Guten tag! I am officially rendered speechless by this. From Mayor Adrian Fenty’s office:

The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative has been developed to help increase security for those who live in high-crime areas around the city and to help residents reclaim their communities. The program will authorize the Metropolitan Police Department to set up public safety checks to help safeguard community members and create safer neighborhoods in the District by increasing police presence aimed at deterring crime.

The safety zones will be established only upon request by a District Commander where there is evidence to support the existence of neighborhood violent crime, such as intelligence, violent crime data, police reports and feedback and concerns from the affected community.

Potential Neighborhood Safety Zones must be approved by the Chief of Police, and will be in effect for a maximum of 10 days. Public safety checks will be established along the main thoroughfares of the established neighborhoods. Anyone driving into a designated area may be asked to show valid identification with a home address in that neighborhood, or to provide an explanation for entering the NSZ, such as attending church, a doctor’s appointment or visiting friends or relatives. Pedestrians will not be subject to the public safety checks.

“The Neighborhood Safety Zones is just another tool MPD will employ to stop crime before it happens. The Neighborhood Safety Zone initiative will help residents terrorized by violent crime to take back their neighborhoods,” said Chief Lanier.

Initiatives such as the Neighborhood Safety Zones have been accepted by federal courts as a legitimate law enforcement practice in keeping with the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. The constitutionality of the NSZ initiative has been reviewed by the D.C. Office of the Attorney General.

The NSZ will be launched next week in the Trinidad area. [source]

Great! Yay Police State! SEAL OFF THE POOR NIGGERS! What’s next? Arm bands? Papers? Schwartzwitz?

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I don’t like it one bit. It makes me nervous. Optimism makes me nervous. Cynicism has sort of been a comfortable distance from which to watch and mock this planetary mishmash of haphazard shenanigans. It affords me the assholishness that understands that nothing is really sacred, while simultaneously enjoying my self-imposed higher ground of pretending like I’m simply just a visitor on Earth. That I’m really not originally from this foolishness-ridden planet. This begs for clever puns on “resident alien.”

What I’m saying in a nutshell: I was watching Obama’s victory speech on Tuesday with a few friends, and lo and behold: I had to confront the fact that, goddamnit!, tears were welling up in my eyes. Was it because this man’s message of hope and change really has a chance of delivering the goods if he gets in the White House? Or is it because a little 4 year old black kid somewhere can now confidently say “I want to be President” without any derisive chuckles from peers? Maybe it was sheer joy at seeing Hillary get crushed. I wouldn’t trust that woman enough to lend her $10, much less run a whole country. Maybe it was just an amalgamate of a whole shopping list of items that I’ve wanted, but never thought would get around to getting. Regardless, I wasn’t the only one publicly reduced to tears on the evening of June 3rd.

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Dr. Cornell West matters. And yet he hardly gets airtime outside of what is conventionally labeled the “liberal media.” Listen to the man talk about Barack Obama, Saddam Hussein, poverty, race, religion, and hip-hop:

(video courtesy of Al Jazeera on YouTube)

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Nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing at all.

USA TODAY says: Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls the situation “embarrassing,” and some members of Congress vow to fix it.

“Embarassing?” Really, Condi? That’s the best you can come up with?

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… Ernesto “Che” Guevara was captured in Bolivia by the CIA and shot in a schoolhouse. His bullet-riddled body, eyes wide open, was put on display in a hospital laundry room and later buried in an unmarked grave. He was 39.

“I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.”

“We are realists. We dream the impossible.”

*fist in the air*

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