Life after death at ACT Charter School

You want to think of it kind of like a food court.

In my second year of high school teaching at the Academy of Communications and Technology (ACT) Charter school, I was wondering about the long term vision the ACT board had for this place I had come to love. The place where I felt like I finally had a place to grow as a teacher. There was talk amongst the teachers of starting a union, but an administrator was explaining to me how this action wouldn't fit with the new dominant paradigm at ACT. No longer was my school simply a school; it could be best understood as a food court.

As one of the longest standing charter schools in the city, ACT was uniquely positioned because they had the ability to "self-replicate" or create more "campuses" without having to get additional charters from the city. As charter management organizations chomp at the bit to dive into the Chicago public education racket, our school, as unsuccessful as it was considered by some, was extremely valuable.

With a friendly, mustachioed-smile, my administrator used his hands as visual cues to draw out the familiar layout of a food court.

Let's say you have Burger King over here. Pizza Hut in the corner. Maybe a Taco Bell. All of those restaurants are going to rent space in your food court. But they are only going to feel comfortable in certain types of food courts. If you have a union in your school than the other franchises aren't going to want to move in. 

Dread bloomed in my chest as I realized how shady and ill-conceived the plan sounded. My fear was compounded by the earnestness of my administrator. He was carefully explaining the strategy like my apprehension was due to a lack of comprehension. No matter how he shifted his hands around and talked about "the best interests of our students," I couldn't arrest the thought that the whole thing was educationally unsound, and slightly immoral, but it also just seemed like a dumb idea. 

After we were told that unionizing might cause members of the support staff to lose their jobs, we decided to cease unionizing. Instead we agreed to investigate an alternative teacher bargaining structure that is used in some of the state's top schools. But by the time February came around, we got word: the ACT board was pulling the plug on our operation. 
 

A community meeting was held in the church next door. I had previously visited the pews for graduation or the day they let the students watch Obama's inauguration, but the poorly lit basement gave a funerary sense to the event. It smelled like melted funeral candles and cut flowers. Milling near the entrance were two large men in vanilla cream suits, smiling and handing out fliers for Hope Academy charter school. Their lack of ironic self-awareness was terrifying.

My administrator thanked everyone for coming out and reassured us that everyone would get to speak, but said that he would also be "respectful of people's time". Students, parents, and teachers lined up in a neat row to speak loudly and passionately about the school. About the children they had sent there. About the things they had learned at the school. About the family they felt they had there. About the few educational options there were on the west side of Chicago. About how little control they felt over a decision that affected them most of all. And there were a lot of questions. Some of them answered, some not. When the board spoke, all of the members drew from the same word bank: Student's best interests. Tough choices. Appreciation. Reality. Options. Achievement. Funding. Suspension.

The students left angrily before the board completed its ceremony. My administrator raised his hands skyward and pleaded with the children to show respect, but they were gone. The vanilla cream men rushed to dispense their recruitment fliers to the departing stampede. Shortly afterward, Bruce Rauner, the chairman of the board, the gavel was struck and the decision was official.

And that was supposed to be the end. Well, the end--not considering the long painful demise that was the Spring semester at ACT. Local charters scavenged the school for students, teachers, computers, books, desks, even our building. Once we left, we thought that would be the end of our school.

Until about a month ago.

Buried in a Chicago Tribune story about a school board update about "district reorganization" was this note:

The district also is furthering its long-standing practice of merging underused or underperforming schools into facilities occupied by existing schools. CPS proposes:
Moving the Academy of Communications and Technology into a shared building with Nash Elementary. ACT is a charter school that was closed last year because of academic and financial concerns, but it is reopening next year under the management of KIPP, a nationally recognized charter operator.

In the words of Bernie Mack: Sommamaabiiich

What that means is the school will open again in the Fall under KIPP, a national charter management group. If ACT holds true to its food court dictate than the new school will likely have little in common with the structure and culture of its namesake. The only thing that is sure to survive is the entity's ability to self-replicate. 

Although I loved my school, it was by no means perfect. Maybe it was best that the school closed if there wasn't enough money or we weren't helping students achieve up to expectations. But something feels downright sinister about the reopening. During the closing meeting, all the people in suits kept using the word suspension to describe what was going on. Like they had already moved on to plan B, which didn't involve most of the people in the room.

And that's the way public education is being transformed now. It's people in suits, armed with word banks and multi-colored graphs, making decisions for communities that have little to no voice in the matter. Without that input, these new/old schools will be doomed to replicate the failures that came before them.

