is it tsar or czar?

as gazans continue to attack israeli bombs with their presence, my mind turns to other matters, such as finally telling a good joke, or that tens of thousands will die once again today, bombed by poverty and starvation. the man who is thought to represent change actually represents continuity. his father was from kenya, so therefore all must be well with america. of course, mobutu was from the congo, and that did nothing for the thousands of political prisoners buried under the ring where ali fought foreman. marcos was from the philippines, and pinochet was from chile. i'm sure that made a world of difference to victor jara as his hands were cut off. the militarists of el salvador and guatemala were from those countries. sadly, that did nothing for the thousands of peasants that these men butchered. change would be peace instead of war. change would be intelligence, not ignorance. change, my friend, is not coming.

tutored the saint again today. last week, he was all business, and did a lot of work. now, unfortunately, he is starting to like me. now, i get to hear things, such as the saint loves rap but doesn't like black women, and that he likes asian women but wants to use use asian labor to make the products he is going to create, and how he has always been able to make a lot of money and will soon be rich, even though he currently lives in a housing project. in close to two hours, he managed to do two assignments that should have taken at most 30 minutes. i had to keep telling myself that they are giving me 50 bucks to sit in a warm library on a freezing day, but that voice didn't come through quite as clearly today. so, i am stuck with the saint, a self identified latino who can't speak a word of spanish, a young man who is repulsed by black women and yet uses the n word in a non-racist way and hopes to some day hit it big as a rap artist. is he a hip hop cracker? yes, i suppose that's part of it, but he is also a boy without a father being raised by a burdened mother in a housing project who likely doesn't have much in her head to teach the saint, if he was willing to learn, which he probably isn't anyway. so, he becomes a hybrid, an anti-racist racist, a poor kid who thinks that he's rich, a young punk wearing a north face jacket and 200 dollar sneakers, and living in a project.

on wednesday, the saint will once again come marching in. let us hope that this sinner has the courage to face him.