- I don’t understand why it’s un-Constitutional for individual states to ban abortions, but it’s not un-Constitutional for individual states to allow the death penalty.
- I’m not really sure what this economic “stimulus” package is supposed to do. $600? Come on. Thats a movie and dinner…if you don’t order popcorn at the movie. What happens when the $600 is gone? We’ll be roughly, oh, I dunno….maybe…exactly where we were before!? I guess it’s kind of like economic Viagra. Enjoy it while it lasts, because when it wears off…yeah, you’re still impotent.
- Rather than try to stop people from shooting people by trying to take away their guns, why aren’t we spending a lot more time and energy trying to figure out why they’re shooting people in the first place? Instead of screaming about how dangerous guns are, why not look into what is driving more and more people to this level of violence? Look for the root causes of the violence, rather than blaming the tools they use to do it?
- If someone is really still all that upset about slavery, I have a plan. Instead of paying reparations, we buy plane tickets. Instead of using money to apologize, let’s use it to right the wrong. If you’re really that angry about the slave trade stealing you from Africa, go back. Here…we’ll help. One way tickets to Darfur, Somalia, or the Ivory Coast. Maybe the Sudan. I hear it’s nice this time of year. It’d be a lot cheaper, and I think it could work. Came over on a rickety ship? We’ll send you home in Economy Plus, and bus fare on the other end ta boot.
- Everyone now talks about how the big evil SUVs are giving off all this carbon dioxide and contributing to global warming. I thought car exhaust was primarily carbon MONOXIDE, you know, that evil stuff that was eating the ozone layer in the 1970’s and 80’s? The unstable CO molecule would steal an oxygen atom from the O3, (ozone), turning it into plain old O2, and thus robbing us of our UV filter. If cars only created carbon dioxide, a stable harmless gas used by plants in photosynthesis, wouldn’t that be a GOOD thing? Waaaiit a seconnnnd…isn’t the catalytic converter supposed to be used to turn carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide and water vapor, among other things? Do you mean that…no, it couldn’t be…that in trying to save the ozone we’ve doomed the planet by actually causing global warming!?!!? AAAAUUUGGGGHHH!
- Whatever happened to MadCow Disease? It was quite the bugaboo for a while. Now…nada. Did we cure it, or was it just too disturbing to talk about?
- At some point doesn’t Britney Spears sort of move into the category of people who are retarded, or have a physical deformity or were maybe a burn victim, you know, where it’s not polite to stare? At some point don’t we just sort of realize that she’s got some serious mental issues, and that continuing to plaster the worst possible pictures of her across every magazine and tabloid isn’t much better than posting YouTube videos of people with Downs Syndrome falling down a flight of stairs…and then laughing about it? At what point does she stop being a “celebrity” and start being one of “those” kind of people we don’t really talk about because of, well, you know, her “issues?”
Filed under: Abortion, Blitherings, Celebrating Diversity, Celebrities, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Guns, Politics, Random Observations, Science
I found the comments you made anout Spears very offensive.
Perhaps a re-read of your Bible is in order…
You think too much! Very entertaining, spot on though.
raejane, get a sense of humor. I hear you can pick one up real cheap at Wal Mart these days. Perhaps you should take a peek inside that Bible, yourself.
You think too much! Very entertaining, spot on though.
raejane, get a sense of humor. I hear you can pick one up real cheap at Wal Mart these days. Perhaps you should take a peek inside that Bible, yourself.
Strange….submit once, it posts twice with two different identities.
Wadical.. I don’t think it’s funny to make fun of people who have Down’s Syndrome or any other ‘issue’. And I think I have a pretty good sense of humor. WalMart or not.
I do find it laughable though that you would ask me to read the bible, as if you know anything about me.
Instead of using money to apologize, let’s use it to right the wrong. If you’re really that angry about the slave trade stealing you from Africa, go back.
You might want to bear in mind that you’re talking about Americans here. Not Africans. There’s nowhere for them to “go back” to, and they’re just as entitled to be here as you are.
Surely slavery was a monstrous wrong, and while it can’t be undone now, it’s fair to talk about the ways in which slavery still has effects today, and what might be done about that.
Americans who suffer injustice today from the sins of the past deserve to be heard. They don’t deserve to be told to leave the country for asking for justice.
And, for the record, it doesn’t take any money to apologize. (Whether anyone even ought to be apologizing today for the past is another matter.)
Good points, James.
Very well said.
James, I think the fact that they are Americans and not Africans was sort of my point. Why do we talk about paying the descendants of slaves, who have lived in this country for generations now, some sort of “hush” money to show our remorse over slavery? And how are Americans today still suffering from the effects slavery, which ended over 100 years ago? Why should someone who enjoys the much higher standard of living in this country, and who has known nothing else his entire life, get paid anything for what happened to his great-great-great grandfather? We’re all immigrants in one form or another. We became Americans. I didn’t say they HAVE to leave. I was saying that if they feel so wronged, by being brought here generations ago, we should help them return to their homeland. Least we can do. And yes, it was sarcasm.
raejane,
If you read the post carefully, I hope you’ll see that I put “making fun of people with Downs Syndrome” in the worst possible light. I think Britney has some deep and serious emotional issues, and dragging her through the tabloids can’t be helping. I’m just suggesting that she get the same respect and privacy we accord other people with emotional or developmental disabilities.
Hence my comment that perhaps she needs to glance in that Bible, herself. Because what you were espousing was that staring and making a spectacle of someone because of a particular problem they have, be it mental retardation or psychological issues is reprehensable. Quit staring. Get the girl some help or whatever but quit plastering her all over the front page of every publication like some train wreck.
