Dallas police officers issued 38 citations in the past three years to drivers not only for traffic violations but also because they were “non-English speaking.” It isn’t clear from the news report exactly what these traffic violations were, and why knowledge of English might be important or even crucial. Perhaps the drivers could not decipher…
The Sunday New York Times lists recent bio-pics which have been made about Dead White Women, among them Julia Child, Edith Piaf, Amelia Earhart, Fanny Brawne, Coco Chanel, Virginia Woolf, Queen Victoria. On the planning stage are movies about Dusty Springfield and Janis Joplin. I could add a great many other worthy subjects to the…
In the bad old days, where racism is concerned, even though they frequently wore white hoods to cover up their faces, we knew exactly who our enemies were. In public, they were unafraid to call us “Nigger” and all its equivalents–“Chink,” “Jap,” “Gook,” “Flip,” “Spic,” “Wop,” “Kike,” “Polack,” ad nauseam. Then came the Age of Political…
According to the morning paper, Kansas Republican State. Rep. Bill Otto ranted for nearly three minutes against President Obama at a recent legislative meeting, then later posted a YouTube video of himself singing an anti-Obama “Redneck Rap” while wearing a hat that said, “OPOSSUM, the other dark meat.” At the end of his song, Otto points to his hat and says again,…
After months of being wooed, Sen. Olympia Snowe was the only Republican lawmaker who voted in committee yesterday for a Democratic health care bill. But, quite disingenuously, she told the press that her vote yesterday was her vote yesterday, and that there is no guarantee this is how she will vote again when the bill finally comes up…
Last night’s staged reading of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, an Epilogue in 150 theatres all over America and around the world (I attended the one presented by Kansas City Repertory Theatre) had several recurring themes. First, the citizens of Laramie want to put the murder of Mattthew Shepard behind them; many of them…
President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize on the same day that NASA blows up the moon. It’s a peaceful way of saying, “Today the Moon, Tomorrow Kabul!” Everyone knows we can do it, nobly, so there is no need to send in more troops to Afghanistan. Or is this just wishful thinking? Sheer lunacy? “Shine on…Shine…
When Barack Obama took Michelle out to dinner on May 30th in Manhattan, it was at the Blue Hill Restaurant. Last night, to celebrate their 17th wedding anniversary, he took her to the Blue Duck Tavern in Georgetown. Is there a pattern here? Is this his way of sending a signal to the 52 fiscally-conservative…
In his TV show last night, David Letterman joked about having sex with women on his staff. No one expects him to wear the LETTER A around his neck. What if Whoopi Goldberg or Barbara Walters had done the same thing? Oh, wait. Didn’t Baba Wawa confess to having an affair with US Senator Edward Brooke? And…
I’m sure Sarah Palin gave the title of her upcoming memoir a great deal of thought before deciding to call it GOING ROGUE: AN AMERICAN LIFE. She will surely benefit from all the allusions to ROGUE, a fictional female character from Marvel Comics, a mutant who, according to Wikipedia, “absorbs the memories, physical strength and…the abilities…