Real Racists Do Real Things

Further evidence that Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the finest and most thought provoking writers on the internet.

When a professor of history calls Barack Obama a “Food Stamp President,” it isn’t a mistake to be remedied through clarification; it is a statement of aggresion. And when a crowd of his admirers cheer him on, they are neither deluded, nor in need of forgiveness, nor absolution, nor acting against their interest. Racism is their interest. They are not your misguided friends. They are your fully intelligent adversaries, sporting the broad range of virtue and vice we see in humankind.

This is in response to the phenomenon known as Newton Leroy Gingrich and his appeal to a large swath of the American electorate.  As TNC points out the video embedded at the link was created from a statement Gingrich made on the birthday of Martin Luther King.   Gincgrich is about to get his comeuppance with the release of interviews his second wife Marianne gave to ABC News and the Washington Post.

 

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What Has Obama Done For You … Lately?

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What’s In A Map?

Anyone who loves maps will want to take a look at this new award winning map of the United States.  Beautiful and packed with detail, this handcrafted piece done by a well respected artisanal cartographer shows what is possible when someone truly loves their craft.

(via Obsidian Wings)

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“… a deep sense of somebodiness.” — Martin Luther King

Today we, as a nation, pause to remember the birth of one of our great leaders, Martin Luther King.  Balloon Juice frontpager Tom Levenson links to a “newly recovered audio of an MLK speech to an Ohio High School in 1967.” Audo available at the link and a must listen as it contains that wonderful voice and words for an auditorium filled with Cleveland high schools students.

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New Gmail Sucks

I agree with Henry at Crooked Timber, the new gmail just plain old sucks.  Support his effort and click on the link in the last sentence.  Read his blog entry and create you own link to it if you have your own blog.

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… and then, he turned 26!

Neil deGrasse Tyson on the writings of Sir Isaac Newton.

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Fun facts about Newt

Fun facts about Newt.

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Intelligent Life?

I wonder how many travelers from a distant galaxy have zipped by our little third rock from the sun and, after some study, have decided no intelligent life exists on this planet.

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R.I.P.

(UPDATED: I found another video (added at the bottom) that I thought was quite appropriate for this moment.)

 

Clarence Clemons, AKA The Big Man, is dead.  As much as I love Little Steven, Max and the rest of the band, Clemons sax playing set the E Street Band  apart from other bands of the era.

He was given an alto saxophone at age 9 as a Christmas gift; later, following the influence of King Curtis — whose many credits include the jaunty sax part on the Coasters’ 1958 hit “Yakety Yak” — he switched to the tenor.

The rest, as they say, is history.  Rock on, Big Man, you had one hell of a great run.

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In The Shelter of Each Other

Tom Levenson writes about this excellent cover of a rock classic:

I never thought this was a song to cover, given how thoroughly Mick and Keef and the rest own it. But I was wrong.

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