cocaine in a single night.

White also told the paper that Moss "asked for several hundred [British] pounds' worth of cocaine" before attending a 2002 benefit for Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.

"She sneaked off to [take cocaine] all the way through the dinner, with Nelson Mandela at the next table," said White. "I couldn't believe how disrespectful that was."

Christian Dior, Burberry and H. Stern have all sidestepped any definitive answer on whether Moss will stay with them.

A rep for retailer H&M said Friday that it wouldn't dump Moss because she had apologized for her drug use and promised in writing to remain "healthy, wholesome and sound."

But yesterday, H&M seemed to be distancing itself, with a rep saying: "We are having a dialogue with her. This is a very unfortunate situation."

Meanwhile, London's Mirror reported that Moss has split with boyfriend Pete Doherty. The bleary-eyed rocker was seen a disco on the Spanish isle of Ibiza without Moss — instead kissing another man.

Moss' rep would only say yesterday that "all these allegations are being dealt with by lawyers, and we will not be commenting at present." A rep for Campbell, who in the past has been open with the press about her cocaine use, declined to comment.

Eastward Lake Pontchartrain, Mississippi coast, Alabama, Florida,

Millions looking blind and random.
food and water
vulnerable criminals
the dead uncovered

These days of sorrow and outrage
strangers as brothers and sisters and neighbors.
wounded healers conducting a house-to-house
I lost my and I lost my.

but I still got and I still got
A core of God storm American
to clear and build.
You need to know,
all who question need to know
The work is the work is

Mississippi, the Port of New Orleans, the Mississippi River.

The breaks, the pumps, the water
samples, identifying and dealing and working
drinkingwater and wastewater and gather the dead

Those who had, flee and leave
every night, every day and the months to come.

For news coverage, I'd say MTV news has done the best job. Simple kids spending a day in 4 different flooded areas seeing what its like. I think, after watching it, that I'll do a volunteer stint this weekend - a couple hundred folks landed here from the coast. I can't imagine that they need any extra help from me, but maybe someone will want to take a minute off from all this, go see a movie or something.

For casting blame.. political response, I'd say this poster has done the best job.

Funny thing about Black Rock City - it meets my definition of a city. That is, it can simultaneously exist for many people in many ways without losing a real sense of itself. Hippies, gear heads, old guys, young girls, the dirty and the clean - we were all there, and the city was with all of us.

Funny thing number 2: deserts are like oceans somehow. Because, like the ocean, in the desert you must actively work to protect yourself, or die. The dimensions are huge and the directions nature gives you - with wind and sun - are of unusual importance. And finally.. just the look of it. In BRC, the art cars swimming through the deep playa, curve of the horizon, the flat land spread around for miles - The Contessa, a mobile pirate ship, seemed in perfect harmony with the land.

Final funny thing about BRC: it goes up and comes down in short order. Every sunrise was one frame in a really jerky film of a trippy city being created, until Friday, when everything had been completed, and then we waited and watched and saw whether the machine would hold during the onslaught of people - sweaty, dirty, hysterical, high, tens of thousands of them.

And while I was out there, news trickled in of another city coming undone, of people who didn't protect hard enough or soon enough, of the strain of tens of thousands of people arriving dirty, sweaty, hysterical; little communities coming together and falling apart. The news came peacemeal everytime a new burner arrived. There was no news jingle intro, no commercial close, and without framing, listening to New Orleans drown was fucking awful.

Now that I'm back in my happy suburban crunk bling city of a town, reading Wonkette and TPM and listening to Air America, the loss of NOLA seems like (Write it!) like no disaster.