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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I know very little about this movie, just snippets from previews here and there, and apparently I had its number right out the gate.
I think it was when they were like, "Finally! A film dares to tell the story of a bunch of hapless white guys, their one black friend, and their awkward but somehow successful attempts to land a valuable accessory girlfriend!"
As expected, twitter blew up last night with racist/xenophobic comments about Coke's multi-lingual America the Beautiful commercial last night. I hope that this is bloggers/the media highlighting an area of ugliness and making it seem worse than it is (which is why I'm not providing any links). Comments that start with "I'm not racist, but ..." or "[Ethnic slur]s are not American!" with the point being that any language other than English is some unclean, impure, un-American tongue. Allow me to retort without citations:
For a long time people thought of "purity" as an attribute. Racial purity, ethnic purity, linguistic purity, it didn't matter, but it was equated with superiority. But this is false. The idea of racial/ethnic/linguistic superiority has been debunked for half a century, at least. It's the nation that can most easily adapt to a changing world, that has a multitude of ideas and solutions that will be the "greatest." People from all over the world, for hundreds of years, have brought different languages and customs to the US. For all of our other problems, and there are many and they are serious, the idea of America as a melting pot has been the US's greatest attribute economically, culturally, and politically. And for the people who wrote those nasty things to not understand this saddens me deeply. Not because they've offended people, but because they're blind to the single most beautiful thing our country has -- its people.
Copy and pasted from a friend's Facebook status.
(a bilingual Puerto Rican Jew born and raised in Texas)
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
It's the nation that can most easily adapt to a changing world, that has a multitude of ideas and solutions that will be the "greatest."
Copy and pasted from a friend's Facebook status.
(a bilingual Puerto Rican Jew born and raised in Texas)
This should be the motto for this century. Embrace the change, welcome it, make it. In so many ways our choices are either to cling to business as usual until reality slaps the living shit out of us, or, accept changing circumstances, anticipate them, and adjust our attitudes and behavior accordingly.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
This is unbelievably awesome. I started to put it in the LGBT thrad, but since the video is just over 2 minutes itself, it goes here.
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"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
oh look, it's something on KYM that isn't inane or horrendously depressing/enraging
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
I was just trying to help. I wasn't thinking, really. I was just holding the baby like it was my baby, I did what I thought I would do if my baby was in that situation. I'm not a hero, I just did what you would have done, I'm sure, if you were there and you see what I saw. You would have stopped I'm sure.
A nine-year-old boy in Texas had been saving his money for months to buy a Playstation 4, but then Hector Montoya saw something that changed his priorities, according to TV station KTVT.
Montoya almost had enough money to buy his dream toy, when he saw a sad story on the news about a mother and daughter who died in a house fire, the station reported.
It turned out, their home didn’t have a smoke detector.
“It really hurts my heart to see people die in fires,” Montoya said.
So, the Grand Prairie boy took all of the money he’d saved and bought almost a hundred smoke detectors, the station reported.
According to KTVT, the local fire department helped Montoya install the devices in the homes of seniors and others in need.
Word of the boy’s generosity inspired others to donate to the cause.
Click here if you would like to contribute to “Hectors Detectors.”
Sydney is a 5-year-old pit bull/English bulldog mix who well deserves these extras. She first came to the shelter on Valentine's Day in 2011, having been seized by law enforcement due to owner neglect: She had been chained outside, and was heartworm positive and very skinny at the time of her arrival. An "older lady" adopted Sydney a few months later, says Murphy, but returned her this past fall.
By then the dog was "fat and very sad," says Murphy. "She broke my heart. In her kennel she would just lay facing the back wall. And outside, when a volunteer would sit down with her, she would just lay in their lap until their legs fell asleep."
Joanne Murphy came back from a recent vacation to find that part of her office had been transformed into a princess room for a pit bull named Sydney.
There's a toddler bed with a shiny hot pink spread, a pink food bowl, a pink lamp, and "she even has her toenails painted pink," says Murphy, who is the volunteer coordinator for the Delaware SPCA, and was therefore delighted to discover this royal improvement in her workspace.
As the headline points out, the fact that he needed to do this belongs in the Two Minutes Hate thread.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette