Uncategorized
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Obama Closes the Deal, Finally
Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic nomination for president, and historic does not even begin to capture the sweep of the achievement. “America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past,” Obama told a roaring crowd of 17,000 in St. Paul, Minn. “Our…
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Cruel Intentions?
I know a woman who, a few years ago, suffered a miscarriage about halfway through her pregnancy. A week or so after the event, she telephoned me in tears, sobbing so hard it took five full minutes to calm her down. It wasn’t just the miscarriage, she said, but the terrible things people were saying…
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And No Longer on the Street Corner…
Black professional fighters traditionally have had a way of inspiring a generation of young black men, for better or worse: Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson.Kimbo Slice is the new inspiration. What? You’ve not heard of Kimbo Slice? Well, maybe you don’t recognize him because I haven’t called him by his full name:…
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So Long, Hillary. We'll Miss You!
It is time to say farewell to a glorious campaign that stretched the limits of political correctness, nepotism and stopped just a few thousand votes from obliterating one kind of glass ceiling. We will miss you, Billary Clinton; you made the last 16 months a blast. In memory of this overwhelmingly entertaining (and underwhelming-ly planned)…
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Bye-Bye Black Sheep
Until recently, political life in Switzerland was known for cozy relationships between parties and the anti-heroic stance of politicians. For the last 10 years, this rather pacific style of politics has been shattered by the rising influence of the SVP/UDC (Schweizerische Volkspartei/Union démocratique du centre), the Swiss People’s Party, and its billionaire leader,Christoph Blocher. Their demagoguery…
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The Jungle Book
When the book came out in early March, few seemed to notice anything wrong. The first dozen reader reviews on its Amazon page were uniformly glowing, with many mentioning how they’d long admired the author’s blog. It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments is Amanda Marcotte’s first book, but the author is a…
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Just Give It Up, Geraldine!
Geraldine Ferraro, the self-appointed angry spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s historic White House bid, is on yet another tear about Barack Obama. This time she’s speaking for all the misunderstood white, working-class, voters who say they won’t vote for Obama— not because he’s black, but because they believe he has a black agenda. Apparently, in her…
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The Supers Speak
The Democratic nomination process is apparently over. Thank goodness. It is now up to the superdelegates to seal the deal. In recent days, four black superdelegates—two supporters of Sen. Barack Obama and two of Sen. Hillary Clinton—discussed the tortuous primary campaign and what should happen after today’s contests in Montana and South Dakota. Clinton endorsers…
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Que Pasa Puerto Rico?
So what’s up Puerto Rico? People have consistently tried to tell me that the nations of Latin America are color-blind societies, that racism is simply not an issue in politics or anywhere else. My research in the last five years has told a different story. Despite the fact that many in Latin America claim that…