**Bruce Rauner Update: It's worth mentioning that Bruce Rauner was the Chairman of the Board of ACT school. In exchange for a donation to the school, he took a controlling stake in the fate of the school. After he deemed the school untenable, he made the decision to close the school.

The Ace of Spades

So, now that Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are getting serious consideration as Republican presidential candidates, can we officially stop the charade and just punch NeO's ticket for 2012?


I was convinced that it would be George W. Bush who would benefit from the incredible political leverage the death of Osama Bin Laden would provide. Before the election of 2004, I was convinced that Bin Laden would stumble out of a CIA spider hole somewhere, just in time for the Iowa polls. President DwB and Vice President Chixon would ride in on an F-16 and blow him to kingdom come.

In those days we knew not to trust the dominant narrative. We knew something was funny with 9/11. We knew the first Iraq was a business transaction, the sequel an inartful jack. We knew that the Bin Laden could have been killed at Tora Bora, but was not. And even when GwB was able to get reelected and talk about how he didn't think about Bin Laden, we still worried that the Bin Laden card would be played in June of 2008, launching the tortured man and his be-speckled caretaker to the White House. We held our breath and didn't exale until NeO was sworn in, basking in the glow of Aretha Franklin's hat.  And then we kind of forgot about Bin Laden.


NeO was destined to be one of the most unpopular presidents of all time. Not only was he a brother, but the high and low swings are just a part of governance. You earn political capital and then you spend it. Along the way you have to break some promises and call in some favors. Perhaps bury some bodies. But the key is to have an ace in the hole. And wouldn't you know it, he sho nuff did. One suspects that the same interests who put Bin Laden off limits nearly ten years ago gave the green light for NeO to drop him in May.

It was perfect. It played right into NeO's invincible narrative. In the clutch, the man doesn't lose. He lion-strutted up to the podium and told everybody that he had killed the ghost, with two helicopters and a couple dozen SEALS. Driveright. Rightfootplantlefthandsweep. Perfunctory crossover. Rise up. Wristflick. Game.

The outcome of the 2012 election was announced that night in May, no disrespect to the DOA Republican candidate who stumbles out of Iowa. Before Bin Laden was Byron Russelled, it was really over when they said NeO raised more money than all of the Repugs combined. In the American political equation, the one with the biggest checks gets the keys to the house.

But why do I not get a good feeling about NeO in his second term?

Well, there's the fact that the gap between rich and poor is wider than it's ever been.

Or the fact that more immigrants have been deported under NeO than any previous president.

Or the fact that the Justice department was involved in the selling of illegal weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

Or the ongoing race to sell public education to private corporations.

Or more secret wars in Africa.

60% of the world's uncultivated land is in Africa. What does this emblem look like to you?

Or that as people were concentrating on their New Year's celebrations, the president just signed a law permitting the indefinite detention of American citizens. That's right, the son of slaves just alienated the citizens of this country from their inalienable rights. Of course those rights were only really supposed to apply to White males, but even they are getting screwed on this deal.

NeO, as much as I want to love him, is just a card dealer for the elite, working at a casino where the house always wins.

Narratives of Terror

Shortly after the brutal Gabrielle Giffords shooting earlier this year, the name Jarod Loughner was injected into the American consciousness. Listening to the devastation that he caused, one couldn't help but grimly do what we do when we need answers to things: Google Search. 

The news media studiously instructed that the footage would be disturbing, and it was more than that. All of them are eerie, but America: Your Last Memory in a Terrorist Country, terrified me when I first tried to watch it. With its Death Metal soundtrack ("let the bodies hit the floor" is the refrain), it featured a desert scene with a single American flag posted on a dirt mound, scrapping the ground. A figure appears in a black cloak and a happy face mask.  Happy face mask has only one arm ("his right one!", the on-screen comment prompts). While the music rages, Happy face mask lifts the flag and lights it on fire (patriots burn flags to preserve their honor, fyi). Then he creeps off like a creep.

I felt like I was in that scene from The Ring when that creepo girl crawls out of the TV. I stopped the Loughner video because I thought happy face mask might crawl out of my laptop if I let it run to the end. In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, this message directly from a killer was a surreal experience (if we're even allowed to use that word anymore) and a natural extension of our conversation to the digital world. Jarod Loughner probably knew for some time that his name would be searched for. (Afterall, that's what it means to be truly famous; people have to search for you.) He knew that they would search for him and he wanted them to see something special. Not some dumb skateboarding videos. Not some girlfights. Not some stupid mass transit rider beating on some other stupid mass transit rider. No, his videos would explain to people why he was doing what he was doing. Not only would he take lives, but as a child of our culture he knew the most important thing to control was the narrative of his actions. 

