Kanye West, Barbara Bush lay down the beat

In the days following Hurricane Katrina, Kanye West declared, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Barbara Bush declared, “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.” Two different people. Two different opinions regarding the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

These statements reveal that something is wrong with our country and those who govern it. A serious evaluation of the state of our society is desperately needed. The handling of the evacuation and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina opened the eyes of many and keeps the eyes of some closed.

Making racist accusations against our commander in chief and government in general is not helpful, but this ought to be taken as a realization that people in this country are unhappy with the current administration. When the former first lady, the current first grandmother, considers the displaced Gulf Coast area residents better off, it shows a detachment from reality; more so than the previous opinion against her son.

Like 9/11, the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina allowed our nation to see where we are vulnerable and what needs improving. Our government outwardly professes “compassionate conservatism,” yet its actions display “non-compassionate incompetence.”

The richest country in the world knows how to give orders and pull a trigger but needs directions on how to lend a helping hand. The US is compelled to manage its superiority with violence, firepower, and technological advancements. It is no wonder that with war we quickly pull the trigger but prove to be inept with helping those in need from a natural disaster at home. If our nation and the rest of the world begin to open its heart to guide its actions to create peace and curtail suffering, we can slowly create a planet that cares.

Unfortunately, we live in a country of quick-fixes and quick pick-me-ups. We tend to handle situations with haste and with little regard for others. Violence proves an easy means to an end; a solution when all other options appear futile. When Gulf Coast area residents needed our country the most, our government took its time.

Does a man-made disaster deserve more attention than a natural disaster? When loss of life occurs all disasters become the same. As soon as our country begins to reorganize its mixed up priorities, we might have a chance to better protect our citizens should tragedy –in any form–strike again.

Tragedy is part of the cycle of life, but we have the potential to subdue the painful trail of tears tragedy can leave. As the horrific scenes from the Gulf Coast region flooded television and computer screens, Kanye West probably said what many were thinking. Mrs. Bush, a woman of socio-economic privilege, reveals her “let them eat cake” attitude in times of great need. There is no sensible reason for such an attitude; senility is the only excuse for this asinine comment.

There is much to rebuild following Hurricane Katrina and even more to rebuild for the well-being of our citizens and country. Will we finally learn from our mistakes? I hope we will not need another war or act of nature or terrorism before we turn toward the philosophy of kindness and away from the philosophy of greed and power. For now, we can all begin to follow the guidance of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nath Hanh: “There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.”

This article published in "The Hurricane"

Facebook: The next generation of instant friends

As the fall semester neared, I began to worry about the incoming freshmen. It frightened me to think that these new students would not have a chance to meet nor attend orientation until the weekend before school began. I tried to remember how I dealt with my new environment as a freshman but that seemed like years ago.

While anguishing over the freshmen’s plight, I continued my daily browsing of Thefacebook.com. After receiving friendship requests from old high school buddies who graduated in May, I reached my summer’s divine revelation: the class of 2009 was on Thefacebook.

As giddy high school seniors, the class of 2009 had heard, some even seen, the internet website of college students that is Thefacebook. As the parents of these young adults wrote the University of Miami a big fat tuition check, this promising group of incoming freshmen finally received their UM e-mail addresses–their gateway to groups, messaging, walls, and, of course, poking.

With intense friend viewing and group searching, I found students from the class of 2009 to be new members of the Thefacebook from as early as April. If last year’s students thought they were Thefacebook junkies, this new crop of Canes chomped down on the bit until it broke. These students were excited to be closer to the next phase of their lives; I was there once too.

I continued my investigative research because April seemed a little too soon. As I scrolled through the accounts of various incoming freshmen, I noticed most fields to be completely entered. Scrolling further, these new members were already part of several or hundreds of groups, and as I recently figured out how to turn on my wall, the freshmen already had endless walls.

Then my eyes wandered over to the right side of the page, where they bulged out of their sockets as I saw the number of friends these students had already accumulated without attending UM yet. Girls with 200 friends; others with 500. Guys with 170, another with 4 (he had just joined that day). One thing was for certain: the freshmen were creating massive friendships that dwarfed my measly 150 friends that I proudly accumulated in a year.

