The angry-cycle.

I did a little cycling today — nothing crazy, but as usual, you go for a ride, you start thinking about dying on a ride. Twice in one week recently, I had motorists pull out in front of me, close enough that I had to do the I’M RIDIN’ HERE Ratso Rizzo thing. Both drivers were on their phones. One was on her phone and looking at a cute doggie being walked on the other side of the street.

Whenever this happens, I’m amazed at how angry I can get, justlikethat. I think it has to do with the nature of the exercise — your legs are pumping, you’re feeling good, the blood is running high, and then someone gets in your way, and THIS WILL NOT STAND. I’ve stopped listening to the iPod on the bike the last year or so, because music only makes it worse. God help you if you cut me off and “The Rockefeller Skank” is in my ears, because I’d kill someone under those circumstances.

So I guess what I’m saying is, I understand how the lawyer in New York got hit by a lunatic cyclist who simply couldn’t accept the fact that a crowded urban park is perhaps not the best place for speed training.

It’s so hard to compromise, especially when you’re a high-achieving New Yorker. Where I live, the residents get amazingly whiny about being asked to lock their damn cars, as though they live in Mayberry and not across the street from one of the most lawless cities in the union. I guess in New York, when you’re a hard-charging Type A training for your ninth triathlon — and of course you’re doing the Olympic distance, and not the wussy sprint — no one wants to be told they should put that bike on a train and go somewhere you can do 35 mph speed pieces. Not when Central Park is right down the avenue.

And now you’re bored to death. Here’s another lawyer story:

Remember the guy, a Michigan assistant attorney general, who was obsessed with the gay student-body president at the University of Michigan? And put up a scurrilous blog about him, and stalked him, and went on Anderson Cooper, displaying perhaps the most obvious case of shall-we-say-supressed-weirdness ever?

The student-body president is still dealing with him, and today won a $4.5 million settlement against him. I haven’t been following the case terribly closely, but I heard the victim offered to drop it all in exchange for an apology. Refused.

And while it might be fashionable to think this is about freedom of speech and gay rights, what it makes me think is, how the hell did this guy get hired as an assistant a.g. in the first place? I know not every lawyer can be Atticus Finch, but lordy.

Not too much of a segue here, but if you live in Michigan or care about actual election-related shenanigans, I suggest you read this. It’s sort of appalling.

We’re off to Stratford in the a.m. Three plays — Henry V, Pirates of Penzance and 42nd Street. We few, we happy few. Please, play nice while I’m gone, eh?

Posted at 12:49 am in Current events |
 

154 responses to “The angry-cycle.”

  1. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 1:13 am

    Did a little ride today myself. Out to Torrey Pines to see the ocean and climb the hill. Nice evening for a ride. Typically, I don’t have to get around cars much on this route. There is bike path that covers the first 10 miles and then just a short hop under the I-5 in slow, two-lane beach traffic.

    The close calls I’ve had over the years have been mainly on regular roads. A few years back, they had the west end of the bike path under construction for about a year and everyone had to take a 2.5 mile detour on roads that were traveled by people coming home from work in rush hour. Usually it was someone on their cell phone. Very menacing. Sucks.

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  2. Sherri said on August 17, 2012 at 2:33 am

    Just got back to the room from seeing Henry V at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We band of brothers. In the nothing exceeds like excess category, H5 was our 7th of 9 plays on this trip, with two more to go. I love the OSF.

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  3. ROGirl said on August 17, 2012 at 7:19 am

    It’s curious that the Republican obssession with voter fraud doesn’t extend to the actual election-related shenanigans (Nancy’s phrase) as carried out by Republican politicians.

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  4. beb said on August 17, 2012 at 7:51 am

    Mom, are you there yet?

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  5. coozledad said on August 17, 2012 at 8:21 am

    Thaddeus McCotter’s most grievous sin is the sin of all irrelevant Republicans- trying to remove the deep stain of derp by strapping a collector’s edition guitar over his junk.
    It’s just Pat Boone with his cock in a box redux.

    I can see why he didn’t mount a pulpit and shake down the elderly for their money-he didn’t have the hair for it. But a Strat?
    He should have glued some pickups to a cigar, or a turd.

    http://www.freep.com/article/20120816/NEWS01/308160222/More-fake-petitions-for-Thaddeus-McCotter-discovered?odyssey=tab

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  6. beb said on August 17, 2012 at 8:49 am

    Thinks that drive me crazy are things like the report yesterday saying that prosecutions in the MF Global bankruptcy that saw a billion dollars of supposedly untouchable client money touched and lost will be unlikely because of the confusion and chaos surrounding those last days. Major fraud was committed and everyone involved gets to skate? At the least I’d like to see the CEO prosecuted for failing his fiduciary responsibilities. On the grounds that the buck stops there.

    Things that make me go hmmm? A report was released yesterday of a study of the sexual habits of young adults. The cohort consisted of people from 15 to 24 years of age and found that one-third of this group claims that they have neither had oral or vaginal sex. Well, the report says that two-thirds said that they had but obviously that means the other third claims to have never had any kind of sex. Think about it, 24 year old virgins in this day and age. I think somebody’s lying.

    I’m sorry coozledad, but you’re starting to remind me of prospero, and not in a good way.

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  7. coozledad said on August 17, 2012 at 9:33 am

    Sorry beb, but I can’t be arsed what you think. Go a little less churchlady, howza?

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  8. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 9:34 am

    beb, no doubt about the MF Global stuff. Absolutely criminal.

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  9. brian stouder said on August 17, 2012 at 9:59 am

    beb – on the 15-24 year old group; could it be that the 1/3 of the group that has never done anything consists predominately of the 15-18 year olds? (this would be my hope, anyway!)

    MOM!! HE’S LOOKING AT ME!!

    and regarding the MF’ers, it is not a case of ginned up “class warfare” to say (or bellow!) that every one of the people tasked in the glass tower (that that firm is undoubtedly housed within) should be frog-marched out of there and to the City Hall/Police HQ, and made to explain, themselves, what their job was and how this money disappeared.

    If they were adminstrative assistants, they might know who was doing what.

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  10. Bob (not Greene) said on August 17, 2012 at 10:19 am

    Cooze, what I can’t believe is that the McCotter’s opposition (assuming there was any) didn’t file challenges to those petitions from the get go. In Cook County, at least, that’s part of the election ritual. You file your petitions and then the other side combs through them to find out whether you stapled it in the right place. This goes on at the lowest level elections, for small town school boards and village boards. People are routinely thrown off the ballot for screwing up their petitions.

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  11. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 17, 2012 at 10:20 am

    We happy few . . .

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  12. coozledad said on August 17, 2012 at 10:26 am

    Bob(not Greene): I don’t know why Dems can’t seem to wrap their heads around the concept of vigilance, especially dealing with this generation of hamfisted crooks.
    Hell, a lot of them used to be on this side. It’s not like we haven’t read the playbook.

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  13. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 10:29 am

    Funny thing about that Crispin’s speech by Hal. He’d ceased to be Hal at that point, turned into a prick, and knew very well he was talking the “band of brothers” into their certain death or dismemberment. Sort of like the “let’s you and him fight” shit W spouted about Iraq just before Shock and Awe hit Bagdhad.

    http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushsuckerpunch.htm

    Won’t be long before intertube wingers will be claiming McCotter was in league with ACORN (which organization never committed voter ID fraud, by any stretch).

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  14. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 10:34 am

    Thought I would bring this forward from the end of yesterday’s thread:

    Oh lookie here, Nice. Real nice, NBC. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbcs-toure-to-panel-romney-engaging-in-the-niggerization-of-obama/

    My belief is that we could be at the dawning of a truly post-racial America, but it is twits like the guy in the link who are very invested in keeping the race card in play. And a few here too!

    And furthermore some thoughts on “Chains” versus “Foodstamps” as a few here were batting about the dog-whistle-y-ness of Biden’s “Chains” comment versus the “Foodstamp President.”

    1. Biden’s comment was not a dog-whistle. In fact, it was so blatant and racially charged, that everyone knew exactly what that moron was saying without need for advanced hearing capabilities. Subtle as a brick to the head and every bit as evil.

    2. However, my understanding of the genesis of the “foodstamp” comment is that is was an empathetic reference to the fact that the economy has been so bad for so long that many are falling off of the unemployment roles and having to go to welfare.

    YMMV

    And finally ACORN (which organization never committed voter ID fraud, by any stretch).

    Hahahahahahahaha! Stop it, you’re killing me.

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  15. Icarus said on August 17, 2012 at 10:36 am

    I try to run at the park or lakefront where i only have to deal with cyclists and pedestrians but occasionally i have to run through the city streets to get to the park. It only makes sense to incorporate it into the mileage rather than drive my car 1.5 miles and back.

    Anyway, I’ve encountered two types of drivers. DriverA is annoyed he has to wait 3 seconds for you to cross at the stoplight that he already had to stop for 1 second at.

    DriverB sees you coming and even though he has enough time to drive across the plane of the crosswalk, reverse and do it again, he stops and waits for you. This is great except it pisses DriverA who is behind him and most like going to simply drive around DriverB and come close to clipping you at the knees.

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  16. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 10:41 am

    Sad news… Great band name.. beats the crap outta Makeshift Memorial… just sayn’

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/17/world/europe/russia-pussy-riot-trial/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

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  17. coozledad said on August 17, 2012 at 11:02 am

    Danny: I wonder how rotten Breitbart is about now. You reckon the nose is off his face? Have his teeth worked loose?
    It would seem Shirley Sherrod’s God is more powerful than yours.

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  18. Bob (not Greene) said on August 17, 2012 at 11:08 am

    Yeah, the GOP and its passionate dream of a post-racial society. We’d get there sooner, Danny, if the GOP stopped being so willing to embrace racism and racists. Right, Newt was talking generally about the economy when he made that statement. Got it.

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  19. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 11:11 am

    Yeah, and if Romney walks into a Baskin Robbins and orders vanilla ice cream, it’s obviously code for his support of white supremacy. Got it.

    Geesh, you guys are dorks.