I got it. raejane obviously did not.
I got it.. I just found the way in which it was said offensive.
There are better ways.
I have a child that is special needs. I understand. I get it.
Glad you get it. My son is autistic. Bullied and stared at and pushed around DAILY.
You’re right, there may be “better” ways to say it…in certain circles. But that is one of the great things about this medium. One can say what they want, how they want and when they want, without the constraints of Political Correctness Police reminding them of every time they cross the “accepted” line. The lack of those “constraints” often allows one the pleasure of driving a point home with a sixteen pound sledge rather than gingerly tapping it home with a tack hammer.
My comment to you was not confrontational in its intent. It’s simply a “lighten up”, comment. So if you find something on a blog that “offends you”….lighten up. Make your argument by all means, you obviously have the ability to do so quite articulately without “offense” getting in the way. But really, take it for what it is, not for what some PC policeman might “read into it”.
BTW, thanks for visiting my site. You are welcome to do so anytime. But you may….no, I’m almost postitive you WILL get offended from time to time. I invite all my “visitors” to get past that emotion and engage in valid, intelligent debate. You seem to be doing fine thus far.
My daughter has Asperger’s. She’s 4.
Small world.
I understand what you’re saying.
I once made a comment about my own daughter and the fact that I had given her a bad haircut, I cut her bags waaaaaay too short. I said something like, “I cut her bangs so short, I should have just painted on her shirt ‘ I ride the short bus to school.’.”
A woman in the circle of women I was chatting with told me how awful i was being and what if someone’s child here actally DID ride the short bus…
I explained that my child DOES really ride the short bus.
oh well… her bangs really did look silly.
Yes, small world indeed. I tell everyone my son has Autism because no one knows what Asperger’s is. Asperger’s is what he has.
Amazing.
I worry a lot about bullies. Even at 3 she was the target of some strange preschool behaviors. It’s fascinating to me how at such a young age they are able to ‘pick out’ the vulnerable one.
She was diagnosed at 3. Already aged out of EI. I knew something was different about her at 2 weeks, but no one would listen to me. I’m just her mom, ya know.
She has Asperger’s and Sensory Integration and is about to have her eyes checked.. she still can’t write her name and it seems that maybe it has to do with the way she sees the letters rather than just not being able to.
Good golly.
Sorry Steve.. I’ve taken up a lot of your comments today!
But, people enter your life for a reason
I doubt Steve minds. Not like we’re eating up his bandwidth or anything.
You’re lucky. My son turned 14 yesterday. He was diagnosed very late in life, at 12. Asperger’s didn’t even have a name until 1990.
It’s tough, but you’ll find that the biggest problem will be the ability to empathize with other children….or anyone for that matter. This socially sequesters them and is absolutely heartbreaking to watch.
Visit anytime and we’ll talk about it.
I don’t mind a bit! Don’t remember the last time I got 16 comments on a post.
I guess I’m out of touch or just not PC enough or something, cuz I’m still not getting how it’s offensive to make reference to someone with Downs Syndrome being (hypothetically) ill-treated, when using it to draw a parallel to someone else I see being mistreated. I don’t know that anyone has ever posted anything like that on YouTube, but to me, it would be about as tastless as what I see the tabloids doing doing to Spears.
To me, Spears has moved from being a “celebrity” to being someone with significant mental illness. I think she should be accorded a certain measure of privacy and decorum for that.
how are Americans today still suffering from the effects slavery, which ended over 100 years ago?
Steve, your argument seems to boil down to this question.
And the answer is easy. American slaves were freed in the 1860s and dumped into society with absolutely nothing. Not compensation for their troubles, not payment for their labor, not even a pittance on which to live.
For the next century, these former slaves and their descendants faced official discrimination, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and the worst forms of bigotry. Only since the 1960s have the descendants of slaves faced even legal equality, even while continuing to face prejudice.
After all that time, blacks have been able to make remarkably little progress in catching up to whites, in terms of jobs, income, housing, education, and so on.
To give just one example, the black share of wealth in this country remains almost unchanged from the days when those former slaves lived.
I think it’s hard not to see that situation as the legacy of slavery and the discrimination which followed.
Well, I guess I can kinda see where you are coming from. But…
Weren’t a large number of Chinese and other asians were “imported” into the country to work on the railroads, under conditions only slightly better than slavery? They were promised much, given very little. Some returned, many stayed. They faced much of the same racism and economic discrimination as blacks have, but they seem to have fared a good deal better. They have shown a lot of progress in “catching up to whites,” as you call it.
Why the difference?
So I guess my question is this: how long do you suppose is a reasonable length of time before the condition of the black community and culture will no longer be seen as a legacy of slavery? Is it time-driven, or success driven? I mean, is it only when X percentage of the black population has reached a Y standard of living that we will say they’ve “finally” shaken off the chains of slavery? And that being said, if year after year passes, and that level is still not reached by X percentage, will it still remain the responsibility/blame of an intransigent, “white-dominated” culture that won’t “let” them succeed?
As what point does a certain demographic stop blaming their situation on the past, and, 40 YEARS after the birth of Civil Rights movement, begin to acknowledge that perhaps there are some endemic problems that need to be addressed as well?
Lots I meant to comment on when I first clicked “comment” but after reading all these other comments I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.
I do think you are so right about Britney. She needs to be moved out of the public eye for her sake — and ours.
It’s cruel.
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