How could these new students have so many friends already? UM must have decided to have summer orientation. No, they did not, but Thefacebook did. I hope the person with 200 friends maintains every friendship or at least meets each person face to face; they owe their quasi-friends that much.

Congratulations to this Internet website. You are helping ease the transition into college; however, I am still angry with the recent surge of middle school acquaintances, who I thought I had finally lost, asking to be my friend. I did get my redemption. I kept those past schoolmates in purgatory–that area in Thefacebook cyberspace when someone asks to be your friend and you have yet to confirm or reject the friendship–for weeks before I slapped myself for acting so petty and confirmed the childhood friend.

I do not know how you freshmen did it. Whether you selected the most attractive people or ones you held similar interests with, I was unable to close the case. UM is a large school, so good luck finding all your friends. As for me, I am just happy that I have a few more thousand accounts to browse; I was getting bored already. In time, you realize that you maintain relationships with five of your Thefacebook friends. And as you will soon learn, there is much floating around on Thefacebook.com, so please remember to use protection when poking.

This Article Published in "The Hurricane"

Katrina Relief Effort: A Reflection on the US

WHEN and IF the University of Miami begins to discuss the amount of funds that will go toward replanting our lost trees, perhaps it would be in our best interest to donate those funds toward the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast states. These victims are in need of food, water, and shelter more than our campus is of trees.

As thousands of people along the Gulf Coast, mostly low-income African Americans, await the slow-to-arrive aid from the US government, our university is cleaning up its own mess. With power returned and debris to clean, our campus may not rest until its natural beauty is restored. We should conserve money from the clean-up process and sacrifice time and energy to help the Gulf area victims who need it most.

With criticism coming from race-equality activists over the slowness to get help for the poor and disenfranchised of the Gulf Coast region, we at our luxurious, private institution of UM were helped immediately with our minor needs in comparison to the Gulf area’s needs.

Hurricane Katrina caused damage to the Miami/Coral Gables area in its own right. As the security guards around the UM campus make sure students do not enter the roped-off “disaster areas” and the crisis worsens in the Gulf Coast area, our problems seem trivial.

Is our private school campus of mostly middle to high income families an example that the rich get help before the poor? With such speed that the Coral Gables area was provided help, one would think a catastrophic disaster in a larger area would receive help even quicker. This has not been the case for those in Louisiana and the surrounding ravaged areas.

As one of many African American men pleads, “Take care of us, we need you (CNN),” we live like kings and queens. I lost air-conditioning for one night in the apartment area during the hurricane. Many students living off-campus lost electricity for days. Other on-campus students, blinded from the outside, partied all night in Clubs Hecht, Stanford, Pearson, Mahoney, and Eaton.

The royal treatment that UM on-campus residents received during and after Hurricane Katrina as opposed to the struggle for help in the Gulf Coast region is an example of the disorganized priorities that our country and government undertakes. The government officials speaking out to the hurricane victims seem as expressionless and stone-cold as when attempting to convince our country that our occupation in Iraq is for a greater good.

On September 1, President Shalala announced that UM is currently trying to accommodate many students displaced by Hurricane Katrina by enrolling them in available classes. This is a noble gesture, and it shows that we are more concerned about the well-being of students’ education than the iconic banyan tree. We should all be so generous in some way.

Like President Shalala, there are many good souls doing their part for the relief effort in what is the second year of devastating hurricanes across many states. As Hurricane Katrina barreled past south Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico, where was the help for those who could not evacuate? There was time. Two and a half days to be exact. Ask NOAA.

If lack of money and man-power was an issue, perhaps we now realize we have over extended ourselves in the folly of war in the Middle East while we still have much to take care of at home. According to the New York Times (9/3), when asked, “Do we have enough National Guard troops?” President Bush responded, "Of course we do." We should all feel so convinced.

