Race and Racism
gregladen | May 24, 2011Two pieces of sad news, some useful information, and a personal note (well, more of a political note).
First, the useful information. For those of you affected or busy passing information to those who are, the City of Minneapolis has set up this web page with information: Resources available for North Side residents affected by tornado
Sad item one: There has been a second death, related to the cleanup. Details.
Sad item two: After passing through one of the more urban areas of Minnesota, the north side of the City of Minneapolis, the tornado crossed the Mississippi River, which…
gregladen | May 2, 2011Tea party clarifies its position on race and racism. Not current, but increasingly relevant:
I didn't know about the reparations. Did you?
But in all seriousness, I'm so glad the right wing has finally come out of the closet and defined itself honestly.
gregladen | March 3, 2011Hateful people. Stupid people. The "I don't even care if you think I'm crazy any more" kind of person.
OMFG. I am sorry, fellow humans, who happen to be Muslim.
Reminds me of this.
gregladen | February 16, 2011Wanna know what tabagging racism sounds like? Go to about 2 minutes, listen through 4 minutes or so.
Back story at Think Progress
gregladen | January 7, 2011The local station ran a "good question" piece (where they address some question they deem as good) to ask: "Is it OK to edit a classic" but they really were speaking of "is it OK to take the N-word out of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (and, as one proposal goes, replace it with the word "slave.")
I would love to know what you think. The web page with this piece has a number of comments already. Here's a sampling, labeled by me in Categories of Complaint:
The reference to arbitrary overarching roolz that always apply to everything:
No, it's not ever OK to edit a classic.
The…
gregladen | November 22, 2010The recount process for the Minnesota Gubernatorial Race starts this week. The national political significance of this recount is simply not as great as the Senatorial recount two years ago. That recount determined the balance of power in Washington, sort of. It also determined the insertion into the Senate of someone clearly destine by his own abilities and energy to be one of the great ones, Al Franken, and the removal of someone clearly shown by his own actions to be one of the embarrassing ones, Norm Coleman.
But the outcome of this year's gubernatorial race in Minnesota is not…
gregladen | November 12, 2010As I watched this, I decided to post it on my blog, and then my mind went through a series of possible titles for the post, but there were so many yet so few that would be appropriate.
This lady is obviously crazy. Frankly, perhaps the mail carrier is crazy for not driving off with her arm in the door, but I wasn't there so it's hard to say.
I should say, for context, that Hingham Massachusetts is a relatively affluent but typically fairly mighty white somewhat liberal region along the "South Shore" of Massachusetts, south of Boston and adjoining Boston Harbor. It dates back to 1635, and…
gregladen | September 22, 2010You will recall my post: A genetic cause of rapid degeneration in some Alzheimer's patients. Well, now it (the topic) is a Ted Video. But before you watch it, I need to take down Nicholas Christakis for saying the dumbest thing I've heard all week.
No, Nicholas, it is not true in any way whatsoever that humans did not have complex social networks prior to "emerging" from the "African Savanna" ... nor would the implication that you make that those still living in Africa, or the savanna therein, fail in this way. That's just you being an ignorant racist westerner. Otherwise your talk is…
gregladen | August 27, 2010The question is being asked, Will Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Widen Health Inequalities? in a Policy Forum essay in the OpenAccess Journal PLoS Medicine.
Here is the executive summary from the article:
The primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is dependent on the effective reduction of the major risk factors for CVD, particularly tobacco control and a healthier diet.
The high-risk approach to prevent CVD typically involves population screening. Those exceeding a risk threshold are then given lifestyle advice and/or tablets to reduce blood cholesterol and blood pressure.…
gregladen | August 4, 2010It is well established among those who carry out, analyze, and report pre-employment performance testing that slope-based bias in those tests is rare. Why is this important? Look at the following three graphs from a recent study by Aguinis, Culpepper and Pierce (2010):
Figure 1. Illustration of the typical finding of no slope-based differences and intercept-based differences favoring the minority group (Panel A), and the possibility that there are slope-based differences (Panels B and C) together with no intercept-based differences (Panel B) and small intercept-based differences (Panel C…
gregladen | July 29, 2010It turns out, Sponge Bob Square Pants Roolz. But never mind that. Keep focused on the racism, it is actually important:
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He he ... she said "girlfriend."
gregladen | July 19, 2010It spawned the Mark Williams letter that praised slavery. Then, under pressure from the outside, expelled Williams. But that is not enough.
Following is the Williams letter, in case you missed it.
Dear Mr. Lincoln
We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!
In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a…
gregladen | July 14, 2010The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Oliver - World Cup 2010: Into Africa - The Amazing Racists
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes
Political Humor
Tea Party
And, let's make some fun of Dan Roodt, who should be flogged. And, then, let us contemplate the importance of primarily American based racist IQ research.
gregladen | July 10, 2010One of those really cool and useful "evolution stories" gets verified and illuminated by actual research. And blogging!
An oystercatcher is a wading bird of the family Haematopodidae, distributed in one genus, Haematopus. As is the case with many coast loving birds, there has been confusion about the limits of the 11 or so species known to exist worldwide. That itself is an interesting story (Hocke 1996), but one we will not go into now.
Adult coastal oystercatchers (some species are not coastal) eat all sorts of animals found in the intertidal zone, including shellfish of all sorts,…
gregladen | May 24, 2010Go pour yourself a cup of coffee, sit back, relax and watch this PolitiPorn. Take notes. Discuss.
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gregladen | May 19, 2010SciCurious has written a review of an interesting paper suggesting a correlation between obesity and city vs. non-city life. As usual, the review by Sci is excellent, but I have a comment or two to add.
Having read the review and then the paper, I had to ask if it might be possible to conclude based on the data presentation that "race" (and thus "genetics") underlies the observed effect. This is because of this graph:
The results as depicted here divides the population into black vs white, making it appear that skin color is a major factor. The paper does not make that specific argument…
gregladen | May 3, 2010After years of inattention, in the past month, the mainstream media has suddenly turned its eye toward black women. And the resulting coverage, filtered through a pretty jaundiced lens, is enough to make me wish the world had never "discovered" us. Here are the messages we've heard: 1). Men don't want us. 2). We don't have any money. 3). We're fat and unhealthy.
Check it out
gregladen | April 30, 2010I've spent a fair amount of time at the Harvard Law School. In fact, I was there when Barack was there. I didn't attend the school, but I drank beer in the school's beer hall, lived in a dorm shared by the law school and the science area, and cut through the main law school building on my way to the square when it was raining or really cold.
The main thing I took away from that is how obnoxious and rowdy Harvard Law Students are. They can't handle their beer at all. I saw several fist fights among the students break out over conversations people were having, not even that late in the…