Remedial

Today in racism: Hate mail

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:46:21 -0600

Muslim American organizations hurried Friday to condemn the shootings at Fort Hood, saying they have already begun receiving some hate mail and emphasizing that there are thousands of Muslims serving in the armed forces.

The article is short and has a few good moments.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110601752.html?hpid=topnews

Moar apps?

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:38:50 -0600

Verizon is finally getting a Google Phone, as I call it, and I’m pretty excited by that.

Reviewers have been reviewing and one thing that seems to come up is that the iPhone’s app store has So Many Apps!!! and the app store available for Verizon’s new phone doesn’t have that many apps.

Considering that so many of the apps available for the iPhone are programs that make fart noises and other nonsense, I’m surprised to see people quoting the raw number of apps like it’s a big deal. Who cares if there are a lot of apps, if they aren’t useful?

Surviving a zombiepocalypse: Flashlight

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:54:36 -0600

I was trying to watch 28 Days Later last night and I couldn’t: I’d played too many zombie/monster survival video games for it to be believable. Dude goes into a dark church armed with a bag of fucking Pepsi? Come on.

I haven’t thought through the particulars, yet, but I know there’s one thing I would acquire as soon as possible in the event of a zombiepocalypse: a flashlight. What type of flashlight is another question all together. Part of me thinks one of those wind-up flashlights would be good so there’s no need for batteries. Then again, a giant Maglite would be super sexy, especially considering it could double as a weapon. Granted, you don’t want a zombie (et al.) close enough to you that a Maglite would be necessary… but shit happens during zombiepocalypse, right? Right.

Once you have acquired said flashlight of your choosing, never go anywhere dark ever. Ever.

Voters hold VA Gov. accountable because they're mad at the Prez because of Congress' incompetence/naked greed

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:30:31 -0500

Well… here’s the link - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/30/virginia-governor-election-barack-obama

It’s tragic that we have conflated the different levels and branches of politics and government to the point that we actually think it’s reasonable to elect a State Executive Branch official based on frustration with the National Executive Branch’s performance on things that are decidedly the job of the National Legislative Branch. News agencies report on it; we take it in like it makes perfect sense.

Choice quote of this article about the Virginia’s guber-election:“[The Prez’s] healthcare plan is a disaster. He doesn’t know how to deal with the rest of the world.” And that’s why this woman is going to vote for “The Other Guy” to run the Executive Branch of Virginia. For the record: Congress writes legislation, not the Prez (nor the Gov of any state); the rest of the world loves the Prez.

A note against hate crime legislation

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:26:31 -0500

A link for you:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h6sgiIL7BtQ0ut1GYxjlHGHvHV5gD9BKAF801

I've known of people who got their asses beat because they were thought to
be gay. I've lived in a place where I was warned by multiple white friends
that I should never, under any circumstances, go to a certain town in the
eastern part of the county; sure enough, lost on the back roads one day, I
saw a sign letting me know I was entering said town and immediately pulled a
u-turn in the middle of the two-lane highway.

Being attacked just because you're gay or black or bi or Latino sucks. But
being attacked sucks regardless. I don't like the idea of
institutionalizing that certain lives are worth more than others. Or that
certain reasons for violence are more palatable than others. If I kick
someone's teeth in because they're Latino, I'm in big fucking trouble. If I
kick in someone's teeth just because... well, that's not so bad.

Last week in racism.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:01:11 -0500

Last week in racism.:

In some ways I prefer overt racism to lingering-beneath-the-surface racism. It’s kind of like having a disease that shows symptoms and a disease that doesn’t: if they’re both harmful, you probably want to know it’s there. Then again, a friend of mine once noted that there’s something nice about not being called nigger to your face, which is hard to argue against.

Victories for America and The Terrorists

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:08:01 -0500

Victory for America: the Milken Family Foundation. They’ve given out over $60M in the last 22 years to support teachers across the nation.

Victory for The Terrorists: The fact that we need a private organization to recognize and reward what’s probably the most important occupation in society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milken_Family_Foundation
http://www.startribune.com/local/64960762.html?page=1&c=y

I’m starting a list. I’m going to call it “Top ways to waste your energy if...

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:57:31 -0500

I’m starting a list. I’m going to call it “Top ways to waste your energy if you’re interested in making a difference.” I can only assume protest concerts and updating your Facebook status are going to make top five. P.S. We’re all doomed.

Instant Media P.S.

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:56:05 -0500

For the record, I am officially opinion neutral on The Prez winning the Nobel Peace Prize. What’s notable isn’t whether Fox is right or wrong to attack but that there’s no doubt they will, in fact, attack, regardless of rightness or wrongness. (In a way, this actually hurts Fox’s goal of flipping people (if that is their goal and not ratings) because the focus shifts toward the spectacle of the attack and away from the merits of their arguments.)

Instant Media

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:31:39 -0500

Looks like America is waking up to the news that The Prez just won the Nobel Peace Prize. In an amazing usage of technology, I’ve been able to witness people around the internet immediately begin to wonder just how Fox News is going to attack. There’s something tragically beautiful about the populace being able to hear raw news and anticipate how a news agency is going to shade that news before the news agency is actually able to push said shaded news to the public. That’s consistency I can applaud. Pretty soon, people will be able to start a parody website where they anticipate Fox’s reaction to news and post items before Fox gets a chance to go live with it. Faster Fox News: Giving you Fox’s opinion faster than they can.