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  20. Bob (not Greene) said on August 17, 2012 at 11:19 am

    Trollerific

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  21. alex said on August 17, 2012 at 11:21 am

    However, my understanding of the genesis of the “foodstamp” comment is that is was an empathetic reference to the fact that the economy has been so bad for so long that many are falling off of the unemployment roles and having to go to welfare.

    Yeah, and the genesis of the anticolonial Kenyan Marxist comment was what? I’m sure you can twist that into something virtuous as well. You’re not that stupid and neither are we.

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  22. Julie Robinson said on August 17, 2012 at 11:27 am

    Adorable animals didn’t work the other day, but I’ll put some up anyway: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/16/photos-the-15-cutest-endangered-animals-in-the-world/#sand-kittens
    Really, please go look at them and see what conflict has done too these animals, all of whom are endangered. Then take a cleansing breath.

    In happier news, Dennis and I will be celebrating 33 years of marriage tomorrow. And in the spirit of compromise that helped a vegetarian and a carnivore attain those years, we are going where he can get a great steak, I can get a great salad bar, and we can both get a great dessert. Cork and Cleaver, here we come!

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  23. Julie Robinson said on August 17, 2012 at 11:27 am

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  24. coozledad said on August 17, 2012 at 11:35 am

    “Geesh, you guys are dorks” He said, as he bent to pick the toilet paper off the bottom of his Florsheims, farted, and his glasses fell onto the floor.
    “Hey! Where’s urrbody goin’ ?”

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  25. del said on August 17, 2012 at 11:42 am

    The odd thing about blind Michigan attorney Richard Bernstein being run over by a bicyclist is that Bernstein said he was not going to sue. For those outside Michigan, the Bernstein name is synonymous with personal injury . His family’s law practice is the best known personal injury firm in the state. Detroit Tigers games are broadcast from what the announcers refer to, every game, as the “CALL SAM Studios” (Call Sam is the firm’s advertising slogan).

    A mother once told me about scolding her 4 year-old son for running in a busy parking lot – “What would you do if you were hit by a car?” she asked. His response, “I’d call SAM.”

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  26. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 11:47 am

    It is a fact. More people enrolled for food stamps when W was the unelected pretzeldent. Newticles lied. Knock me over with a feather.

    “Teh race card” is an invention of GOPers to defend against honest disgust with their racist strategies and policies. And there is no “foodstamp comment” Newticles gets it into basically every sentence that comes out of his foul and crooked mouth. Do you have this shit implanted or do you study it?

    And if RMoney walks into Baskin Robbins and doesn’t order vanilla, people will have heart attacks.

    Dannny, ACORN no longer exists. And ACORN most certainly never committed vote fraud. I’m choosing to believe you aren’t an idiot, but if you insist on that ACORN mythology, that becomes impossible. You’re thinking of that past-masturbator James O’Keefe, who payed people to commit voter ID fraud in the Neh Hempsha GOP primary.. Your delusions about ACORN are consistent with the GOPer idiot obsession with the New Black Panther Party, which may have two members. Please feel free to provide evidence of vote fraud by ACORN. Hourly workers attempted to defraud ACORN for pay, and the organization vetted the work and reported it to appropriate election officials.

    http://www.factcheck.org/2008/10/acorn-accusations/

    Here’s truth about vote fraud. Wonder how much W’s misAdministration spent on this shit:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?_r=1

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  27. LAMary said on August 17, 2012 at 11:48 am

    Hey, I was nearly involved in a head on collision this morning with some woman in a giant SUV, drifting out of her lane, coming right at me while she chatted on the phone. It was on a two lane road, cars parked on both sides of the street and no where for me to go to get out of the way. I leaned on the horn and she looked up just in time. I’m still shaking a bit.

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  28. Heather said on August 17, 2012 at 11:55 am

    Watching what I very much hope is the beginning of the end of white privilege is going to be interesting. Fasten your seat belts, etc.

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  29. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 11:57 am

    del, that is funny. The Savannah yellow pages first listing under attorneys is for A. Able Attorney.

    Heather:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg-ckMup6SI

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  30. brian stouder said on August 17, 2012 at 11:59 am

    1. Julie – Congratulations!! Pam and I have celebrated pretty much all 19 of our anniversaries at Cork & Cleaver; and a few birthdays and other stuff, too!

    That place is simply the best, period…although another place we’ve tried that offers a somewhat comparable saladbar is that Trolley-bar place up near the palatial new hospital we were telling LA MAry about.

    2. Speaking of Mary – good to hear that it all worked out! Everytime we’re going down the highway and the car ahead wanders off the roadway and onto the shoulder (which is to say, every time we’re on the highway), Pam or I immediately say “texting” – and when we pass them, it is always true.

    3. Joe Wilson rides again!

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  31. alex said on August 17, 2012 at 12:13 pm

    However, my understanding of Joe Biden’s “chains” comment is a tacit admission that the Dems are completely wrong about economics and that y’all are gonna be wearing tennis bracelets when all the job creation from the Bush tax cuts finally kicks in.

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  32. LAMary said on August 17, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    This made my morning today.

    http://gawker.com/5935677/this-squeaky-parking-garage-door-sounds-just-like-miles-davis-bitches-brew

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  33. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 12:27 pm

    3. Joe Wilson rides again!

    Um, Brian, I guess you somehow think this is funny or something. It wasn’t yesterday and today it is a total non-sequitur. Yesterday, when I commented that Alex lied, I said it because he had hurt me personally. He and I do have somewhat of a personal connection outside of NN.C and for him to have posted what he did two days ago to Joe and I, then to edit his comment about me to a much more moderate tone while I was typing that I was disappointed, then to lie about it and move on… well I am disappointed and hurt.

    Now for you to continue adding more heat than light to what I consider somewhat of a personal matter, it is not appreciated. And your comments are quite passive-aggressive when it comes to me and I thought we could get beyond that since you purport to be a voice of affable reason and we have engaged in some reasonable conversation over the years.

    Alex, we should talk sometime, in email if you prefer since I emailed you two days ago on a personal note before you went off on me. I have trusted you and for my part, considered you a friend. What you said and later edited was extremely hurtful.

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  34. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 12:50 pm

    Mary,

    I want to hear a door play My Favorite Things a la Miles’ big brother, Trane. Or A Love Supreme.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I6xkVRWzCY

    I always wondered if Richard Rodgers ever heard this translation of his simple tune into God’s native language. Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner rule.

    Or how about something really wild, like Dvorak:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETNoPqYAIPI&feature=related

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  35. alex said on August 17, 2012 at 12:58 pm

    Danny, I don’t recall it, but I’ll allow that I had knocked back a few. Anyone else witness it?

    I didn’t discover your personal e-mail to me until just now because you’re e-mailing to an old account that I abandoned a couple of years ago when the provider jacked the monthly fee. They never closed the web mail account, perhaps hoping I’d come back someday. It has thousands of unread items in it, but mostly junk and the occasional communication from old friends who didn’t update their address books when I forwarded my new contact info.

    I’m feeling a lot of rage these days when it comes to politics. I’m sure you can tell. I don’t want to ascribe impure motives to all who belong to the GOP but as someone put it so well the other day, if you can abide behavior by your own that’s this unconscionable then you’re no better than they are. As I said, quit pretending to be shocked, shocked I tell you, at liberals who hold low opinions of conservatives. I sure as hell wouldn’t go to the Drudge Report and whine about them calling me a libtard, or nazi or other harsh invective commonly used there.

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  36. beb said on August 17, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    Julie Robinson – Go on! My wife and I will be celebration our 33rd anniversry tomorrow, too (8/18)!

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  37. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    Another GOPer intellectual:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/dave-mustaine-megadeth-si_n_1784525.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

    Climb out of that K-hole, you degenerate.

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  38. Dorothy said on August 17, 2012 at 1:16 pm

    1979 was a good year to get hitched, I gather. Our anniversary is in late October. Happy anniversary to the Robinsons and Mr. and Mrs. beb!

    Mary I’m glad you are okay after that scare. I feel like it’s inevitable that I am going to be involved in a serious collision one of these days with someone texting or talking on their cell. If it’s not me, I’m afraid it will be someone I love very much.

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  39. beb said on August 17, 2012 at 1:30 pm

    Dannny @14: While I think Toure is right about Romney engaged in the Niggardization of Obama, I think he’s wrong about this specific instance. The whole take your anger and resentment back to Chicago, as I see it, plays to the idea that Chicago is filled with corrupt, hardball playing politicians, like Richard Daley. I’m not an expert on Chicago politics but I get the impression that Obama was not part of it. Calling Obama ‘angry’ isn’t the same as calling him, say, ‘uppity,’ which is definitely a racial dog-whistle. Calling him a ‘food stamp’ president is racist because it plays to the idea that only black people get food stamps. And as with Reagan’s Welfare Queens plays to the idea that ‘those people’ are stealing money from hard working white people.

    But what bothers me more about Romney is that he doesn’t want to detail want kind of tax policy, jobs policy, deficit reduction policy, foreign policy, etc. He wants people to elect him on faith. You know who else asked people to trust him before an election? — Nixon. He had a secret plan to end the Viet Nam war. Turns out he didn’t. I don’t think Romney deserves being elected because he doesn’t think we deserve to know anything about him.

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  40. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 1:31 pm

    Alex, thanks. I understand your rage and God knkows I’ve corresponded in email and blogs after having a few pops. I don’t want to be part of anything that hurts or enrages you. When you get a chance, email me and we can catch up. I am out of town for a few days starting Saturday afternoon. Going camping.

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  41. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 1:35 pm

    beb, hmm. I guess the “foodstamp” never registered with me in that way because I have had family members on welfare who used them and don’t see disgrace in being poor.

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  42. alex said on August 17, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    beb, I don’t think there was any mistaking what Romney was implying with “take your anger and resentment back to Chicago” and it’s all about race, trust me. Barack Obama is neither angry nor resentful and was also never part of the Chicago Machine. He managed to get where he is despite the Chicago Machine. I know this because I lived there and he was my Senator. He’s one helluva smart politician. The right likes to characterize the First Lady as an “angry” woman as well. That’s the way Rush Limbaugh described her when the media first began taking notice of her in 2008. Such an obviously phony characterization would be laughable if it weren’t such a blatant sop to bigots and such an insidiously scathing insult to black people.

