Bob Herbert, in the NY Times, wrote this week of a new report on the continuing human catastrophe in Darfur. In describing why he reported on what, to some, is old news, he reminded us "about the dangers inherent in indifference to the suffering of others. Stories of atrocities on the scale of those coming out of Darfur cannot be told too often."
This is another in a series of posts by a few of us who enjoy photographing critters we find in our houses and yards. This shaggy little guy (he was about 3/8" long) was posing on a screen on my back porch. I don't claim to know enough about spiders to tell you anything about him (Click on the photo for more detail):
This has got to be one of the most idiotic things I've ever seen, on many levels: an Oklahoma trooper pulling over an ambulance for a traffic violation and threatening to arrest one of the paramedics. And, oh yeah . . . the ambulance was trying to convey a woman to the hospital at the time.
George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who performed abortions, some of them late-term, was shot this morning as he entered his church for services. Read the story here - and then someone explain how one justifies murder again?
I loved this op-ed piece over at Huffpo by John Ridley - "Note to Newt . . . " - regarding Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor's supposedly racist comment about the perspective of a Latina woman in a 2001 speech. Ridley is right on target with his comparisons of "old racism" and "new racism" - as if a comparison can even be made. Mostly, Newt and his ilk just seem annoyed that "they" just don't know their places these days. Not women, not minorities, not gays . . . life just isn't as simple when everyone goes off and thinks they're just as good as the good ol' white guys. Sotomayor's point was essentially that anyone who has seen the system from the bottom up has a deeper experiential perspective from which to draw when discussing said system. That doesn't make her every thought on it correct or best, but overall, her perspective has more to draw on than that of a privileged white male who never had to fight for his place at any table, let alone on any bench. I don't discount white males, by any means, and neither did she. Lots of them, present company included, are wonderful, open-minded, intelligent and fair people. By calling her comment "racist," Gingrich has merely shown he has precious little understanding of what racism is really all about.