"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
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 […]
Do even white people trust the police any more? What should I do if a cop wants me to pull over? Try to keep rolling until I can stop in an area where there are witnesses, hoping someone will take a cell phone video in case things go sideways? Is the cop going to tase me if I don’t bow and scrape? Do I have […]
Two things that distinguish online from print news are links and reader comments. Online news articles include embedded links, making it easy for readers to call up sources and related stories. This is the best thing about online news IMO. The worst thing about online news is reader comments. Print newspapers and magazines filter comments, generally […]
The Nut Tree was a landmark of my younger days in California. In my last year of high school and first year of college, my friends and I expressed our newly-found independence and adulthood by driving from Sacramento to San Francisco on weekends. The Nut Tree, just off the freeway south of Sacramento, was a mandatory coffee stop. That […]
Mike Huckabee once said this about Barack Obama: Which prompted the following response by Stephen Colbert: The important thing isn’t where the Mau Mau Revolution happened. The important thing is for people to start associating Barack Obama with the words “Mau Mau.” After all, wherever not in the United States the President grew up, he had […]
I feel like we’re slipping back to the 1960s; I meant it when I said I can see Donna and I packing clothing and food for freedom riders again, just as we did in 1964.
Ugh, relatives in the heartland. Again. I unfriend out & out racists when they reveal themselves on Facebook, unless they’re kin (I did unfriend a nephew, but it was over animal cruelty). In the wake of Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson and the protests that followed, some of my relatives have started sharing white supremacist chain letters and […]
I needed reassurance that the Bundy Ranch and Murrieta types are a marginal minority, and Rachel Maddow gave it to me.