Poem for the day

THEME FOR ENGLISH B

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white---
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me---
although you're older---and white---
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

By Langston Hughes
1951

(via Hoarded Ordinaries)

Yes, this

A heartfelt parental response to recent tragedies, and a reminder to everybody to make change happen where you can, in your community, in your home.

(via Medley)

I have a blog?? Dump of recent grumps

Apparently the act of moving things into my category tab bars now substitutes for the psychic release I used to achieve through, you know, blogging. Discussion and analysis, venting, all that stuff. Now it's just a boggling heap of tabs up there leering at me. So here's everything that makes me want to scream (other than toddler willfullness, etc.), compiled from the last, um, two months:

• A radical embrace of nullification -- our Disloyal Opposition
  
  
• Wonkbook: The real unemployment rate is 11 percent (including those who've given up looking)
  
  
• NYPD shred kids' paper hearts commemorating Occupy arrestees before their very eyes
  
  
• What Global Warming May Mean for World's Wine Industry -- some people can't pretend it's not happening (look forward to English wine soon!) [related: US agriculturists planning to overhaul the planting zone map to reflect changing temperatures.]
  
  
• A two-part essay on how we're approaching climate change (arguments) completely wrong:
  1. The brutal logic of climate change mitigation
     
  2. The frog and the polar bear: The real reasons Americans aren’t buying climate change
  
  
• WSJ will publish literally anything, as long as it disputes global warming
  
  
• Melting Glaciers Mean Double Trouble for Water Supplies
  
  
• Suffering bad hayfever in Melbourne? -- global warming meaning more pollen?
  
  
• Politifact, R.I.P.

  The people at Politifact are terrified of being considered partisan if they acknowledge the clear fact that there’s a lot more lying on one side of the political divide than on the other. So they’ve bent over backwards to appear “balanced” — and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant.

• Chump Change -- even the housing bubble was racist
  
  
• Servicer Horror Stories: Resurrecting Zombie Mortgages
  
  
• DOJ to America: we won't reveal the circumstances under which you can be assassinated by us
  
  
• LA City Attorney to Occupy: pay for brainwashing lessons on limits of free speech and we'll drop the charges
  
  
• 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free Sigh.
  
  
• Abortion, Parenting, and the Government -- how small barriers add up
  
  
• Anatomy of an unsafe abortion (from an E.R. doctor)
  
  
• It’s a girl: The three deadliest words in the world
  
  
• No Women on Facebook Board
  
  
• Boys Will Hire Boys: The Media Is Male and Getting Maler
  
  
• The big "O" stands for "omitted variable" (ahem!!)
  
  
• The real divide here is on gender, not Catholicism (religious arguments are just a cover for men who don't respect female autonomy)
  
  
• Things That Are Not Racist
  
  
• Neuroscience could mean soldiers controlling weapons with minds
  
  
• Why maximizing shareholder value is no way to run a company
  
  
• What's the social cost of making it harder to get Sudafed? -- more stupidity from the War on Drugs
  
  
• Two variations on a theme (societal panic over children's safety):
  1. Me, APD, and 'Babysitting While White,' Part Deux
     
  2. Man At The Bus Stop! Call The Police!
  
  
• The Plan So Far (for Greece = magic!!)
  
  

Widespread frustration

Am finding this a very frustrating time to be a well-informed citizen of the world -- rabid politics is dooming us to extended recession, America seems to be near-single-handedly preventing the world from addressing global warming before it's too late, and our government is reacting violently to expressions of free speech and public demonstrations. I'm short of time, but I hate to let my "grumpy" file get any thicker before Christmas, so here's a big frustration dump from the last month or two, without much additional comment:

• How evo psych is laying waste to responsible science journalism
  
  
• Essays on the trap of US student debt
  
  
• Sexism's Low-Grade Fever
  
  
• The Psychology of Nakedness (and unfortunate implications for opinions of women)
  
  
• A flurry of how online harrassment of women is completely different from what men experience (in both quantity and sometimes-terrifying quality):
  
  
  1. On being harassed: a little GF history and some current events
     
     
  2. But How Do You Know It’s Sexist? The #MenCallMeThings Round-Up
     
     
  3. The Internet Miniskirt
     
     
  4. "You should have your tongue ripped out": the reality of sexist abuse online
     
  
  
• What baseball tells us about racism
  
  
• Congressional Dysfunction Begins To Spook Old Pros
  
  
• What We Want to See On TV: Handsome Politicians
  
  
• EPA chief tells GOP to STFU
  
  
• Wal-Mart to Cut Healthcare Benefits
  
  
• Lack of jobs leaves more suburban, middle class sliding into poverty
  
  
• CHART OF THE DAY: Paul Ryan Wrong About Upwardly Mobile America
  
  
• CHART OF THE DAY: Long Term Unemployment Is A Huge Problem — Especially If You’re Old
  
  
• Older, Suburban and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ Startle the Census
  
  
• New Cartoon: Government To The Rescue!
  