    I don’t think Toure is off the mark at all. Too bad there aren’t more people calling out the GOP so forcefully.

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  43. Julie Robinson said on August 17, 2012 at 2:08 pm

    Congratulations beb & spouse, and I will go on if you tell me you also were married in Bloomington. 1979 has proven to be a fine vintage.

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  44. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-state-parks-20120809,0,3921757.story

    Thankfully this was a bi-partisan effort!

    So a few here were bemoaning that government is on the ropes and will drown without increased tax revenue. Parks will close and policemen, firemen and teachers will be fired.

    This is how the budget-crisis narrative plays out in California. Politicians first tell us we don’t have enough money. Oh dear. And then they won’t even mention, much less address waste and inflated pension schemes because we have a broken system in California***. And finally, they scare us as they wistfully tell us how they have no choice but to go after public safety services, education and state parks. They even furloughed state park employees and had reduced hours at parks… just to screw with us while government actually grew.

    Now we see this. Hidden funds and illegal payouts. In the park system. And it is just the tip of the iceberg.

    ***The California Teachers Association is about the most powerful union in the history of mankind. They and the other public employee unions only back Democrats and most Democrats are so beholden to these special interests, that we have a total mess here. And the Republicans have their special interests and corruption too. They just never have a majority. California is pretty much ungovernable.

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  45. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 2:44 pm

    The single guiding and normative principle of the modern GOP is clearly racism, no matter how much the bastards try to drag Lincoln down into the mire with them, or how many JC Watts they trot out. Claiming this is not so is either disingenuous or obtuse. This has been the case for a long fracking time, but when the Teabangers bullied their ways to the top in the GOP, things got worse. Obviously, that is not to say all GOPers are racists, but you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. It is also undeniably true that LDS was a bastion of institutionalized racism until recently.

    Denying that racism plays a huge part in antipathy toward President Obama is plain dumber than grunt. It’s like Raygun’s infamous, clueless response to a question about racial politics in America: “Why, when I was a young man, who even knew there were black people?” There is no way anybody can remain credible that denies the clear racial component to Newticle’s food stamps crap, or RMoney’s pure D bologna about welfare reform, particularly when neither is even true to begin with.

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  46. Sue said on August 17, 2012 at 3:09 pm

    You guys want something to get furious about? I’ll give you something that doesn’t involve turning on each other.
    http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/

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  47. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    Sue, I actually saw this covered by Megyn Kelly on Fox.

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  48. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 3:20 pm

    Another very good reason Willard Windsock should not get near the White House:

    http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/16/why_the_us_shouldn%27t_go_to_war_with_iran

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  49. MarkH said on August 17, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    August, a good month for weddings at nn.c. Deb and I will celebrate 25 years on the 29th. Whew, it goes by fast!

    Danny, beb — Can we get our words and definitions straight? Did Toure say “niggardization” or “n*****ization” of America? I don’t think he intended to say or mean the former. I find Toure all full of himself and therefore, tiresome. I don’t know why msnbc thinks he finds an audience.

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  50. Connie said on August 17, 2012 at 3:32 pm

    Can I join the crowd? We will celebrate our 34th at the end of September.

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  51. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 3:47 pm

    Props, I can only imagine three scenarios in which we would go to war with them.

    1. They go nuclear, make a weapon and use it.
    2. They and their cohort attack Israel.
    3. They blockade the Gulf and interfere with oil transport.

    An interesting article about computer viruses attacking industrial machines at the root level is below. There is a lot of cyber-warfare these days. Like STUXNET. We definitely need to be concerned about this. Industrial machine computer interfaces that are part of our infrastructure are designed from the ground up for one purpose, to give a human interface to control the machine in situ and/or remotely. Security is an afterthought on these systems and it is very difficult to effectively add security to these machines as an add-on capability. As more of them get network access, more are exposed to very basic vulnerabilities. It is quite alarming to say the least.

    http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/08/17/1816247/destructive-shamoon-malware-targets-energy-sector

    Mark, I don’t know why msnbc thinks it finds and audience. 🙂

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  52. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    Another RMoney gaffe that got virtually no attention. Great googly-moogly this is stupid:

    http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/10/romneys_japan_remark_raises_eyebrows?wpisrc=obnetwork

    What a fracking tool.

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  53. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 17, 2012 at 3:53 pm

    Skynet’s comin’.

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  54. Jolene said on August 17, 2012 at 4:14 pm

    Today’s photo collection at The Atlantic concerns people across the world doing various things (shopping, feasting, praying) related to the celebration of Ramadan. Interesting to see the reach and diversity of Islam, not to mention good to be reminded how big and varied the world is.

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  55. brian souder said on August 17, 2012 at 4:49 pm

    Danny – I apologize for elbowing you. Your “you lied!” post made me laugh out loud, and I posted the Joe Wilson thing – twice now – without considering whether that would hurt your feelings.

    I confess that the temptation is to point to posts from you over the past few days where it seemed to me that you simply jumped in and waved the red cape at all the old bulls in the pen hereabouts (and indeed, including this sentence shows that I gave in to that temptation!), just to watch us snort and scrape – but you’re still right; the “Joe Wilson” posts I responded to you with were genuinely thoughtless, and they didn’t further any sort of intelligent discussion. (and now, I’m fending off more temptations and digressions, about names…but we’ll succeed in arresting them, by and by)

    My wife’s grandma on her dad’s side had an all-purpose response she utilized, when conversation might otherwise veer off the road. She’d say – with an inscrutable half-smile upon her face – “Oh; uh huh”, and then move on to something else entirely. As I continue to grow up(!), I definitely see the wisdom in that approach

    One last semi-un-related comment, regarding politics and race, which occurs to me every evening when I watch the news*. Watch for it yourself, tonight, and tell me what you see.

    Picture: candidate Romney or Ryan, addressing an adoring, enthusiastic crowd, and with folks before and behind them; and then, President Obama or VP Biden addressing an adoring crowd, and with folks before and behind them. What do you see?

    I see – without fail – almost entirely white crowds with Romney/Ryan, and mixed crowds with Obama/Biden. This “optic” almost never fails.

    (And I’d be the first to agree that folks get selected for the honor of being in the backdrop on the speaker’s stage, and therefore there is a “thumb on the scale” in this observation. So this is what the Romney campaign WANTS to show America?)

    Everybody, in unison now:

    “OH, UH HUH. DID I MENTION TO YOU THAT MY SISTER HAS THE SHINGLES?

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  56. beb said on August 17, 2012 at 4:49 pm

    Julie, wedded in De-troit! Still live there.

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  57. Deborah said on August 17, 2012 at 5:47 pm

    Happy anniversary to all who are celebrating wedded bliss.

    Danny, excuse me but you can’t expect to come to a site like nn.c where the majority of people here are Dems, and poke at us and not imagine that you might get pummeled. These are very frustrating times, emotions run high before elections. If you can’t stand the heat…

    And to think that we are heading into a post racial world is ludicrous. I remember thinking in my younger, naive days that racism would be wiped out in my lifetime. I would love it if that were so, but it just is not, far far from it.

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  58. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 6:34 pm

    Ayn Ryan caught in bald-faced lie:

    http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/16/702921/after-documents-show-paul-ryan-secured-20-million-in-stimulus-grants-he-claims-i-never-asked-for-stimulus/

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  59. LAMary said on August 17, 2012 at 6:35 pm

    “…And to think that we are heading into a post racial world is ludicrous. I remember thinking in my younger, naive days that racism would be wiped out in my lifetime. I would love it if that were so, but it just is not, far far from it.”

    Me too. It’s a little heart breaking, isn’t it. It’s so destructive.

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  60. 4dbirds said on August 17, 2012 at 6:41 pm

    32 years on Sept 25. 🙂

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  61. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 6:49 pm

    Well, I disagree with some of you about the state of race relations in America, but I do recognize that there are a lot of people who are interested in keeping that narrative alive for political gain. And I think that is sad, destructive and very heartbreaking.

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  62. del said on August 17, 2012 at 6:55 pm

    Oh, I don’t know Deborah, I prefer some diversity in political viewpoints in the comments. Well informed comments help to clarify our understanding. And as for intemperate comments, they’re often the funniest, so there’s that. One can appreciate the comments in good humor provided that folks make up and move along, something nn.c commenters do nicely. (Well done gentlemen.)

    I agree that we’re not in a post-racial world yet.

    Like Brian Stouder I’m in my 19th year of wedded bliss with a Pam.

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  63. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 7:13 pm

    del, good to see you. I thought you still frequented these parts. 🙂

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  64. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 7:17 pm

    Danny@60: Butter wouldn’t melt. GOP is still working the Southren Strategy for all it is worth. Acting like that isn’t so is just bizarre. You may say “What about Allen West and Hermanator Cain?” I say “Exactly.”

    I’m going to see Paranorman tomorrow, but nobody will go with me. I wish I knew a 10 year old to go with. When I saw “From the makers of Coraline” I was hooked. Coraline is brilliant.

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  65. Deborah said on August 17, 2012 at 7:50 pm

    Del, I agree that I prefer diversity in political viewpoints. I love it that we have a few conservatives on board and wish we had more. What I don’t appreciate is the poking to incite conflict. I wouldn’t think of going to a right wing site and doing that. What does it prove, where does it get you. I don’t get the attraction of doing that.

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  66. Joe K said on August 17, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N87403/history/20120817/0753Z/KDAY/KJAN
    Pilot Joe excellent adventure last night. Smooth but lots, and lots, and lots, of lightning. It was a amazing thing to witness. I ended up holding for 10 minutes to let the worst of the rain get by, visibility was down to 1/4mile. I have to agree with Danny I just don’t have a problem with race,some people just can’t get over the fact that race to MOST, not all, Republican just doesn’t matter anymore and it makes them mad, because it takes away another tool to use against us.
    Pilot Joe, Married 29yrs last June

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  67. MarkH said on August 17, 2012 at 8:04 pm

    So…it was the latter. At least he did apologize.

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbcs-toure-apologizes-for-niggerization-comment/

    Post-racial America? I thought we were well on our way after Nov. 3, 2008. Guess not. But it’s my considered opinion the resistance is not one-sided. Opinions may vary.

