Kosovo Polje

This week sees more absurdity in the management of the american empire. An independent Albanian Kosovo. See Balkan Analysis or this Counterpunch article or, for less nuanced views, some Serb Blog or view the many YouTube Kosovo videos and you'll see what a disaster this will be. Here is a Diana Johnstone article on Counterpunch on the subject as well.

This battle is between the Orthodox and Western Churches. All the Eastern tradition countries are opposed to this wacky US/British idea. The Roman and Protestant countries are still trying to dismantle Constantinople. Actually it was after the Saxons took over the Bishopric of Rome that they started to forbid Liturgy in the people's language.

I had never heard of Camp Bondsteel before this week. Is it an Iraqi style monster base for the future of the empire in Eastern Evropa and the middle east? I dunno, but they sure wanted to destroy Jugoslavia and hand it to the Nazi's. Like the Croatian nazi's and the Albanian Nazi's. Slovenes cannot be tarred with that I suppose, they just wanted to re-join Austria-Hungary.

That crazy John Bolton who tried to dismantle the U.N. is opposed to Kosovo even. He may have gotten an excessively bad rap in that UN deal; trying to shake up a bureaucracy steps on lots of toes.

I got turned off Counterpunch after they jumped on the Aristide bandwagon in 2003-04. For someone who was there, and thinking, the picture was a little different. Glad to see they are on Yugoslavia's side here tho.

Firefox 3

I just downloaded Firefox 3, the beta. It is pretty nice on first appearance. I've heard Dvorak complain about it but on thie, my first hour of use I rather like it.

Agnes Bauduit playground

Yesterday, Saturday the 16th there was a playground building scenario at the Bauduit school. Our Recovery School District school. There were signs requesting 200 or so adults to help build the playground. I showed up around 9:30 and there was a good crowd assembling playground equipment and building planter/bench thingies. The strange thing was that seemingly all the brown folks were staff of the school and the civilians were all blan. This seems out of order because I haven't seen any blan students here, so I assume that the parents are mostly noir as well.

There were a ton of young blan with Americorps and a volunteer organization (name forgotten) and old folks who looked like church volunteers. There were some brown ladies who cooked a fine red beans and rice lunch, but no noir parents working on the digging or assembling or hammering that I could see. Disappointing.

Roxie is starting to like the school after one week. Kindergarted lasts from 8am till 3:15pm, quite a contrast to the 8:30 to 12:30 hours of the Trinidad Union School kindergarten.

Finding kindergarden in New Orleans

The public school system here in New Orleans is a confused mess. All the schools around us, the Carrollton district, are charter schools and application is required way in advance. We are here now, re-locating from Kalifornya, and need to get Roxanne into a kindergarten.

We've been to the Audubon school which has a Montessori system and a French system. We want to get Roxanne into the French school so she can become fluent in real French, not just Kreyol. Then she can claim her Haitian citizenship some time in the future and become Prezidan d'Repiblik. They give a real run-around there tho, and are unable to give advice on how to find 'just a school'.

Friday the 8th of February we submitted a full application to Audubon after finally getting all the required proofs of residence. Then they tell me that two full years of schooling in French is required before 1st grade. They didn't say that before.

So after tooling around the various school district web sites (no one will answer a telephone here) I discovered something called the 'Welcome School' on Poydras. There are two separate school districts within the same boundary; Recovery School district is run directly by the State, and NOLA Schools seems to have nothing but Charter schools which one must apply to a year in advance.

I went over to the Welcome School (no one at the local schools ever mentioned this place) and after explaining that I want to transfer into kindergarden, they actually found me a school and gave me a yellow sheet of paper. This yellow sheet is important; it actually gets you into school. Went over to the Agnes Bauduit elementary school with the majik yellow sheet and presto! Roxie is going to school on monday. It is a long way away, but they will have bus service for her in about a week.

The transportation system for these schools scattered all over the city must be crazy.

the generals of New Orleans

General Pershing, General Taylor, General Collins (who is he?), General DeGaulle. Do other cities have so many streets named for military persons? General Haig, marshall Foch. We have battles too: Austerlitz and some other Napoleonic battles. Oh, Napoleon is a major street as well, but he was a Field Marshall, or First Counsel or Emperor or something.

Krewe de Rex

Today is Mardi Gras, tuesday of fat. Actually, tuesday of grease/gras. The real meaning (as I figured out a few years ago in hayti) is that this is the last day before lent, therefore the last day before fasting requires the sacrifice of no fat in the diet.

So we saw our first Mardi Gras in La Nouvelle Orleans. The Rex krewe marched at 10am from Claiborne and Napoleon down to the St Charles infirmary route. Did this krewe originate as the Ku Klux Klan? their costumes sure look like night riders from 'The Klansman', or 'Birth of a Nation'. Their bio says that they started parading 130 years ago, which would put them squarely in the Klan resistance to democracy period.

Good party anyway, on St Charles. A family affair, no showing of mammaries.

The writers guild had a popular parade before Krewe de Rex came on. One sign warned that without the writers guild we would have Sly Stallone writing all the films.