Do you remember last week when President George W. Bush declared Kosovo to be independent? Riots ensued in Belgrade, Serbia.

All this talk of eastern Europe takes me back to my days in Dr. Goldsmith's classes at the University of Oklahoma. History and in particular geopolitical history has always been one of my favorite academic subjects.

But the big pop culture talk coming from the events of the past week centers on a video taken during the riots of young women in Serbia looting. Some have called her "riot girl," although there seems to be more than one the filmmaker follows.

Can't tell. White people all look the same to me. (Kidding.)

However, this YouTube clip blew the hell up this week to the tune of more than 1 million page views. The filmmaker, called gvantanamo describes the clip as such:

Dear viewers, seeing how this video has become hugely popular I think that is my duty to explain the whole situation.
The first part of the video is happening in a store at Slavija square in Belgrade, Serbia at the time of the torching of a McDonalds restaurant near by, when I by accident recorded these two girls. Two hours later, at Terazije square, I recorded two other girls ("Jesi li nasla broj?"), and shortly after I ran into the blondes from earlier who were emptying a store in Sremska Street. Astonished by their persistence on getting new clothes on a 100% off sale, I decided to further record them.



I would like to thank everyone for their support, and to Albanians, Croatians, Muslims, Germans... Martians and all others who are gloating after this happened, I would like to say that these are only marginal appearances, and that the huge majority of citizens of Serbia are normal and honest people, and I am proud to be one
of them.

On the face of it, this seems like a home movie that has caught the attention of Web surfers. But at 1 million views plus, what this video constitutes is living history. When professors talk about these riots years, decades and perhaps centuries from now, this video will be invoked.

And this is a terrific example as to how we are ALL journalists. There is no license to become one. There are no degree requirements. Not sure if gvantanamo realized his handiwork would be categorized as vital citizen journalism, but good on this dude/chick for posting this.

What I really liked is the obvious sense of national pride the filmmaker has in the face of knowing that the video he posted could make others think less of Serbians. Frankly, it was a very gutsy thing to do.