Walmart employee killed by black friday shoppers November 29, 2008

This is when you know American consumerism has gotten entirely out of hand.

A Wal-Mart employee died and four others were hurt in the Black Friday rush to get into the Valley Stream store Friday morning.

The injuries occurred as the shoppers crammed into the Wal-Mart when the doors opened at 5 a.m. Some 2,000 shoppers were waiting to get inside the store for Black Friday sales.

Police said the shoppers knocked the man to the ground at 5:03 a.m., three minutes after the store opened.

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like “savages…When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling ‘I’ve been in line since yesterday morning.’ They kept shopping.”

[...]

The store was closed to incoming shoppers following the incident. Those already inside were escorted out with their purchases.

The ensuing emergency activity clogged the Green Acres Mall parking lot. The Wal-Mart remained closed while police investigated.

Nassau County police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming described the scene as “utter chaos.” “This crowd was out of control,” he said.

Really, is getting a good deal on your child’s Christmas present so important that you have to stampede a Walmart? This is so sad, and completely avoidable. How would you like to be the kid that goes to school after winter break saying “Yeah, my mom killed someone shopping, but I totally got the new Guitar Hero!”

Sickening.

Happy Thanksgiving November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you’re enjoying the time with your families.

I’m Thankful…

… for my mom and step-dad, who finally let me make thanksgiving dinner for the first time ever.

… for my kitties – Sammy, Keiko, Randall, Louie, Max, and Suki.

… for LMC, even though sometimes he’s a pain in the ass.

… for literature.

… for Obama.

… for wonderful friends.

… for cool apartments and beautiful cities.

… for gelatinous cranberry sauce.

I’m not thankful…

… for drug-addicted family members that like to ruin holidays.

… for people who complain about food they didn’t help make.

… for people who run over squirrels.

… for Sarah Palin.

Politicians fail at civics November 26, 2008

I’ve see this posted in a few places lately and while I was not the least bit surprised that the public’s score (the majority of Americans can’t pass a basic citizenship test), I was a little surprised that the elected officials fared so poorly. But, then I thought about it some more and reflected on some of the superb examples of humanity in Congress (*cough* Michelle Bachmann) and thought back on some of the delightful people elected to various city council positions, school boards, and gubernatorial posts, and have come to the conclusion that America is just plain fucking stupid.

US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.

Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).

“It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI’s civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned,” said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI.

I was, however, somewhat shocked at the response from Feministe:

At first this did disturb me, based on many of the questions that the article highlights, until I looked at the test.  I took it, and scored a 75.76%.  That is, of course, significantly better than the average reported in the article.  But looking at the questions, a lot of the time I just had to ask myself “who the hell cares?”

I mean, we’re supposed to be upset that our elected officials don’t know the answers to these questions — and I personally am of the frame of mind that we should seek people to run our government who know more than most of us do — but in the end, who really cares what the Puritans believed, or what the main issue debated by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas was regarding slavery when all were important questions, or what statement Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas would all agree with?  I don’t, even if I do think they’re points of interest, nor do I particularly care whether most other people know these things.

I care!

It bothers me. Honestly, the test isn’t that hard. I took it and scored a 90.91%, missing 3 of 33 questions. Anyone who has taken a high school U.S. history class and has a smidgen of common sense should be able to at least pass it. And why shouldn’t we be concerned that only 45% of the elected officials knew that only Congress had the ability to declare war and only 49% knew the three branches of government?

I mean, come on… 79% of those who have been elected to government office do not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.  Scared yet?

43% do not know what the Electoral College does. One in five thinks it either “trains those aspiring for higher political office” or “was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates.” How about now?

Check out the results.  It blows my mind.

Or, take the test for yourself. How did you do?

Sarah Palin for poet laureate November 26, 2008

From Prospect Magazine:

Reading Sarah Palin’s anguished interview with Greta van Susteren of Fox News just after the election, I had an epiphany: Palin is a poet, and a fine one at that. What the philistine media take for incoherence is, in fact, the fruitful ambiguity of verse.

Here she is, in a work I have taken to calling “The Relevance of Africa.” (Not a single word or comma has been changed, but the line breaks are placed where they naturally fall.) In it, Palin blends the energy of free verse with the austerity of a classic 14-line sonnet.

It reads: “And the relevance to me /With that issue, /As we spoke /About Africa and some /Of the countries /There that were /Kind of the people succumbing /To the dictators /And the corruption /Of some collapsed governments /On the /Continent, /The relevance /Was Alaska’s.”

A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges. A great poet does not self-censor; Sarah Palin seems authentically innocent of what she is saying. She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake.

I searched the internet in a frenzy, for “Sarah Palin” and “poetry,” hoping she’d perhaps published a slim volume through the University of Alaska Press. I was not alone. Hart Seely, the grey eminence of American poetry who discovered Donald Rumsfeld, praises her work. Bennett Gordon, of the magazine Utne Reader, calls her a worthy heir to Kerouac and Ginsberg.

Not since Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass has there been such an electrifying debut. And she is yet to publish a collection. This is an astonishing poetic insurgency. The building momentum will soon be unstoppable.

The current American poet laureate is Kay Ryan, a recent and controversial choice. Six weeks ago, Michael Kelleher, the artistic director at Just Buffalo Literary Center, said of Ryan, “She kind of came out of nowhere. She’s the Sarah Palin of poetry right now.”

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Palin, widely blamed for John McCain’s defeat, is now the Kay Ryan of politics. For President-elect Obama to send her back to Alaska would be a crime as great as Stalin’s exiling of Osip Mandelstam to Siberia.

The talent of a woman who can improvise a perfect 17-syllable haiku live, in front of 30,000 people—

What’s the difference

Between a hockey mom and
A pit bull? Lipstick

—must not be wasted!

If Obama is serious about ending the divisions between Democrat and Republican, between blue states and red, between Darwinist and creationist; if he truly believes in change—then he will appoint Sarah Palin as America’s 47th poet laureate.

Roflmao.

Carnivorism is Sexy November 25, 2008

Head over to Table Matters and check out this shamelessly funny post by The Shameless Carnivore, Scott Gold, in which he concludes that:

Carnivorism is decidedly sexier than veganism. [Note: I'll leave out traditional vegetarians, here, since Hindu vegetarians in India penned the Kama Sutra, which is smokingly sexy.] Physical love — or good physical love, anyway — is all about appetite, and which lover would you rather take to bed: the one who picks joylessly at the lactose-free salad of edible flowers, or the person eager to taste and devour with relish every local and seasonal specialty, someone who ravishes each dish with delight and abandon? No contest.

She just won’t go away November 24, 2008

I was going to write my obligatory thanksgiving post this morning, but when I sat down to my computer and started browsing my daily news sites, blogs, and magazines I came across this (and this, and this, and this) which totally blew my day and negates everything on my “thankful for” list. Okay, that sounds bad… it just puts a damper on my holiday.

I know it seems like I bitch and moan continuously and needlessly about Sarah Palin but I just can’t help myself when I see something like this. I mean, seriously… what the hell did she do to deserve this? She has absolutely nothing intelligent to say, yet the country is fascinated by her. Case in point: my mom has a friend who is horrified by the Obama election and completely buys into all the media distortion about him; she believes that he is Muslim, a terrorist, and that he will destroy this country. On the other hand, she thinks Sarah Palin is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to our country and would happily hand over the reins to her. She honestly thinks Fox News is fair and balanced. Scary, I know. (And what’s even more frightening to me is that this woman is a teacher; we’re trusting our children to people like this.) She, like thousands of other Americans, feel that Palin’s ignorance is a badge of honor… that it makes her “real” and “down to earth.” They think that we need a leader who is just like them. (Hello, aren’t we getting rid of one of those? Look at how much damage he wrought.)

And having Palin tank the election for John McCain hasn’t phased them. People like my mom’s friend would be thrilled if Palin got her own show. They would watch it religiously. Right after Bill O-Reilly and the 700 club.

I just can’t fathom it. This is a nightmare come true. Please, thanksgiving fairy… don’t let this happen. I would be very thankful. I am sick and tired of seeing her face on TV.

