I love the way that he gets blamed for recycling the old poetry as if that was an unwise act!
It's funny because my recollection was that the media fixated on the fact that this homegrown crazy was "from Korea", despite that being true only in the most literal sense.
ATRA attempts to defend a small business from a crazy judge gone wild.
Because Pearson no longer wanted to use his neighborhood dry cleaner, part of his lawsuit calls for $15,000 — the price to rent a car every weekend for 10 years to go to another business.
"He's somehow purporting that he has a constitutional right to a dry cleaner within four blocks of his apartment," Manning said.
So much for immigrants being the problem. Remember, every economic study indicates that immigrants of any ethnic have a stronger entrepeneural spirit than native born Americans.
Virginia Tech Aftermath:
Student arrested for fulfilling homework assignment
Violent Computer Game and decorative swords-->disciplined
Racist Threats at Circuit City
Ballplayer taunted by racist idiots
I'd be interested in your responses to any of these stories...
Update: Title changed to be less vague, more accurate
It appears one of the seven is not about racism!
The first article about some guy who was spotted by a passerby taking a box out of his car and putting it by a trash can on campus and then going back to his car and leaving. A) That's odd. B) His appearance, while not his fault, didn't help the situation look any less suspicious than it already did. Personally I think the ROTC guy was legitimately concerned considering the behavior, let alone any race based issues that may have added to his suspicion. If 50 terrorists across the nation left unibomber type bombs on campuses across the nation that day and he had been one of the few to actually report the suspicious behavior then he'd be called a hero, not demonized as a racist.
Pat Buchanan is an a-hole and he helps confirm that in the article you linked. He must believe he's a native american... someone should let him know the bad news. He's the kind of jerk that would have turned the other way when my German family was being harassed during the world wars. He doesn't seem to make it a secret he longs for the days before the civil rights movement saw any successes either. But the article makes clear that free speech has another great benefit... it let's horrible people let everyone know what horrible people they are. Imagine if he kept all his idiocy secret! We might accidentally associate with this scumbag.
On the judge and his pants: I hope he gets his pants back... he'll need him for job interviews if there is truly any justice in the world. Let's hope he doesn't get reappointed.
On the disorderly conduct essay: Zero tolerance still typically means zero common sense. There's no room for reason with zero tolerance. Now some kid is being dragged through the mud and facing criminal charges for doing his damn homework. Nothing really new here except the specific circumstances. My buddy's kid got in trouble and a parent-teacher conference set up over concerns about his daughter. The teacher asked what the kids did over the weekend. She had gone shooting. Zero tolerance on guns, so she's not allowed to ever mention that she goes shooting... even if the teacher asks. Yeah, school policies are that retarded. I feel for this guy. I was an angsty kid, I'd probably be in prison for some of the angry rants I wrote in English class these days.
The counterstrike nerd is just more of the same. Zero tolerance eliminating any chance of common sense leaving zero common sense policies.
The circuit city link isn't working.
The baseball player story just proves that there are idiots, probably drunken ones, at baseball games. No big surprise.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
Glock21: Thank you for your time reading the articles. I enjoyed your analysis. I agree for the most part. I just wanted to address a few things:
The baseball player story is not a deal except that alcohol is the great truth serum--very instructive in investigating what people are thinking below the surface. Many of us said that while the massacre was over, that some illogical negative sentiment was likely to backlash against Asian Americans, and that the media coverage and political leadership should attempt to dissuage that response.
They did a poor job and the results are coming in. Of course, in a way, it could be much worse. AFAIK, there have been no shootings of East Asians as occurred after 9/11. Poor South Asians--they get blamed for everything...
With the first story: If 50 bombs had been placed at campuses around the country, it would be great impetus to secure campus more. It would not mean that we should profile people who are of the ethnicity of the terrorists. I'll use the cliche phrase, but I mean it deadly serious--once we were to do that "the terrorist have already won".
In trying times, people must make sacrifices. But for American values to still exist, we must, even if it is harder, ask Americans of all ethnicities to make sacrifices equally.
All of our ideals: reward for merit, capitialist competition, evaluation of character rather than skin color, etc. fail when we tear down those ideals because it's too hard to do security with them.
Do you really never leave boxes of recyclables next to the trash? I would wager than millions of Americans do so weekly. If we were to harass all of them equally, tens of millions of hours of work would be wasted.
It appears one of the seven is not about racism!
Actually, according to the school districts involved, there is nothing race involved about most of them. What do you think?
I introduce some racial issues to the board because they are important to American society. Most people around here are capable of discussing such issues intelligently but simply do not hear about them from their news sources or other posters on the board. I enjoy such discussions.
There are a few people on this or any board who cannot handle such discussions and immediately say, "OMG race!!! STFU already! How dare you play the race card!" It's mildly ironic that they will gladly take part in "discussions" on race that only represent their viewpoint but complain loudly when another viewpoint emerges. Thankfully that has not occurred in this thread here as of yet.
I think one of the big factors with recyclable story is that we've heard time and time again about keeping an eye out for people leaving things behind, such as book bags, suitcases, etc. If the guy had thrown the box into a big recycling bin on his way to his car from his office/class... I doubt anybody would have really thought much of it. In this case witnesses apparently saw him drive to the location, drop off a box in a campus location, and then drive off. My first thought would be to steer clear of that box, though I'm not sure if I would have called authorities unless there was some other suspicious behavior. It's part of my childhood growing up with the unibomber at large and being told to avoid suspicious looking objects laying around any bigger than a fist, as it could contain explosives and deadly fragmentation material, even something as harmless as a block of wood.
I think the guy was legitimately concerned about the behavior he saw and it is unfortunate if race/skin-color was a deciding factor. I don't think the terrorists have won if we report behavior that is common with terror tactics in order to prevent such attacks from being successful. But this is a tactic that transcends race/skin-color as we've seen with plenty of other bombers in nations all around the world, including our own, of various ethnicities and race. I'd say next time, to avoid unnerving people, find a proper recycling bin.
As far as the Cho/VA Tech fallout... it is unfortunate that people are scapegoating his immigrant background and ignoring the fact that almost all of these spree shooters in the past have been disgruntled white guys... obviously ethnicity has little to do with it. But as we've seen in the news, and I've even heard personally from yahoos at the coffee counter or watering hole... racism and xenophobia still exists in this country. I don't think it's as widespread as some people claim around here. On the other hand, I absolutely think there is a widespread problem in areas like Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas... the few times I have been in those States I honestly feel like I went back in time.
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Glock21 Op/Ed