    EDIT – So, Deborah, with all due respect, we conservatives are invited as tokens to the nn.c party, just don’t propagate and make trouble? If the majority does rule, so be it, we can still be here and have fun. But it doesn’t excuse “poking to incite conflict” from the likes of Cooz, Prospero, Borden, a few others, who are regulary vile in their anger. Just sayin’.

    By the way, my only problem with our president is his propensity to overpromise (campaign) and underdeliver (post-election). Many of you Obama supporters here have expressed the same disappointment, so it’s not always a right-left thing.

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  68. LAMary said on August 17, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    Danny. Indeed. The Republicans are keeping racism alive to get the votes of all the folks who cross the street if a young black man is walking towards them on the sidewalk and all the people who assume any black person in good job got there because affirmative action put them there. Maybe in your universe you don’t see that stuff. I see it here. I know racists. I’m related to a few. I know young people who have learned it from their parents and for some reason it’s more acceptable to express it openly now.
    To quote a blood relative of mine who is a policeman in a semi-rural area, when I asked him what had happened to his hands, which were swollen and cut, “I was up all night beating up niggers.” This was four years ago. His children who are in their twenties, echo their dad. They post ugly racist things on their facebook pages. Stunningly ugly.
    This relative has received awards for his performance as a cop. He’s also been investigated a few times for undue force but never suffered any consequences. He’s a big Fox News fan, and listens to Rush.
    A co worker of mine is visibly very nervous around black men. She absolutely freaked out when a security guard who happened to be black came into our office after hours to make sure we were OK. She said, “it’s lucky I don’t have my gun. How are we supposed to know he’s a real security guard? My husband would have shot him if that happened to him.” When telling the story to her husband on the phone, she referred to the security guard as ” a huge black guy, very menacing and aggressive.” I’m five ten. This guy was shorter than I and didn’t look particularly scary. He used his key to come into our office and checked to make sure we were employees and not someone who shouldn’t be around. This was about 7:30 at night when the rest of the offices were dark. This is what security guards do, I think. It’s not menacing.

    So yes, the narrative is alive and it sounds like dog whistles to me. Maybe I just hear things at higher frequency.

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  69. Minnie said on August 17, 2012 at 8:14 pm

    LAMary, so glad you averted the collision this morning. Elsewise we may never have heard the garage door channeling Bitches Brew Miles. I still recall first hearing that record.

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  70. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 8:25 pm

    I like Spain better than Bitches Brew, but y’know, de gustibus:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9XT0_WZvCE&feature=related

    Sorry, but trying to claim the birther horseshit isn’t racism-fueled is fracking lame as can be. Of course GOPers don’t want to come clean. It’s a politically profitable cottage industry.

    GOP is the redneck party these days, and trying to claim they aren’t is pitifully stupid:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nGw_vAnqPI

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  71. del said on August 17, 2012 at 8:54 pm

    LAMary, cops are shaped by what they see daily and most I know are into conservative media. I get that. Their experiences lead to views that are different from mine, but they’re honest reflections of what they live. I’d get jaded too if I were a cop. It’s interesting to hear about what you’ve seen though, it resonates with me.

    Yeah Deborah, sometimes our provocateurs (myself included) may step over the line. But consider the diminshed capacity defense. Sometimes we’re sleep deprived, off our meds, or have simply overindulged in the sacred pint. If I cross the line in future comments please imagine me doing so in a way that W.C. Fields might if he had access to a keyboard, that is, purposefully feather-ruffling, but for humorous effect. 🙂

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  72. Danny said on August 17, 2012 at 9:22 pm

    Mary, BTW, I too am glad you averted a collision this morning.

    I was purposefully vague about who was keeping the narrative alive to offer a slightly softer response to you and I was hopeful that you would not take the opportunity to pounce incorrectly (IMO) on it. In light of Biden’s “chains” comments and Toure’s “niggerization” comments (which at least he has back-tracked upon), I don’t see how you can win the day on your argument. Sorry, but it is your guys who are keeping this alive and well for political gain and it is cynical and dishonest. Please, don’t carry water for these guys.

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  73. Deborah said on August 17, 2012 at 9:32 pm

    Carrying water for these Guys? As if the rightwing didn’t carry water for the Bush administration when they got us into unjust wars and brought down the financial world as we know it. We didn’ hear word one from you guys back when the deficit was run up to the extreme. Carrying water indeed…

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  74. Rana said on August 17, 2012 at 9:34 pm

    Ah, yes, pointing out racism is keeping racism alive.

    For pity’s sake, what a load of horse crap.

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  75. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 9:48 pm

    Reading back, Danny is trying to make (incrementally) the indisputably spurious argument that the GOP has moved beyond racial politics while the Democratic Party keeps race issues alive to use against the innocent, post-racial GOPers. That’s either monumentally stupid or spectacularly mendacious. GOP victimhood is incredibly pathetic. What a crock of shit. They invented “the race card” to defend against any honest appraisal of the GOP’s continued employment of the Southren Strategy. When did they call that off Danny? That’s delusional shit. I don’t know Danny, so I won’t guess whether this is stupidity or cutesy. One way or another ist’s dishonest as hell.

    Deborah, what we heard back then was Dickless insisting deficits doan mean dick.

    The dumbest ass thing about the racist GOPer attacks on the President is their twofold insistence that he is at once stupid and incompetent, and some sort of Socialist provacateur savant mastermind. One or the other you racist bastards.

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  76. coozledad said on August 17, 2012 at 10:08 pm

    I wouldn’t think of going to a right wing site and doing that. What does it prove, where does it get you. I don’t get the attraction of doing that.
    They think they’re imperialists in the mold of Stanley and Livingstone, converting coons to the white lord. They think you’re dumbasses. When you engage them as you would a business partner or another adult, they’ve got you.
    The really sad part is, nobody is willing to suck King Leopold’s cock like whiteboys. They’re greedy for it. It’s a dynamic that will replay until the poors take their money, confiscate their junk and chop off their useless heads.
    Obama is the last chance they had to stay the brutal course of retributive history. Fuck them.
    EDIT: This is the only appropriate response for the jacklegs who come out here and puke up a bucket of fucking Fox news. My advance apologies to the churchladies who let it get up their ass.

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  77. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 10:57 pm

    Sorry, but I refuse to believe anybody is stupid enough to make the Democrats maintain racism to make GOPers look bad argument. The bad will and rock-steady dishonesty it takes to maintain such an sinine claim would seem to preclude being able to breathe. Just abject, total bullshit, Danny. You can’t be that fracking stupid, or somebody is turning on that computer for you.

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  78. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 11:24 pm

    Seriously, Teabangers aren’t redneck racist gun thugs, they just pretend to be racists to lure racist Democrats into playing the imaginary “race card”. Gutdom what a GOPer crock of shit.

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  79. Kirk said on August 17, 2012 at 11:35 pm

    Our 25th anniversary is a week from Tuesday, and we’ll celebrate it in Savannah after several nights on Jekyll Island.

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  80. brian stouder said on August 17, 2012 at 11:55 pm

    Congratulations to the Mr and Mrs Mark, Beb, Connie, Del, and Kirk!

    Marriage is one of those things that I just didn’t “get” until, all of a sudden… I got it.

    And, apologies to our proprietress. Earlier I posted a somewhat left-handed apology to good ol’ Danny, and I rambled on (and on and on) – and the post (somewhere back in the 30’s) apparently went off into the moderation loop somewhere. (I probably typed my name or password incorrectly)

    Suffice it to say, I apologize for calling you Joe Wilson, Danny. At that moment it struck me as funny, but – even despite that you do seem better able to dish than to withstand, still – I see your point.

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  81. Prospero said on August 17, 2012 at 11:57 pm

    Kirk, go down to River Street and visit Kevin Barry’s.

    I’ve got it. Emmitt Till convinced those peckerwoods to lynch him so Democrats could play the “race card”. Jesus, what an odious crock of shit, Danny.

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  82. Dexter said on August 18, 2012 at 12:17 am

    Kirk, congratulations to you and Mrs. Kirk. I’ll try to bring home a Redlegs victory…by pure luck we get to see Mr. Cueto pitch against the old Notre Dame pass catcher, Jeff Samardzija.
    I haven’t seen a game for so long (as reported here, 12 years)that I feel like a kid about to go to his first game.
    Time to crash…on the road in seven hours.
    My bike riding Friday was split into three time periods, first, a ride back from the tire dealer where I had a new set of tires on the newly-aquired Chevy Blazer. Then the two miler back to the garage to get the truck and pay for the tires. Later a pleasant , relaxing ride around town while listening to the Tigers on my headset.
    I was thinking about leaving the old tires on a while longer…but man…I’d so rather feel safe than worrying about badly worn tires while careening down and then up I-75 at 75 mph.

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  83. Prospero said on August 18, 2012 at 1:09 am

    Sorry if I was impolitic, but Danny’s bullshit is heinous. And you married folk, I wish I’d been better at it, but I wound up with a wonderful pard, so long as I keep her meds modified:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKSnyS-vmkg

    But seriously that shit about whatever. Seriously, Danny, GOP isn’t racist to the core? Are you stupid or fracking nuts?

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  84. coozledad said on August 18, 2012 at 7:48 am

    I’ve heard the pugs here lamenting the continued existence of the SPLC. Here’s why:
    http://www.joemygod.blogspot.com/2012/08/frc-president-tony-perkins-supported.html

    Racist pukeslicks.

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  85. coozledad said on August 18, 2012 at 8:01 am

    Aaaand more murdering right-wing filth:
    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/louisiana_ambush.php?ref=fpb

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  86. alex said on August 18, 2012 at 9:25 am

    Danny, I don’t know what rarefied world you inhabit, but I encounter people all the time who think nothing of dropping n-bombs and telling anecdotes about people on welfare and foodstamps driving new Escalades and wearing diamonds. Your party is the one keeping that narrative alive for political gain. And your party is the one that invented the canard that black people no longer have any right to be aggrieved—after all, they can become Harvard law grads and president of the United States all because affirmative action gives them preference over better-qualified whites. And if it weren’t for teleprompters they would be inarticulate fools. Again it looks to me like you’re just trying to goad us here.

