I Wish I Was A Negro...

Something funny and light-hearted from the National Lampoon people on a very serious subject:



As I watch and listen to the endless stream of dog-whistles and demagoguery from the right about people of colour, immigrants and the NYC mosque, I vaguely remember the image I had in my mind's eye for how the 21st century was going to look and it didn't include petty hatred and racism. In fact I was kind of hoping people would get around to the noticing that race was a human construct and merely a way of dividing us one from the other -- there is in point of fact only one race. Ask any anthropologist.

A Quick Hitter

While I get ready to blog some news, here's a quick hitter from one of the most despicable characters on the American political landscape. This man is fomenting violence racism and hatred daily on his fox news program and hate-radio show. This should not be tolerated but instead earns him upwards of $32 million dollars per year.

The Narrative

One of my problems with the blogging thing is I've always looked at things from the perspective of the big picture -- macro. In doing so I often allow the minutiae to escape me. It's why I don't do short sharp posts, for the most part, like the blogs I love to read do. I'm always trying to fit everything into the bigger picture and for the last 19 months I have to admit the big picture has been scaring the crap out of me.

There are untold consequences to come for the kind of public discourse being allowed to happen in the public square -- hell, hate is not just being allowed, it's encouraged. Witness last week's attack on Shirley Sherrod by a scumbag named Andrew Breitbart. It was proven to not only be demonstrably false but a deliberate lie meant to turn what she said on it's ear and give her words the exact opposite meaning that were intended. Even being called out by their media colleagues doesn't do anything to stop the endless attacks. Maybe it's because guys like Breitbart have many, many, many enablers. And there's seemingly no depths they won't sink to.

The outcomes of such non-stop propagandizing and vitriol can only be guessed at. There's no way of determining what will result in five, ten, fifteen years from now as a result of a steady stream of hate being taught absorbed and taken to heart.

So I wander over to a link at MMFA and read that Glenn Beck's hate-mongering rhetoric nearly got him a demonstrable body count, and that only a bit of luck prevented Byron Williams, a right-wing, government-hating, gun-toting nut who had strapped on body armor, stocked a pickup truck with guns, ammo, and set off up the California coast to San Francisco in order to start killing employees at the Tides Foundation - an obscure organization continually targeted by Glenn Beck on his program. All this in the hopes of sparking a political revolution.

Thankfully, the planned domestic terrorist attack never came to pass because California Highway Patrol officers pulled Williams over for drunk driving on his way to his killing spree. Williams quickly opened fire, wounding two officers during a lengthy shootout. Luckily, Williams wasn't able to act out the ultimate goal of his dark anger -- fueled by the TV news he watched -- about how "Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items," as his mother put it. Williams wasn't able to open fire inside the offices of the Tides Foundation, an organization "nobody knew" about until Glenn Beck started targeting it.

So, happenstance prevented Glenn Beck inspired murder and mayhem this time. It's not likely that we'll be so lucky next time. There is a way to head this off at the pass and that is for people to stand up and declare his speech intolerable and unacceptable in a civilized society. I often declare that we're living in the age of stupid - there's a lot of cowardice going around too.

Standing Up To Bullies

As we grow up we learn that the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them, damn the consequences, because nothing else works. Every other path leads to more fear and more bullying. Keith Olbermann advocates for the President to do just that:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Oppressed White Folks

These people say they're not racist - what say you?



They're affiliated with the people who put up this billboard.

Maybe I'm being hyperbolic.

Bigtime Roundup

There's nothing like taking a couple of days off to help you fall behind!

I'm going to start with the story that actually kept me from blogging Friday and Saturday: I checked in late and the first story the blogosphere brought to my attention was this ghastly story out of Arizona courtesy of Wonkette:

From the Arizona Republic:


A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school. The project’s leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children’s ethnicity ….


R.E. Wall, director of Prescott’s Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town’s most prominent intersections.


“We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars,” Wall said. “We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics).”

Happily the story doesn't end there. By weekend's end the man leading the campaign against the multi-ethnic mural, Steve Blair, had been fired from his talk radio show and they were no longer changing the color of the children's faces in the mural. Maybe the moral of the story is I really should have more faith in humanity.

While we're on the subject of raging Republican racists let's not forget this idiot, South Carolina State. Sen. Jake Knotts, who said, "We got a raghead in Washington; we don't need one in South Carolina." Classy!

Okely-dokely, don't stop me if you think you've heard this one before: BP spills 500,000 lbs of toxic chemicals at Texas plant where 15 people died in 2005. BP, always willing to prove they have their priorities straight, have purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company's official website. Aren't they awesome?

Some Republican shills say things so stupid that it's hard to know exactly what to say about them - with others, it's pretty cut and dried, "We give you money, you say nice things about us or nothing at all!"



Climate Progress has the complete story about how the Bush/Cheney administration enabled the mess in the Gulf that we are currently witnessing. It's a sad tale of tax breaks for coal, oil and gas and nuclear energy corps, and non-stop cuts for renewable energy programs.

Consequences of Climate Change: Ocean acidification.

Right-wingers complain that homophobes are always portrayed as mean and bullying on TV. Not enough happy-go-lucky hate-filled people on your box! While we're on the subject of whiny Republicans, here's House Minority leader John Boehner crying because Paul McCartney made fun of Bush's intelligence, or lack thereof, and demanding an apology. Coincidentally it was on the same day that Bush declared waterboarding (although illegal) was awesome!

One of the more ridiculous media memes out there week, "Bitch-slap us please Mr. President!"