Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, In and Out of Time

I spend way too much time on YouTube.  I make playlists to which I listen in lieu of the radio, and sometimes I go exploring hither and yon, be it for music, old movies, interviews or instruction (although I will, I fear, never perfect the art of making pie crust).  One day not terribly long ago I happened upon the extended version -- the version I remember -- of the staircase scene from "The Little Colonel," starring (never mind what the credits say) Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple.  Along with the clip itself I found a heated argument about racism, stereotypes and all manner of related issues and nonissues.


Since I had feelings and opinions of my own on the subject, and since not all of them had coalesced into coherency, I decided to respond -- and then found my response by far exceeded the permitted length of a YouTube response.  For a while I did nothing, and then it occurred to me that y'all might find some interest in my reaction to the video and to the controversy it stimulated.  Here, with minor modifications (such as not addressing YouTube or any specific denizens thereof) is that reaction:



A month or three ago I read over 80 pages of comments on YouTube regarding a video clip from "The Little Colonel," and since time has passed, I am not certain whether http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjCFYpWDmfM is in fact the clip in question, but I believe it is.  The comments span four years so I have a lot to address; this may be lengthy.


It's difficult to speak about Shirley temple and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson beyond "wow they were so good" without going on to put them into historical perspective.  Films are not made in a vacuum.  They are made by, and for, people who live in their times, and when we of later times see them, we can't judge them by our times.  (How will future generations judge our output?)  That doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize and abhor racism and other injustice, and learn from it.  It doesn't mean we should forgive it just because it happened a long time ago (and while MOST white people wouldn't pee themselves seeing a black person sitting at the front of the bus, that doesn't mean racism is dead -- and if you're doubtful, just look how may comments upon this clip have had to be deleted).  It just means we have to attain SOME kind of perspective.  Otherwise we have to dismiss the obvious and huge talent of the two wonderful people in this film clip, and that would be a pity.  There is something to be learned from their transcendence of the stereotype (his character is not a slave but may as well be, and yet he is in charge of this little white girl, and if she could even remotely be said to be treating him with disrespect, watch the whole movie and see how she speaks to the grumpy old colonel, whose heart she finally wins) and something to be learned from the fact that in an era in which a black man's holding a white girl's hand COULD cause such a furor, this film got made ANYWAY.


Some of the commenters have suggested reading material and I will add my two cents:  The Devil Finds Work, by James Baldwin (and after that, everything else he ever wrote, essays, short stories, novels, grocery list, whatever you can get your hands on).  The other suggestions are good too, especially the autobiographies.


About uncles (regarding the perhaps patronizing, perhaps affectionate, perhaps both and perhaps neither habit of white folks calling their male black employees or even neighbors "Uncle," which was under discussion):  I am Jewish (so am I white or not?  By my skin tone, I am about as white as can be without being albino; I am hopeless at the beach, trying to tan; culturally, don't kid yourself) and I was raised to call my parent's close friends "aunt" and "uncle."  Would I call a stranger (of any race) that?  No.  But some black folks today call strangers of color "brother" and "sister."  Was a white person calling a black person "uncle" disrespectful back in the day?  I'm too young, and northern, to know for sure, but I'm not uneducated, nor untraveled, so I can speculate.  I think sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't.  I think a white employer (we're talking about post-slavery here) could call (his or her own) black servant "uncle" respectfully OR disrespectfully, because "mister" might not have been appropriate REGARDLESS of color just because of the relative social positions, and yet the employer might have wished to show affection and even respect; the difference would be in intention and tone.  Calling a black person "uncle" despite not having a relationship with him could be respectful if the black person were older, or disrespectful if said sarcastically or to avoid "mister" (with no relationship, even social position would not excuse that).  It depends, too, what the local practice is for whites addressing whites.  Read european fairytales; children call females who are, to them, total strangers, "auntie" as a sign of respect.  It's not, pardon the pun, as black and white as all that.  There are huge patches of gray.  It DEPENDS.  (I'm still speculating.)  