It turned out that this became kind of a moot point afterwards. Most of the videos were just rambling PowerPoints about world conspiracies, bad grammar, and the like. He seems to be wanting to say something about the power structures that lay under the ones we see. He wants to uncover the conspiracy that deceives 85% of us. Now, I believe the world is run on conspiracies, but the narrative Loughner kicked just didn't make much sense. There were snippets of truth tied together with a lot of nonsense. That's one of the real shames. He didn't even make sense. All that suffering he caused, that suffering he carries, all because of a war raging in his own head.

So what do we learn from it? If you thought the Giffords massacre would deliver the public support for stricter gun laws, you're crazy. With a Negro as president, we all just feel a little safer if the White man gets to keep his guns. Americans like being able to kill, and they don't need anybody to tell them different.

And as far as people taking the shooting as a message to tamp down the political rhetoric, have you seen "Give Us Your Cash, B****"? If you haven't, you really need to take a look to get an update on what the worst racist and sexist thing you've seen in a while. This is some cutting edge racism and sexism. It's educational. Sadly, the song and video look like they really were directed by an employee of Black Entertainment Television.

But maybe this doesn't have to be a meaningless event. Maybe we could actually learn something real about a danger we face. We are entering the age of narrative reassignment. Now, before someone does something horrendous, their first concern will be how to frame their own story. We've been constantly told that we have to "sell ourselves as a brand" and this is no different. Before they do what they do, killers will actually set the table for the crimes they are going to commit.

You know Facebook had to get their credit.

This came to mind recently because of the coordinated bombing and shooting that took place in Oslo yesterday. Apparently someone detonated an explosive and then later opened fire at a kids camp, leaving an estimated 80 92 dead in his wake. The suspect in the crime, Anders Behring Beivik, who looks like he stepped from the pages of of Norwegian Vogue, has a twitter account with only one post. What does it say? "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests." There has also been mention of "disturbing" right-wing internet postings from Beivik. Don't expect to see less of this kind of thing. Whoever conducted the 9/11 operation inspired a generation of murderous auteurs who want to control their own narratives. 

And to be honest, it's not the Loughners and the Beiviks that we really need to be worried about. They commit their crimes and become footnotes. The real controllers of narratives are the Murdochs and the Liebermans and the Bushes and the Bin Ladens and the...wait for it...Obamas. These are the men who sow narratives before they do their killing. 

9/11. The Taliban. Al Qaeda. Osama Bin Landen. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Saddam Hussein. That pretty much summarizes the last ten years of fear. It would almost be funny if not for the thousands of lives lost and the trillions of dollars wasted (stolen). Although the way Loughner and Beiviks managed to coordinate their online presences with their crimes may be disturbing, it pales in comparison to the horrors that await if we don't stop consuming these narratives that explain away murder and exploitation.

Oh, by the way, how's that Libyan petroleum extraction project going? 

We Gone Have Rocks This Big Tonight!

One time my dad and I were watching the local news about a huge drug bust in Oakland public housing. Police laid out the seized drugs, guns, and money like trinkets at a garage sale. There was talk of the "street value" of the contraband and local "community leaders" were consulted about the impact of the arrests. However, as the reporter made his final remarks, a group of young men clamored behind him to make their own comment. "We gone have rocks this big tonight!" one of them yelled out. Ahh, another seminal moment in the effort to set Black progress back a couple hundred years.

"Move token back to 1864. Do not Collect $200."

Needless to say, me and my dad still think it's hilarious to yell that out as loud as possible. However, it wasn't until the recent Gulf oil spill disaster that I truly understood what that kid meant.

First, I should say that the BP disaster has bummed me out. The feeling is similar to the aftermath of 9/11, when the totality and brutality of the disaster is just so great that it's hard to find words. I kept starting posts and not knowing where to go with them. I stopped watching the news to avoid images of ruined beaches and storks covered in tar.

...

