( Read more... )

1/4 avocado ( Read more... )

My favorite headline of today: Obama faces first challenge!

Biracial child of a poor single mother who made it into Columbia, Harvard, national politics and now the White House. Yup, there's a man who's new to adversity.

http://www.girleffect.org

2 minute video. Better with sound, but it's not essential.

The head of the Alabama NAACP, wants Mobile's Azalea Trail Maids to stay home on Inauguration Day, claiming the group reminds him of slavery. "These are not just regular costumes. These are the costumes that remind someone of the plantation in Gone with the WindYeah, they're ball gowns. I'm as big a proponent of the south being ashamed of its past ( Read more... )

I enjoy Christopher Hitchens a lot. We disagreed on the Iraq war, true, but he's so much more bitchily eloquent than I am about religion, on which we agree, I can't help but keep going back. Today, on the Inauguration:"I would myself say that it doesn't need a clerical invocation at all, since, to borrow Lincoln's observation about Gettysburg, it ( Read more... )

In the news
- Republicans in congress block a bill to overturn a really unfortunate court decision on pay discrimination. Dalia Lithwick (who is brilliant) explicates the mess better than I could. (In fact, I’m cross-posting her piece to MWK with some commentary, because I think it’s worth a look ( Read more... )

12 hacks to make yourself smarter from Wired. (link from my bellydance teacher) I love Wired ( Read more... )

Obama just gave an impressive speech about the way the news has been playing some quotes from his pastor and about the way race has played in the campaign. OK, basically just about Race in America. I'm looking for pullquotes, but this one isn't about the quick soundbites so much as a well-put together whole. He addresses race, yes inoffensively, ( Read more... )

Michael Chabon on Obama
The point of Obama's candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and ( Read more... )