February 2007 Archives

So everyone (well, the Chronicle anyway) is buzzing about this fellow who wrote a mind-bogglingly racist tirade called "Why I Hate Blacks" in Asian Week.

A couple of things strike me about this. One is that the guy isn't just racist, he's stupid and can't reason or, for that matter, write his way out of a paper bag.

Here's one of his reasons for hating black people:

Blacks don’t get it. I know it’s a blunt and crass statement, but it’s true. When I was in high school, I recall a class debate in which one half of the class was chosen to defend black slavery and the other half was chosen to defend liberation.

Disturbingly, blacks on the prior side viciously defended slavery as well as Christianity. They say if you don’t study history, you’re condemned to repeat it.

Uh, yeah, and they also say "If you defy the teacher and refuse to cooperate and do the assignment, you're condemned to flunk the class." What exactly would he have his black classmates do? Not to mention, they probably learned a lot more about forming a coherent argument by doing that assignment than this writer did.

The other thing that struck me was when I read this Two Cents column debating whether racism should be kept in the closet or let out in the open for all to see was that everyone is missing the point (except maybe Jon Carroll. If the question was "Should we go around shoving people, farting and scratching our crotches in public because it's more natural?" I'm sure everyone would say "Hell no!" Yet with racism, the ultimate form of incivility and rudeness, it's somehow OK because at least then you're being "authentic" and "revealing your true feelings" so then we can all have a nice discussion about it. Bullshit. Rudeness is not OK, and if people are rude enough to dismiss entire groups of people because of some personal mental block, then they should at least have the grace to not flaunt it.

OK, I normally loathe David Brooks with every inch of my being. But this is pretty funny, in a cliched, stereotyping David-Brooksian sort of way.

Can we stop hearing about downtown parents who dress their babies in black skull slippers, Punky Monkey T-shirts and camo toddler ponchos until the little ones end up looking like sad-parody club clones of mom and dad? Can we finally stop reading about the musical Antoinettes who would get the vapors if their tykes were caught listening to Disney tunes, and who instead force-feed Brian Eno, Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens into their little babies’ iPods?

Not this mom. No Radiohead here. No, it's all They Might Be Giants and Manu Chao around here. With maybe a little Tom Waits thrown in for good measure. But she doesn't get her own iPod until she's 5. (maybe a Zune before then, because, well, you know, who cares what happens to a Zune?)

And from the department of P.R. Gone Horribly Wrong, I bring you Exhibit B. It's funny, but maybe not only in the way they intended it to be....

This would be an "only in Berkeley" listing if ever there was one; however, it sounds like a creative joke to me since there is absolutely no evidence of this posting having actually been posted on CraigsList itself.

We are offering a free room for a woman who is willing to provide breast milk for consumption to the household. We are an otherwise vegan house but have recently read A.O. Wilson's study of the benefits of human breast milk to all human beings of any age. This is not sexual. Neither appearance nor sexual preference are of any concern to us.

We are willing to accept one child into the house as well. We do not want to take breast milk away from a nursing child however. We also don't need gallons of breast milk but whatever you can muster; it is a nutritional supplement for members of the house who want to partake.

The room is 10'x 15' in a sunny house in Berkeley. There are 7 other people in the house and we live largely communally - shared food and house supplies. You must still pay for food, only rent is free. Reply to this posting and we will set up a time. Contact Dana.

So when somebody makes bigoted remarks, you can get angry, you can respond with dignity and courage...

or you can just make a hysterically funny PSA about it!

My respect for George Takai just went through the roof.

A sobering reminder in today's Chronicle of the suddenness with which death may come for us all.

A man in his 20's dropped dead while walking down Church Street in Noe Valley this weekend and city officials have no idea who he is.

The man appears to be Hispanic and looks approximately 25 years old, said San Francisco Medical Examiner investigator Tom McDonald. He is about 5'7" tall and 181 pounds, and he was walking down the 1500 block of Church Street when he collapsed.

"The death is under investigation, but it doesn't look trauma-related," McDonald said.

But that's not the sobering part.

The man was wearing an extra-large blue hooded sweatshirt and Anchor Blue denim pants with a waist size 36-34. He had on Nike socks and high top sneakers, a black cloth belt with a white buckle, and a Mecca shirt that read, "The first since day one," and "Chase the dream not the competition."

He also was wearing SpongeBob SquarePants boxer shorts.

The year there's FINALLY an awesome halftime show at the SuperBowl, I pick that moment to be out for a walk.

Thank goodness for YouTube.

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