Weird News

[monster]

Whizz Kids At Work

the physics of peeing. Nice.

[Lamplighter]

His advice? "The closer you are, the better.

...that's what she said.

[Happy Monkey]

Washington Post columnist watches "12 Years a Slave", and is surprised to discover that slavery was brutal:

I sometimes think I have spent years unlearning what I learned earlier in my life.
...
slavery was not a benign institution in which mostly benevolent whites owned innocent and grateful blacks. Slavery was a lifetime’s condemnation to an often violent hell in which people were deprived of life, liberty and, too often, their own children. Happiness could not be pursued after that.

Part of the story is in what a (probably deliberately) horrible job the school he describes did when describing slavery.

But the other part is that he's not fresh out of that horrible primary education. He's a Washington Post columnist with pure white hair. How could he have made it to his age, in the journalism field, and still have to unlearn THAT?

I guess there are plenty of people his age who hang on to that view, but still.

[glatt]

He was brave to admit it.

[Gravdigr]

Willful ignorance.

[Clodfobble]

A friend of mine moved to Texas from Pennsylvania in the middle of high school, and due to the differences between the two states' curriculum layout, she ended up having to retake several subjects.

She was utterly flabbergasted at how differently the Civil War was presented in the north vs. the south. And ours was a pretty liberal high school in the middle of a liberal city--certainly no one tried to justify slavery to us the way the Washington Post writer describes experiencing several decades earlier. Nonetheless, from what she told us it was still taught vastly differently in our part of the country.

[monster]

A white kids from South Africa moved to my school in the UK when he was about 15. He was astounded to learn we all thought apartheid was evil and that there were sanctions against SA because of it. He thought without white governance, the blacks would all be savages and apartheid was better for both races. Other than that, he was a nice kid

[Clodfobble]

Wasn't it here that someone was saying, they went to China and wanted to visit Tiananmen Square, and their Chinese hosts were first confused as to why this traveller would even know the name of such an insignificant plaza, and then were really blown away to learn that in the Western world it was considered the site of a major historical tragedy.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Washington Post columnist watches "12 Years a Slave", and is surprised to discover that slavery was brutal:

He's back:

Originally Posted by WTF Richard Cohen

People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children.

He writes these things from the perspective of someone stepping out of that mindset, but he's not out yet.

[busterb]

Read in the weekly wipe obits about a lady that lived her entire adult life in ___, MS.
Working for _____. Then 30 years for _______. Folks, that's what is called a productive life.

[busterb]

The !@#$%^ Ducks again http://www.nola.com/politics/index.s...l#incart_river

[Adak]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

He's back:
He writes these things from the perspective of someone stepping out of that mindset, but he's not out yet.

A biracial couple, having mixed race children. What a concept!

You'd think that the kids were half-elephant or alligator, or something.

Over the course of a lot of decades, I've learned that once you step into the doors of the "Stupid Market" - there's no shortage of stock on the shelves.

[Lamplighter]

... had not heard that one before !

[Molasar]

Originally Posted by Adak

...I've learned that once you step into the doors of the "Stupid Market" - there's no shortage of stock on the shelves.

I'm gonna wait 'til the dust settles then I'll be stealing that for a sig.

[monster]

Giant Rubber Duck Bursts