The Haunting

Anyone who acquires the narrative of 12 Years A Slave and finds it within his shrunken heart to continue any argument for the sanctity and perfection of our Founding Fathers, for the moral wisdom of their compromised document of national ideal that begins the American experience, or for their anachronistic or historically understandable tolerance of slavery — they are arguing from a desolate, amoral corner.

If original intent included the sadism and degradation of human slavery, then original intent is a legal and moral standard that can be consigned to the ash heap of human history. Hardcore conservatives and libertarians who continue to parse the origins of the Constitutions under the guise of returning to a more perfect American union are on a fool’s journey to decay and dishonor.

Night Of The Living Dead

Long before many other genres, African-Americans found a place in horror. Perhaps because the origin of the word “zombie” itself is rooted in Haitian Creole, with the very concept tied to Vodou or Voodoo, as it is more popularly written. While popular culture has turned “voodoo” into a freak show, it is actually a religion with deep West African roots that is believed to mingle those roots with the Roman Catholicism that was forced upon enslaved Africans from there. In this country, New Orleans is the “voodoo” epicenter, with the practice taking rise in the late 1790s and 1800s as those fleeing Saint Domingue, the one-time French colony, during the tumultuous Haitian Revolution sought refuge there.

What "Reaching Their Full Potential" Means In Reality

A few weeks ago we published what turned out to be a controversial article, questioning the ethics of sexual relationships between yoga students and yoga teachers and presenting an alternative, yet respectful and well-argumented view on the subject.

  The feedback we received from many people in the yoga community, was to say the least, surprisingly angry, under often hateful, degrading and insulting comments, emails as well as other disrespectful and accusatory open responses published online that clearly misunderstood, in our opinion, the point being made by the author.

Good Luck

“No libertarians identify as black Protestant,…”

Spooky? (No: Spondike) II

We hate seeing kids older than twelve going house to house for free candy. Doing so is illegal and this year we will be calling the police on you bastards. Overage trick or treating is a Class 4 misdemeanor and carries a $250 fine. This will also go on your criminal record if you don’t have one already.

And you niglets, stay the hell out! We’re a white neighborhood and we don’t want you baboons here!! You little turds better think twice going into my neighborhood or you will be legally punished.

Fearless

"I told them to get the kids out and everything, and me myself, being an alcoholic, I was trying to get my beer,…I went back into the house like a dummy and the door shut,…"

Spooky? (No: Spondike)

Ohio Teacher Goes On Racist Facebook Halloween Rant

Sounds About Right

• 74 percent of Americans believe Congress is contributing to problems in Washington rather than solving them.

• Only 22 percent think the nation is headed in the right direction. Two-thirds believe that the nation is in a "state of decline."

• Just two of every 10 Americans think the economy will get better in the next year.

• Only three of 10 Americans are optimistic about the future of the U.S. political system.

• A majority of Americans don't identify with either party.

Getting Off (On The Wrong Foot)

George Zimmerman left behind bullet-riddled target for wife to find

Slavery Was Around For Most Of American History But Getting One Realistic Movie Made Was A Major Event

Then there's white Affirmative Action - in action:

6 Movies that Are Inexplicably Getting Sequels Decades Later

Whole occupations, and individual careers, deserve this treatment,...

 

I'm In A Relationship With My Subject (And It Wuvs Me)

I warned you Rebecca Brooks and her sleazy husband are NewAgers, and now they're charged in England's phone hacking scandal.

-TMR, July 25, 2012

Which also contains this gem:

I'm wrong about Romney and the Mormons? We'll see. I keep telling you cultism's a great clue to everything - because it touches everything - and, alas, it ultimately destroys everything it touches.

But don't get distracted by the Mormon/Ted Cruz thing, here's Rebekah Brooks', so-NewAge-we-never-saw-it-coming, oldie but goodie, dropped just today:

  "The fact is you are my very best friend, I tell you everything, I confide in you, I seek your advice, I love you, care about you, worry about you, we laugh and cry together.

In fact without our relationship in my life I am not sure I will cope."

Alas, she was (naturally) married to someone else at the time, and (naturally) it came out in court while (naturally) she's now "married" to someone else.

Best. Halloween. Ever,...

 

I Like Whites (Because They're So On Top Of Things)

I owe a certain 13-year-old an apology.

On Mashable a couple of months ago, teenager Ruby Karp wrote a blog post headlined, "I'm 13 and None of My Friends Use Facebook." When the post went viral and major media outlets began pontificating about "the decline of Facebook," I quickly penned a rather critical response. Karp's anecdotes, I pointed out, were no substitute for real data, and it was silly for journalists to draw sweeping generalizations about Facebook's future on the basis of her post—especially when the best available data at the time showed no significant decline in Facebook usage among teens.

