I skipped class this morning, and I feel antsy. Just some thoughts.

From Sheehan Arrested During Anti-War Protest (San Francisco Chronicle)

“I would like to say to Cindy Sheehan and her supporters: Don’t be a group of unthinking lemmings,” said Mitzy Kenny of Ridgeley, W.Va., whose husband died in Iraq last year. She said the anti-war demonstrations “can affect the war in a really negative way. It gives the enemy hope.”

Bitch, shut up. Are you being an unthinking lemming with your support of the war, tagging the bullshit line of voicing discontent “gives the enemy hope?” Why is it so difficult for some people to have a difference of opinion without denigrating those they disagree with? I mean, I’ve been holding back in saying that people who still support the war are somehow dumb or just unwilling to admit that they’re wrong (although they are) and considering that maybe they just see things a different way. Other people should do the same. Or the… contrapositive of that.

D’Angelo Critically Injured in Car Crash (Rolling stone)

The heck? Didn’t he just get his sentence suspended last week? What sad irony. I don’t know what Angie Stone did to turn him out to crack in the first place, but I hope he survives and is okay… maybe he’ll have a “Through the Wire” life-changing experience a’la Kanye.

So Nip/Tuck comes on tonight. Spectacular yes.

David Banner and I could engage in some adult-type activities. His intelligent gangster and striking resemblance to my ex caught me first, then I read the real lyrics to Play. Now he’s coming out with a cartoon on Adult Swim? Good heavens. Come on with it then.

Maybe his backing of Heal the Hood will help to at least highlight the fact that there are a heck of a lot of displaced people who were renting in public housing projects, and therefore have no rights to reclaim their homes if the city decides to sell the land to Hilton and build luxury hotels. (This will happen.) Perhaps Home-in-a-Box (backed by Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr.) will help some of the poor rebuild their homes, that is if the state doesn’t decide to take the land and sell it to private developers first (this will happen, too. This is why.)

Now don’t be mistaken: the goal here is not to put a whole bunch of poor people back in the shitty conditions they were in in the first place; the goal is to help people get to a better place than where they were by first getting them back on their feet in the location they were in. Because the state of Louisiana is going to try to erase these people from their homes. Some people don’t want to go back and are using their displacement as a jumping-off point to build a better life in a new place. That’s a great choice for the people who are making it, if that’s what’s good for them. But the residents of New Orleans who want to return should have the right to do so, whether or not they match the Halliburton-built vision of a new tourist destination. (I bet the “New” New Orleans won’t have shoddy levees.) Alright, that’s it… last post of the day, I promise.

The group K-Otics (out of Houston, of all places) put it all together like the piece of a puzzle © Kweli and remixed Kanye’s Gold Digger with some choice words about Dubya. Have a listen.

In case you were wondering, C Murder is alive and well in Angola Prison, where he was sent after the Gretna, Louisiana prison he was in was struck by the hurricane. I might be the only person who actually cares about the lives of all of the prisoners who were caught up in the flooding… notice that the news stopped mentioning them real quick. I seriously doubt that there was any kind of an earnest attempt to rescue them, and it’s been reported that many were shot and killed trying to escape (death). That makes me sad; not everyone in prison is there for murder, neither are they all guilty. It’s sad for anyone to lose their life that kind of way.

It dissapoints me that people have been “changed” after witnessing the piss poor actions of this government since Katrina. What, you thought the shit was good before? It just kills me that it takes some kind of crazy disaster for people to get an effing clue… and people still don’t really get it, because a year from now something else awful is going to happen and people will be “changed” again. In the immortal words of Lawrence Fishburne,

WAKE UP!!

On that note, I’m going to sleep.

Mayor May Force People Out of New Orleans – Yahoo! News

Let me just say that I fully support the move to make people get out of these flooded areas. I just question how exactly they’re going to go about doing it. None of the people thus far associated with this Katrina relief effort have yet proven themselves to be especially competent or thoughtful, so I expect some mishaps with trying to force people out of their homes. I wouldn’t put it past some of these heavily armed paratroopers to shoot people who won’t leave. Crazier things have happened.

But the people who are still dead-set on staying in New Orleans need to get the hell out of there. There have already been reports of dysentery and deaths from waterborne bacterial infections. Staying in those kinds of conditions will only increase the death count. And how are the rescue/recovery teams going to do their jobs effectively if they have to keep going back to places they’ve already cleared to check on people who elected to stay? What happens when the ones who stay change their minds and want to be rescued? Do they expect people to keep coming by to bring them food and water? What are you going to do in a city full of 10,000 dead bodies with no electricity, sewage or other public utilities.

But I suppose you can’t force people to do anything. I’m sure that some people are simply being stubborn, but there are undoubtably others who are scared and traumatized or mentally ill. What about them? Taking people out by force, if not done with finesse, could result in violence or further trauma, and I suppose it isn’t really realistic for resue teams to know which type of situation they’re dealing with.

I just don’t know the best thing to do. Two weeks ago I would have trusted the authorities and relief workers to have a decent plan, but it goes without saying that that ain’t the case anymore. ::sigh::