Welcome back to the '60s. It's gonna get ugly

Oh, Lord.

There's no way this Jena Six thing is going to end well, now. It's going to get uglier, and uglier, and uglier, and it's going to go KABOOM!

Down there in North Louisiana, them whut runs things done got their backs up. Which will help at election time, because the True Believing Right Wing has got its back up, too, and the rednecks are going apes***.

Meanwhile, Jesse and Al ain't going to let this go. Actually, they shouldn't, because this smells to high heaven:

JENA, La. (AP) -- A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy was back in jail Thursday after a judge decided the fight that put him in the national spotlight violated terms of his probation for a previous conviction, his attorney said.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers is accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell's attorneys.

Instead, after a six-hour hearing, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced him to 18 months in jail on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

He had been hit with those charges before the Dec. 4 attack on classmate Justin Barker. Details on the previous charges, which were handled in juvenile court, were unclear.

"He's locked up again," Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. "No bail has been set or nothing. He's a young man who's been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it."

After the attack on Barker, Bell was originally charged with attempted murder, but the charges were reduced and he was convicted of battery. An appeals court threw that conviction out, saying Bell should not have been tried as an adult on that charge.

Racial tensions began rising in August 2006 in Jena after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended but not prosecuted.

More than 20,000 demonstrators gathered recently in Jena to protest what they perceive as differences in how black and white suspects are treated. The case has drawn the attention of civil rights activists including the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Sharpton reacted swiftly upon learning Bell was back in jail Thursday.

"We feel this was a cruel and unusual punishment and is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement," said Sharpton, who was instrumental in organizing the protest held Sept. 20, the day Bell was originally supposed to be sentenced in the case.

Mauffrey, reached at his home Thursday night, had no comment.

Bell's parents were also ordered to pay all court costs and witness costs, Sharpton said.

"I don't know what we're going to do," Jones said. "I don't know how we're going to pay for any of this. I don't know how we're going to get through this."

MONTHS BACK, I was telling Mrs. Favog that we're in for a rough ride, because the '00s are the new '60s . . . with an attitude. Sad to say, I think I was right.

Hang on, folks. This is gonna get ugly.