I stand by that criticism of the way in which major media outlets covered Karp's story. To Karp herself, though, I must now humbly apologize. As it turns out, my own headline—Sorry, Mashable's 13-Year-Old Correspondent Is Wrong About Facebook—was the one proven wrong.

-Will Oremus, Slate Magazine, October 30, 2013

I'm Starting To Get Turned Off To Facebook 

- The Crack Emcee, TMR, April 27, 2011

 

Hearing "Trust Us" From Folks I've Learned Not To Trust

We know the outrage Republicans are expressing on behalf of people receiving cancellation notices from their individual market insurance plans is phony because it’s obviously phony. They don’t have any particular interest in ameliorating this phenomenon short of repealing or destroying the rest of the law. And its effectiveness as a talking point hinges on never acknowledging that Obamacare has helped anybody.

He Said/She Said - I Don't Give A Fuck (You're All Lying)

Wicca was first publicised in 1954 by a British civil servant named Gerald Gardner who said the religion dated to an old witch cult that existed in secret for hundreds of years, originating in the pre-Christian Paganism of Europe.

Don't Be Sure: Black Ain't A Joseph Smith Belief System

We wouldn't like it if those same businesses hung signs that read "No blacks," and we would be outraged if they hung signs that said "No Mormons."

An I-Don't-Mind Reader

Got an email asking if I’d go on tv and say that Julianne Hough in blackface is not a big deal. Embarrassed for @CNN. — jelani cobb (@jelani9) October 29, 2013

Oooh - Not A Good Look

The Normalcy No One Notices Unless You're A Normal

Only time will tell if The Walking Dead has more to say on its “Black Man” problem. But, right now, things are looking pretty dim.

2008? How Soon We Forget: 1965 Is Just 48 Years Ago

The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for slavery and the era of Jim Crow.

The nonbinding resolution, which passed on a voice vote, was introduced by Rep. Steve Cohen, a white lawmaker who represents a majority black district in Memphis, Tennessee.

While many states have apologized for slavery, it is the first time a branch of the federal government has done so, an aide to Cohen said.

In passing the resolution, the House also acknowledged the "injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow."

"Jim Crow," or Jim Crow laws, were state and local laws enacted mostly in the Southern and border states of the United States between the 1870s and 1965, when African-Americans were denied the right to vote and other civil liberties and were legally segregated from whites.

The name "Jim Crow" came from a character played by T.D. "Daddy" Rice who portrayed a slave while in blackface during the mid-1800s.

The resolution states that "the vestiges of Jim Crow continue to this day."

"African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow -- long after both systems were formally abolished -- through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty, the frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and opportunity," the resolution states.

The House also committed itself to stopping "the occurrence of human rights violations in the future."

The resolution does not address the controversial issue of reparations...

The Original Boys In Da Hood (Wearing Their Hoodies)

Keeping blacks from guns is also still a problem,..

Normalcy (Redefined)

'I kept using the words "it's just mutilation". They were like "yes, you are right". How can anyone think this is OK?'

Bad News

Here's the media's current "crazy" black Republican candidate:

  “When one hears the word meditation, it conjures an image of Maharishi Yoga talking about finding a mantra and striving for nirvana. … The purpose of such meditation is to empty oneself. … [Satan] is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it. That is why people serve Satan without ever knowing it or deciding to, but no one can be a child of God without making a decision to surrender to him. Beware of systems of spirituality which tell you to empty yourself. You will end up filled with something you probably do not want.”

But here's the media's knowledgable NewAge Master:

  “One often hears and reads about the dangers of Yoga, particularly of the ill-reputed Kundalini Yoga. The deliberately induced psychotic state, which in certain unstable individuals might easily lead to a real psychosis, is a danger that needs to be taken very seriously indeed. These things really are dangerous and ought not to be meddled with in our typically Western way. It is a meddling with Fate, which strikes at the very roots of human existence and can let loose a flood of sufferings of which no sane person ever dreamed. These sufferings correspond to the hellish torments of the chönyid state…”

And here's the man the media wants you to forget:

  “Those who become bored by conventional “Bible” religions, and seek “enlightenment” by way of the dissolution of their own critical faculties into nirvana in any form, had better take a warning. They may think they are leaving the realm of despised materialism, but they are still being asked to put their reason to sleep, and to discard their minds along with their sandals.”

So, I guess - when it comes to the media - "crazy" it is,...

 

 ADDED - H/T Althouse: