The Republic of T.

It’s been three weeks since I got an iPhone, and overall I’m very glad I did. I’d wanted one for a while, but had trouble justifying it. I already had, I reasoned, a working iPod and a working cellphone. Then my iPod died and I started considering an iPhone. I ended up just getting a new iPod. But I realized I had been thinking all wrong about the iPhone.

It wasn’t until I had a need that I thought it could meet that I started seriously considering it. I’d gotten to the point where the best and most reliable time I had to write was on the Metro. But that required getting a seat and hauling out my laptop. It was then that I started thinking the iPhone might be one answer. (The bigger answer is figuring out what I need to change about my life to move in the direction I want, but that’s a longer and ongoing process. Buying an iPhone was an immediate solution.) I started asking coworkers if I could take a look at their iPhones, and asking them about their experience. (more…)

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 30th through July 31st:

• Poll: Majority of Republicans Are ‘Birthers’ –
• If Health Reforms Pass, Far-Right Will Try to Block Implementation in States –
• Are the Feds Cracking Down on Right-Wing Terrorists? –
• The Rise of Gonzo Porn Is the Latest Sign of America’s Cultural Apocalypse –
• Op-Ed Columnist: Health Care Realities –
• Obama’s Gaffes and the Deadening ‘Teachable Moment’ –
• RJ Eskow: Blue Dog Compromises: A War On the Middle Class? –
• Ryan J. Davis: The Disgraceful Mr. Dobbs –
• Noah Levine: The Four Noble Truths –
• The Goldberg-O'Reilly Birther theory: It's an evil Obama plot to make conservatives look like wingnuts | Crooks and Liars –

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 30th from 02:16 to 12:58:

• Byron Williams: The Gates Affair: Was it Racism or Rankism? –
• Commentary: I'll tell you why Obama said what he did | McClatchy –
• A House Dem Rebellion on Health Care? –
• Color of Change to Lou Dobbs: Get Tuh Steppin’ –
• Love and Revolution –
• Know Your Rights: Criminal Justice Reform After Gates –
• Will Health Care Reform Harm Ethnic Minorities? –
• The 'Birther' Movement Won’t Go Away, and for Good Reason –
• Birther Whack Jobs: Citizens of Idiot America –
• Nah, There’s No Racism in Boston Police –

Tell me again that “race had nothing to do with” the arrest of Henry Louis Gates. We’ve gone from “gorillas in the mist” to “banana-eating” “jungle monkey.”

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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 29th through July 30th:

• ‘Jungle monkey’ e-mail jeopardizes cop’s job –
• Wall St. Rally Masks Deeper Problems –
• The Left’s Media Miscalculation –
• Payday Loans: Do borrowers know what they’re getting? –
• Kozinski on the Right to Insult Police Officers –

Dylan has a case of the “scoots”. So I’m home with him, and not likely to post much today. I’ve got a couple in the works for later.

In the meantime, I thought this captioning contest from McClatchy Newspapers looked like fun.

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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 27th through July 29th:

• The 10 Dumbest Arguments Against Health-Care Reform –
• The Time Is Now –
• A Rebound Without Recovery –
• In Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Arrest, More Than Race Is at Issue –
• Don’t Tase Me, Bro –
• Why you can’t trust your health insurer. –
• Ben Cohen: My Argument with the 9/11 Truth Movement –
• Tamar Abrams: "Birthers" Hit a Nerve –
• Dave Johnson: The Origins Of The Birther Theory –
• Eric Boehlert: How Lou Dobbs Scared Rush Limbaugh Off the Birther Story –
• Mike Stark: Elected Birthers on the Hill –

A few years ago, when we still had time for such things, my husband and I belonged to a book group. One of the last books the group read before it’s leader moved away (and, having become a first-time parent that year, I declined to be in charge of much else besides keeping myself in relatively clean clothes) sparked an exchange between me and my husband that came to mind as I watched the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

The book was Middlesex (a delightful read), and in one chapter the protagonist’s family of Greek immigrants shopped for a new home. They encountered a real estate agent who asked how many relatives lived with them, and subtly directed them toward certain neighborhoods and away from one — where "ethnics" like themselves would "not fit in."

It hit me like a slap in the face. It sounded familiar, but different. To me, this fictional family was white. But in the time and place they occupied on the page they weren’t "white enough."