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  87. beb said on August 18, 2012 at 10:22 am

    Two years of hard labor for writing a song that badmouths Putin. I guess that means the Dixie Chicks got off easy.

    I was fascinated by a report on Rachel Maddow that attacks by Afghan forces on American troops has gotten so bad that American troops are now required to carry live ammo in their weapons at all times. And that when US and Afghan forces meet one US troop is to take a position away from the others so as to provide cover in case of attack. Which makes me wonder: exactly what was our goal for being there?

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  88. Danny said on August 18, 2012 at 10:44 am

    Alex, I guess it must be incredibly different where a few of you live. I just have not encountered abject racism much in my life in any of the several places that I have lived and when I have, I’ve called individuals out because I don’t tolerate it.

    Back in my days in B’more, we just all grew up together and that was that… and out here in San Diego we have close friends from so many backgrounds and ethnicities, it’s just a great continuation. And it isn’t only my personal circle that I draw upon to reach my conclusions that we are at the dawning of a post-racial society. I look around at the greater flow of societal norms and see multiculturalism and goodwill embraced all around and the shackles of our distrusting and prejudiced past being rejected. From the street-view level to the business-environment level to the media-culture level things are changing rapidly for the better.

    I travel a bit and it seems every place I go, the teenagers are all hanging out together. There are clicks, of course, but I mainly see clicks made up of multi-ethnic cohorts. Adolescent dweebs and dorks of all backgrounds enjoying each other’s company. And there is much more I could say on all of this, but I think you get my point. I am not arguing from the specific to the general, using only anecdotes of strangely benighted family and acquaintances. Most of of have those within our circles who we could point to, but they are becoming the exception rather than the norm with each passing year.

    And on the national political level, well, I have made my point already there with Biden and Toure. Now it looks like Bill Maher is stepping in it by saying that Obama “plays golf like a white, but fights like a black.” How racistly quaint of him, eh? And like these three recent examples, there are so many liberals on the national political stage who daily are keeping these faulty narratives alive that it is hard to ignore.

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  89. baldheadeddork said on August 18, 2012 at 10:55 am

    No racism in Baltimore? Or San Diego? I’m gonna go waaaay out on a limb and guess that you are not black or Hispanic.

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  90. MichaelG said on August 18, 2012 at 10:56 am

    Much happiness and many more years to those who are celebrating long term marriages.

    On the other side of the coin, one time Playmate Jenny McCarthy and Chicago Bear linebacker Brian Urlacher have broken up.

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  91. coozledad said on August 18, 2012 at 11:26 am

    baldheadeddork: Hate crimes in San Diego are post-racialicious.
    http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2009/mar/10/lz1e10saldana211226-fighting-hate-crimes-san-diego/

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  92. Danny said on August 18, 2012 at 11:44 am

    Great a “news” article from 2009 by three democratic politicians that is very , very thin on specifics and spends over half of it’s length talking about something that happened elsewhere (not in San Diego) in some “small town” in some undisclosed location where some klansmen marched. This actually proves my point that the Democratic shills are very invested in keeping a faulty narrative alive.

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  93. Prospero said on August 18, 2012 at 11:45 am

    Danny, you can tell yourself you made your point, but when it is so dishonest and nonsensical, that doesn’t really mean much. If you deny that the general GOPer antipathy toward the President of the United States is invested with racism, you are either stupid or massively, and obnoxiously, full of shit.

    And do you mean cliques?

    Oh, and the current-day GOP is a great booster for color-blind society. Good Lord, what bullshit. Like claiming anything Bill Maher says has anything remotely to do with national politics. Denying that the GOP is fundamentally racist is ridiculous. Denying that Newticles Gingrich is playing to racists when he says “food stamp President” is as asinine as it is stupid.

    I travel a bit and it seems every place I go, the teenagers are all hanging out together. You fatuous ass.

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  94. Sherri said on August 18, 2012 at 11:54 am

    Danny, I don’t believe that any white male is in any position to declare that we’re in a post-racial world or a post-sexist world. Just because you’ve never observed overt racism doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still exist.

    Consider trying a little empathy. Despite what the Republicans tell you, it’s not a bad thing.

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  95. del said on August 18, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    Cooze, you and Prospero had me laughing out loud with your posts, love ’em. Alex was onto something though when he questioned the rarified world that Danny inhabits. California sensibilities probably differ from Indiana sensibilities. If Danny’s not encountering as much bigotry there as others are elsewhere I say good, maybe we’ll all get there eventually. Still, I agree with Alex that Danny’s party is advancing a racial narrative for political gain, but that’s the party.

    Four years ago my cousin, whose politics differed from mine and many others in the extended family — he was affectionately known by some as the Alex P. Keaton of the family, Michael J. Fox’s character from TV’s Family Ties — ran for State Rep. as a Republican against an African American Democrat. The district was in Grand Rapids, a Republican stronghold, and The Grand Rapids Press endorsed my cousin. Then the Republican Party, with party funds and therefore unbeknownst to my cousin who had to keep his campaign funds separate, issued an attack piece on the Democrat. As I recall the piece darkened the candidate’s skin so you could only see teeth and eyes (remember O.J. on the cover of Time/Newsweek?) and highlighted his “criminal” record of disturbing the peace (while picketing) and fraud (using food stamps inappropriately in a grocery store). It was nauseating. The Grand Rapids Press condemned the piece and printed it in its entirety, and the district’s term-limited Republican State Rep. wrote a letter to the paper that stated that, while he preferred my cousin for the job, Republicans should cross party lines to vote for the Democrat to send a message to the Republican party in Lansing. My cousin lost the election because his party was too overtly advancing its racial narrative for political gain.

    That Republican narrative is still advanced, just with a bit more subtlety since Obama’s election, I think.

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  96. Joe K said on August 18, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    Danny,
    Keep checking in. It’s nice to have someone who shares my view somewhat.
    Pilot Joe

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  97. Heather said on August 18, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    Yeah, if you don’t think racism still exists you are spectacularly naive and possibly willfully oblivious. Racism isn’t all the n-word and obnoxious jokes. It’s African-Americans and Hispanics getting searched by cops at rates much, much higher than white people. It’s getting pulled over for DWB on a regular basis. It’s African-Americans receiving harsher prison sentences. Of course, there is still tons of the overt kind–my boyfriend has a cabin in NW Wisconsin and he doesn’t like going to the bars there because at least half the time he goes there are some morons making racist comments, the most recent incident just last week.

    I think of it as akin to harassment of women–so many guys don’t see what a major hassle it is for women, because of course when they’re with women, it doesn’t happen. It only happens when they’re not around. And yes, that still exists too. It’s the worst kind of blindness to refuse to even entertain the thought that things are tougher for people who aren’t white.

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  98. del said on August 18, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    Prospero, I laughed aloud at your quoting Danny about teenagers and then calling him a fatuous ass. But on reflection, of course, I know what Danny means. Kids don’t see race like the grown ups do, and that’s good.

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  99. del said on August 18, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    You guys have got to stop. I’ve got to go on my run and I can’t get, away. From. The. Keyboard.

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  100. Prospero said on August 18, 2012 at 1:45 pm

    I see it now. GOPers are the unifiers and not tinged at all by divisiveness and racism. Monkeys are flying out of my anus.:

    http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/stewart-slams-republican-hypocrisy-freak-o

    What’s beyond comprehension is the fake outrage from lying scum GOPers. Biden said something dumb. BFD. Making a claim that Biden was promoting racial divisiveness is crass beyond belief. The sentence before the chains sentence was mocking GOPers that want to “unchain Wall Street”. Pretty clear what he was talking about. The phony outrage is fracking ludicrous. Here’s one of those typical GOPer unifiers, Deadbeat Joe Walsh:

    There is a radical strain in Islam in this country, it’s not just over there, trying to kill Americans every week. It is a real threat, and it is a threat that is much more at home now than it was right after 9/11. It’s here. It’s in Elk Grove, it’s in Addison, it’s in Elgin, it’s here.

    How ’bout Lee Atwater on GOP strategy?

    You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

    Nope. That’s not racist or divisive at all. To hear dissembling jackasses like Danny tell it, only black people are actually racists, and the wonderbread GOPers are their beleaguered victims. Deluded, stupid or vile? Hard to tell.

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  101. Prospero said on August 18, 2012 at 1:55 pm

    What Biden was actually talking about, before nitwit GOPers decided to accuse him of racism. He was actually echoing words of warning from T. Jefferson about robber baron bankers. Of course, GOPers believe bankers are oppressed, and would fix everything if they were just allowed to run wild:

    I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property-until their children wake up homeless in the continent their fathers conquered.”
    –Thomas Jefferson

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  102. Rana said on August 18, 2012 at 1:56 pm

    I grew up in California. And lived in Indiana. And while I’ve never heard a sweet-looking little old Hoosier lady crack jokes about turning the Rose Garden into a watermelon patch (like my husband once did) in California, I can tell you that racism is indeed alive and well there, from the northern backwoods down to the southern deserts. True, the sort of black-white dynamics you see elsewhere are obscured a bit in the wider ethnic and diversity of the state, but they exist, and don’t tell me that Asian-Americans and Hispanics don’t get smacked with their own flavors of racism too.

    And it’s not just the subtle institutional kind, either. So if Danny’s not seeing it, I’d have to say he’s not looking very hard. Lucky him that he has that option.

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  103. coozledad said on August 18, 2012 at 2:07 pm

    Prospero: Or William Billings-The Revolutionary War Marxist racist.

    Let tyrants shake their iron rods
    And slavery clank her galling chains
    we fear them not
    we trust in God.
    New England’s God forever reigns.

    Biden should have just worn a tricorne and pulled his socks up to his knees like some teabag assmonkey. If Paul Ryan had done that Sean Hannity would have begged him for a hot Carl on the chest.

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  104. Deborah said on August 18, 2012 at 2:23 pm

    What the rightwing seems to lack is empathy, being able to understand what other people are feeling so it’s understandable that someone in that mindset might think racism doesn’t exist. When I say “understandable” that in no way excuses it. I actually think it is a neuroscience thing. They think that everybody, or at least most people think the same way they do. That’s why when you find yourself in mixed company (politically) the right-wingers often spout off their ideas as if all those around are in agreement. Or If they know that they are among people who disagree they goad and poke because they think it’s fun, when it’s really mean. That’s lack of empathy.

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  105. Prospero said on August 18, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    What’s particularly annoying about Danny’s lameass claim that Democrats promote racism for political gain is how well it fits the perpetual whinging GOPer theme of the unconscionable oppression of straight white guys. Gutdom, that is some infuriating bullshit.

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  106. Rana said on August 18, 2012 at 2:37 pm

    Kids don’t see race like the grown ups do, and that’s good.

    Well, in some ways it’s good, and some ways it’s not. It’s good in that white kids are now more likely to have friends of all kinds of racial and ethnic background and not think anything of it. On the other hand, in my years of teaching young college students, I’ve seen a lot of “but I have black friends!” sorts of apologia when it’s pointed out that they’re carrying around a lot of culturally-imposed assumptions about the nature of those friends (or themselves). (They’re pretty bad when it comes to gender essentialism, too. Lots of “girls are this way,” “boys are this way” stuff.)

    They also have a lot of difficulty identifying the kind of racism that takes institutional forms, particularly the cumulative effects of generations of discrimination in the past, and can get quite angry if someone points out that white people do – yes, they do – have unearned privilege even if they don’t desire it or seek it out. They’re not equipped to think about systemic discrimination on a subtle level, and their casual friendships reinforce their sense that racism is only something that Klansmen engage in, consisting of overt violence, epithets, and obvious bigotry, rather than a centuries-old set of institutions and assumptions that permeates our society on all levels.

    That misunderstanding also leads them to conflate race-inflected prejudice with racism; they fail to understand that while people of all ethnicities and backgrounds may have prejudices against people of different races or ethnicity, it’s only white people who have those prejudices reinforced on multiple levels by law, custom, and sheer numbers, and that the word for those reinforced prejudices is racism. It’s trusting that the cops and the judge will have your back if you get into a shouting match with someone of a different race. It’s getting angry that your favorite character in a popular book is depicted as black when the book is made into a movie… even though the character is explicitly described in the book as being a person of color. It’s picking up magazines, or watching tv, and seeing people who look like you treated as the default, and not even noticing this, because that’s just the way it is. (Of course it is.) It’s the difference from choosing to “see” racism (or not) and being denied that choice.

    So someone like Danny can go through life choosing not to notice racism, because it doesn’t affect him. It doesn’t mean he’s out there yelling racial insults at black people, or refusing to hire them, or any of that. It’s that he can go about his life, not caring, not noticing, in a way that is simply impossible for people of color in this society. So the statement that kids “don’t see race” is probably more accurately stated as “white kids don’t see race.” Because, trust me, non-white kids have to pay attention to it. They don’t get a choice in the matter, because there’s always something or someone ready to remind them.

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  107. Prospero said on August 18, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    I suppose Willard RMoney’s disparaging comments about Palestinians under the hobnail boot of Israeli Apartheid had no aspect of racism about it.

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  108. del said on August 18, 2012 at 3:32 pm

    Rana, that was eloquently put. Agreed. You see nuances that others don’t, and some maybe never will. Trying to understand the feelings of others can lead to sensitivity fatigue though. A couple of minutes ago I saw a Facebook post from a young cousin of mine, born and raised in tolerant San Francisco. He linked to a poster of a man with a weary expression on his face and the following quote:

    “It’s now very common to hear
    people say, ‘I’m rather offended
    by that.’ As if that gives them certain
    rights. It’s actually nothing more…than a whine.
    ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning;
    it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase.
    “I am offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what.” — Stephen Fry.

    The points about racism that have been raised in the comments are thoughtful observations but ordinary people of good will will perhaps always struggle to keep from conflating race-injected prejudice with racism as you’ve mentioned.

    And Cooz, a hot Carl on the chest? I don’t even know what that means, but I think I do, and that’s hilarious.

    Deborah, agreed to some extent as some right wingers may lack empathy but I’d add that some right wingers spout their ideas to those who disagree because they think they’re fulfilling some moral duty of instruction, especially older people (and family members) to younger. (I’m reminded of that worn out Churchill quote about young conservatives lacking heart and old liberals lacking intelligence. Uhgg.) Some clerics think it’s a duty to shock the flock to moral conduct too. The duty to moralize you might say… Recall Falwell’s Moral Majority? I think it ties in with authoritarianism, religiousity and neuroscience too.

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  109. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 18, 2012 at 3:49 pm

    Working with Native American youth this summer has shown me yet another streak of racism and how it runs through our society, and through me. Assumptions, as Rana said, indeed, starting with our own.

    I still think we’re working out of a political framework here where if it’s Republican in origin, it can be called a racist statement whatever the subject, with no need to make the case, while Democratic statements no matter how ill-chosen and oddly defended simply can’t be racist in any way, because they’re the party that single-handedly brought about the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts . . .

    . . . except of course, they didn’t. And I don’t agree, obviously, with the idea that the Democratic Party can be the overt, proud standard bearers for racism & segregation for a hundred years, then shift that entire burden of history over to the GOP after 1964 with a few Southern politicians’ decampment to the Republican banner, and our leadership not having the vision and foresight to turn down that poisoned apple at the time.

    So y’all can start calling me racist in three, two, one . . . and you know what? I am. Repentant, working on it, trying not to let it pass. But I am racist, and sinful, and prone to sloth and my own comfort without reminders that all that I have is not only not my own, not of my own earning in their entirety, but also that most of what I have, starting with the real estate I live on, was taken, stolen, seized, or gained through the oppression of those on the lowest rungs of the production matter.

    It’s enough to make you not want to get out of bed some days. But that just takes you back to the start of the problem, and the solutions are out on streets, so let’s get out there.

    Oh, and I like what del and Rana said, too.

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  110. Danny said on August 18, 2012 at 4:19 pm

    Well, camping got cancelled late last night (bummer!) and since I need some time to recover in between my bike ride and my swim, I’ll offer a few more thoughts that will be mostly dismissed out of hand (by the way Propsero, I cringed that I spelled clique wrong… and I used to be somewhat fluent in French! See your Latin education is paying off).

    Okay, so the basic disagreement seems to come down to this: You guys think that I live a carefree, unexamined life in a microcosmic utopia and I think that you look for bad news at every turn and when you find it, you argue from the specific to the general too much. Perhaps we are both at fault in our views to some degree. Perhaps I’m too optimistic and perhaps many of you are too pessimistic.

    Rana, maybe I misunderstood, but you seem to have expressed the idea that white males or white teenagers because of their relative privilege, don’t have to be aware of race and that they are in some way incapable of having an adequate understanding. And while there is some truth to the “walk a mile in their shoes” argument, I would reject the idea that whites views on race are somehow inauthentic or inconsequential, if that is what you are getting at. Awareness of race relations is at a high point in our society. And it is getting better with each passing year. People should remain vigilant, but that goes both ways. In my opinion, the pessimistic views held by many of you, with almost no attention to balance on your own party lines, are so divisive and destructive, that they are going to set us all back if they are not met head on with reason, grace and optimism.

    And for whoever said that I should try empathy… trust me, you don’t know me at all.

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  111. Rana said on August 18, 2012 at 4:48 pm

    I would reject the idea that whites views on race are somehow inauthentic or inconsequential.

    Actually, Danny, that’s directly the opposite of what I’m saying. As a result of history, and numerical superiority, white views on race dominate. They are reinforced daily in our culture, laws, and personal interactions. We live in a world that treats white people as the default and everyone else as a deviation from that norm. That’s a fact; that’s not opinion. That’s not being pessimistic; that’s acknowledging that I live in a world that offers me benefits at other people’s expense.

    And it’s not that white people can’t have “an adequate understanding” (I mean, hello, I myself am white); it’s that the penalties for ignorance are very low compared to the penalties for other people. So, yes, it is indeed possible for white people to live lives in which race is an abstract concept to them. When they get hired for jobs, they don’t have to worry if they’re hired on their merits or that other people will think they’re just there to fill a quota. When they are friends with someone, they don’t have to wonder if that friend has befriended them in order to round out their diversity card. When they get pulled over by the cops, they wonder if they were going too fast or didn’t see a stop sign, and not worry that the cop is going to ask them to prove that they’re an American. If the topic of race comes up in a classroom, they don’t have to deal with everyone else looking sideways uncomfortably at them. If their rental application gets turned down, they can assume that it had to do with their finances, or that the apartment was already spoken for, and don’t have to worry that maybe it was because their landlord is a racist. If they run out of milk at night and run out to buy some wearing raggedy old sweats, they don’t have to worry that someone’s going to think that they’re thugs and shoot them or call the cops on them.

    And on, and on, and on, for every day of one’s life.

    If “race relations are getting better every year” as you claim they are, it’s because white people are using their privilege and lack of risk to listen to what other people experience, to take steps to fight these small daily abuses as well as the larger ones, and not because folks like you complacently state that the world is a nice place and anyone who says otherwise is looking for an argument or “playing the race card.”

    It’s not your whiteness that offends me. It’s your complacency.

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  112. Rana said on August 18, 2012 at 4:51 pm

    Oh, and in case it hasn’t been said before, don’t try to play the “party line” shit with me. I’m not a Democrat, and haven’t been one for a very long time. That you think that everything boils down to party politics for those who disagree with you, rather than an authentic concern with the welfare of other people, is also offensive.

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  113. Jolene said on August 18, 2012 at 5:05 pm

    Empathy is important, but it’s only a starting point. There’s also policy. Paul Ryan got loud applause when, in his first speech as a vice-presidential candidate, he said, “We believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of results.” But equality of opportunity involves more than freedom from overt, legal discrimination as existed under Jim Crow laws. It means doing practical things to make sure that those who have been left out, left behind, and held back have a real chance to catch up. In our society, there are racial disparities on every meaningful indicator of well-being: education, income, health, lifespan, you name it. But Republicans have been notably reluctant to support policies and institutions that would help to overcome these disparities–to provide the resources and experiences that would really enable people to compete on an equal footing.