As for the demeaning roles, yes, blacks could play the funny, silly servant, or a slave in a period piece, or an evil offerer of a reefer in a really daring film.  There is no getting around that.  We're STILL working on that, and only in the last couple decades doing rather well (not so well with Jews -- as performers and creative talent we're overrepresented, but as characters we're underrepresented except as Jews first, people second.  In the sixties and seventies we were either the pawnbroker or Rhoda Morgenstern, and there's nothing wrong with either except when that's all you get.  Look at TV today and tell me which characters are Jewish, and how you KNOW they're Jewish.  Not the actors.  The characters.  But I digress!)  It's painful to watch sometimes.  Take mae west's "I'm No Angel."  In it, black actress Gertrude Howard plays Mae's maid, Beulah Thorndyke.  Her other credits include characters such as "Martha the Maid," "Carolina," "black woman," "black 'mammy,'" "Angelina," "Snowball, servant," "Martha," "Lucy," "Queenie" (in "Showboat"), "Kate -- Mary's maid" and "Aunt Chloe -- Uncle Tom's wife."  "I'm No Angel" is not the only film in which she has a last name, like a proper person, but it's unusual.  As you see, in some she hasn't even GOT a name.  That's how it was.  In "I'm No Angel," Beulah Thorndye is a maid, but she has a name, and she has a musical number all by herself, and it's not a funny, silly one, either.  I am working from memory here; pardon me if I am misremembering, but I have it stuck in my mind that I was impressed BECAUSE of when the film was made, and that she had to play a maid -- she couldn't be cast as, say, Mae's best friend, although she kind of is, come to think of it -- and yes, she had to be funny, and yes, it was demeaning, but somehow despite all that, SOMEONE (I think it was mae) recognized that she had talent, and gave her a serious spotlight in a white movie.  One needs, as i say, perspective.  from small things come great things.


Bill rRobinson probably opened doors for other black performers without even knowing it.  How can one dismiss his role in history -- not black history or white history but just history -- by paying attention only to the fact that he had to play a servant and not to the fact that for three glorious minutes he was featured as a human being and a dancer?  We don't watch BLACK feet tapping up and down those stairs.  We watch AMAZING feet... two pair, in fact.  I'm not trying to ignore Shirley Temple here.  I'm simply addressing the racial issue, a great big issue, a tiny little bit.  Shirley needs no defense; she was a child of amazing talent but she didn't write the script and she didn't control casting.


Those YouTube members whose response to this wonderful clip is to call each other names -- and many comments were hidden, so I can only IMAGINE how unpleasant things got) are now going to be called two names here, by me:  "ignorant" and "immature."

You Can Only Like One Thing

I am an omnivore; that doesn't mean I eat tin cans, or drink cola, but simply that I eat from all five food groups (six if you count chocolate) and do not restrict myself to one or two.  This simple fact seems unfathomable to a rather large group of people.  It has happened more than once, more than twice, even, that I've sat down to eat in the company of other human beings, who, seeing me select, say, chicken, broccoli, and milk, note, "Oh, you're a vegetarian."  They perceive this by virtue of my having deliberately, and not at gunpoint, chosen to include a vegetable in my meal.  They disregard the fact that I have also selected the flesh of an animal and some of its mammary fluids as well.


Okay, the above seems more a case of folks' not actually knowing what a vegetarian is than a case of their believing you have to like either one thing or another, and stick to your likes and eschew the remainder of the known and unknown universes.  However, I've also had folks exclaim, upon witnessing my enjoyment of, say, a Beethoven piano concerto, "I thought you liked rock 'n roll!"  Now, just as a broccoli floret does not negate the slab of chicken on my plate, a Beethoven concerto, while hard to hear if played simultaneously with any other piece of music, regardless of genre, does not in itself negate the possibility of its listener enjoying other genres.