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. My husband, who was reading the same book, looked at me.

I looked up from the page, looked at him, and said with a note of wonder in my voice, "There are different shades of white."

"Yes," the son-of-Polish-immigrants I married said, dryly. "There are."

Or at least there were. From the moment Judge Sotomayor’s nomination was announced, it’s become more and more evident that all those varied shades of white have since blended into a much paler, but more uniform, shade.

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I read the headline "Police use Taser on deaf, disabled Alabama man," and once I saw his name I thought the guy was probably black. I was right. If I’d known about what happened to Antonio Love, I’d have added him to the previous post.

Antonio Love’s family members say Mobile police went too far. "Tony," as he is known, said he was sick and went into a store to use the restroom. The store manager called Mobile police after Love had been in the room for a while.  If police knocked on the door or called for him, he had no way of knowing. Love is deaf.

Love described how things unfolded. His brother interpreted for him. "He saw smoke. He said, ‘What’s that smell?’ He started putting water on the floor and tissue trying to block the smoke out. He put water on his mouth and face and started to hold his breath."

What Love described was pepper spray. Police sprayed it under the door before breaking the door down.  Love said he had no idea what was going on as the smoke poured in and the bashed-in door hit him in the head.

Things quickly went from bad to worse. His brother translated, "Tased him in his chest. He was shaking saying, ‘Stop! Stop!’  He couldn’t move. They dragged him from the bathroom to the front."

Love was tasered three times, before police got him out of the store and realized he was deaf after finding a card in his wallet about his handicap. He wasn’t arrested, but he was taken to jail, where he stayed until 4:00 p.m. The incident happened at 11:00 a.m.

I’m sure there will be more details forthcoming, but this sounds horrific.

If nothing else, Antonio Love can be glad he’s not this guy.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 23rd through July 27th:

• Bill Maher: When Did Making a Profit Become the Only Reason to Do Anything? –
• Racist picture of Obama as “witch doctor” forwarded by white conservative activist –
• Women and the Minimum Wage –
• The first annual Slate News Junkie Smackdown podcast. –
• Racial Profiling: “That’s Just a Fact.” –
• Aussie comedians prank John Yoo –

Henry Louis Gates and I are very different people. He is a Harvard Professor. The closest I got to the Ivy League was a weekend visit to Yale. He is a successful author. I am a blogger whose aspirations may outstrip his abilities. He is world renowned. I am, well, not. He is, most definitely, far more knowledgeable about a great many things than I am. Of that I’m sure.

However, we have two things in common. We are both black men. As such, though he’s a college professor and I’m long out of college, we are both perpetually enrolled in the same course.

It’s called Black Man – 101.

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(Ed Note: This post was actually written yesterday, but never actually published because I didn’t have time. True to form, I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. last night writing a post about Henry Louis Gates’ arrest. This morning I discovered it was never published either, and if it still exists, is on my computer at home. Which means unless I can find time to rewrite it during the workday, even though I’m not even supposed to be writing this note write now, it probably won’t see the light of day. After all, who’s likely be reading on a Friday evening? Few, judging from statistics. And by Monday it will all have been said. So, lesson learned? The universe is telling to give up. I shoulda just gone to bed.)

I joked with someone yesterday that lately I don’t write about anything until a week after it happens or nobody cares — or cares to read about it anymore. It took me a week to finally write about George Tiller’s murder, and another week to finish with it. It took me a week to finally write about finally write about the Sotomayor hearings, and I’m not done yet. (Though now I question the point of doing so when it will take me another week to finish, during which I’ll not writen about a whole raft of things.)

In both cases, the subjects were so exhausted by the time I got to them that I had to reach pretty far to find something to say that hadn’t been said a milion times already.