    As Rana has said so well, we forget how much of an advantage it is to be white and more or less middle class, and we forget the shoulders we stand on. My own family homesteaded in the Midwest. It was far from an easy life, but the Homestead Act provided a footing for my family, which now, four generations hence, includes MDs, PHDs, and many other college grads–people working in a wide variety of occupations. And all of that stems, in some way, from the stable foundation that those Midwestern settlers created, beginning with an opportunity created by a government program.

    Obviously, we make our own circumstances too, or we make different things of our circumstances. My parents did a little better economically than some of the other farm families who lived near us–not because they started out with more but because they took more risks. But the difference between them and their neighbors was nothing like the difference between my father, a high school-educated WW II vet and an African American vet who, after the war, went home to a small town in Mississippi.

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  114. Danny said on August 18, 2012 at 5:33 pm

    Rana, since you obviously saw nothing wrong with Toure’s comments (which even he repudiated) and then there is your oft vocal acquiescence to the Republican’s being the root of all evil, well I can see how you wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong impression that your sympathies lie along party lines. Sorry, my bad.

    EDIT: Meant to type Biden, but I assume you didn’t have a problem with Toure either, since that is germane to the whole thread here and you didn’t see fit to address it.

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  115. Prospero said on August 18, 2012 at 6:07 pm

    Interesting that Jeff brought up the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Those two landmarks passed into law by dint of LBJ’s commitment and his skill as a blackmailer of recalcitrant congresspeople. Current GOPers and particularly Teabangers would happily be rid of both. Willard’s chief advisor on everything justice, Robert Fracking Bork, has some very distressing opinion on the subject:

    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/08/03/286134/romney-bork-unsurpassed-ugliness/

    http://prospect.org/article/kennedy-was-mostly-right-about-bork

    Bork can say crap like that and he’s excused by GOPers as an “originalist”. And how exactly do these lying bastards find corporations as citizens and money as speech in their alleged originalism?

    The criminal Rick Scott would surely ban black people from polling places if he could get away with it.

    Who the hell is Toure, and how exactly is the Democratic Party responsible for Toure. Of course, if you can believe that Willard Windsock has not been engaged in racial coding, I suppose you can convince yourself of any fracking thing at all.

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  116. Kaye said on August 18, 2012 at 6:09 pm

    In spite of my very limited familiarity with gaming I found this John Scalzi essay http://tinyurl.com/cngqk4h interesting, informative and on topic today.

    And . . . I want to be Rana when I grow up.

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  117. Jolene said on August 18, 2012 at 6:16 pm

    Danny, if I had been Toure, I don’t think I’d have apologized. I think “niggerization” is exactly what the GOP has been involved in over the past few years. How many staffers and public officials have questioned his birthplace? Just recently, John Sununu said he wished the president would be “more American.” Today, at the Iowa State Fair, Hank Williams, Jr. said that Obama is a Muslim who hates farming, the military, and America. Apparently, this was a popular sentiment.

    But, really, a passing remark by some guy on TV is not what’s important. What’s important is the circumstances of people’s lives.

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  118. del said on August 18, 2012 at 6:21 pm

    Maybe Republicans are not the root of all evil, but rather, like Plankton on Sponge Bob Squarepants, they are 99% hot gas and 1% evil. Rimshot.

    And as for JTTMO’s confessions, repentance and pleas for forgiveness I have this to add: I am a glutton.

    But wholly unrepentant.

    I just ran 10 miles to keep my weight under 1,000 lbs.

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  119. del said on August 18, 2012 at 6:26 pm

    The Scalzi link was great Kaye.

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  120. Jolene said on August 18, 2012 at 6:38 pm

    Yes, Kaye. Great piece to bring into the discussion. Thanks.

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  121. Rana said on August 18, 2012 at 6:57 pm

    Ah, yes, because I point out the huge stomping elephant wrecking the furniture, and occasionally miss the mouse nibbling on the wainscotting, I must be anti-elephant. Or pro-mouse.

    Or something.

    Danny, if what Biden had to say is so, so foul to you, then why aren’t you calling out the Republican leadership when they say even worse things? If all things were equal — which they are not — then yeah, singling out one party over another would indeed be a sign of partisanship.

    But all things are NOT equal, which is the whole damn point, and your insistence that we treat them as if they were, simply because it’s your ox being gored and because you can only (apparently) conceive of these issues as a game of point scoring rather than concern about actual human lives and the policies that affect them, is not evidence of our hypocrisy, but of your mendacity.

    Here’s a revelation for you: some of us are motivated by principles and values other than party loyalty. Mind-boggling, I know. Some of us don’t want the house being wrecked, period, and, right now, it’s the guys under the label “GOP” who are doing the most damage. I guess when it’s not your house in danger, you can sit back, smugly and complacently, and chide us for not giving equal time to the termites and mice (who are, yes, a problem, but not an immediate one). However, by doing so, you give the impression that either (a) you approve of what the elephant is doing, or (b) that artificial and abstract notions of “fairness” are far more important to you than justice.

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  122. Rana said on August 18, 2012 at 7:00 pm

    Kaye, thanks. 🙂

    I kind of needed to hear something like that (it’s been one of those weeks).

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  123. Sherri said on August 18, 2012 at 7:14 pm

    I’m the one who said you should try some empathy, Danny, and yes, it’s true that I don’t know you. All I know is what you show here, and I haven’t seen a lot of empathy.

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  124. brian stouder said on August 18, 2012 at 7:26 pm

    The Scalzi link was great; and indeed, Rana wins the thread, and the week, and the month, I think.

    They also have a lot of difficulty identifying the kind of racism that takes institutional forms, particularly the cumulative effects of generations of discrimination in the past, and can get quite angry if someone points out that white people do – yes, they do – have unearned privilege even if they don’t desire it or seek it out. They’re not equipped to think about systemic discrimination on a subtle level, and their casual friendships reinforce their sense that racism is only something that Klansmen engage in, consisting of overt violence, epithets, and obvious bigotry, rather than a centuries-old set of institutions and assumptions that permeates our society on all levels.

    Consider “affirmative action”. In my lifetime, that’s one of the things that angry white guys love to point to, as a horrible thing; and indeed, some try and paste that onto President Obama, to de-legitimize his obvious success at Harvard.

    But “white-guy Affirmative Action” is so ubiquitous that it is invisible in plain sight. The job I have had for 26 years I got with the help of WG-AA (a friend’s brother-in-law knew of an opening where he worked, and passed the word; and the rest is history)

    I will agree that racism is a human thing and not a partisan thing; and despite “American exceptionalism”, America is no exception at all when it comes to small-minded racism; it is as American as apple pie.

    When Danny says

    You guys think that I live a carefree, unexamined life in a microcosmic utopia and I think that you look for bad news at every turn and when you find it, you argue from the specific to the general too much.

    and

    I would reject the idea that whites views on race are somehow inauthentic or inconsequential, if that is what you are getting at.

    all I can see is either a (poorly constructed) straw-man, or else the product (or spin) of a person who has willfully left Rana’s well-crafted points “unexamined”

    Possibly we can agree that racism is a bipartisan, human reality that America (and every other human society) has to deal with. We might also agree that this reality isn’t going to change; it isn’t going to be “fixed”. It is in nature, like influenza and cancer and solar flares and hurricanes.

    Religious people readily accept that humankind is not perfectible, and at the same time, that that’s NO EXCUSE to just give up and be evil. Those same people, along with secular people of good will, might also agree that, while it is utterly pointless to try and ascribe blame for racism onto a particular political party, it is reprehensible and inexcusable to not only accept this reality, but to openly embrace it and willfully surf the waves of racial hatreds and prejudices.

    I will say that, in 2012, it was maybe just a little unfair that the Republican party had a their big primary race, and the Democrats got to have national peace and quiet. Still, it was pretty disappointing to see the extent to which signals such as the invocation of the name “Saul Alinsky” was supposed to mean something; or that the birther crap could be re-born as having some meaning or other; or all this talk about a “food stamp president”.

    The D’s got to sit quietly and chortle, while a half-dozen R’s and their big-time soap-sellers had the task of trying to appeal to “the folks in real America” – by whatever means – to vote for their candidate, for whatever reason that works!

    The thing that just amazes me is – the Republican party under George W Bush was very different from the 2012 national Republican party; they WERE in hot pursuit of the Latino vote (for example) and they were making big progress. Afterall, lots of socially conservative Catholics can be wooed in the demographic, and Karl Rove was pitching woo!

    And then – poof! – that was over, and all the R’s could think about was keeping the angry white base.

    Truly, I think they’ll have to change course again, or else splinter and become irrelevant, but we shall see.

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  125. coozledad said on August 18, 2012 at 9:27 pm

    Excellent posts, Rana.
    del-I’m with you on the gluttony. Don’t know what they’re going to do with all this biomass once I croak. Seems like they ought to be able to use it for heating oil or car wax.

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  126. Deborah said on August 18, 2012 at 10:06 pm

    Rana, you go girl. Excellent.

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  127. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 18, 2012 at 10:10 pm

    del (re: Plankton & GOP) – http://www.instantrimshot.com

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  128. jcburns said on August 18, 2012 at 11:10 pm

    If I got into a car accident, I would indeed call Sam. I’ve been married to her for decades.

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  129. basset said on August 18, 2012 at 11:15 pm

    While you all are p***ing and sniping at each other and going over the same old political ground again and again and (expletive deleted) AGAIN… I would point out that fifty years ago tonight, Ringo Starr played his first show as a member of the Beatles, at the Hulme Hall in Birkenhead, UK, for the local horticultural society’s annual dance. He had performed with them a few times before, in February 1962 when Pete Best was sick, but the Fabs fired Pete on the 16th of August and Ringo took it from there. Except for the tracks Paul played drums on, but we’ll get into that later.

    Meanwhile, I see the hall is still open and is billed as “Wirral’s largest conference, banqueting and wedding centre.” The menu includes “Thai Fishcakes” and “Supreme of Chicken”…

    http://www.hulmehall.com/

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  130. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 18, 2012 at 11:51 pm

    God bless you, Basset. I’d forgotten the “local horticultural society’s annual dance” part of the story . . . wonderful. As is the fact that Hulme is still rocking the house.

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  131. coozledad said on August 19, 2012 at 9:19 am

    The Red and Black’s board of directors decides making fun of dipshit sorority girls violates the ethics of happy story writin’ and might even risk “liable” whatever the fuck that means.

