News you can use
News you can use
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A few weeks ago some frat boys at the University of California, San Diego, pulled what they thought of as a prank — just a fun thing. In mock honor of Black History Month they held an offcampus "Compton Cookout," named after the largely black suburb of Los Angeles a few dozen miles up the road. The organizers invited guests to wear "grills," those fake gold teeth favored by gangsta rappers and thuggish athletes, as well as the baggy athletic clothes worn by those groups. And, oh yes, watermelon was served. Well, you can i... Full story
The Divine Sarah has spoken. "How's that hopey-changey thing working out for you?" That's what she said, Sarah Palin. She said it to the Tea Party at their recent convention (or was it the Tea Party Party?) In Nashville. She said other things too. For example: "If you can't ride two horses at once, you shouldn't be in the circus." "People look to Alaska as a beacon of hope." "We need a commander-inchief, not a professor of law." Also: "I am so proud to be an American." "Happy birthday to Ronald Reagan." "It is inspiring to... Full story
When I was a lad, growing up in the shadow of the Ford Rouge plant in Detroit, Japan was known for the manufacture of junky products — cheap knickknacks and toys that broke in your hand. With World War II, Japanese products disappeared, leaving some of us to wonder why it was taking so long to beat an enemy who couldn't even make decent toys. After the war, Japanese products came trickling back into the country and the image persisted. We still considered them junk. We compared the first little Honda hatchback to a tin c...
I don't know why people, even smart people, keep saying that bankers and the rest of the Wall Street crowd don't get it. Dana Milbank, writing in The Washington Post, said it just the other week after Lloyd Blankfein, the Goldman Sachs chairman, testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. It was a remarkably arrogant performance, even for a Wall Street prima donna. Blankfein's firm, the very exemplar of the too-big-to-fail model, received a many-multibillion dollar bailout from the federal government last year...
In days of yore they called them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Famine, Pestilence and Death — the scourges of humankind. They're still around, but now they carry new names: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy — the conservative majority of the U.S. (ha ha) Supreme Court. (I know, that makes five. There's inflation everywhere.) These gentlemen, all of whom solemnly swore that they would honor precedent in their judgments, kicked precedent into the ditch last month when they opened the floodgates for cor... Full story