I guess it's a matter of folks' expectations matching their own mental capabilities.  A singleminded person will expect me to like a single thing.  People with at least two brain cells to rub together will recognize the multiplicity of the aforementioned universes and the eclecticity of their enjoyable components.  There is enough crap around to dislike; why not also enjoy all there is to enjoy?

FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW (and everyone you don't know; make a pest of yourself).

You've seen posts like this on your wall.  You've gotten emails like this.  You've passed these things on without verifying their validity.  You're a baaaad pussycat.

How much time does it take to go to Snopes dot com and check and see if you're unwittingly participating in a hoax?  It takes at least as little time as it takes to forward every bit of effluvium that makes its presence known to you, usually for the primary purpose of clogging up everyone's space and causing widespread panic.  Good job.  You've contributed to the general hubbub.

Rule of thumb:  if something or someone urges you to flood the superstupidinformation highway, don't.  Traffic jams are avoidable.  Just say no... quietly.

MORE OVERHEARD

"There's nothin' worse than goin' the post office and standing in line."


No, seriously?  Nothing worse?


Okay, I'm going to take a shot at  a challenge, in no particular order:


Having your hands amputated by Rwandan soldiers.


Having your clitoris removed by relatives in a Muslim country.


Tsunamis.


Diptheria.


E-coli.


AIDS


(Okay, let's just imagine all diseases and disorders; I think a cold is worse than standing in line at the post office.)


Polyester double-knit leisure suits.


A spat with... just about anyone, but let's say any family member.


Need I go on?  It's just a purely ridiculous statement, almost as stupid as pretending that God wants you to join a certain dating club (and has only mentioned it to the dating club, so its advertisers are obligated to inform you about it).




"You look like a beach angel," followed by a piercing scream.


Yeah, I'm going to buy that product, after its advertisers scream in my ear.




So, you ask, why do I watch?  Because as the optimist Theodore Sturgeon once said, 90 percent of everything is crap.  I put the percentage at 99.   But one percent of everything is a lot!  I try to live for the one percent.

Overheard on a Tube for Boobs

Pardon me if I paraphrase (due to working from memory) the following ridiculous claims I've recently heard on television advertisements:

1. For Stamps dot com: "There's nothing worse than going to the post office and standing in line." What an easy life YOU have!


2. For Audible dot com: (with repulsion:) "My GRANDMOTHER listens to books!" How nice of you to diss your dear old granny; you wouldn't want to be caught dead doing anything SHE does!


3. For Christian Mingle: "God is saying 'it's your turn to act.'" Not a bad concept (for those who believe) but in the context of this ad, it sounds like a testimonial; I want to see it in writing, with an original signature. Also from Christian Mingle: "You're Christian. You're single." I'm neither.


4. For V8, who should know better: "Do you sometimes wish vegetables didn't taste so... vegetably?" No, never. I like vegetables just the way they are. Do you ever wish commercials didn't sound so... commercial-ly?


5. For Fiber One: "Fiber yes, cardboard no." Thanks for perpetuating the myth that anything good for you has to taste like crap. What a wonderful contribution to education. Of course you can get fiber from a banana, too, and bananas are cheaper than Fiber One, possibly because they advertise less (say, whatever happened to Chiquita Banana, anyway? Did she get sued by Carmen Miranda or just fade away?)


6. For Manwich: "There's a full serving of vegetables in every (can? spoonful? gallon? oh serving, oooookay....) of Manwich." No, there's not. Honestly. The main ingredient in Manwich is tomato puree, which is mostly water, and at any rate tomato is NOT A VEGETABLE. It was declared a vegetable by the supreme court over 100 years ago in the context of whether or not to tax its importation, and Ronald Reagan purported to believe that catsup was a vegetable, but politics can't turn a fruit into a vegetable; it can only convince everyone that it is (sort of the same way it can convince people that health care reform involves death panels, and rich people deserve more tax breaks than poor people). Meanwhile, farther down on the ingredients list, less than two percent of this product consists of a dozen items, some of which are dehydrated onions and red and green bell peppers and garlic, and chili pepper not said to be dehydrated, which means it's just the powder. I don't think those count toward a serving, and they're the only veggies mentioned. And FURTHERMORE, they too perpetuate the myth, in some of their other ads, that it is VITAL to hide any vegetable content (as if there BEING any such content were not also a myth!) from children, because veggies are yucky. Of course, children watch these ads and learn that veggies are yucky. Kids who get served real veggies and are not told they're yucky do not necessarily form this opinion on their own, especially if what they're served is fresh and well prepared (meaning, in most cases, not boiled).

