Teaching

Next time you feel the need to dump on the schools because the teachers are nuthin' but a buncha lazy stupid entitlement-sucking bureaucrats who get a free pass at taxpayer expense, I'd like you to stop for just a brief moment - and then go fuck yourself with a pinecone.

(hat tip = my darling daughter and her 10th grade Psych teacher, Mr Ramey)

Last Night On Bill Maher

Sometimes the best comedy isn't very funny.

Contextualizing Cleveland

The Professional Left podcast adds some good perspective:

(the link should open in a new tab - they start talking about it at around the 15:30 mark)

The Professional Left Podcast

Here's the tune driftglass mentions:

This street holds its secrets like a cobra holds its kill

This street minds its business like a jailer minds his jail

That house there is haunted, that door's a portal to hell

This street holds its secrets very well

That man wears his skin like a dancer wears her veils

That man stalks his victims like a cancer stalks a cell

That man's soul has left him, his heart's as deadly as a rusty nail

That man sheds his skin like a veil

Lord, you play a hard game, you know we follow every rule

Then you take the one thing we thought we'd never lose

All I ask is if she's with you please keep her warm and safe

And if it's in your power please purge the memory of this place

This life holds its secrets like a sea shell holds the sea

Soft and distant calling like a fading memory

This life has its victories but its defeats tear so viciously

This life holds its secrets like the sea

Jay Smooth Gets It

On the one hand, there's something I think is pretty important about the Charles Ramsey part of this story because it makes us challenge our own bias and see "the black dude" as a real person; and for some at least, we can generalize that perception, and remind ourselves that people are just people.

But then this:

And this:



And suddenly, lots and lots of us have the permission we need to return to a more comfortable mindset, and we're right back to: "Well, I never said there aren't any good black people...all I'm sayin' is they (insert stereotype here)".

Enter Jay Smooth to help nail it down for me, but in an even larger context.

We need to resist "this mad dash to make a meme-ified clown out of anyone who fits into the Wacky Black Guy box, or the Charmingly Uneducated Hick box..."

Eva Cassidy

Recorded at Blues Alley in Georgetown.  This was January '96, and she died a little over 10 months later.  Cancer is such a fucking thief.

Fugelsang

On the death of Irony:

The Cicadas Are Coming

I don't remember '96 being that bad.  Noisy as fuck, but not the kind of Swarm-aggedon everybody seems to be expecting this time around.



Of course, the All-American-Anything-Fer-A-Buck spirit is alive and well:



Seriously - I really don't care what you say - I ain't eatin' no bugs.  Not on purpose.

Where Do They Get This Shit?

Sometimes, coming up with political humor seems just plain stupid easy.  You just wait for certain politicians to do something and there ya go.

And sometimes, when you wonder where politicians get some of their really really dumbass ideas, you just hafta look at what the jokesters were up to a few years before.

Today's Pix

I Dance, Therefor I Am

...not bored on this fucking treadmill.