“Post Racial” American Fairy Tale November 23, 2008

Read this great post over at Racialicious.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve read opinion and analysis that just leaves me cold.

We did not wake up in a new America, though some of us may feel that way. We’ve been the same country we have always been, and the reports now releasing about hate crimes during the election should remind us that while Obama has a decisive win, there is still a very vocal and unhappy minority. I also find it interesting that folks think there will be progress without cost. As if after every civil rights (and now, arguably, post-civil rights) victory all the opposition just melted away, and that people who were avowed segregationists instantly changed their minds and opened their hearts.

But we all know that did not happen.

She’s right. Nothing has really changed. While Obama’s victory will hopefully usher in a few nice changes to “politics as usual,” it won’t do a whole lot for the inequities of race. What many people are not acknowledging is that Obama came from a fairly privileged white family and was given opportunities that most black children are not. And while the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps American Dream is possible for some, given the right set of circumstances, a great support system, and luck, the vast majority of Americans struggle to achieve anything unless they are born to white or asian, middle-class or above parents. Its a hard world, full of hurdles and obsticles placed specifically to hinder a certain class of people. And those hurdles have not come crumbling down just because a black/white man was elected president. We still have a lot of work to do, attitudes to overcome, and minds to change before the race problems in America are anywhere close to being over.

For more on this subject, head over to The Indypendent and check out this article.

Palin slaughters english language, turkey slaughter in background November 21, 2008

And… cue PETA outrage.

Thoughts on the Bailout November 20, 2008

Yesterday in the Op-Ed Section of the New York Times, Mitt Romney gave his “prescriptions” for the ailing Detroit. And while some of his comments were rather stupid, he did have one sound suggestion.

Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.

Duh. (And let me just say, last night, the auto execs were not slammed nearly enough for their opulence and luxuries, such as flying in on their $40 million private jets that cost $20,000 an hour to fly.)

Romney’s most asinine suggestion involved taking away the pensions for retirees:

Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

However, there is a huge problem with that. Most foreign automobile makers do not incur the costs of employee healthcare and retirement the way U.S. businesses do. In these other countries this responsibility lies with the government, which allows for lower costs to the employer. The U.S. is lacking universal healthcare and our social security system is a joke. If they were to cut benefits for these retirees, what would that lead to?

However, stupid suggestions aside, the problem cannot be solved by another bailout. Obviously that didn’t work the first time. Didn’t we bail out Chrysler almost 30 years ago, and didn’t we approve $25 billion in aid in September? Obviously these bailouts have just prolonged the problem without offering any kind of working solution. Admittedly, I know very little about economic or financial matters (the extent of my knowledge can be summed up as the bits and pieces I’ve managed to retain from two college economic courses), however, it is apparent, even to me, that the entire industry needs restructuring. Yet, for the same reasons we can’t take away the pensions of retirees, we also can’t allow  hundreds of thousands of people to lose their jobs.

This is probably naïve of me to ask, but is there not some sort of middle ground that wouldn’t contribute to the unemployment of more Americans?

Yet another lying wingnut November 20, 2008

Honestly, if there is someone who scares me more than Sarah Palin, it would have to be the frightfully ignorant and horribly conservative wingnut from Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann. You know, the one who called for a McCarthy-style witch hunt to seek out Anti-American congressmen, who thinks that not all cultures are equal, and claimed that global warming doesn’t exist.

Now she’s claiming that she never made the Anti-American comments.

A month after calling for an investigation of fellow members of Congress to “find out if they are pro-America or anti-America,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is now claiming that the whole episode was “an urban legend.”

Asked about the comment Tuesday night on Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes,” Bachmann said, “That’s not what I said at all.”

“You’ve said you were concerned during the campaign that Obama had anti-American views. You said the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they’re pro or anti America,” host Alan Colmes said.

“It’s an urban legend that was created,” she responded. “That isn’t what I said at all.”

Really Michelle, is it not?

Somehow, we need to get her out of office. And now that Elizabeth Dole has been disposed of, lets also work on ridding the government of Mary Fallin.

Why is it the women legislators who are all crazy wingnuts?  (Yes I know, how completely sexist of me. But honestly, these women make us look bad.)