Well, a half dozen should hold us for now. Happy viewing.

POLI MORE ITCHES THAN TICKLES

It awaketh. It returneth. It bloggeth.


One has to wonder... well, hopefully, more than one! Are you wondering? One has to wonder why it is that the full extent and impact of the Watergate debacle was felt only after Nixon was reelected. One has to wonder why election reform -- in particular the issue of how ballots are handled, including the dangling chad problem, certainly already known before the 2000 election -- was only whispered about instead of screamed for until after Dubya was crowned. Now one is wondering why it is only after the 2010 elections that results are issued for a study of news networks' levels of mis- and disinformation.

(I guess you might wonder why I awaken, return and blog ater the "compromise" has been passed by a cowardly Congress [excluding from that adjective some noble representatives, such as my own state's upstanding Keith Ellison, who voted no].)

Those of us with a few remaining brain cells could have told you Fox News lied, but would you have believed us? At best you'd have said 1. they only get things wrong once in a while and 2. they didn't do it on purpose, besides which 3. they really weren't that wrong. The truth (remember truth?) is that 1. they get it wrong almost all the time and when they get it right they twist it to mean something else, and 2. they do it on purpose, besides which 3. you still believe them!

For information about the study, check out http://www.alternet.org/media/149193/study_confirms_that_fox_news_makes_you_stupid%20.

If I knew where clues were being sold, I'd buy them up, even without coupons, and put 'em in the water, so everyone could get one. America seriously needs to be clued in, and America seriously needs to pay attention while being clued in.

One of the issues on which America needs to become clueful is that of tax breaks for the very wealthy. Many of you think that the tax breaks either being extended or not (it's all down to Obama's signature now) affect you. (Some of you appear to think there is a tax cut in it for you; there isn't. What there is, though, is the fact that unemployment benefits are being held hostage by those who want the extension of the tax breaks; if the rich don't get a few more years of breaks, unemployment benefits won't be extended, and if the rich do get a few more years of breaks, unemployment benefits will still only be extended 13 more months. Wow, that's fair! Meanwhile, the Payroll tax, from which Social Security is funded, is also being cut.) If you're not one of the wealthiest folks in the country -- in the top two percent -- it affects you all right; they will be getting a tax break at your expense. Others of you seem to think that giving that two percent of the population a continuation on the taxc break they've had a few years already will create new jobs, or at least stop old ones from going byebye. Well... has it worked so far? (Get a clue!) Not al extremely wealthy people have closed their American locations, laying off American workers, and outsourced jobs overseas (let's not even get into the issue of slave labor): just whole bunches of them. Trickle-down didn't work for Reagan (well it may have worked for him personally but it didn't work for America under Reagan) and it didn't work for Dubya and it won't work now or in the future either. Here is a nifty article about some (not all) of the reasons it doesn't and won't: http://www.alternet.org/economy/149201/tax_cuts_simply_do_not_create_jobs . I don't believe it mentions that the tax breaks are for individuals, not corporations, but apart from that, it explains the situation quite clearly.

Amazingly, those of you who think the incredibly wealthy are going to stop screwing you and create jobs and fund programs you won't let the government fund (which it could if the rich would just pay their damned taxes) also think that immigrants (legal and illegal alike) who pick fruit and clean toilets for virtually no money, so that they can live in appalling conditions and be generally abused) are causing unemployment. If your only employment option is to clean toilets, I can't help wondering why you are so hot to extend tax breaks for people who pay other people to defecate for them and would deprive you of your measly, inadequate unemployment benefits.

Time for you to think.  Time for me to retreat, nap, stop, for the nonce, blogging.

MORE POLITICKLES

There is a status makng the round in Facebook and it is full of lies. (So what else is new?)  Here is the version I found on my newsfeed:  I will keep the poster and any respondants other than myself anonymous.

if you cross the north korean border illegally u get 12 years hard labor if you cross iranian borders illegally you get detained indefinitely. if you cross afghan borders you get shot. cross the saudi border you will get jailed. cross the chinese border you will never be heard from again.  cross venezuelan borders you will be branded a spy and have your fate sealed. cross teh cuban border you will be thrown in prison to rot. HOWEVER, cross the United States order illegally, you will get a job, a drivers license, a socials ecurity card, welare benefits, food stamps, credit cards, susidized rent or a loan to buy a new house, free health care, the right to vote, and all without speaking a word of fucking english. this should piss Americans off, and I am truly offended by illegals. "Fuck Off, We're Full"

I had to respond, and I did so, thusly (note:  many people are inclined to ignore proper usage of capital letters in common online conversation, be it a private or instant message, an email or a post; I am no exception):

Gail M Feldman:  simply untrue. illegals can't vote; even legals can't vote unless they become naturalized citizens. illegals can get only the most menial of jobs, jobs you would eschew, for well under minimum wage (to whom can they complain?), and no hea...lth benefits. their welfare use, except for food stamps, is minimal; what they do get, they get to support their children, only if the children were born here. no one has children in america just to get benefits, and there are at least two good reasons for that: 1. they only get them FOR the children so they make no "profit" from that and 2. they would not even break even, as the benefits are insufficient even to support a child. i know this because i have BEEN on welfare. i was living on $203 a month.



illegals cannot legally obtain socal security numbers or drivers licenses, but of course can cheat to get them... as can and do natural born citizens, sometimes (more, in fact, and unlike illegals, who only get these things in order to survive, natual born citizens who get them by cheating do so for the purpose of comitting crimes!) they do NOT get free health care. more than half of them actually pay taxes (but do not get, for those taxes, the benefits citizens get). they also pay into social security, even though they cannot get benefits.

not all illegal immigrants are unable to speak english! and some very legal immigrants cannot (my grandmother never learned much english, and she was here legally, thank you very much).



http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal-immigrants/


http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/illegalimmigrant-driverslicense.html


http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/socialsecurity.asp


g

there was a brief response from a (male) friend of the (female) poster's:

still we are full!

now... that means it doesn't MATTER than the original post was vastly inaccurate, and it also is rather meaningless UNLESS you're not actually against ILLEGAL immigration but rather are against ANY immigration.  i tried again:

Gail M Feldman:   we aren't full. when we get full we may as well no longer be america anymore, because america is the melting pot. when we get full we may as well blow up the statue of liberty because her words will no longer be true. and we wouldn't IMAGINE we were full if corporations were not saving themselves billions of dollars at our expense by outsources jobs to third-world countries.


g
 
Still ignoring the fact that everything in her original post, at least the part pertaining to America (I have never been to North Korea) was shown to be untrue, the original poster added:
 
but we are full. We have our own problems, and our own people to worry about, then supporting illegals.. that should be at the bottom of our priority list..
 
So I tried AGAIN:
 
Gail M Feldman so does that make any of the untrue stuff true, or saying that it is true, when it's not, right? we aren't supporting illegals. to a large extent, in some areas of the usa, they are supporting US. in most parts of the usa, they're not muc...h of an issue at all. and we are NOT FULL. (but on the other hand, if the duggers would stop having babies, that would help!)


g
 
Her friend had the following intellectual contribution:
 
ok, i get it you like immigrants
 
Again, note that we keep changing the original topic from ILLEGAL immigrants to immigration itself.  But he wasn't done, and made another post right away:
 
or if the illegals would stop making money and sending it back to thier families in there home country maybe the value of our dollar wouldnt be going down so much
 
Then another male friend of the original poster's chimed in:
 
ya know your g-parents were once illegals :) you should have said Mexicans. They cross and breed.. Woops! Sorry chris hehehahahahahaha!
 
Well, I was unable to determine to whom this new voice was speaking; nobody who had posted so far was named Chris.  But  I'm pretty stubborn, so I tried yet AGAIN, even though now the first two were just piling one ridiculous unfounded accusation upon another
 
Gail M Feldman: ‎""ok, i get it you like immigrants""



1. i like or dislike people based on whether or not they're good people, not whether or not they were born where i was born. so yeah, i like some immigrants (such as my grandparents and their parents and siblings) and some i can live without (i won't name names).

2. i thought we were talking about ILLEGAL immigrants; are we now talking also about legal ones?

3, your response indicates that you DON'T get it.

g
 
That of course was hostile of me; I try hard not to call name or characterize.  I try hard to stick to facts.  However, when others don't make the same effort, I get testy.  I continued at length, kindly refraining from correcting spelling errors (that just irritates people):
 
Gail M Feldman:  ‎"or if the illegals would stop making money and sending it back to thier families in there home country maybe the value of our dollar wouldnt be going down so much"


this too is a myth. our dollar is going down because corporations are outsourcing jobs and not allowing american production to regain the quality it once had (not to mention depriving willing american workers of good jobs).


most illegals can only send money home if they, themselves, live in abysmal conditions, sacrificing their own welfare to support their starving families back home. most can't even send anything because they barely have enough to live on. meanwhile they are paying taxes and paying into the social security system, although they get no vote (and i agree, they should not get the vote, but it's not an issue; they don't have the vote and no one is trying to give it to them; the ONLY reason i bring it up is that even so, they do pay taxes) and they don't receive social security. (again, not only is that proper, but no one is trying to give them social security; there WAS a bill on the table in congress that would have provided for FORMER illegals who became legal -- which isn't easy -- to get credit for social security payments they made while illegal, but that bill was tabled and never considered again. it was never voted on and probably never will be. the only reason i bring it up is that despite this, they DO pay social security contributions. so i am being supported at this moment partly by illegal immigrant.)


as it happens, my mother's father's mother was forbidden, back in ukraine, to marry her boyfriend. her folks didnt like him. they arranged for her to marry a rabbi's son, who himself became a rabbi. she had three kids with him and was pregnant with a fourth when he suddenly died. ukraine was a pretty dangerous place for jews to be, and she had no way to survive as a widow with three and a half kids, so she emigrated to the u.s. (her baby was born on the ship!) in new york, she ran into guess whom? her old boyfriend! he told her he, too, had married but his wife had died. since they had been childless, he, too, had emigrated to america. the two married and had more kids. then one day there was a knock at the door. it was my great-grandmother's new husband's SON, coming from the old country to say mama had died. her new husband had lied; he was still married to a living wife at the time he married her, and he had five kids back in ukraine, and one of them was now standing on their doorstep! she forgave him (would you? i don't know if i would!) and they worked very hard to bring the rest of his kids over. yes, that means they sent money out of the united states. horror of horrors! (how come it's okay for big corporations to send money and jobs out of the united states, HUGE money, LOTS of jobs, but we're yapping about some illegal immigrant sending a couple bucks to his starving family?) somehow their doing this did NOT destroy the american economy, or take jobs from americans. my family hasn't got a single drug dealer, rapist or criminal in it (except of course for the bigamist!) we do have a guy who thinks he's jerry lewis, but he was born in philly, as far as i know.


g
 
To the original poster's credit, she never devolved into namecalling or told me I was an idiot.  I actually do respect that, by the way, as horrified as I am at 1. the spreading of lies and 2. the lack of logic I continually encounter.  This is how she responded:
 
 i just think that if you want to be here, make an effort to be LEGAL.. instead of comin here expecting everyone AND there G'PARENTS to pay your way to live here
 
Well if that is JUST what she thinks, how come her original post was not to that effect and instead said outrageously untrue things designed to stir rage in the hearts of innocent Americans who (since so few people actually know how to check facts) might actually BELIEVE that crap?  But I did not say that.  I said, instead:
 
Gail M Feldman:  i agree. but it's not always possible, and i would like to point out AGAIN that nobody and nobody's grandparents ARE paying for illegals to live here.


g

Her response betrayed a wee bit of irritation:

that's crap.. they live off welfar, they can go to the hospital no problem and they can drive a car around with no registration, no insurance, no problem. I support the fact that the DUI checkpoints here in santa maria arent'e vven for DUIS, but for the illegals that go through town. last week, one person was arrested for dui.. 12 were arrested for being illegal and not having permission to even go around in their car.. sot hat's ok then?? to have illegals driving aroud illegally? living here illegally?

To whichof course I had to reply:

no none of that is okay. (and obviouly it WAS a problen; they got caught.) but that doesn't mean all illegals are doing that, any more than the fact that legal citizens sometimes rob banks makes all legal citizens bank robbers. it's not a sensible or logical conclusion.



by the way, NOBODY "lives" off welfare even the lowliest job pays more than welfare.

g

p.s. i would rather have a sober illegal alien driving a car than a drunken legal citizen doing so.

I should have added that I was speaking from personal experience but I was hesitant to open myself up to accusations such as those I have heard before, born of ignorance, urging me to go get a job (I'm disabled: I was on welfare while waiting for Socia Security to come through; it only took 13 years).  Even so, this was her response:

just because the lowliest job pays more than welfare, doesnt' mean that there aren't people in the USofA that just want to live off welfare and do nothing else



and wether they are drunk or not has nothign to do with it. would you just like a...n illegal driving around not taking any responsibility for his own actions
 
My response was the last entry in the thread.  She and her friends gave up... posting.  I doubt they ynderstood any of my points, mostly because they did not WANT to understand them.  Understanding them would have obligated them to rethink their positions, or admit their positions were held despite the truth.  Here, then, is how I finished the conversation:
 
Gail M Feldman:  no but given a choice between the crime of being an illegal alien OTHERWISE obeying the law and a the crime of dui, i find the dui more dangerous.


and yeah there are lazy people in the world. there aren't any more lazy illegals than there are lazy citizens. there is no evidence, much less proof, that illegals are lazier than legals. in fact they tend to work damned hard. i'm not saying people should not obey the law. i'm saying that an AWFUL lot of false accusations are being made.

g
 
That was that.  Silence.  The problem is, her original post is viral -- remember, she copied it from one of its many, many appearances -- and people are NOT countering it with facts.  They're responding with "Yeah, kill those illegals, they're all rapists and drug dealers," and they're not talking about Swedish immigrants; they're talking about darker-skinned immigrants, since blue-eyed blondes never commit crimes and are welcome to emigrate here to America any old time.
 
I can see the tears trickling down Lady Liberty's cheeks.  Someone hand me a tissue....

POLITICKLES

One of my Facebook friends asked whether Teabaggers actually believe what they say.  I responded thusly:

 

It is hard to figure, isn't it? I think they all go to some hypnotist and say "Make me believe; I'm gonna talk trash and I wanna be SINCERE."

And then the hypnotist says, "Okay, but first let's sell the election to any foreign power with the moolah to make us all richer than we already are, which of course is almost impossible, and then let's make sure that the trash you talk results in a clean, white, christian, heterosexual, male-dominated America, for I just happen to be white, Christian, hetero and male, and I'm afraid of losing any of the power that currently redounds to that, for I have no inner resources and would not succeed if relying purely on my personal integrity, which, by the way, has anybody seen?"

