At least 56 percent of the people of Montenegro have voted to break off from the last remnant of Yugoslavia, the uneasily united Serbia and Montenegro, and form their own country, free from Belgrade's grasp.
The Montenegrin vote over this past weekend will further frustrate and irritate Serbia, but hopefully not so much that they decide to go and start yet another war on the European continent. Needless to say, this latest blow is going to be both painful and humiliating, but Montenegro deserves to be as independent as it was back in 1918.
Let's hope, however, that pro-Serbia Unionists in Montenegro realize when it's time to let go, peacefully, unlike when Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo tried to do the same. There's been enough bloodshed in that area to last more then a few lifetimes.
In another vote over the weekend, New Orleans reelected Ray Nagin as Mayor. After reading the current issue of Vanity Fair, which excerpted Douglas Brinkley's new book regarding Hurricane Katrina, I personally have reconsidered my defense of Nagin and Louisiana Governor Blanco, and now put them in the same category as President Bush, Homeland Security and FEMA in the handling of Hurricane Katrina: incompetent cronies and idiots. Maybe I'll reconsider on Nagin and Blanco again, based on what they both do in the reconstruction of the State, but we'll have to see. I'm really tired of bad politicians. When will we get some politicians with balls, competence, and heart? Maybe this vote and Brinkley's article (and granted, Brinkley leans slightly right), hit me the wrong way at the wrong time. Maybe I just thought that Mitch Landrieu would be better at this time, though some (like my dad), would consider that kowtowing to the white man. That's something else I'm sick of, too: black and white politics. Sick of it all.
Anyway, good luck to Montenegro and New Orleans. You are both gonna need it.
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