A Picture of a True Imbecile
July 30, 2010 Leave a comment
Here’s the story that tells the reason for his imbecility.
Not the Front Row
July 30, 2010 Leave a comment
Here’s the story that tells the reason for his imbecility.
July 8, 2010 Leave a comment
Carles Puyol (right) who looks like he just stepped out of a Hapsburg family portrait, heads Spain into the World Cup Final. As a descendant of the Hapsburg’s, Puyol will be looking for some payback by cracking some skulls against the Netherlands on Sunday
My guess is that since LeBron James missed not having a signing day presser coming out of high school, he’s making up for lost time with “The Decision”. Great column on the LeBron “saga” that mercifully ends tonight.
When the folks at NASA aren’t trying to reach out to the Muslim world, they’re conducting valuable research.
Forget Wife Swap, how ’bout an old-fashioned spy swap? Makes me want to re-read The Cardinal of the Kremlin.
So now these “elites” will become embittered and “cling to martini glasses or environmentalism or antipathy towards people who don’t think like them or anti-American sentiment or anti-capitalism sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Right POTUS?
Unbelievable pictures of Monterrey in the aftermath of Hurricane Alex.
Holy poncho Batman! Martha Stewart had lengua, easily the most underrated “cut” of beef.
Caught this on PBS last night, I might or might not have almost shed a tear because of Jackie’s courage in the face of such bitter hatred.
[Photo Credit: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images Europe]
May 27, 2008 1 Comment
Mr. Pitts is a capable and distinguished columnist. For what it’s worth, I tend to disagree with him more often than not. This of course does not mean that I don’t respect the man and his work.
His latest column,
Poor whites are being conned, makes for an interesting read.
A snippet,
Which is a desription [sic] that fits many in Appalachia — and also a vast swath of African America. So for me, the story here isn’t simply the old, familiar tale of the nation’s stark racial divide, but also another tale, just as old, less often remarked, of how the white poor and the black poor have long been kept at one another’s throats as a means of keeping them from looking too closely or clearly at the ways both are maniuplated by the forces of money and power.
Dr. Zinn also addresses the origins and sordid purpose of this in his classic, A People’s History of the United States. Mainly he deals with the topic in a chapter titled, “Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom”.
A sample,
The need for slave control led to an ingenious device, paying poor whites–themselves so troublesome for two hundred years of southern history–to be overseers of black labor and therefore buffers for black hatred
For other posts on Dr. Zinn see below,
“Dennis Prager and Howard Zinn have tea”
May 19, 2008 Leave a comment
OK, we can breathe easier in regards to the problem of racism here in the United States,
U.N. racism investigator to visit U.S. from Monday
According to the story, Mr. Diene*,
will…gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
Not sure what this gentleman hopes to accomplish on this visit, which by the way starts today. What is he going to tell us? That racism exists in America? What else? Grass is green? Most of America doesn’t like the New York Yankees and Duke Basketball?
Isn’t it obvious that racism is alive and kicking especially now during our election cycle? You have whites that are not voting for Barack Obama only because he’s “black” and you have blacks who are voting for Barack Obama only because he’s “black”.
Of course, most people will only see the former case as an example of racism while the latter as an example of people supporting one’s own.
Mr. Diene’s trip might not be a total waste of time if he addresses the true root of the disease known as racism instead of merely the symptoms, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Also working against him is America’s typical blah attitude towards the U.N., which the article does note,
the United Nations has almost no clout when it comes to U.S. domestic affairs and is widely perceived by many as interfering.
*No relation to,
December 5, 2007 6 Comments
During the winter break of my first year of college I worked as a cashier at a now defunct truck stop in a small town.
The memories I have from said time are lively to say the least. Two incidents are still vivid in my mind after “all these” years.
If you hung around this blog long enough you know that I am Mexican. No, not of Mexican descent only (that is Mexican-American) but actually born in México.
Personally I can’t recall being discriminated against because of that, at least directly. I know there are people who think Mexicans inferior and all that but I haven’t directly been the target of such ignorance.
To be fair, I probably don’t fit the image most people might have of Mexicans for I’m not dark-skinned or swarthy or perhaps even wear a sombrero (If that is your impression of us, well you haven’t been exposed to very many of us). The accent I did have when I first started speaking English on a daily basis, is by all accounts gone.
The 2 incidents which I recall are in this vein. The first involved an elderly inhabitant of the aforementioned small town. The woman, she couldn’t have been younger than 70, and her sister came to buy something or other and as they were paying me they laid out their cash on the counter to count it (after all isn’t that what a counter is for?).
Now the women were Anglo and probably grew up during a time in this country were racism was not only extant but acceptable. As they finished coming up with the cash to cover their purchases one of the women turned to the other and dropped this line,
Put your money away before a Mexican comes and steals it
Now I found this amusing though I didn’t react visibly. My initial thought was, “This woman doesn’t know I’m Mexican or if she does she doesn’t care”.
I know such an incident might send some of my compatriots (real or pretend) scrambling for the nearest phone so they can call some civil rights group and demand so-called justice.
At the end of it I dismissed it as the ignorance of a woman who grew up at a time when such ignorance was believed and perhaps even encouraged. What question did arise in my mind was the following,
Were (are) Mexicans really viewed as thieves? Just waiting to part a fool from his/her money?
The other incident involved a couple of elderly Mexican women. Sometimes I would have to work the graveyard shift (Midnight-8am) and the middle of the night would bring bus after bus of gamblers (the vast majority Hispanic) going to or from the casinos in Louisiana (gambling is not legal in Texas).
One night a bus disembarked and sure enough it was a bunch of elderly Hispanics. Understand that working this shift is hard for it is somewhat unnatural to be awake during these hours. I probably didn’t look as awake as I could have been.
So these 2 Mexican women roll up to the counter to pay for whatever it is they bought and one of them tells the other one in Spanish,
This guy doesn’t even look like he’s awake
Of course she was referring to me and I let her know (in Spanish) that I was quite awake. The reaction was priceless as they always are when one commits such a faux pas. The woman was understandably embarrassed (unfortunately, I’ve been in her shoes and believe me it’s embarrassing) yet didn’t offer an apology.
She merely said, “Well you do look half-asleep”.
I know Pearl Jam sing about an “elderly woman behind a counter in a small town” but as for me the ones in front of a counter have proven more entertaining.