Growing Up Racist
Michael Eric Dyson recently wrote some challenging comments about how whiteness is a often a kind of blindness. It started me thinking about my own life and how I grew up in a racist family without...
View ArticleSome incidents of using terror as a way to manage minorities in American...
It seems to me that most Americans prefer a sort of amnesia about our collective history. I’m guessing that most of my fellow Americans would reject the idea terrorism being as American as apple pie....
View ArticleMaybe black lives don't matter to so many because they find black culture...
This diary is sparked by my remembering that once I bought my mother a novel I had liked. She was a voracious reader of fiction, so I thought it would be a cool present. She didn’t thank me. The only...
View ArticleDrones scatter vaccine-laced M&Ms over Montana
I first saw this story on the Guardian’s American edition site and have seen it elsewhere. It really is a serious matter, but I can’t help feeling a sort of perverse macabre humor about it. US Fish and...
View ArticleI was working myself into a fine state of gloom, then boiinggg, optimism...
I was just in a fine state of gloom. The country seems to be falling apart, there’s the possibility a clown may win the presidential election, terrorists are popping up everywhere, our police are...
View ArticleIs Donald Trump the reincarnation of P.T. Barnum?
P. T. Barnum (Phineas Taylor Barnum, 1810-1891) did not actually say “There’s a sucker born every minute.” He’s the Barnum in what became the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Barnum was known in his day as a...
View ArticleSnooty the Manatee is 68 today.
Snooty is a manatee. His birthday is actually July 21,but the celebration is today and he is 68. It’s a big deal for the place he lives—he is the first known manatee to be born in captivity. His...
View ArticlePew Research Center facts on Muslims in Europe
I’m a Pew Research Center junkie. They often have very useful information in their “Fact Tank.". Today (I subscribe to their e-newsletter) there’s some intriguing information about Muslims in Europe. I...
View ArticleIs Theresa May, the new British Prime Minister, another Donald Trump?
Is Theresa May, the new British Prime Minister, another Donald Trump? She is by all accounts a formidable person and I’d have little doubt that she’s way smarter and vastly more politically able than...
View ArticleSome hillbillies prefer Bach to banjo.
This is partly in response to an excellent diary today by Dartagnan, and to some comments in the comment stream that seem to me just not to get it. The noted diary was about three words he (or she)...
View ArticleSexually mature at age 150. Greenland sharks live to way past 400.
Sometimes one needs an escape from all the politics. I was intrigued at recent reports that researchers have finally determined how to tell the age of a Greenland shark. It was previously thought that...
View ArticleGoing cold turkey on Chicken Little.
I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but now it’s time. I have a Chicken Little habit. Bad. I tend to think that if something can go wrong, it probably will.Every day I check the polls. The slightest...
View ArticleTall tales about Giraffes
A new report on a genetic study of giraffes has found that there are several species, not just one as previously thought. This is important, because the 100,000 giraffes remaining in the wild are...
View ArticleAn alien invasion! Beetles! Fish! Snakes! Snails! Mussels!
Most people on DK will know about some of the historical impact of alien species such as Dutch Elm Disease and Chestnut Blight, the Gypsy moth, fire ants, starlings* and so on. The invasion has been...
View ArticleMore plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050
By 2050. the plastic in the oceans is projected to outweigh the fish in the oceans.This diary is about a serious problem that needs wider attention. It’s also to make the point that environmental...
View ArticleClinton wipeout of metaphorical elephants likely but she also acts to save...
I have never explored what the Clinton foundations do, but a feature in today’s Guardian (the online Green Light material, focused on environmental issues) has a story titled "Clinton’s little known...
View ArticleNY Times, Trump exaggerates height of his buildings
I haven’t seen a diary about this yet, so here goes. According to a front page article in the New York Times (Nov 2, 2016) Trump routinely adds height to his buildings by fudging math. This is partly a...
View ArticleThis reeks of Pollyanna, but recriminations and backbiting are luxuries we...
I’ve browsed a number of diaries and read scores and scores of comments this day after the election. I expected the anger and the intensity, but not its targets. There are lots of comments that Bernie...
View ArticleWomen's and minority's contributions to American history somehow vanish from...
The standard narrative of American history is a kind of onwards and upwards story of vanquishing enemies, conquering nature and becoming the best country ever. The usual stars in the epic are white...
View ArticleOne "environmental" program Trump is welcome to kill.
Wildlife Services has been a federal program for a century. It’s housed in the Department of Agriculture. They kill animals. Here’s a link to a disturbing piece in the New York Times (9/18/2016) titled...
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