12.21.2002

First Lott, Now Frist
Okay, I'm not so innocent that I expected the new Republican leader in the Senate to be better than Lott. But I am amazed that his biographical spin includes this tidbit: Until he was 37 years old, Bill Frist had never voted in an election. This makes me crazy. Why? What? How could he not vote? I guess, if you come from money, you know where the power really is and you don't need no stinking ballot to get it. Grrr.
Lott-ie Dottie, He Likes to Party
Well it's over, Lott has resigned and all kinds of black people are reportedly cheering. And I'm wondering if it was all worth it. Bush is still president, we're still heading to war and Trent just becomes the undercover racist conservative's new hero. I don't believe he's the devil, but I do understand that he believes what he said and is just sorry to have slipped.

The thing that keeps nagging at me is that if we could get this riled up over the war, corporate scandal or elections, we could really do something. I suppose one could argue that it's easy to get all righteous when there's one person to focus on. I'm thinking that's a big cop out, though.

Holiday Consumption
Last night - yes on 12/20, all last-minute -- I went out to buy some music for a gift. I was looking for gospel on cassettes - which are pretty scarce. Anyway, I went into our nearest Christian music store and it wasn't that busy. Which was a sharp reminder of where our collective heads are at (those of us who *celebrate* Christmas). I naively thought a Christian store would be kind of busy on Christmas. But apparently everyone was at Tar-jé. Then again, I'm not exactly a textbook Christian. More of a backslider, so what would I know?

Zora! Zora!
A new and fabulous (so I've heard) biography of Zora Neale Hurston is out this month. It's penned by Valerie Boyd, an editor at the AJC. There's also a new book that contains volumes of her letters - so more insight, more love for ZNH. I haven't gotten either book yet, but perhaps I'll get into them before the festival.