Lady Sheherazahde's Journal

Now, I thought this article was funny. Juxtaposing the stereotype of the angry black man demanding change from strangers with the reality of Barack Obama. But I also find it somewhat worrisome. Is it a bad idea to associate Obama with this image even in jest? Some people just wont get the joke. But I suppose those people wouldn't be voting for him anyway.

(via ms_ntropy)

"Abstinence-Only Driver's Ed." by Suzanne Kleid

Thanks for making it out on a rainy Saturday, kids. Slippery out there, huh? Let's get started. We're gonna have some fun today!

Car accidents are a leading cause of death for teenagers. The school board and your elected representatives want to make sure that you and your families are spared from such a tragedy, which is why the money for driver's ed was eliminated from the budget. Whereas last year I was teaching your older siblings how to shift and brake and three-point-turn during a six-week course, it has since been decreed that I actually need just one afternoon to tell you the only piece of safety information I'm permitted by law to share:

The ONLY 100 percent effective method for avoiding car accidents is to ABSTAIN from driving until marriage.

Yes, yes, I know you've been bombarded with messages from popular culture about how much fun it would be to get behind the wheel of a red convertible, find an unbroken stretch of country road, and, with the wind in your hair, see what she can do. I know that up until now you had the mistaken belief that getting a driver's license was a cherished milestone of your young, sweet, innocent lives. It isn't. It's a milestone, all right: a milestone indicating terrible pain, degradation, and certain death.

Read the rest of the Article

(via skreidle of course, from whom all good things come)

8 Targets in Prison Masturbation Cases
By Martha Neil, ABA Journal, Posted Jul 27, 2007, 03:09 pm CDT

Updated: A Florida inmate convicted this week of masturbating while alone in his jail cell is reportedly only one of eight targets—along with state taxpayers—of what a Miami Herald columnist describes as "a spectacular case of selective prosecution."

Given the likely prevalence of such commonplace behavior in state prisons (not to mention boarding schools, seminaries and military barracks), criminally charging any Broward County inmate with masturbation represents a major waste of prosecution dollars, writes Fred Grimm in the Miami Herald ("Justice went blind in this jailhouse case").

However, in addition to the 20-year-old inmate convicted this week, three other inmates charged in similar cases have accepted pleas and three still await trial (one case was dismissed). All were charged by the same female deputy, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

Grimm also questions whether the cure is worse than the disease. Prospective jurors were publicly questioned about their own masturbation habits, as noted in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, before Terry Lee Alexander—who was already facing a 10-year robbery sentence—was convicted of indecent exposure Tuesday and sentenced to 60 days, as reported by the Herald.

Plus, during Alexander's trial, prosecutor Cynthia Lauriston and the female deputy who complained, after observing him on a monitor as he was alone in his cell, "managed to describe Alexander's offense in startling detail, eight times, once with Lauriston approximating the action with arm motions," Grimm notes.

''It was very vulgar. Very indecent,'' the deputy testified, describing the new crime of which Alexander has now been convicted, the column concludes. "But she could have been characterizing the prosecution, the trial, the verdict and the obscene, indecent, vulgar, lascivious, downright stupid waste of time and money."

(via elorie)

(via skreidle)
Culture of Fear: Poetry Professor Becomes Terror Suspect
By Kazim Ali, New America Media. Posted April 24, 2007.

Because of my recycling, the bomb squad came, then the state police. Because of my recycling, buildings were evacuated, classes were canceled, the campus was closed. No. Not because of my recycling. Because of my dark body. No. Not even that. Because of his fear. Because of the way he saw me. Because of the culture of fear, mistrust, hatred and suspicion that is carefully cultivated in the media, by the government, by people who claim to want to keep us "safe."

(via ajat)
Twilight Zone: Pass through the portal to the alternate reality of the War Party’s propagandists.
by Gregory Cochran, Copyright © 2007 The American Conservative, April 9, 2007 Issue

"You see, the president and his associates keep referring to historical events that never happened, at least not as they did in the fields we know. And they keep referring to the same ahistorical events. Over and over, the secretary of state and the (now former) secretary of defense have referred to guerrilla warfare in Germany after the Nazi surrender. But there just wasn’t any. You can’t find it in the history books or in the memories of people who were there at the time. My uncle was in Bavaria in the summer of 1945: no trouble. Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly talked about the similarities between today’s Iraq and America after the Revolutionary War, but again, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any. I don’t believe we found tortured corpses in the streets of Philadelphia every morning back in 1784. And why does President Bush keep saying that Saddam refused to admit those UN arms inspectors back in 2002 and early 2003? Why did Condoleezza Rice, in 2000, say that Iran was probably backing the Taliban, when in fact the two had almost gone to war in 1998?

Now some might say that these statements were just talking points—that is, lies—but I sure wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of lying. More to the point, there have been many ahistorical statements that are just strange and don’t seem to advance any particular political agenda. For example, when President Bush said that the Japanese lost two carriers sunk and one damaged at the Battle of Midway (instead of losing all four, which is what actually happened), who gained? When POTUS said that Sweden has no army (it does), what political argument was advanced?"