There's no comparing the loss of human life during 9/11, but at least the events of that disaster were confined to that day. This spill doesn't seem anywhere close to stopping. The relief wells are supposed to stop the thing, but what happens if that doesn't work? (Am I the only one who is not comforted by the fact that the best solution we have to a drilling disaster is...more drilling?) Even if it does work, it will be months before they are up and running and by that time, millions and millions more gallons of oil will coat the gulf.

9/11 was a bit more accessible because it had a cast of villains that were easy to identify, and bomb. We know the major players in this disaster, BP and Haliburton, but you unfortunately can't bomb a corporatoin. Which brings me to sadness that has become the NeObama administration.

NeObama was supposed to defy the rules of the Matrix. He did it somewhat effectively with health care, but no matter how many bullets he dodges or digital baddies he highkicks, he can't get around the fact that his power is contained within a machine, and that machine is powered by siphoning the heat of newborns.

Hang in there, baby.

In other words, although the Executive branch is more powerful than it's ever been, our President (for whatever reason) seems to have little power to act on his own accord. He can frown and cuss and wag his finger, but there is very little the president can do. It's hard to shake the feeling that he's in the same position as his predecessor, stuck reading The Pet Goat while larger forces determine our fates.

Some would say that NeO has sold out, or that the whole hope thing was a big deception, but that's hard for me to believe. I think a lot of people are upset because NeO convinced us to not only believe in him, but to believe that the presidency would be the sight of revolutionary economic and social change. That has been proven false. Maybe I'm naive, but although I have lost faith in the presidency as an institution, I still believe in the man who inhabits it.

However, there's no getting around that the oil and war interests still run the show. If 9/11 couldn't cause a meaningful rethinking of our energy policy, is it feasible to think that that a few thousand oily birds are going to change things?

Which brings us to "We gone have rocks this big tonight." I first took the young man's usage of the word "have" to mean "smoke." In other words, it doesn't matter how many drug raids you have, you can't keep us from smoking rocks. But now I realize that I was off. What he was actually doing was a form of defiant advertising. He wasn't saying he was going to be smoking rocks, but rather he was going to be selling rocks, no matter what the police did. He wanted everyone to know that business was going to continue as usual. In fact, he probably gained a couple customers who might have otherwise been dissuaded by the bust.

That attitude is no different than a corporation like Haliburton, which caused the spill. No matter what anybody says, they are making their money, and will continue to make their money.

By the way, does anybody else think it's strange that this particular corporation has been at the center of every major catastrophe that's befallen this country in the last ten years? The Bush presidency, Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, Gulf spill, etc.

If this corporation was a person, they would be a definite candidate for the "No Fly" list. At what point do we decide that it's in our country's interest for a company to just not exist? It may sound silly, but can we install a death penalty for corporations?

Until we do take serious action to reign in these bad acting corporations, and their overwhelming influence, we're all going to be sitting ducks until the next disaster.

An escalating probability of disaster

I never thought I would say it, but it's times like these that make George W. Bush's style so much more satisfying than NeObama. His speeches were brief, too the point, and made little to no sense. They were bold assaults on our understandings of logic and of language, and were usually followed by some random form of mechanized violence somewhere in the world. As horrifying as it was, there was a surreal, cinematic appeal to his governance. He spoke [like a fool] and then he acted [a fool].

Dick Cheney brought that back for me today in his counter remarks on detainees and torture. He growled and cursed and lied, just like the good old days. When they were rolling him around in that wheelchair at the inauguration, I was concerned that Mr. Cheney would not be able to take his rightful place as archsupervillain in the NeObama universe.

Sup, shorty?

But never fear, Dick ain't going nowhere.

In fact, in Matrixspeak, if Obama is The One, than Cheney naturally has to be The Architect.

In The Matrix Reloaded, The Architect was revealed as the creator of The Matrix. According to the entry on Wikipedia, the Architect

"appears to be a cold, humorless man sitting in a large circular room whose walls are covered by television monitors" [an undisclosed location???]...he also has little facial expression beyond smirks and glares, but does exhibit emotion on limited occasions, such as regret, annoyance, and arrogance."

Uh, besides the thing about regret, that's Dick Cheney.

In the third film, the Oracle explains to Neo that the true purpose of the Architect is to balance the mathematical equations that make up the programming of the Matrix, and he is unable to see the world as anything beyond a series of equations. It is also because of this that he is unable to comprehend choice and free will and cannot see the results of such choices as they are no more than variable factors in an equation to him.

I know, it's scary.

