Jesus kept them quiet

Mychal Bell of the Jena Six has just been released from prison because he could not be tried as an adult. Although District Attorney Reed Walters who oversaw the convictions of the six boys on attempted murder charges said that the 15,000 protesters that descended on Jena had nothing to do with his decision, he still felt the need to thank Jesus for making them non-violent: "I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened." So where was Jesus when he convicted the boy to 15 years for having a fist fight? Disasters are subjective ...more

China: Man blows up dinner guests

A Chinese villager invited 30 guests to a restaurant for dinner and blew them up, killing at least nine people, state press reported on Monday.... The report, citing police sources, said the villager invited 30 people for dinner with whom he had been in dispute over a family matter. more...

Cornell West and Mos Def speak on Sept. 11th

Two of my favorite people discuss an alternate memorial to Sept 11th on Bill Maher's show.

Pedro's Back

Went to Shea yesterday to see the return of Pedro Martinez to Shea stadium. It was a great game and the fans gave him a standing ovation after 5 innings of shutout ball to which he responded with a curtain call. The day was also host to a Taiwanese heritage performance before the game, a very strange politically driven performance.

Evil Bench?

Crack use, public urination, drug dealing - can a bench really cause this much problems? "The bench is going to show up one morning on the mayor's front lawn." Ah, Seattle.

I've got an office!

Even though it's more like a closet, I've got my own office! In this office are two of my very own filing cabinets, 8 boxes of guidance files from '99-'02, a locked filing cabinet full of more guidance files, and a small trampoline. This is my office.

Cara's Back

Woot! She's finally back from China and the good life and continue. Just in time too. The Brooklyn West Indian Carnival is going on right now in front of my house.

Barrack on New Orleans

The biggest disgrace this country has known in the last 30 some-odd years. Racial inequality manifested as a bulldozer and lack thereof. The failure of government to take care of its people. Call it what you will. Barrack on New Orleans.

Athletic Director?

That's right, you're looking at the new athletic director of my school. Oh, plus the AP Physics teacher, and the engineering teacher. A full course load plus a job that will surely give me cardiac arrest. What was I thinking? I only wish they had told me a little earlier than FOUR DAYS before the start of school. Anyone know a good track coach, we could use someone to take my place.

Ode to a friend

There are many of us out here, people with good hearts that we just don't know what to do with. Good but painful, so painful the burning becomes unbearable sometimes. We try to quell it using the same means everyone seems to use. Watch a movie, buy a shirt, eat some sushi - but it's always there. And for some of us, the burning doesn't subside, not ever, until it evolves into something uncontrollable, a wild fire filled with goodness aching to be put somewhere when there just isn't anywhere to put it. Want to put it. Desperately want to give. Fix things. Tear things apart and reconstruct. Build anew. Slow down the fire a little bit, just a little.

By the time it gets out, it's too late. The place where it came from, that heart all flowing over with this incredible need to care, becomes tarnished by an outside that can't possibly understand. It's a place that has a different dialect, different face, different system of everything that we can't possibly understand. And maybe that's all it is, a lack of understanding. That would be optimistic. Because, bottom line, it's those good hearts that suffer. First for carrying them, second for the punishment that will inevitably come, and third for the misunderstanding, the tarnishing of the truth.

The truth for him and for all of us, is that this need to help burns deep, so deep that it can't be stopped, not by a law, not by a police officer, not by the riot squad, and certainly not by some phony label that no one truly buys in the first place. The choice doesn't exist.

It still hurts. My best wishes, Daniel McGowan. And if you don't believe me, read his letters.

On Chinese Men

Two miners who escaped from a collapsed pit in Beijing ate coal and drank urine to survive, Chinese media has reported.

"I told my brother 'your wife is going to have to marry someone else'", Meng Xianyou told the newspaper.

His brother replied: "I laughed too. I said my wife could find a rich man in Shenyang. But then I thought, I have two children and my wife is ugly, so it would be hard for her to remarry."

...wow

George Bush doesn't care about black people

As inarticulate as rhyme sayer Kanye West comes off in this video, it's still hilarious and somewhat poignant. It's taken from a live spot he did for the Red Cross in the days after Hurricane Katrina. He is standing next to Mike Myers when he blurts out, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Then, boom, cut to Chris Tucker. Maybe I'm a little late on this one.

I just want to bang on the drums

Back to work tomorrow. Two months of vacation were almost enough to depressurize. People say teachers get too much vacation. They're wrong. We get almost enough.