HUD Rubbed Head

A Bush Cabinet officer predicted this week that New Orleans likely will never again be a majority black city, and several black officials are outraged. Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, during a visit with hurricane victims in Houston, said New Orleans would not reach its pre-Katrina population of "500,000 people for a long time," and "it's not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again." Other notable quotable from the Alphonso :

"But I do know this: that the two and a half years that I've been at HUD, I am absolutely convinced that some of the best workers in the world are in Federal Government."

"So I had to learn, in the final analysis, that the Congress had a lot of say so into what we do in running HUD on a day-to-day basis."

"You can't rise as a class. You have to rise individually. It's what many of the civil rights-era people don't understand."

"We believe that, by the time that we leave office, it will be institutionalized, and these programs will be addressing the needs and curing the problem that we set out to do."

"In 1965, I marched for equality."

"I was soon drawn to the Republican Party because I realized that it truly, not just rhetorically, believed in equality."

Lawd, lawd, can I get my head rubs too?