And if you watched Cheney's speech today, you could tell Dick was feeling good, with that familiar glint in his eye and curse on his tongue. Hell, according to CNN his poll numbers are up. The argument of his speech: Yeah, we did it. So what?

The Original Gun Clapper

You've got to respect his gangster. NeObama, on the other hand, had an awesome speech where he talked about the reasoning behind his support for "revamped" military tribunals and the suppression of torture photos. The speech was well-reasoned and articulate and, in the end, it was just a speech.

Why, yes, I am considering a nursing home for a family member.

The commitment to human rights and democratic values is demonstrated through action, not rhetoric. Although I appreciate the pragmatic approach he's taken towards cleaning up the messes of the last eight years, the more we learn about the excesses of the past administration, the more it seems like there will have to be a more formal reckoning, whether by "truth commission" or congressional investigation or whatever you want to call it. This country will not be right until we find our moral bearings by understanding the degree of taint that guided the navigation of Dickanddem.

Otherwise, The Architect is counting on NeObama to lead a rebooting of The Matrix so he can start the whole damn thing over again.

A sequel is the last thing we need.

Let's Roll!

I knew it was going to be a special day when I saw them wheel Dick Cheney out in a wheelchair. Apparently the Vice President strained his back shredding files moving boxes, but could there have a better visual metaphor for the crippled, corrupt morals of the former administration?

The Post-Hope Obama and Other Thoughts

1. I guess my question is now: if we go Black, will we ever go back? Where are we going to find jobs for all these old nefarious White men?

2. John McCain: It ain't tricking if you got it. Sure she spent $150,000 on a shopping spree and laced her 1st Dude in $5,000 worth of clothes and made sure Baby Trig had the latest in House of Dereon streetwear, but did you think they was going to let her get up in front of all them rich people wearing some old moose hunting camo? You betcha, not.

Get like me!

Come on now! Don't hate because a sista is trying to step her game up. I know Minnesota Congresswoman Super-American Michele Bachmann could use some of that change after she put her foot in her mouth and the RNC cut off her check, but there's an old Alaskan saying that applies here: it bees like that.

Besides, Cindy McCain spent twice that on one outfit.

Your man might be young, but so is your money.

By the way, you better get used to the Palin thing. Ole' girl ain't going nowhere and she's going to be major by the time we get to 2012.

2. It appears that election day is going to look like that scene from The Firm where Wilford Brimley starts talking crap to Tom Cruise and ends up getting bludgeoned with a briefcase for his trouble.

What's up with the hookup on one of them dia-beet-us commercials?

The big difference will be that a) Wilford Brimley is actually younger than John McCain (no lie) and b) Barack is going to be flashing that smile while he's swinging away, probably whistling 99 Problems.

3. But what happens after the election? Republicans are running around like roaches with the lights cut on because they say that Barack will have one of the largest mandates of the last couple decades, will have control of both houses of congress, and will have access to an executive branch that is more powerful (and corrupt) than its ever been. I believe in Barack and what he says he's going to do, but it makes me a little nervous too. The most important thing he can do for this country is bring balance back to the Executive branch. I know there's a lot of things that he wants to do, but he's going to have to show some restraint or the unconstitutional changes that Bush made will be set, and be even harder to undo. Luckily, I think he gets that. We'll see.

Just be sure to maintain the dignity of the office.

4. I've been getting posted at school and haven't had time to post, but it really hurt my feelings when I couldn't write about the passing of my man Levi Stubbs. That brother could sang! It's hard for me to think of anyone who used the urgency and passion of his voice to tell a story. The first time I heard him sing Bernadette, I knew what it meant to marry tone with narrative. That's a big loss.

4. And Dolemite died too. I'm not sure how to feel about that because Dolemite always seemed like such a minstrel actor to me, but his movies are so bad that they're almost good. I guess it's kind of related to my dilemma about what I'm going to wear for Halloween. I would like to go as Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, but I know everybody's just going to think I'm dressed as a pimp. Obviously that's not a good look for a teacher of impressionable youth. And plus, now it's cool for White people to have Pimp and Ho parties, and that makes me want to hurt someone. So, Dolemite, I love you, but I hate your pimp game.

grrr...

5. By the way, I knew that McCain supporter was lying about getting tattooed by some Angryblackman. That didn't make any sense from the beginning and shows why diversity is so important: an ignorant person will tell an ignorant lie. She needs to get some Black friends or hang out at Popeye's or go to a barber shop or something, than she could come with something believable. Brothers that are sitting around ATMs waiting for White women are not looking to make a political statement--they just trying to get your money. In fact, Michelle Obama is more likely to get robbed by a brother at an ATM than a White woman. Sad, but true.

