"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Fighting for hearts and minds
James Comey, the director of the FBI, says the murder of nine African-American churchgoers at a prayer meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, is not terrorism. His reasoning? Terrorism is act of violence done or threatens to in order to try to influence a public body or citizenry so it’s more of a political act and […]
Man. This church shooting in South Carolina. This white guy. Whose middle name is Storm (as in Stormtrooper or Stormfront?). Who sported an apartheid-era Rhodesian flag on his windbreaker. Who (but of course!) was given a gun for his 21st birthday. Pardon me if I roll my eyes the next time someone tells me everything’ll be […]
Whoa, two posts in one day. Guess I wasn’t done earlier. I’m back from my dry run at the museum. I borrowed the volunteer golf cart and drove the tram tour route, talking about all the aircraft I plan to cover on live tours with visitors once I certify. If anyone saw me putting around, gesticulating […]
The city of St Louis, Missouri integrated its public swimming pools in June, 1949. The experiment was short-lived. When I was five, my grandfather waded into a creek I was playing in and yanked me out. Some black kids my age had followed me into the water. “You’ll catch a disease,” he explained. This was in my home town […]
This showed up on the io9 website today: I’m suffering from cognitive dissonance, because io9’s choice of a graphic to accompany its story about women dominating the Nebulas is the cover of a Nebula-winning book written by a man, Jeff Vandermeer. Granted, the strongest and most well-drawn characters in Annihilation, as in Authority and Acceptance, the other books […]
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 […]
I did a stupid thing yesterday (so what else is new?) and commented on a Facebook thread about Pamela Geller’s Muhammad-drawing event in Garland, Texas. The thread was started by a fellow progressive who (I thought at first) feels as I do, that freedom of speech must be protected in this country even when we deplore how […]
Don’t we wish. The joke is people are outraged (rightly so IMO) over non-contributors getting something for nothing … so long as they’re poor or minorities. When it comes to trust fund babies, celebrities, royals, insanely overpaid CEOs, and the idle heirs of old money, outrage generally turns to acceptance, even admiration. Oh, sure, there are […]