Bail Out Detroit--then fire everyone.

Andrei Codrescu opines on America and Detroit the bail-out request from the automakers. As only a novelist can. Listen here on NPR and give me your thoughts. Moi, fanboys & girls? I say do it. In the spirit of real change, not just putting frozen Clintonians in the microwave (ya here me, Barack?), I say give them $100 billion. In essence, nationalize them. Then fire every senior executive. Re-bid everything from law firms to materials vendors. Hire go-getters, innovators, big thinkers. Tell the unions salaries will shrink and there will be hiring of minority youth in mandatory training programs, but benefits will increase--including nice touchy feely European massage and quiet room stations on the line. Go green--for real, not marketing b.s. Build smaller cars, smart cars. Cut production F-150 type redeck pickups, mini vans and any SUVs over a certain weight. 50% non-gasoline fueled. Put the example out to the Third World--which from all accoutns just wants to repeat our mistakes by importing muscle cars and gas guzzlers. Tell US communities we need smart roads with mag-lev technology within 15 years, and go about designing this new generation of vehicles. Yes--Minority Report and I, Robot. Impossible? SciFi? Hell no. It just takes will. And that's all it really about. What do you think?

Requiem for the "Hip Hop Mayor"...or, Kick the Bum(s) Out

I wanted to keep this short and sweet, but I've failed. Kwame Kilpatrick, Mayor of that town that oscillates between unbridled potential energy and a sinkhole of inertia and everything ghetto, De-troit, has got to go. Whether the bastard goes to jail or not, he must resign. His presence is, in the words of Terrance Howard to Ludacris in the Oscar winning film Crash (and Obama to Ludacris for that matter) "You're an EMBARASSMENT!!!" His momma barely survived a primary run off. Such is the mold, breaking. I mean, an incumbent black politician, entrenched and powerful, almost loosing an election to an energetic newcomer without all the damn baggage and corrupt cronyism, pandering to mega-pastors and hoodlums alike? Wha' th' Fudge? Well, I'm PROUD to say we did it in Maryland first, knocking out yet another self-serving Congressional Black Caucus knucklehead, Albert Wynn, and putting in Donna Edwards. This despite Wynn's eleventh hour conversion to Obama. Now, should Barack be the litmus test? No, but reality makes things shake out that way. Almost all of the US and state/local black democrat incumbents who supported Hillary Clinton most certainly held the immutable genetic trait of being entrenched, surrounded by cronies, in bed with developers, mega-pastors, lunatic cliques within powerful unions, and all sorts of other such foolishness. living in the time of 19th Cenutry machine politics. Trust me, such tribalism with the polity and through interest groups is likewise historically entrenched. Centuries now. But Barack is the hammer of change (pardon the 1966 Mao Cultural revolution prose). Seriously, just as the Barack-Ludacris interchange is metaphor for the new world vs. old ghettofab culture war, Kwame's demise is allegory for a younger generation that's eager to copy the fatuousness and power politics of his mom's. Thus his age doesn't immunize him from tsunami that will hopefully sweep away old tools like Major Owens or even Maxine Waters and insert more folk like Donna, like Kevin Powell, or, on the local level, leaders like our very own DC Hercules of buppy nerds, Adrian Fenty (the anti-matter Marion Barry). Oh look--lemme keep it simple. Kwame's a crook, an embarassment. I could care less how many bammas and rappers think he's cool. He's done. An embarassment. Can we start using that word again? The Black Arts folk scared it out of our vocabulary in the late 60s, for the meaning for which it was intended. I'm happy to see it making a comeback. Now if it would only trickle into the book biz! Even if Barack loses to McCain, at least this revolution, of quiet cool, of polish, education and getting things done, has been fomented. Rent Crash and drink in the metaphor...