This Article Published in "The Hurricane"

Grand Theft Adults Only

Children and teens will have to wait until they turn 18 before they can get their dose of virtual, video game sex, but the killing of people and fantasy creatures rages on. This past summer, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game had its rating changed from “Mature” to “Adults Only.” The new rating implicates that no one under the age of 18 is allowed to purchase the game. Select retailers have already removed the popular game and its new rating from their shelves.

This comes in the aftermath of an Internet modification that enables players to enter an otherwise hidden sex scene and minigame. The principal character then engages in sexual positions with all his clothes while the woman is naked.

Amid the outcry over a sex scene, obtainable only through the process of Internet downloading, Democratic senators Hillary Clinton and Joseph Lieberman voiced their outrage with Rockstar’s video game. Despite the graphic violence of the game, which allows players to engage in brutal deaths, it took a secret hack-job of sexual pornography for Capitol Hill to denounce the game.

Are censors trying to make an example out of GTA: San Andreas? While this game and other violent games flood the retail markets, in his New York Times Op-Ed (7/22), Thomas Friedman describes the distribution of Islamgames at the Iqra Learning Center in Leeds, England. In the game “Ummah Defense I”, the world has “finally united under the Banner of Islam in 2114, until a revolt by disbelievers. The player’s goal is to seek out and destroy violence against others.” This game further divides the ideological differences between Islam and the Western world, and it may be Capitol Hill’s next biggest concern.

With sexually explicit porn sites a mouse click away and virtual violence role-playing at our hands on Xbox, PS2, and other game consoles, what are we trying to safeguard our children against? From the explicit and verbal violence in movies to music, it usually takes an act of juvenile violence before someone notices. The Columbine shootings brought accusations against music artist Marilyn Manson and video games such as Doom. If we want to stop future damage, perhaps politicians need to sit and play Grand Theft Auto or a similar game for themselves.

Now that the “Adults Only” rating is used, no longer will the images of sex drift into children’s and teens’ minds while playing a particular video game. Children are creative; they will find it elsewhere. Let us hope all the uncensored gun shooting in video games does not make a child a better marksman or trigger some mental imbalance causing a rampage shooting accident.

Censors and Senators Clinton and Lieberman are sending gray messages in a world of black, white, and red violence. It is unrealistic to believe that we can safeguard the youth culture from entertainment violence, but we fail at making the minor improvements where we can. It was not until a modified sex clip was attacked that the scarlet “AO” was embroidered on boxes of GTA: San Andreas. The killing of police officers, women, and thugs had previously warranted the playability by “mature” users.

A double standard lurks in the country, giving life to violence and death to sex. In a country that favors war as the end-all solution to conflict, it is no surprise that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas came under heat for its hidden sex content rather than its violent game play. As for its gun-slinging, civilian-killing protagonist, he is no longer allowed to have intercourse. Sex is dirty. Killing is tolerated.

This Article Published in "The Hurricane"

The War in Iraq: A Sad Look Back

I have spent my summers in Cape May Point, New Jersey for the last 19 years. For the past three summers, two little hands periodically knocked on my door. It was the neighbor’s boys, two brothers, one seven and one five. They came to my father and me looking for help with fixing their bikes. This year I took the boys to the beach where we tossed nets into the ocean hoping to catch some crabs. Their eyes lit up with every crab we trapped.

Their father, Michael Kelly, was the Washington Post Writer’s Group syndicated columnist and past editor for The Atlantic Monthly. He also wrote Martyrs’ Day: Chronicle of a Small War and Things Worth Fighting For. The last summer I saw Mike, I helped him shovel sand into his backyard so his boys had a safe play area. Like mine, this was the Kelly family’s summer home.

When this war in Iraq began, he was one of the first journalists to go; he had covered Desert Storm. At the beginning of the war in Iraq, when the news networks reported a humvee accident that killed a journalist, the conflict in Iraq hit me hard and everyone else connected through Mike.

I cannot leave my home without seeing those two little bikes parked next to the yellow house on the dunes. Walking out of my house is a constant reminder of the effect the war in Iraq has had on the Kellys and many other families affected by this war.

