BigGuy

Bullshit.

I do know what Black men go through. Black men in America, no matter how successful, have additional daily stresses White men don't have. Black men have to think about not making Whites, especially Whites in authority, feel fearful. White men hardly ever think about that.

I'm a white tour guide for Gray Line in Times Square. Most of the drivers are Black and Hispanic. Most all the Black drivers are socially slighted by Whites riding the bus every day, although the vast majority of American and European Whites are totally unaware of the social slights they engage in and the drivers, as Blacks in America have to do, have trained themselves to ignore them.

There are many little behaviors in everyday interaction that Whites engage in that convey Blacks are to be feared or are socially inferior. The most common I see is for passengers to look away from the drivers, making a physical effort NOT to see them. Also, upper class Whites coming aboard the bus sometimes convey in their physical posture that the driver (and the guide, that's me) are their servants and nothing more than that. Some carry themselves with such high self-regard that they seem thoroughly displeased that we do not offer to them all our tip money for the honor to be graced by their presence. posted 07/19/2008 at 02:56:36

I think Ben does have a basis on which to discuss this subject, even though he is not a Black man.

Many of the readers of Huffingtonpost have liberal arts college degrees. The whole idea of a liberal arts education is for the persons educated to be liberated above and beyond the invisible bars of conformity and tradition that constrain them from looking and understanding the world with open eyes and open minds.

I think most all of those reading can imagine the reality of those different from themselves and have the capacity to show empathy. posted 07/19/2008 at 02:32:00

The amusement parks are the most profitable business Bud has. Selling the parks going into an economic downturn means getting bottom dollar.

The amusement parks provided a place for relatives to work who weren't suited for the beer business and built up a tremendous amount of goodwill nationwide.

This deal is at a better price, but long run, the combined firms will NOT BE better run, but worse. posted 07/17/2008 at 21:27:09

Folks, don't cancel your subscription.

Support the Post Office.
Support Free Speech.
Have the New Yorker pay to do both.

Send in all the Postal Reply cards that fill up the magazine. On the reply card, write your anonymous comments about how displeased you are with the cover.

Figure five cards from each subscriber mailed in -- that's 5 times .27 = $1.35

Now if 40,000 subscribers do that, it'll cost the New Yorker $54,000. And the New Yorker will have received back 200,000 individual messages expressing displeasure with the cover. Each and every message will have to be paid for by them. posted 07/13/2008 at 22:11:55

Here's what I wrote the public editor at the Times' -- publiceditor@nytimes.com .
Writing the Times about her nastiness towards Hilary did make a difference, so maybe if the Times receives 500+ different emails expressing complaints about today's column, some difference may occur.

Calling Obama a hot house flower isn't funny. That's a gay slur. That's not needed to make her point, whatever it may be.

Dowd should be fired. Get her out of there. She's been given enough chances already.

Replace her with Rachel Maddow. Have an ACTUAL LIBERAL on your op ed page instead of Irish and Jewish Wasp want-to-be's who espouse received opinion of the Right, albeit with a nice turn of phrase.

Doesn't anyone edit what Dowd writes before you print it? Just how did that get in the paper?

Her entertaining emasculating comments of Gore succeeded in helping to put W into office. Are any of your co-workers at the Times proud of the 4,000 Americans dead in Iraq? the Times' negligence in supporting Dowd enabled W. Is it the paper's policy to now enable McCain? In supporting Dowd's slurs, that's what you're doing.

Oh, yes. William Kristol is happy for those deaths in Iraq and really enjoys Dowd's turns of phrase. That's the same William Kristol who admonished Terry Gross that there wouldn't be sectarian conflict in Iraq because "Iraq has always been pretty secular". posted 07/13/2008 at 14:13:24

A comedian doing a live performance for a political fundraiser is duty bound not to offend anyone in the audience. His first priority is to support the candidate, not to get laughs. Jokes that might offend are not supportive of the candidate.

Bernie's on TV and in movies. He can work clean. He probably didn't write up his monologue beforehand, since he was working for free, so he used his usual Las Vegas nightclub act without reviewing it with the campaign first.

In the future, comedians doing live shows for an Obama fundraiser should be told to submit a recording or script in advance, even if the star is performing for free. Comedians who refuse to abide by the rule should be told that they are welcome to contribute cash to the campaign, rather than their time. posted 07/12/2008 at 15:15:15

There's a big difference. McCain was presenting himself to the general public, not just Republicans.

In contrast, Huffington Post is not open to the general public for posting comments. It's moderated because wingnuts overwhelm any sites that do not accord with the ideology of the Right -- which is wrong.

Sites that are center or on the left go out of their way to accept posts from the Right. In contrast, sites on the Right ban those from the left.

\ posted 07/11/2008 at 20:34:19

Republicans get elected by keeping the opposition from voting. Many of the folks who lose their home through foreclosure will be denied their right to vote. Their voter ID cards will not be forwarded to their new address -- per the instructions of the politicized post office -- but will instead be returned to the voting registrar who will then remove them from the rolls.

Anticipate at least one million people to be denied their right to vote nationwide on election day. Enough people will be turned away for McCain to be elected.

The only way to prevent this is if we Democrats have an overwhelming number of people showing up at the polls. Not 50% participation, but 90+% among Blacks and the young who favor Obama. Also, an overwhelming number of Democratic voters should vote in advance via absentee ballots -- at least two million votes nationwide in advance -- and then volunteer at the polls to help everybody else to show up. posted 07/11/2008 at 01:06:11

All of these men look handsomer, thinner, and happier than most men the same age. Although only Barry Diller is known to be gay, they look like the "boys" at a high class gay bar -- all these middle-aged men look 20+ years younger than their age -- Rupert looks 30+ years younger. Also, as if we didn't already know that life's unfair, most of the men whose crotches are shown in these photos appear to be well blessed.

Nearly all shown are White. It'd be a lot better conference for everybody if Herb Allen got Oprah Winfrey to show up. She's not just lucky and personable; her show is good is because she's extraordinarily competent.

No one looks fat, except maybe Tom Brokaw on the bike. posted 07/11/2008 at 03:06:58

The Soviet Union and Russia have always been nimble oil traders; the very best they have go to work for the KGB. Patriotism is a better motivator than money. There is very little downside for Russia in pushing oil prices higher. They have no incentive not to seek higher prices.

The simplest way to mitigate the effects of Russia pushing oil prices up would be for the the US dollar to strengthen. The most direct way for that to happen is for US gov't debt to be paid down, by collecting more taxes, instead of issuing more bonds. That's unlikely under Bush and McBush.

It's sad that the major consequence of W's foreign and oil policy has been to strengthen Russia and Iran. And to make oil service firms like Halliburton a whole lot more profitable.

The only President who comes anywhere close to having helped Russia (well, the USSR) as much as W is Herbert Hoover. Without Hoover dealing with the famine that overwhelmed the Soviet Union immediately after the revolution, the Soviet Union would have fallen apart. posted 07/09/2008 at 02:05:05

Nah. The Democratic Party does not try to control citizen's lives like the Republicans do. The Democratic Party says the gov't doesn't belong in your bedroom. The Republicans insist on being there to make sure you don't make love to someone like yourself, to make sure you don't have access to contraception, to make sure any child conceived has the right to be born (but not to stay alive -- the right to life ceases outside the womb).

The Democratic Party says women should be trusted to control themselves. Republicans say NO.

What terrorists are being held? We haven't been told their names, and those held have not been publicly charged in a court of law. W's word is that they're terrorists, but his word's been wrong.

His gov't said the Iraq war would pay for itself from the oil; we're up to a cost exceeding $1,000,000,000,000 -- one million times one million -- that's what a trillion is. How can we trust W's word on terrorism when his cost estimate for our war in Iraq is off by $1,000,000,000,000? We have collectively piled up bills of $3,400 for each and every citizen in the United States to repay.

Remember that we were told the liberation of Iraq would lead to Democracy over all the Middle East and lower oil prices. How's that working out for you? Most people now pay 4X as much as a decade ago; over $4 a gallon versus less than a $1a gallon. posted 07/08/2008 at 14:35:50

Nah, it's business. They're talking NYC real estate in her apt. And if Guy Oseary is trustworthy.

For a lot of wealthy New Yorkers, that's more fun than sex. Listen in on conversations in high priced restaurants. Folks aren't talking about sex. They're talking about real estate. posted 07/01/2008 at 14:32:10

I think she's a hard working business woman who's an entertainer. The only person comparable is Oprah, who's even more successful. But Oprah doesn't work as hard to stay in shape.

i also think she' a little lost with all the Kabbalah stuff, since the Bergs (the father and son behind the new-found popularity of Kabbalah) are charlatans. posted 06/27/2008 at 13:08:58

Mort Saul's alive. Reports of his Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, to repeat Mark Twain.

He's lost his house in Beverly Hills and a friend has started a blog to help Mort get work.
http://www.inthe00s.com/archive/inthe70s/smf/1172868040.shtml

He appeared in NYC this Spring at BB Kings on 42nd Street in Times Square.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/mort-sahl-still-has-a-bone-to-pick-a-funny-one/ posted 06/23/2008 at 16:59:16

Bush protected the tennis courts of La an Tx every bit as well as his dad's vp Dan Quayle protected the golf courses of Indiana. posted 06/20/2008 at 18:24:34

Nonsense. There have been no reports of her having a sexual relationship with a woman.