    Why do newspapers hire floaters like Harry Montevido? Bet his deddy run a tri-county shopper out of Buckhead.
    http://gawker.com/5935422/college-newspaper-memo-cut-down-on-journalism-dont-describe-african-americans-as-burr+headed?tag=the-red-and-black

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  132. alex said on August 19, 2012 at 10:23 am

    And I don’t agree, obviously, with the idea that the Democratic Party can be the overt, proud standard bearers for racism & segregation for a hundred years, then shift that entire burden of history over to the GOP after 1964 with a few Southern politicians’ decampment to the Republican banner, and our leadership not having the vision and foresight to turn down that poisoned apple at the time.

    I don’t agree with that idea either, not that I’ve ever heard it advanced. The Democratic party today is not the same party it was, and the GOP is anything but the party of Lincoln except when it can take credit for it. Most of the Republican base would shoot Lincoln themselves given the opportunity.

    The Republican party simply isn’t interested in my vote anymore. It doesn’t speak to me. What has it done for me lately? I mean besides insulting my intelligence and offending my sensibilities? I can’t support it now any more than I could have supported George Wallace in 1968.

    I live in a place where Republicans elect people who think the Girl Scouts are a communist front group and the president of the state senate’s education committee is a Biblical creationist trying to supplant science in the classroom. Indiana is a hotbed of rampaging rubes who make Archie Bunker look like Albert Einstein. I don’t know how anyone with a conscience can vote Republican anymore.

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  133. coozledad said on August 19, 2012 at 10:48 am

    You ain’t even got any apples in that tank of poison anymore. You’re all Lester Maddox now.
    And Jesse Helms
    And Virgil Goode
    and Shelly Bluelights
    And Sarah Palin
    And Steven King
    Newton Gingrich
    Pope Santorum…

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  134. brian stouder said on August 19, 2012 at 10:59 am

    and Paul-Ayn Ryan (gotta love his modified “I didn’t inhale” puffery, in response to Ayn’s atheism and actual, you know – pro-choice brand of individualist libertarianism)

    He practically says that he wants us to accept that he absolutely and completely LOVES and admires and is inspired by EVERYTHING she wrote and thought, except her foundational beliefs and principles.

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  135. DellaDash said on August 19, 2012 at 11:00 am

    Rana, once again I bow down.

    I’ll just add that, after negotiating the fallout on all levels of being in (then the widow of) an inter-racial marriage for almost 30 years…especially the unavoidable threat of violence wherever racism rears (or disguises) it’s fevered, ignorant, venom-tipped fangs (on both sides of the coin – not surprising that anti-white sentiment is viral in the desperate third world – as my husband used to say, “a hungry man is an angry man”)…while sniffing out the surrounding racial climate has become a matter of course (and self-preservation for me and mine); the greatest effort has always been to scrutinize the seeds, then try to uproot the weeds of my own entitlement-ridden racism.

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  136. coozledad said on August 19, 2012 at 11:07 am

    brian stouder: Ryan was a smart move for the GOP. Sews up the turbid muscle mag undercurrent of the party. The boy’s a living fountain of creatine.

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  137. Prospero said on August 19, 2012 at 11:15 am

    Ayn Ryan etches his idiocy in stone. Ryan is shocked, shocked to find out Ayn Rand was an atheist:

    Apparently Britt Hume was unaware of that too:

    http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2012/08/who-is-john-galt.html

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  138. DellaDash said on August 19, 2012 at 12:31 pm

    Hair-splitting @135:

    racism’s fangs would be bared (or disguised)

    or

    its venom-fanged head could be reared

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  139. Prospero said on August 19, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    And all of this Ayn Ryan Fountainhead bullshit raises a question. Remember back when Obama was elected, all of those rightwingnuts were so outraged at the sheer uppitiness they “threatened ” to Go Galt. Like the ultimate Wussy Rich Lowry and the vitle twit Michell Malkin, who spews racist shit more fluently than the alky idiot Bocephus. Well that was just a tease and the morons are still fouling the peoples’ airwaves regularly. Can they be sued for breach of promise.

    Another question: Does anyone claim that ‘birtherism” is not racist as hell at its core? Bocephus wasn’t bellowin’ at racists? Sununu? McCain was man enough to repdiate what crap forcefully. Romney, NFW. He might allow “Those aren’t the words I’d use.” or some other such spineless drivel. Or he might have his wife say it for him, the way she put the serfs in their places on the tax return subject.

    And on the subject of the patron saint of Objectivism (i.e.: terminal selfishness) there are two choices for characterizing Ayn Ryan’s comments. He is either way stupid, or he’s a major league liar. No other way about it.

    And if the Dems are supposed to own this Toure guy (that I have never heard of), I’m giving Hank Williams Jr. to the GOPers along with Nugent. Sununu? He’s a GOPer eminence gris all the way back to his first class jet tickets to his dental appointments. Sununu is traceable directly to Meldrim Thompson whose sensibilities on racial politics were a good fit with Lester Maddox.

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  140. Deborah said on August 19, 2012 at 2:02 pm

    If you folks haven’t read Kaye’s link (#116) stop what you’re doing and go read it now. It’s so good.

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  141. coozledad said on August 19, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    Someone forgot to water this vegetable. He’s all wilted.
    http://gawker.com/5936050/republican-senate-nominee-explains-that-women-dont-really-get-pregnant-from-legitimate-rape
    He must be reading Texas science textbooks.

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  142. baldheadeddork said on August 19, 2012 at 3:55 pm

    Post-racial America in Ohio:

    “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, chairman of the county Republican Party and elections board member who voted against weekend hours, in an email to The Dispatch. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”

    He called claims of unfairness by Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern and others “bullshit. Quote me!”

    But I’m sure if JTTMO saw some black and white kids together at a McDonald’s in Columbus, that would trump everything.

    http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/08/19/fight-over-poll-hours-isnt-just-political.html

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  143. curchlady said on August 19, 2012 at 4:06 pm

    Coozledad writes: Ryan was a smart move for the GOP. Sews up the turbid muscle mag undercurrent of the party. The boy’s a living fountain of creatine.

    Which makes this blog more interesting. Wow, talk about fifty shades of grey…
    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2012/08/romney-hearts-ryan-hunter-gets-captured.html

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  144. Rana said on August 19, 2012 at 4:07 pm

    baldheadeddork, I think you might mean Danny, rather than Jeff. Jeff generally tries to stay out of the fray (for which I respect him).

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  145. churchlady said on August 19, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    um, that’s “Churchlady”

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  146. coozledad said on August 19, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    Gotta part company with you on that one Rana. Jeff just comes out to add a layer of mud and a little obliquity to the standard Republican boilerplate. It’s hard to accept such a vocal supporter of the Palin/McCain ticket as a presumptive voice of moderation.
    He styles himself as an old-line conservative, but I haven’t heard him do anything but rehash the post Goldwater Republican line.
    Eisenhower was committed to the framework of the New Deal. Jeff represents the post-Eisenhower model of the party committed to the dismantling of the New Deal, and makes a display of agonizing over issues like immigration reform and voting rights, ultimately settling with the most rightward element of the party.

    He’s a sort of resident Republican obfuscator. A Wal-mart Gergen.

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  147. nancy said on August 19, 2012 at 5:08 pm

    OK, I think it’s time to stop now. Let’s all go watch the angle of the setting sun or something.

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  148. Deborah said on August 19, 2012 at 5:10 pm

    Littlebird and I are making a batch of pepper jam here in Santa Fe. Hope it turns out better than the batch I made in Chicago, but cooking in altitude here so maybe not.

    Coozledad that link to the Missouri idiot running for office about pregnancy from rape is amazing. We’ve sent it to as many people as possible.

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  149. Jolene said on August 19, 2012 at 5:31 pm

    Akin’s remark is getting lots of attention in Internetland, and Claire McCaskill, his endangered Democratic opponent, is already fund-raising off it.

    Don’t know if you’ve been following this race, but there’s an interesting backstory. There was a four-way (I think; definitely at least three-way) Republican primary, and the Dems intervened to support the most outrageous Tea Party candidate, hoping to increase McCaskill’s chances in the general election. Looks like the plan is working so far!

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  150. Deborah said on August 19, 2012 at 6:35 pm

    Success on the pepper jam! Much better than my first attempt, but much spicier. Very Santa Fe. Littlebird is having a friend from Germany visit in a couple of weeks, this should go nicely on meats or just cream cheese, which I finally tried in Chicago recently. Thanks to whoever here turned me on to pepper jam. Delish.

    Lovely weather here, hope everyone is having a pleasant Sunday afternoon/evening.

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  151. Kirk said on August 19, 2012 at 7:11 pm

    Good job down at the ballpark, Dexter.

    As much fun as you remembered?

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  152. Prospero said on August 19, 2012 at 7:34 pm

    If a guy runs for President that was once a governor, and fires a campaign aide for describing one of his gubernatorial successes, why would anybody with a brain trust the guy? If said guy says he was can-do obscenely wealthy business type and that proves he can be trusted but then whines when his business practices are examined and questioned, why would a rational person believe a word the guy says? If the would-be candidate is completely incapable of detecting the irony inherent in such behavior and claim no questions about his record of any sort are fair game, how is he not identified as an untrustworthy charlatan?

    This is the current situation for Willard RMoney. Why would anyone believe a word he says about anything?

    http://justabovesunset.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/trust-and-irony/

    Congratulations on the pepper jelly, Deborah. We had some for Sunday breakfast with chorico on homemade bsicuits (Alton Brown’s sublime recipe.) With some 100% Kona and fresh squeezed OJ. Great way to start the day.

    Any fan of The Sopranos, and particularly of Steven Van Zandt’s Silvio character, would do well to watch Lilyhammer on demand on Netflix. Very good and mordantly funny.

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  153. LAMary said on August 19, 2012 at 11:51 pm

    Grilled some excellent burgers with grilled sweet onions and red peppers and provola cheese. It’s cooling down a little bit and the dogs are wallowing in the kiddie pool. Life is good.

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  154. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on August 19, 2012 at 11:56 pm

    I’ve deleted my last comment, and will take a break. Godspeed y’all.

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