As the war progresses and the death toll rises, the more we at home are joined by these unfortunate losses. There is no telling the length of our stay in Iraq or its outcome, but as in any war, the damages are irreparable. Tremendous suffering occurs on all sides.

The impact of death is far worse than death itself. To shield the public, the media rarely reports on life after suicide bombings, insurgent surprise attacks, or stealth precision bombing. As life speeds ahead, creating news by the minute, we bury the stories that came before. All it takes is a picture, a newspaper clipping, the recitation of a dead soldier’s name, or two little boys with bike problems, and all those events of yesterday become reality again.

Life is filled with tragedies. No person should ever have to go through a senseless tragedy, but for those who do, life is forever altered in a way that they and their loved ones will only know.

We struggle through the rise of gas prices, the president’s decisions, our occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan, political scandals, and life. With the impermanence of life comes the permanenence of death, and the emptiness that death leaves may grow smaller but it never completely closes.

Twenty-five years from now, when we have seen what became of the war in Iraq, the combat will be another piece of US history; a time of suffering in this country cemented in the history books. For some mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, and friends, it will be a time when a loved one went away and never came back. In any conflict, foreign or domestic, we sacrifice something for the cause. As generations of people across the globe have seen, a war is fought not only on the battlefield but on our front doorsteps.

Mike Kelly will be remembered by his fellow journalists, his family, and his friends. Through his examples, Mike taught me to always try to live one’s life with concern for the truth, as well as standing up for the little guy when the big guy grows too powerful. For all those who have died and suffered in this Iraq war, it does not make it easier when the reasons for going to war now appear tainted.

This Article Published in "The Hurricane"

We Are the Weirdoes

Tuned in to Court TV, I listened as Michael Jackson was found not guilty on all counts. With the Jackson 5 quietly playing on my laptop, I thought back to the days when Michael was African-American and appeared to be normal. Now innocent on molestation, conspiracy, and alcohol charges, he is white and weird. I was stunned as the words “not guilty” were read 14 times, but moreover, I came to the conclusion that we, though not including me, are the weirdoes.

With every verdict, a woman released a white dove, and another person held a sign that read “Michael, on behalf of mankind, we’re sorry.” For these Jackson worshippers and others who deify the King of Pop, their idol returns to the Neverland Ranch a free man.

It is scary to think that the hundreds of sign-toting fans who waited for hours outside of the Santa Maria, California courthouse are in fact your future jurors. What these future jurors fail to realize is that a difference exists between Michael Jackson, the entertainer, and Michael Jackson, the man. He is no longer the man who once “thrilled” us, and the jury refused to brand him a “smooth criminal.”

As fans moved the party from the courthouse to the gates of the Neverland Ranch, a man who shares his bed with children was placed into both Hollywood and legal history. For a singer who has been in the celebrity limelight for decades, a part of his fan base was undeterred by the accusations that were at hand.

Those people whose lives are mesmerized by celebrities often fail to separate the human from the celebrity. Stripping Michael Jackson to a no-name, accused, child molester, we would be far from releasing doves into the air.

Celebrity lovers immortalize stars forgetting that these icons are as human as the rest of us. Not even celebrities are immune from the mental suffering that plagues mankind. Yes, celebrities make mistakes like the rest of us, but there should be no difference between a celebrity’s mistake and your neighbor’s mistake.

The Michael Jackson case is evidence that a percentage of the American population have their priorities in disorder. The King of Pop may be free, but our servicemen and women are still chained to the soil of Iraq. Three dollars per gallon of gas looms in the future. The Aids crisis in Africa worsens as U.S. aid has not yet met expectations. Should we release a dove when a human being dies in Iraq or Africa?

While fans waited patiently in the afternoon heat for the fragile Jackson, family members of servicemen and woman wait patiently in their homes for verdicts on the lives of their sons and daughters. No one is knocking down the gates to the white house.