IGNANT

What's a goon to a goblin?

For those of you who missed it, here's a condensed version of last night's presidential debate. Thanks TPM.

Gordon Gecko, John McCain, and Fatcatism

Yes, the economy has been destroyed and we're all going to die. Well, we had a nice run.

The one saving grace of this whole situation has been hearing folks like John McCain rail against "fat cats" on Wall Street and their "excessive greed." Maybe I'm new to this, but since when has Wall Street ever run on anything besides greed?

Perhaps I missed the free breakfast programs and job training classes they offer down at the Wall Street soup kitchen, but as far as I know there's only one law on Wall Street: Get yours. Don't take my word for it, let Gordon Gecko break it down for you.

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of it's forms: greed for life, greed for money, greed for love, knowledges, has marked the upward surge in mankind, and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."


Very poetic, in a Rumsfeldian kind of way. My point is that it's funny to have people complaining about the evils of Wall Street greed when the place was built on an ideology that favors the capitalization of all human life and natural resource.
(Well, if you want to get technical, Wall Street was actually built on a massive grave site for African slaves. In the pre-Revolutionary War period, Wall Street was a trading floor for African slaves and at that time 40% of all New York homes owned slaves. But I digress.)

So yes, greed has gotten out of control, but no, it's not surprising. When there's no one watching, greed is going to trump humanity and 91 year old women are going to be driven to suicide because they can't pay their mortgages. That's why we have governments and laws in the first place.

Gecko's words are prescient, especially when he identifies the United States of America as a "malfunctioning corporation." Think about it. Over the last eight years we've seen attempts to privatize almost every aspect of government, from our schools, to our military, to our voting rights, to our national parks, to our social security to our health care (oh wait, that's already privitized). And the list goes on and on.

Now we done bought 700 billion dollars of bad mortgages. We're not in the middle of an "economic crisis," y'all. This is a hostile takeover.

"When 900 years you reach, look as good, you will not."

If only Vader could have harnessed the power of the Force and not let the power of the Force harness his soul. That's the thought I have when I see John McCain speak these days. If only he hadn't been seduced to the dark side by Karl Rove, he might have made a great president. Instead, Rove accomplished something that no North Vietnamese waterboarding torture could do: make McCain compromise his principles. McCain had his chance back in 2004, when he could have paired with Kerry and ended this madness, but he didn't have the vision, and as much as it pains me to suggest, the heart, to do what his country needed him to do. And now he is a shell of a man. Once a maverick, now a crony. Talkingpointsmemo.com has a video of him speaking after Obama's victory speech. This thing is sad.

Although the appearance thing is a pretty big deal in terms of electability, I hope we don't get too deep into this narrative about how perfect Obama is and how flawed McCain is. That's boring and it doesn't focus attention on the more important policy differences between the two. Plus, and I hate to say it because I don't want to wish anything bad on anybody, but history tells us that in order to crucify a brother, you've got to raise him up first. The more the public understands him as flawless, the harder people are going to be when they eventually become aware of his flaws. Even if/when Obama becomes president, he's going to have quite a job in front of him. If you haven't noticed, the country has fallen into a bit of disrepair. He's going to take a lot of heat for stuff that's not his fault and he's going to have to deliver a lot of painful news to a citizenry that's not used to politicians asking them for actual sacrifice.

And on a separate note: I heard that Obama was about to put his foot in Joe Lieberman's ass in front of a bunch of reporters. I have to say that Senator Obama has my full support.
That dude is a straight snake. One of Al Gore's worse mistakes was picking him for VP. I don't think we fully understand the ramifications of Lieberman's presence in that election. Watch that recount movie on HBO for a reference point, but I tend to think he really did sell Al Gore out. This history should further caution Obama about who he chooses for VP. He's got a lot of options.

By the way, one of them is not Hillary. Why? Plenty of reasons, but reason #1 is Michelle Obama. Can you imagine her and Hillary in the White house together? Michelle don't need nobody looking over her shoulder, criticizing her choice of curtains for the White house. So what if the drapes is going to be kente cloth? That's the last thing we need: Obama's trying to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians and he gets a call because Hillary Clinton done got hit upside the head with a shoe. Not a good look.

Speaking of ghetto, didn't Clinton and them steal some furniture before they left?