  
• Worthless (we can always protect the banksters somehow)
  
  
• A Banker Speaks, With Regret

  My daughter and I are reading Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” aloud to each other, and those Depression-era injustices seem so familiar today. That’s why the Occupy movement resonates so deeply: When the federal government goes all-out to rescue errant bankers, and stiffs homeowners, that’s not just bad economics. It’s also wrong.

  
  
• Who Killed Hard Work And Personal Responsibility?
  
  
• Federal Prosecution Of Financial Fraud Falls To 20-Year Low, New Report Shows
  
  
• The euro zone’s terrible mistake
  
  
• Ignorance is bliss when it comes to challenging social issues
  
  
• The Medicaid Ambush: The Supreme Court's unexpected and astounding reasons for wanting to hear a challenge to Obamacare.
  
  
• Congratulations, Television! You Are Even Worse At Masculinity Than Femininity
  
  
• IBM co-opting GPS system?
  
  
• Topeka, Kansas, legalizes domestic violence to save money
  
  
• How Medicare Fails the Elderly
  
  
• W. enters my wife’s schoolboard race
  
  
• Naomi Wolf: how I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street
  
  
• Psychology of pepper spray
  
  
• Pepper-spray inventor: "It's fashionable to use chemical agents on people who have an opinion"
  
  
• The Healing Process
  
  
• San Diego police arrest congressional candidate for voter registration in Civic Center Plaza
  
  
• Occupy Forcing Militarized PDs to Show Their Colors
  
  

Link dump: Latest outrages and frustrations

Man, most of these deserve a freestanding post, dissection, pull-quotes... but it's just not going to happen. Here's a heap of things that just make me want to cry in a darkened room (or maybe bite somebody).

• School Officials Often React Poorly to Student Suicides, Experts Say -- many of the classic actions to help the community mourn actually glorify the act of suicide and encourage others to consider it (!)
  
  
• Why Do Americans Pay More For Healthcare? -- summarized in visual form, and likely not the reasons you may have been told...
  
  
• Eight facts and three thoughts about Social Security -- also not what tends to get discussed, but important facts and conclusions here
  
  
• Cartoon: The Wage Gap and Women’s Choices -- seems so obvious, but...
  
  
• South Dakota Banning Abortion Without Banning Abortion?
  
  
• Scott Walker wants you to die alone if you married the wrong person -- to whom else can this putz flip the bird?
  
  
• Top Doctors Opt Out of Airport Security Scans -- make of it what you will
  
  
• Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill compared lawmakers trying to block raising the debt ceiling to "al Qaeda terrorists."
  
  
• CBO: GOP Budget Would Increase Debt, Then Stick It To Medicare Patients
  
  
• Reading Is Fundamental Funding Eliminated -- and this one is already done
  
  
• Barbour Says Everyone In Mississippi Has Access To Health Care -- But 18% Are Uninsured -- yes, folks, these are your elected representatives!
  
  
• Poll: Miss. Republicans think inter-racial marriage should be illegal -- I'm constantly amazed to learn what decade/century we live in...
  
  
• How Quickly We Forget -- race isn't the only thing driving right-wing fervor against Obama
  
  
• He Won -- bin Laden, that is; we've sold our liberties for "security" in too many ways...
  
  
• To *enter* the post office in downtown Athens, US Marshals are demanding photo ID -- what on earth?!?
  

Link dump II: Cheerful and/or interesting

And hey! I had more of these than of the grumpy kind!

• The 10 weirdest physics facts, from relativity to quantum physics
  
  
• Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010: [National Geographic] Editors' Picks -- why let physics have all the fun?
  
  
• The Truth Wears Off -- Is there something wrong with the scientific method? Talk about weird!! (!!)
  
  
• Leave Your Tasks Unfinished to Maintain Momentum and Avoid Mental Blocks -- counterintuitive at first glance, but spiff!
  
  
• The prettiest woodpile I've ever seen -- neat.
  
  
• The Human Incubator -- human contact can trump high technology.
  
  
• Turbine-free wind power -- a neat alternative in development
  
  
• Poetic sensitivities -- the limits of perception expressed in everyday terms (accidental poetry).
  
  
• Senate Passes 9/11 First Responders Health Care Bill -- ok, this was a while ago, but good to celebrate rare shows of sanity.
  
  
• Now We're Talking -- the argument you never hear: why the retirement age should be lowered, not raised. Atrios echoes and extends the idea here.
  
  
• Also too rarely seen: Muslim and Christian, Egyptians stand together against violence (this is before the current political unrest)
  
  
• Also uplifting: A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
  
  
• Don't Touch My Junk! Jesse Ventura Sues The TSA -- he might be just the guy to press this issue.
  
