Snark-Free Zone Today

Sorry folks, not up for much snark today. I'm trying to be optimistic, I really am, but the last couple days...well, they've been draining, to say the least.

The health care town halls. Now, I'm not so naive to think that there wasn't going to be ANY Sturm und Dram regarding health care, but I truly didn't believe that 1 in 4 Americans suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder. Now, I do. You could have a 20 foot wall painted with a daisy right in front of the Nutter Brigade, and they would insist that it is a rose-- and a dead one on top of that.

Pushing and shoving and beating on doors? Puhleeze, THAT is not violence. THIS is violence:



Hubert Humphrey. Truer words have rarely been spoken.

But are we on our way back to 1968? Or worse, 1861?

This goes on for a while, folks. Feel free to fast forward or click it off.



Now I can understand ignorance in 1861, since only 5% of the American population could read. But there's no excuse for it now.

They're scared. REAL scared. Not of universal health care, that's just the faux outrage du jour. No, they're scared because, in America, they are seeing the end of Myth of the Master Race, and the beginning of its Legacy. Old white guys can't call the shots as easily as they could just a year ago. Non-whites are in the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, Congress.

The White House.

For the first time in American history, they are rapidly becoming a minority. And well...let's say white people's track record dealing with minorities hasn't exactly been stellar.

And now...what will happen to THEM? How shall the Brown people exact their revenge? Maybe by enslaving them, kidnapping them, putting them in irons and shipping them across the globe? Or maybe by bio-warfare, like giving them blankets infected with small pox, or killing off their main food supply (the buffalo) to the brink of extinction? Or rounding them up, putting them in internment camps because they're white (like the Japanese in 1942)? Or denying them housing, jobs, country club memberships, college scholarships because they 'killed' the son of the one true God 2000 years ago?

Wow. No wonder they're scared. Maybe I should be too. So why aren't I?

Because I live in the center of African American culture, Harlem. And in the five years I've been here, I've never been robbed. Or sexually assaulted. Or burgled. Or attacked. Have I been harrassed? Sure, but I live in New York, hello. Have I been hit on? Sure, but that's only because I'm hot. Nah, j/k. Or am I...?


See, I do this zany thing when I leave the house and see my neighbors. I smile and say good morning. I help the elderly with their groceries. I let the kids play with my dogs and answer their million questions. I just sort of smile and giggle when men hit on me on the street, give them a little wave, and go on my way. I don't avoid eye contact, I don't keep my head down, I don't run when someone whistles at me.

I don't treat my fellow Americans as if they were ghosts. And ya know, I've discovered I get a pretty nice response to that.

I actually regard myself lucky. I am one of the few white Americans who has actually lived with minorities, AS a minority. Puts a whole differest perspective on shit, lemme tell you.

So let the children wail because a guy got pushed. That was unfortunate, and I wish it hadn't happened. But all people, no matter what color, are HUMAN, and human beings are really great at fucking things up at incredibly inappropriate times. But when the wails are accompanied by bully sticks, black jacks, and then maybe guns...that's when the children get a spanking.

And on that note, I leave you with a little play-out. I still believe folks. Some days are harder than others, but I still believe.