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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 22nd through July 23rd:

• Eric Deggans: Did today show act stupidly in focusing on Obama's remarks about an arrest before health care? –
• Greedy Banks –
• Gates Case: It's Racism, No Doubt, But Cops, In General, Treat People Like Crap –
• Breaking: President is a Black Guy –
• There are only so many things to say about the Skip Gates story, and soon they’ll all be said. –
• Ingrid Newkirk: The Saddest Show on Earth –
• A 950 Calorie Drink, Seriously? Avoid These 7 Beverages –
• Prof: Black scholar’s arrest ‘unfathomable’ –
• Library fight leads to book-burning demand –

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 22nd from 05:00 to 13:20:

• Scholar to Look Deeper at Race –
• Birther madness –
• Skip Gates and the Post-Racial Project –
• Charges dropped against black Harvard professor –
• American dream? –
• Analysis: Scholar’s arrest is racial signpost –
• Gates' Arrest is the Essence of American Racism –
• Blacks, Hispanics Biggest Losers if Health Care Reform Flops –

• 15 Things You Can Remote Control With Your iPhone
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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 20th through July 22nd:

• Going Strong on the Wrong Message –
• How Homophobia Fuels Africa’s AIDS Crisis –
• ‘Glass ceiling’ blocking top jobs –
• The Bush Baby Boom –
• The GOP’s Democracy Double Standard –
• Ian Welsh: Americans Lives vs. Insurance Company Profits: the real battle in healthcare reform –
• Editorial: Gun Crazy in the Senate –
• Lessons for Feminists from Sarah Palin –
• Robert Lanham: Pat Buchanan says "Lesbian Coalition of America Discriminates Against White Males" –
• Dr. Susan Corso: Equal Opportunity Corruption –
• And the Rand Played On –
• Akbar Ahmed: What is an American? –

I don’t know about you but “sorry” doesn’t begin to cut it

Chris Brown has publicly apologised for attacking his ex-girlfriend Rihanna.

In a two-minute video on his website, the R&B star said “I thought it was time that you heard directly from me that I am sorry”.

He says he is seeking help and wants to live his life as a role model, saying: “I wish I had the chance to live those few moments again”.

Chris Brown pleaded guilty to assault after he was arrested the night before the Grammy awards in February.

Not when we’re talking about this.

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I was probably an annoying person to have around if you were watching the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. I was so frustrated listening to them that I couldn’t help … um … talking back to the television. There is, after all, only so much the mind can take before it explodes.

At least, that’s true of my mind. As for the minds of some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, last week was like a crash course of what I’ve often referred to as "self-evasion of the mind."

It was some time before I recognized “self evasion of the mind” as the act of contorting the mind so as not to have to see or acknowledge what is obvious to anyone who simply looks.

It’s a phrase I learned from an admired college professor, and I’ve since expanded my understand of it to include contorting the mind in order that one may continue to hold conflicting views or beliefs, or engage in behavior that is diametrically opposed to your stated beliefs.

Basically, it’s amounts to working very hard at not having a clue. Or, in the case of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working overtime at not having a clue.

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Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 18th through July 20th:

• Memo to Dems: the GOP Wants Health Reform to Fail –
• Leahy hits GOP for ‘racist’ comments –
• C St.: where scandal meets spirituality –
• Editorial: Sharks Circle in Congress –
• Neo-Confederates And Hegemonic Ignorance –
• The intellectual dishonesty of Pat Buchanan –
• “The Cause of My Life” –
• Obama and the Bush Years –
• Peggy Noonan Loves Her Some Moon-Men –
• Health Care Reform Cannot Wait –
• Obama & The Politics of Dignity –
• Op-Ed Columnist: They Got Some ’Splainin’ to Do –
• The Republican Questioning of Judge Sonia Sotomayor –
• Same-sex couples seek immigration rights –
• Oh No! Public Transit is a Marxist Plot! –
• A Simple Test –
• Best Virgin Mary sighting yet –
• ‘Chasers’ Drop in on Class Taught by Torture Lawyer John Yoo, Bring Childhood Joy to Dick Cheney (VIDEO) –

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for July 16th through July 17th:

• PHOTOS: 8 Moon-Landing Hoax Myths — Busted –
• IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On – A-freakin'-men.
• Family Values = Greed is God –
• MSNBC’s Resident Racist —” White Men Made This Country.” –
• Oh, to be Black and In the GOP –
• Conspiracy buffs say moon landing is a lie –
• Smooth Sailing for Sotomayor –
• Mike Lux: We Don't Care. We Don't Have To Care. We're Goldman Sachs. –
• Reese Schonfeld: The "Financial System" vs. The Real World –
• Goldman and JPMorgan — The Two Winners When The Rest of America is Losing –