There have been no reports of her having had sex at all, although she may take matters in hand from time to time.

But there's plenty of evidence of her ability to blind herself to human suffering and to countenance torture. Who ever thought that a woman high in government would be so heartless? She is. We have more to fear from her advocating the evils perpetrated by W than we to have to fear from who or how her genitalia have been penetrated, if ever. posted 06/20/2008 at 18:38:17

Of all the things. Why Michael Gerson is as honest as the day is long. In Barrow, Alaska in January. posted 06/20/2008 at 02:56:53

i'm a tour guide for Gray Line in NYC. In Brooklyn, the bus drives by the Emergency Command Center of NYC on Cadman Plaza. It was previously located at 7 WTC on the 23rd floor, supposedly so it'd be within walking distance of City Hall, as Rudy Guiliani insisted, even though the EMS, Fire, and Police departments all strongly preferred to locate the Command Center outside Manhattan, with the current Cadman Plaza location their preference.

When we go by the building, I tell folks how "Rudy Guiliani met his third wife. When he was cheating on his second wife and attended a cocktail party with his backup mistress -- instead of his first string mistress -- Judy Nathan introduced herself to him while the other lady was using the rest room. Yes, folks, Rudy was carrying on four sexual relationships simultaneously."

If we get traffic, I talk a bit about how Judy Nathan demonstrated the medical equipment she sold to surgeons, namely, she was cutting up puppies (unadopted dogs she obtained from the ASPCA that had already been put to sleep, but which were not yet dead) to teach the surgeons the procedures to follow when operating on people.

That's not made up. Judy Nathan's quite a piece of work. She definitely has the life and work experience to get along with Rudy well.

Judy Nathan Guiliani can be ferocious; she makes Barbara Bush and Lynne Cheney seem like gentle lambs. She can be Rudy's Evita -- and ours. Isn't posted 06/18/2008 at 20:09:30

Cronkite began as a print reporter, then a radio reporter for Edward R. Murrow. He wrote a lot of his scripts himself.

He was not always pro-establishment and had plenty of internal fights at CBS. The reason he hasn't written a book about those fights is because a lot of them never got resolved so he's just dropped it rather than fight old battles.

Cronkite expected to die 20+ years ago. If he had know he'd be living so long, he would have kept the anchor desk until his ratings faltered.

Also, if he didn't enjoy being out on his boat so much, he would have done a lot more broadcasting and film work over the past thirty-five years. posted 06/17/2008 at 00:45:34

Go visit a junior high in a wealthy White suburb. Then visit a junior high in an a Black inner city.

Look at the textbooks. Compare the facilities.

Ignore the students and teachers. School's out in the South, so you could do this now.

You'll see that money makes a big, big difference. Having a textbook less than five years old versus one that's 20+ years old lets you know you're being treated well Having working restrooms and water fountains makes you feel that the school is concerned about your sanitation and hygiene. posted 06/17/2008 at 02:31:33

Great post. posted 06/17/2008 at 02:21:51

Correlation is not causation.

Not only do 90% of inmates in state prisons come from families where there has been some sort of government subsidized assistance, but also 100% of the men and women in our military receive government assistance -- they get paid for their work by the gov't.

100% of our college graduates have received government assistance; albeit indirectly. Their colleges, public or private, are construed non-profits and are not taxed upon their income -- that's a subsidy from the gov't. Go to a big time college football game: there's an awful lot of money being made and hardly any of it is taxed.

100 percent of the inmates in state prisons come from families where at least one grandparent worked full time for at least one year. Does having a working grandparent in your past mean you're more likely to go to prison? posted 06/17/2008 at 02:15:27

Well done.

Bill Moyers acted with class. It was good to see a Fox producer assigned to ambush him to be similarly ambushed. posted 06/09/2008 at 16:40:25

McCain"s middle name is Sidney. Kindly call him Sidney. Sidney is a name that connotes just how much integrity and strength of character he has nowadays. And "Love, Sidney" starring Tony Randall was such wonderful show about an in-the-closet gay man helping a single mother raise her daughter.
Let"s just call McCain Sidney. It"s a fine name that lets us all know his game. posted 04/02/2008 at 22:30:54

McCain"s middle name is Sidney. Kindly call him Sidney. Sidney is a name that connotes just how much integrity and strength of character he has nowadays. And "Love, Sidney" starring Tony Randall was such wonderful show about an in-the-closet gay man helping a single mother raise her daughter.
Let"s just call McCain Sidney. It"s a fine name that lets us all know his game. posted 04/02/2008 at 22:38:39