The Republican Party of 2006 is a tired, cranky shell of the aggressive, reformist movement that was swept into office in 1994 on a wave of positive change,” Frank Luntz, one of the strategists of the G.O.P. takeover, wrote this week in a column for Time.com. “I worked for them. They were friends of mine. These Republicans are not those Republicans.

Time Magazine

This is a clever brief piece that compares Buchanan’s racist statements to those made by folks in the past about Irish, German, and other immigrants. The comparisons neatly underscore Buchanan’s racism. Here is one example: Immigrants are responsible for crime: Many Hispanics, as a matter of fact, you know what culture they are assimilating to? — the rap culture, the crime culture, anti-cops, all the rest of it. [Buchanan, 8/22/06] VERSUS “The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses. … Scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat andRead More →

Did you know that Elmer of the glue fame is Elsie the Cow’s “husband.” Where Did Elmer’s Name Come From? Elsie the Cow became Borden’s very popular “Spokescow” in the late 1930’s. She was a big hit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and soon afterwards the character of Elmer the Bull was created as Elsie’s husband. In the late 1940’s, Borden’s new Chemical Division asked to use Elsie for its new white glue product. The thought of Elsie representing a non-food product didn’t seem appropriate, so as a compromise, Elmer was loaned to Chemical as their very own “spokesbull”. To this day, ElmerRead More →

Walmart is “going organic.” Wow. Wal-mart is actually breaking into the organic food market. Good or bad? The kid’s organic vegan food is expensive, but Wal-mart is also the devil incarnate. The rub is that Wal-mart violates many of the principles of organic farming. People from the organic foods movement fear that Wal-mart will “greenwash” its products. Also, major food brands are working on developing their own organic products. This is one of those cases where a movement has successfully changed public consciousness, but at great cost to the movement’s principles. Is it a bad thing to want cheaper organic food? From the New YorkRead More →

Trevor Fehrman on the Pussy Troll scene from Clerks II: Was there ever a scene where you couldn’t keep a straight face delivering your lines? Yes, the pussy troll scene. [laughs] Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of. What the hell was that? The pussy troll scene was one of those scenes that is a real nothing ventured, nothing gained scenario. When I first read the script I thought, “Whew, he didn’t fuck it up.” The second thought was, “How are we going to make this scene work?” There are a couple of golden rules that always exist in comedy. There’s the rule of threeRead More →

I had an interesting “racialized” moment in class yesterday. One of the students figured out that everyone in class had brown eyes except me. I have green eyes. He asked me why. How does one answer that question? I flippantly told him “magic” without thinking about the implications of the answer. He asked me to magic his eyes and make them green too. It made me reflect on issues of white privilege in a classroom of students of color. Why did I answer that way? Teaching the children with Teach Baton Rouge this month was fun. I am not weathering this transition well though. WhenRead More →

For the first time in 20 years, I have nothing due, and no due dates looming on the horizon. I feel at peace for the first time in a long time. I am sad about leaving LSU. Today the grad students and some of the faculty met me at Chelsea’s for a goodbye dinner. It was a bittersweet moment. I am ready for a new adventure. Next, I will start the Teach Baton Rouge program this summer for the next phase of life.

I enjoyed V for Vendetta yesterday. The Wachowskis’ commentary on the Bush regime is obvious, whereas in the Matrix movies, the philosophy is garbled and multifarious. What’s equally interesting is the reviewers’ commentary. You can tell who is conservative and who is liberal by their take on the movie. In any event, one reviewer made a very disheartening comment: But this is not the movie, and these are not the times, for sophisticated arguments. If now is not the time for sophisticated arguments, then precisely when would that time be? Have we really become so dumb that any movie wanting to make a political pointRead More →