And then the pols listening to this have not actually understood two-thirds of it, so they nod and say, "so hypnotize me already, Doc, I've got a campaign to run. my opponent is hitting 'em with FACTS. I have to hurry out and drown those with some big bad lies, which is why I need you to swing the pendulum for me in the first place, Doc, so can you hurry it up?"

The hypnotist, not liking to be rushed, adds a little something to the mix when he's got them under, just for spite. and that is why Teabaggers lick their own genitals. BECAUSE THEY CAN. (and because no one else will.)

ALL MUSLIMS ARE NOT TERRORISTS

And all illegal immigrants are not drug lords, come to think of it.

I was involved recently in a discussion of why folks are so dead-set against the building of a Muslim community center not terribly far from (but not at, on or next door to) Ground Zero. To be against it, you have to believe that Muslims are terrorists. Otherwise, why shouldn't a community center be built? Would a church or synagogue arouse such ire? Within the discussion was a mild debate about whether it was fear or ignorance that caused such bigoted reactions, sometimes from otherwise fairly decent folks. My response:

In its way, ignorance is one cause of fear. We always fear the unknown. If allwe know about Muslims is that some crazy ones flew into the Twin owers and killed thousands of people, on purpose, and claimed it had something to do with Islam, then all we know is that Muslims are bad. It's not true, but our ignorance produces that "knowledge," which is scary, so we fear Muslims, and fear becomes hatred.

If we knew any Muslims personally, one of two things would happen: either our ignorance would be counteracted and we would get a better perspective and put our fear where it belonged (it's reasonable to be afraid of terrorists!) or we would cling to our ignorant belief and consider any contradictory evidence either untrue or an anomaly. My mother got this all the time: "You don't look Jewish; you're pretty!" and "You don't act Jewish; you're nice!" and those were meant as COMPLIMENTS! The people saying these things could not reconcile their previous impressions with the new ones and change their beliefs, so no matter how any pretty, handsome friendly Jews they ever met in their lives, even if every Jew they met happened to be cool, those ews would remain exceptions to the previously learned rule that Jews are ugly and mean. So people have to be exposed to the truth but they also need to be taught how to handle it!

Drop Dead (from Frustration), TeeVee

What a brilliant piece of crap.

First of all, the stated premise stinks. Deb -- a sweet, pretty and vapid young model -- dies in a car crash, is accidentally reincarnated, to her horror, as Jane -- a morbidly obese but intelligent lawyer, thanks to a snafu at the gateless intake office of the pearly gates, and from that point on deals with her brainless best friend (who knows the incredible truth), her newly human guardian angel (who got fired for the snafu), her previous incarnation's fiance, who coincidentally works at her law office, and a host of unlikely and potentially embarrassing encounters with her past (her mother, a previously unknown half-sister, a surprise husband), not to mention the challenges of the job itself, which include but are not limited to a boss whose vapidity rivals her own former condition without being tempered by a sweet nature, a bitchy competitor and a cheeky (but supportive) personal assistant, not to mention the actual clients and cases.

Yes, Virginia, that was all one sentence. Get over it.

That was the stinky stated premise. Based on that, we have your basic "oh no, what if someone finds OUT, can she HANDLE it?" on a regular basis. Will Jane make a fool of herself and confess who she is to the plethora of folks who knew Deb and keep popping up? Which will win at any given moment in any given situation: Deb the ditz or Jane the brain? Booooooring. However, there is also the unstated premise, which is that an overweight woman can actually be a cherished human being and effective citizen of the world. To many, in real life, the unstated premise is less realistic than the stated one. It is easier to believe in reincarnation, even in the hazy context of an unspecified religion, than it is to buy that a fat chick can be cool. Sure, once in a while weight becomes a legal issue instead of just a running gag, but it generally takes a back seat to the stupid stuff.

If the creator Josh Berman and his writers had had any guts (pun intended) they'd have just written a show about Jane, and to hell (pun intended) with Deb. Jane without Deb's simper/giggle might not be as much of a challenge to Brooke Elliott, who does the best she can with what they give her, but it would actually be worth watching.