"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
Because we can’t be trusted to run our own lives
Our summer rainy season (laughingly called the “monsoon” in Southern Arizona, as if …) is officially over. For the past two months I’ve been driving the truck to the air museum. When I take the truck there are always a pair of prescription eyeglasses along for the ride, either the sunglasses in the center console or a […]
Keep that smart phone handy, peeps. Video every encounter you have with the police, and if you see someone else being roughed up by a cop, pull over and tape it. These taped encounters are making a difference. They’re going viral, popping up on the six o’clock news, and making people think.
This, from an article in the Columbia Daily Spectator: “During the week spent on Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,’ the class was instructed to read the myths of Persephone and Daphne, both of which include vivid depictions of rape and sexual assault. As a survivor of sexual assault, the student described being triggered while reading such detailed accounts […]
Never mind there should be no debate over torture, any more than there should be a debate over rape or child molestation. There is a debate and it’s heading downhill fast, witness this statement by one of the most powerful men in the land: “I think it is very facile for people to say ‘Oh, torture is terrible,’” […]
People keep saying torture can’t be all that bad … after all, we torture our own aviators and special operations forces at a super-secret training facility so they’ll be able to stand up to it if they’re ever captured by the enemy …. and you don’t hear any of them complaining, do you? The acronym for this specialized training […]
Americans who look like me torture.
One of the things that strikes me in so many news stories about preventable disasters is that the decision-makers not only had all the information they needed to take correct and timely preventive action, they were specifically warned when red flags started to wave.
During our drive to New Mexico last week we had to stop at two US Border Patrol checkpoints, one on the White Sands Missile Range inbound to Alamogordo, the other homebound on I-10 between Las Cruces and Deming. We were racially profiled at the first one, which is to say the BP agent glanced at us […]