  
• Another dumb idea gets its comeuppance: Dubai's artificial islands "sinking"
  
  
• Totally inspired (and addictive) resource: Wikipedia's List of common misconceptions, from sports to religion and everything else.
  
  
• The Unspeakable, in Its Jammies -- how we deal with difficult language in literature (as in the recent Huck Finn controversy), and a touching account of discussing the matter with kids.
  
  
• Chop, Fry, Boil: Eating for One, or 6 Billion -- three basic approaches to cooking can do everything you need.
  
  
• Characters from The Wire broken down by appropriate D&D alignment -- soooo right.
  
  
• Brimming with Holiday Spirit -- Tom Tomorrow gets to the heart of why worry about Assaults on the Holidays are absurd...
  
  
• The Fun Theory -- can making things fun help people do the right thing? Dunno, but these little demonstrations make me pretty happy.
  
  
• My Blackberry is not working -- pure British sketch silliness.
  

Post-racial THIS!

We surely don't live in 1960 anymore, but those who argue that America is in a post-racial era are self-deluded (and probably speaking from a position of oblivious privilege). Here are just a couple of examples of the way in which racist bias permeates our culture and constrains the options of minority individuals:

1. Cupcakes With a Side of Racism!
   
   
2. Why Barack Won’t Get Angry

I look forward to a day when Otherness is not noteworthy, and when individual performance/behavior isn't appraised differently when given different racial or gender contexts. But that time has not yet come, and we've got some work to do.

A small blow for sanity

Well! unexpected good thing of the week: disparity in drug sentencing reduced. Not sure what the rationale is for keeping the remining differential, but every little bit helps...

(via a tweet from FreeRangeKids)

Who to blame

Ampersand offers a nutshell take on recent financial indignities and the response of the American public to them. Sigh.

Agog

This story just blows my mind. So many ways it is wrong.
Still think that all your racist legislation isn't having any local effects, AZ?
(via a Medley tweet)

Update: a nice response from Roger Ebert to this same craziness.
(via rc3.org)

Idiots

Apparently the Washington Post "can't tell" Barak Obama from Malcolm X . . . Eesh

(via a BagNewsNotes tweet)

Some interesting bits (Us and Them Edition)

• Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking -- there's every reason to expect that they'd want to pillage the earth just as we have...
  
  
• Tea-bag protests through the lens of white privilege -- would we really be as calm about all this rhetoric if it were crowds of black/brown/scary folks shaking their fists?
  
  
• "I just don't like kids" is not that uncommon a position, but it's hard to look at it the same way after reading this discussion classing that stance as bigotry (be sure to read the comments, which is where the real peeling back of the language happens)...
  

Pretty grim

...what counts for humor/rumination among Republicans. Rush doesn't deserve to be on the air, let alone a paragon of civic values (to those twisted enough to appreciate him). Grim stuff.

What could possibly go wrong?

I just get the feeling that formation of quasi-governmental militias in Louisiana to deal with Scary People and Other Threats might be... not such a great idea. Shades of George Wallace, anyone? (or, you know, the Katrina bridge blockade?)

Quote of the day

The Senate is holding a hearing today where several current and former Blackwater employees will be testifying, but honestly the only way Congress would stop giving Blackwater money is if it started registering black people to vote.

- Adam Serwer

(lifted whole from Atrios)

Three bits on Haiti

• Doctors Without Borders arrives on the scene with instant hospitals ready to inflate. Yay for the good guys! (and a good place to give funds)
  
  
• Jon Stewart reprimands the haters and those attempting to "make hay" politically from whatever response is made to this major disaster. So much putziness, so little humanity...
  
  
• The inimitable The Bag notes a color inversion of the usual media narrative, as local police help excavate trapped U.N. workers.
  

More celebration of our post-racist society

Just don't bump into cranky cops. Because near-deadly force makes a great come-back.

The more things change...

...the more the South continues to play the white master/subservient black man game. They've spent centuries building the layers of coded language so that even the mildest comment carries unmistakable resonances to its intended audience...

mmm, makes you feel good about America, don't it?

Our "post-racial" society

It reminds me a lot of our "post-feminist" era -- that is, complete crap. Just ask prominent Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who appears to have been arrested for Getting Your Key Stuck While Black (and then being offended by the fact that police were called). I'm guessing that the black businessmen who got stopped every day going across the bridge from St. Louis to East St. Louis because their cars were too nice (charge: Driving Nice Car While Black) back when I lived there are just feeling the post-profiling love today too! It's a whole new world, man!

Sigh.

(via a Medley tweet)

Great minds

Enjoyed this little clip (mostly). Can we get that first guy into some kind of important role? And, um, can we get that last guy off the *&%#! TV?!?!?

(via Talking Points Memo)