Tuesday Feel-Gooderie

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:36:40 -0500

Hit up my homie with this link - thought I’d drop it here as well
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2009/10/happy-anniversary-president-obama-first-lady-michelle-obama/

I remember having a talk with said homie earlier in the administration after looking at a picture of the Prez at the White House with his fam and their new dog (at least I think those were the pictures…). Politics aside, and even race aside, (as aside as one can put either), we talked about how good it felt to have someone in the White House that felt like normal people. Won’t rehash the conversation, but looking at these pictures gave me the same sort of warm feeling.

Overstepping.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:31:44 -0500

From LA Times

The fact is, the federal government cannot, by itself, outlaw texting while driving, Schumer said, noting that states have the authority to make such laws. “But the federal government can make it hard for those states that don’t go along.”

Dear T-Mobile, Stop dumpster diving. Love, Remedial

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:57:10 -0500

For the record, T-Mobile’s new commercial sucks. Even with the celebs.

Start reading "Between the Columns"

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:23:01 -0500

Coming to you from my homeboy Whitebread by way of me: Between the Columns.

I’ve only read 3 or 4 posts, and based on that alone I’m telling you to add this to your RSS feed immediately.

Dear Amy- Fewer national laws. Love, Remedial

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:53:39 -0500

Amy Klobuchar is supporting national legislation to ban texting while driving.

I like banning texting while driving and I’m planning to email Amy asking her not to support the effort. I’ll probably do some more research on the effort and give it more thought, but my initial reaction is that this is an area that should probably be left up to the states to legislate on their own.

Furthermore, is breaking a national law automatically a felony?

Email an elected official.

Moar local politics

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:16:25 -0500

My U.S. (political) history game is not on point. That said, my recollection is that in the early days of the nation, there was much, much hesitancy to create a powerful national government. If true, those fears seem very warranted to me. The inefficiency of affecting local change through a national system… the disengagement of the public that occurs when problems that should be our responsibility are outsourced to others for solving… et al. They all make for a slowly degrading society. The way to fix it isn’t to push more resources into the beast that’s stifling us and continue to outsource our problem solving to D.C. We gotta start at home.

Skipping class on racism day.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:27:27 -0500

People are bad at cause and effect.

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:26:54 -0500

Related to the previous post, sort of…

Ta-Nehisi Coates (my offical blogger crush at this point, I’m almost positive) on the Death Penalty.

In this country, and maybe others, people have an amazing ability to disconnect themselves from the world around them viz causality.

If government is fucking up, that’s government’s fault… even though we actively install/re-install every person in the Executive and Legislative branches once every six years.

If the check-out people at the grocery store are bad at solving simple problems when they arise, we’re angry at the check-out people… even though we were probably opposed to givng their elementary and high school proper funding, such they could learn basic problem solving skills.

If we’re obese, that’s the fault of the medical community for not having better pills for high cholesterol, weight loss, and heart disease. We can’t even wrap our heads around the fact that our fat asses are the result of us sitting on the couch after work and eating potato chips.

There’s not enough agency in this world. There aren’t enough people willing, ready, and able to take a clear, wholistic look at their lives and do what it takes to make it better. There are too many people who think their lives will get better by them not doing anything. Some shit is just fucked up, and I get that. But at least push. Always push.

My approval rating for America's citizens would drop, but it's already so low...

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:07:00 -0500

There’s a piece in the NY Times re: Healthcare Legislation, suggesting that if the Prez doesn’t accomplish something significant, here, the rest of his term is shot. This strikes me as ludicrous. Not to say I don’t think it’s true, but the notion of it is ludicrous. Because the President can’t convince 500+ members of Congress to get off their asses and do something good for the country, the Prez is at fault?

Congress has been fucking up for years, primarily because we’ve been ignoring them for years. (Since I’ve been alive, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Congress held accountable for their job.) The only difference is that other Prez’s find a way to make themselves look good without asking Congress to do anything useful. So our current Prez asks Congress to do something useful, and because they refuse he risks his term in office being a failure, after only 7 months? That’s ludicrous.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again later: seeing the American people in their fully-gloried apathetic and under-informed ways really just makes me sad for the President. You can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves.

Too soon?

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:29:27 -0500

You may or may not have heard about the unauthorized World Wildlife Fund “9/11” ad. Read about it here: /> http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/wildlife-group-condemns-a-911-tsunami-ad/.

What irritates me most is that it won an award - it’s a bad advertisement. Implicit in the ad is the idea that our response to the dangers of climate change should be on par with (or 100x more extreme than) our response to 9/11. The disconnect, though, is that our response to 9/11 was to explode the things we felt caused 9/11. The most direct parallel, in my mind, would be to blow up the things that are causing natural disasters, i.e. blowing up the earth. Which we’re already doing.

Perhaps the point of the ad was that we should put as much energy into addressing climate change as we put into addressing terrorism. I think the fact that we typically address (right or wrong) these two things in completely different (and arguably opposite) ways weakens the ad critically.