It is no surprise that Michael Jackson’s superstar status brought out the masses to support him in his time of need. If enough people can rally for an acquitted child molester, let’s hope we will see the same vigor taken to the streets in protest of other credible current events. We can listen to the album “Thriller” as much as we want, but it will not help pay for gas. Michael may be free but can he help my unemployed uncle find a job in a country whose job market floats oversees?

Maybe the parents who allow their children to sleep with Jackson are to blame. Maybe Jackson himself is the only one to blame. Regardless, on behalf of humankind, I apologize for us.

Holiday Day Blues

Memorial Day marks the beginning of the summer of 2005 has finally begun. College and high school seniors graduate. “Star Wars: Episode III” kicked off the summer blockbuster movies. We’ve filibustered the Senate and fili-blasted Iraq. We’re throwing burgers and dogs on the grill, dishing out potato salad and slices of homemade apple pie, and cracking open a case of ice cold Michelob Ultra (We have to watch our carbs before we hit the beach). By the way, it was Memorial Day Weekend.

My 17-year-old sister made a very astute observation concerning Memorial Day. “We are a country that honors our dead servicemen and women with a celebration of cookouts, beer, and road trips,” she said. Yes, young Rega, this is very true, however such similar celebrations for other serious “holidays” is all too typical for the average American.

Jesus Christ’s birth is bombarded with twinkling lights, panicking shoppers, making out underneath plants, and most importantly presents. To remember the magical oil that lasted for eight days, Jews devour potato pancakes, pass around chocolate money, and most importantly exchange presents. St. Patrick’s Day makes our dreams of drinking green beer come true, and let’s not forget all of the bunnies, ducks, rabbits, and chocolate that helped Jesus rise from the dead.

At the end of summer, we celebrate Labor Day to honor the working class with a final barbeque before the kids are shipped back to school. The burgers, dogs, and slaw are put on the table for one last time, and the Budweiser is sucked down because we have nine months before we need to look good for the beach again. Once we amass giant piles of refuse from our three day weekend of pigging out and revelry, we send the working class back to their jobs the next day to clean it all up and keep us fed again.

In between the meat patties and a brew, what is it that this country really celebrates? Year after year, holidays and commemorations become code words for parties and togetherness. I don’t want to be a downer on togetherness because holidays and commemorations do have many positives such as the ability to bring family and friends together amidst their time-deprived lives. However, firing up the grill as we attempt to remember those who fought bravely for our country, while men and women are on the front lines in Iraq, seems ridiculous.

During the Memorial Day weekend, I found that a majority of the public that I interacted with rejoiced with the coming of this holiday weekend. Memorial Day food specials caught my attention as I entered my local supermarket. In retails stores, salespeople wished my weekend well. Additionally, I was asked if I had any plans to celebrate. I’ve decided to sit around a giant American flag in my home and pass out presents with a plate of ribs in one hand and an Atkins bar in the other. I wonder if people truly know why we celebrate Memorial Day. If the retail world is gearing up for a holiday celebration, then so does the rest of the country.

The “gift holidays” are just as guilty as Memorial Day. From the day after Thanksgiving until the New Year, our country is put into retail frenzy as we gobble up every conceivable electronic device, article of clothing, and talking stuffed animal in a strong effort to please our family and friends. Our money flies out of our pockets like its Monopoly money. In the end, religious symbolism and togetherness are generally overshadowed by wrapping paper and an empty wallet.

This all is a product of the excessive nature of Americans and America’s brand of capitalism. Any excuse to throw a party and get liquored up is quickly seized. Presents in exchange for love and happiness? I’ll take it.

When we aren’t celebrating, we walk around declaring that we are good Americans. How can we be so good when honoring the dead is a call for celebration or the resurrection of the dead equals chocolate rabbits? I do not want to discredit these moments that bring joy into the lives of many or proselytize that we should all sit in our homes depressed, but perhaps we could take a little more time for reflecting upon the dead and suffering that wars have caused and a little less time wasting away in Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville.” We can make war obsolete if we recognize the suffering it has caused.