Short discussion of the Williams firing by NPR

From the WaPo, 11/2/1991: “Jo Ellen Murphy, art director of the Weekend section, said that ‘[Juan Williams] was obsessed with my sex life and that’s all he wanted to talk to me about . . . . I raised my voice at him and said, “Just don’t talk to me again.” ‘ ”

Sometimes it worthwhile to examine the language we use and what it really means. English, as it is spoken in the United States, is wonderfully malleable and thus common words can be open to interpretation. However there are some words that should be clear in their meaning, bigotry being one.

My parents were Liberals with a capital L. They both came from places and times when the N word could be used and nothing would be thought of it. This was anathema to them, and they were not going to pass this kind of thing down to their children. The rule in our house was that you could hate someone, but you could only do it if you knew them personally and they had done you wrong. There would be no painting with a broad brush, no assumptions put on one person because of the actions of another person like them.

Bigotry is doing exactly that, assuming that there is a monolithic set of actions or attribute to a large group of people. It does not matter if the set is wrapped around sexuality or religion or ethnicity, if you assume that all of group X does action Y because one or some of them does action Y then you are bigoted in your opinion.

NPR finally wakes up and shitcans Juan Williams.

The conservative network that is currenlty serving as the mouthpiece for the Republican party in the U.S. has launched a website that will be targeting Latinos: FoxNewsLatino.com. Will there be a progressive response?

Before the deep freeze starts here in the East-
A brief summary of another bummer of a summer…

Politico recently noticed that every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Paul Krugman has an interesting take on this development

It’s Fox News rather than gotcha videos that let new candidates avoid the media.

We live in the wealthiest most privileged nation on the planet. One would think that out of our abundance a spirit of generosity would erupt and roll like a ever flowing stream. On the contrary, if these polls have any validity it appears we have become a country of fearful, shriveled, stingy, mean people.

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010. A gunman takes The Discovery Channel hostage, and Sarah Elizabeth Cupp reveals her bra size while implicating the Left.