Recently in Society Category

This was a pretty good series based on mostly rural India and Pakistan and the young folks who live there.

Even for having conservative weasel Steve Inskeep involved, the stories were pretty much free of bias and inanity.

This is the kind of stuff NPR excels at and I hope they keep at it.

Because everyone has to be number one at something.

Click here for the big picture.

While somewhat humorous, I can definitely see where this could be a problem.

Here is a photo gallery of other examples.

Not all Muslims are blood-thirsty terrorists who want us dead. Many are just as goodhearted and respectful of life as the next person. Case in point? The guy who discovered the Times Square bomb in the first place.

I mean, I don't believe every pseudo-Christian is an ignorant, war-loving racist, but I could see where people would get that impression.

The US isn't the only place where we kick those who are already down.

Surprisingly - and somewhat sickeningly - you can marry your cousin in most of the US. I mean, outside of the South anyway.

And yet we think we've got a handle on things.

Granted, there are some irregularities here, but to deny a person citizenship after service to our nation in a warzone.

But hey, she's just another illegal to these people, right?

Here's the problem with conservatives. Well, there are many, many problems, but here's a bad marketing decision.

In their hatred of having a black President, they've taken to calling him a socialist (or whatever) because they can't openly call him the N word.

It sells well with the "we hate education" crowd. However, it is falling flat dead with young voters.

Why?

Well, one, a lot of them are in college and can actually learn what words like socialism, communism, and fascism mean. They can see communist China using capitalism to kick our ass economically. They see semi-socialist parts of Europe recovering from the Great Recession and having 32 hour work weeks, a paid year off or two for maternity leave, five weeks of vacation, and health care and great infrastructure.

Then they see the US with crumbling this or not and a bank/government/corporate scandal or theft every few days. And aside from the President and his party all they see are Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and company making common cause with racist anti-government militias a la McVeigh.

What the hell kind of conclusion do you expect them to make other than conservatives are lunatics more in line with the Taliban than with them?

Robert Reich makes a no-nonsense and obvious point about entitlement funding, if you just spend a few minutes looking over the data. Immigrants have nurtured and strengthened our nation in the past and they'll continue to do so, no matter what the color of their skin or language they came hear speaking.

What's weird is how acceptable the argument is. I just got done reading Geraldo Rivera's The Great Progression and he made basically the same argument in one of his chapters. Why was I reading that book? Well, I've promised myself to try to read some socio-political books of folks I don't really agree with. Reading any O'Reilly or - gasp! - Coulter or Malkin seemed to be useless. I at least share some skin color with Rivera so it seemed a good start. And, frankly, when he's not spouting anti-union, anti-progressive rhetoric he's been brainwashed with, he's the kind of Republican you can at least agree to disagree with, and even agree on some common sense ideas. Like the immigration issue.

Frank Rich is absolutely right in this week's article. We live in a culture where no one actually apologizes and everything that goes wrong is magically someone else's fault.

We have to do a better job with the next generation because the one before us really blows.

I heard this awhile back and just was thinking on it. From the age of Reagan to that of Bush the Lesser Sikhs were not allowed religious expression in the US military.

The all (Hate) Jesus all the time party endorsed religious persecution of a non-Christian faith all while saying words like "freedom" without allowing it for persons who did not look and believe as they did.

Nothing surprising there, just another example of conservative hypocrisy.

Know why we're getting our butts kicked in science and technology? Know why the newest gadget is merely an updated Newton and people think that's a good thing?

This nation needs more geeks. I just got my kid some Star Wars toys and we watched Life last night before his bath. I'm doing my part. What about you?

Lesson One in how to make your race irrelevant. First you get all up in a huff because the nation elected a black man as president. Then you reject filling out the census. This makes your regions less represented in the nation's politics - hopefully losing Congressional seats as well as not gaining all the ones you are entitled to - and diverting funds from your communities, making them more backwards and obsolete than just your thought patterns.

Add to this the very successful campaign to get Latinos registered and thus overrepresented (thanks to your racist asses) and ta-da! now you don't count as much.

Quicker.

While neither Puerto Rico nor Iranian, I can totally get the gist of this article.

I mean, I'm pretty light skinned, but you can obviously tell I'm not full Anglo. And it bugs me to fill out forms as "white" when I sure the hell aren't getting the full white boy treatment in this world. I've got a chip on my shoulder for sure, but I didn't put it there myself.

Or, as the article puts it:

"When I was applying for college, I actually looked for the box to mark Iranian," he muses, "and I went to my counselor and I said, 'There's no Iranian box' and they go, 'Well, you're white.' I go, 'What do you mean I'm white?' I took all the insults growing up -- camel jockey, towel head, all this other stuff -- and all I had to say was, 'Dude, I'm white!'"