Pop-Up Double-Talk: McCain/Katrina Edition

Speaking as someone who traveled to New Orleans for a conference and left exactly one week prior to Hurricane Katrina blowing in, McCain's atrocious Double-Talk Maverick Express photo-ops regarding New Orleans and the Hurricane left me speechless. This YouTube video made me furious:

Montenegro Votes to Drive Last Nail in Yugoslavian Coffin

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.

2005: Good Night and Good Riddance

Well, tonight is the night. The beginning of the New Year, when a goodly portion of the people attempt to find something fun to do in order to wipe away the old and bring in the new. Personally, I can't wait for 2005 to turn into 2006. I want it over and done. Good Night and Good Riddance 2005. Hello and Howdy-doo 2006!

Don't get me wrong, 2005 was personally a great year for me except for my kitty's illness. Hell, I managed to visit New Orleans exactly one week before Hurricane Katrina. That's about as good as anyone can have it this year, as far as I'm concerned. But like politics, which is all local, life is local, too. Though my local life was primarily good, for the rest of the world, well, it was one thing after another.

If you need to have a catalog of things that went crazy this year, well, you've just not been paying attention and need to get on the ball. No need to recap the bad shit. I hope that your own personal good things were very good, and if you suffered personally, I truly hope the new year brings better things for you.

So, here's to the New Year, which may hold hell and highwater for many of us. Here's hoping, however, that there is lot less hell and certainly a lot less highwater for all of us.

Namaste

Happy New Year!

Before I sleep...

Look at the photo on your left.

Please describe, in 50 words or less,
why the blood of black people would boil upon seeing such a scene.
You have 10 minutes to ponder.




Many black people have a lifetime to ponder such things.