I guess I’m the last person in the world to find out that Clint Eastwood is no hero. He only plays one in the movies. He’s a great actor and a director, but not a good judge of politicians.
While it’s been widely known that Clint is a Republican, his recent publicized comments on Gay Marriage gave me the idea he was still a pretty nice guy.… [Read more]
Frank Bruni of the NY Times wrote a piece entitled, “The Divine Miss M,” a scathing dissection of Michele Bachmann’s life, a life which is the antithesis of the “Christianity” she espouses. Wrote Bruni, “. . . [S]he presents herself as a godly woman, humbly devoted to her Christian faith. I’d like to meet that god, and I’d like to understand that Christianity.” Bruni noted Bachmann’s vendetta against Hillary Clinton’s aide, Muslim-born Huma Abedin, and Bachmann’s vengeful mission to spread dissension, lies and hatred toward Muslim Americans. … [Read more]
Some of us are wondering if a sensible conversation about guns will ever take place — or are we, as a nation, too far gone. After all, the NRA is one of the most powerful organisations in America; congressmen are theirs for the picking. In this culture, violence is brought out into the open and it is glorified while, simultaneously, mental health issues are still swept under the rug.… [Read more]
“Obama refuses to put his hand over his heart” were the first words I heard from the man sitting in front of me at Turner Field in Atlanta on Saturday. The public address person had just asked the fans to stand for the National Anthem when he started spewing his bigoted vulgar lies.
Where do people get this crap?… [Read more]
We’ve watched, over these months, as the racists and gun-toters scurry to provide cover for George Zimmerman (and, in case you’re living in a plastic bubble, he’s the Florida murderous vigilante neighborhood watch volunteer who pursued, shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old black kid named Trayvon Martin, was charged with 2nd degree murder, and is now claiming self-defense under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law), and the clamor has certainly allowed the leopard to show its spots. … [Read more]
Milestones. When we look at things on a week-to-week basis, it may not appear that much has changed, but when we look at the broader picture we realise that baby steps brought us to where we are now. Sometimes, we have to wrap things up neatly, stick a bow on it and move on.… [Read more]
Imagine you are at the top in your field of specialized medicine. You do all the right things in terms of furthering your career, yet your peers and colleagues not only disrespect you on a constant basis — they lampoon you in a vile and hostile manner and then laugh like a cabal of mean-spirited middle school bullies.… [Read more]
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, is the focus of a federal investigation for a pattern of abuse against Latinos, especially immigrants. No offense to the sane and rational who live there, but just what is it about the desert heat that breeds his kind? <*That heat is a bitch!*>… [Read more]
“I swear to the Lord, I still can’t see,
Why Democracy means, Everybody but me. ”
~ Langston Hughes
When I read these words spoken more than half a century ago by Langston Hughes, I think that it is unconscionable to observe that in 2012 very little has changed. During the era of slavery, slave codes were enacted to dictate what was permissible by slaves as well as the slave owners.… [Read more]
Ahh, what would the world be without the occasional declarations by some Ashkenazi Jews to remind us of their superior intellectual prowess? Of course, their claims can be substantiated with little to no effort. Forget IQ tests, statistics or research papers to validate such claims; all one has to do is pull from their personal chronicles.… [Read more]
This is not exactly a conspiracy theory since there is no claim of involvement by any outside party such as the CIA, mafia or even the Soviets. What I am presenting is some disturbing similarities between Lee Harvey Oswald (the sniper who allegedly murdered President Kennedy) and Jared Lee Loughner (the man charged with the shooting in Arizona in which six people were killed and 14 others, including U.S.… [Read more]
In a recent TED talk, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke eloquently on “The danger of a single story.” In her talk she spoke of how “the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story”:
.… [Read more]
One minute, I’m proud as hell of this country, the good old U.S. of A. The next minute, I wish Jerry Garcia was still alive and we could all just float upon a cloud of patchouli while group-hugging all the way to drug-induced enlightenment. Sometimes, I get inspired thinking about how far we’ve come in such a short time (sans the drugs) in some respects; but as soon as I am again steeped in the issues of the current day, I want to grab this country by Florida and drag it out to the woodshed for a proper switching.… [Read more]
Did we end this week the same way we started? Conservative magazine, The National Review, just fired one of its writers. Why? Because the writer, a self-described ‘tolerant racist’, posted an article to white parents that relays the advice he gave his own children about the hazards of being in close proximity to black people.… [Read more]
Seriously? It comes down to this?
As an avid middle-aged reader, I’ve embraced young adult books. Harry Potter lured me into his magical world in 2001, just before The Sorcerer’s Stone was released in the theaters. In 2008 I bought the first Twilight book and plowed through all four novels in two weeks and hating myself for it afterwards.… [Read more]
The deadline for my blog article is fast approaching and I am at a complete loss as to what to write.
It is not as if I am out of subjects; there are plenty. I had decided to begin a series that takes a look at the gun control debate in USA. The plan was to start with George Zimmerman, go backwards in history, understand historical precedence and accidents, and gain an understanding of both sides of the debate.… [Read more]
As we listened to the racist code words coming from the Republican presidential candidates, the “food stamp president,” the “gangsta president,” the “Chicago thug” president, my friends and I joked about setting up a pool to pick the date when one of the Republican presidential candidates would slip up and actually use the N-word.
As the weeks have gone by, the Republican candidates have been dropping like flies, leaving the field smaller and smaller.… [Read more]
It’s April Fool’s Day in the United States!
How very appropriate given the amount of sheer foolishness we’ve been subjected to this past week. Let’s start the recap with Justice Scalia; he ought to be ashamed of himself. His statement comparing medical insurance coverage to people being forced to eat broccoli was a lousy analogy at best and exceptionally disingenuous at worst — but not surprising at all.… [Read more]
On vacation with my family, I decided to also take a vacation from news for a few days. When I stumbled back into the cycle, the Trayvon Martin story was everywhere. The more I read, the more baffled I became. No one knows, of course, exactly what happened in the moments before the gun went off, but we do know a kid with Skittles and Ice Tea in his hands is dead and the shooter has not been arrested.… [Read more]
I can’t help being fascinated by the Trayvon Martin case – by the way the events are unfolding and the ways in which narratives are being constructed and white supremacy is being exposed. It’s interesting to hear the many “takes” on the situation, including the following gems of cognition:
