The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Open Thread At Noon

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Deborah — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:24:33 -0000

I was inherited from Matt Yglesias back in the olden days.

I drink my tea black; latte if I'm countering insomnia and steamed milk with a half pump of syrup for warmth in the winter.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

LarryGeater — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:15:22 -0000

I did not read the graphic novel. I am not a fan of the medium.

The movie had some scenes that were disconcerting and uncomfotable to watch, especialy as I watched it with my daughter and her boyfriend. But things that are hard to watch are sometimes part of an overal good experience.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

mjnewt0n — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:08:56 -0000

Well, back to rascism...

It seems that the police department isn't the only thing people of color should watch,

Does your doctor judge you based on your color?

CNN says it appears so.

This guy almost got a toe lopped off because he was black.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

LarryGeater — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:08:03 -0000

I never read the graphic novel. I do not like the format.

There were parts of the movie that were disturbing and uncomfortable to watch, especially as I was watching it with my daughter and her boyfriend. The complexity of the caracters and plot made them worth sitting through. Sometimes discomfort is a part of a good story if it is resolved properly.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

farleybean — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:03:30 -0000

Came here when I stopped my subscription to Atlantic but still wanted to read high quality writing. Became a regular reader partly because I'm a white mom raising a multiracial son in a mostly white community and I find something in your posts and from the comments that I don't get from other people or parts of my life: an honest discourse about race that doesn't get bogged down in stereotypes or name-calling.

As for increased traffic... In the past month or two I've persuaded my brother to read you regularly; he's addicted to Facebook and has hundreds of friends there, constantly posts links to articles he likes, and recently became unemployed so has much more time to do this! ;)

Re: Open Thread At Noon

CitizenE — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:57:24 -0000

Totally off topic CK, but a coupla more historical novels for you that I thought of later by American Indian writers: Fools Crow by James Welch and Gardens in the Dunes by Leslie Marmon Silko. The first is about the turn of Blackfeet civilization during the Plains wars, Great characterization and a true North American magic realist novel. The second about a California Indian girl at the end of the 19th Century from a tribe that had almost all died out, who basically were a culture of gardeners. After being aprehended and taken to an Indian school, she escapes and befriends a white couple and travels with them across the country and to Europe befriending passionate gardeners in each of those places. The Silko book turns the Victorian adventure in exotic places genre on its head with its beguiling Indian hero encountering exotic, not to mention eccentric whites.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

CitizenE — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:47:41 -0000

The only novel I have read is The Darling, which is about the brutally devasting wars in Liberia during the 90s. It is a spectacular historical novel, not for the faint of heart.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

sporcupine — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:45:53 -0000

There's a Risk board on the dining room table, with dice clattering and profanity rising when the results aren't good and summer sounds in the distance. Only somehow, I now seem to be the mom, not the girl who organized the game.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

sporcupine — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:38:41 -0000

Sullivan for me, too--though no one else he links gets more than an occasional glance, so it's the substance here that got me here the second, and the hundredth time.

Two ideas on the recent growth. One is word of mouth: I've dragged my husband in and I'm working on an uncle, and I'd guess it takes current readers a while to decide they're willing to evangelize a bit. The other is folks getting back to "normal" engagement after the high of the election and inauguration. It's time to stop just grinning at the pictures and get back to sorting out how to make stuff work.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

sporcupine — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:31:30 -0000

Iced mocha latte every time.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Carrington — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:23:39 -0000

Anybody want to pick up on Gates and the privilege of tenure? Or rather the _duty_ imposed by tenure.

For what it's worth, I'd tend to think the the job of a tenured professor (in contrast to a Cop) is to be provocative, _particularly within the context of larger civil society_.

It's a significant problem in academia that so few academics use their tenure as more than a form of economic job security.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Rillion — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:21:16 -0000

I like my half and half with some coffee, no sweetner. If the coffee I'm having with my half and half is cold, then I'll add one splenda to the half and half, coffee, and ice mixture.

To me the quality of the half and half is more important then the quality of the coffee. Don't like any of those fake cream products, nor any of those horrid little no refrigeration, preservative filled half and half abominations.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

CK — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:19:38 -0000

Were you a fan of the graphic novel? I never read the Watchmen and man, I hated the movie (which is sad, because I generally like bad action movies like Transformers).

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Carrington — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:17:31 -0000

I'm willing to accept post-racial if saying it means that we have moved away from a system of white supremacy _which existed before._

I would argue that the United States has been exceptional with regards to race, mainly because the peculiar aspects of slavery ensured that there was widespread and influential _interests_ involved, first in building a slave underclass, then in maintaining an underclass after emancipation. I'd tend to think that this exceptionalism has faded to a large degree -- though it remains a particularly sensitive topic in the United States.

I doubt we'll ever be post-racial -- identity is such that Serbs and Albanians still argue about events of half-a millenia ago -- but hierarchies of power have become far more complicated: witness the fact that Officer Crowley's Mayor and Governor are both black.

Not that it particularly influences his career...

Re: Open Thread At Noon

LarryGeater — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:13:44 -0000

I think that people have always wanted to see the forbiden. seeing the willingly naked in a society that allows it does not satisfy that urge.

That said I was not tempted for even a second. I did tech support for a while and it conditioned me to see internet porn as being a marker for where one should not go if one wishes for ones computer to keep working properly. Porn is the only thing worse for computer security that humor e-mail lists, and they both give me the willies. You might as well mark your link "Be Afraid, Be Very Very Afraid, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here" as to claim that you have porn if you are trying to atract me to your site.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

CK — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:09:57 -0000

I do not drink coffee.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

LarryGeater — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:02:45 -0000

I finaly saw "Watchmen" on DVD last night. It was an excelent movie. Deeply flawed caracters who suprised me about their motivations even when their actions were predicatable and vice versa. I will by buying a copy for my tiny DVD library.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

mjnewt0n — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:59:28 -0000

Hate to change the discussion thread, but we have been on rascism pretty hard and heavy lately. And at the expense of my favorite subject the CW, I thought I would change the subject for a moment...

From Andy's blog, guest blogger Conor Friedersdorf , apparently someone got a camera into a room of a very attractive ESPN personality and got a grainy video of her nude brushing her hair.

My immediate gut reaction was "I got to see this..." before I caught myself and thought why?

Conor links to Kashmir Hill who asks,

"The person responsible posted the video online, and it went viral (and virus-laden)...What Jennie Yabroff of Newsweek (and I at The Not-So Private Parts) find intriguing though is what makes the video so interesting. A hot, naked woman brushing her hair in a grainy video? There’s plenty of better free porn on the Internet. Why is the Andrews video so appealing?"

I had the reaction myself. From an older guy who's done the whole strip club thing, internet porn thing, many years ago, why would my first reaction be "I gotta see this!"

Are we a nation of peeping tom's? Or has the availability of naked delights made privacy the new fetish?

Re: Open Thread At Noon

dmf — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:57:12 -0000

addiction is so insidious because in addition to the physical costs the inability to take control of one's actions is humiliating and so begins a vicious cycle. Many addicts longest running and most commited relationship is with their substance(s) and it has to be mourned. hate to see anyone caught up in all of that let alone the good ones and i'm glad to have you around. enjoy the oxygen.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

LarryGeater — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:56:37 -0000

"When the term "inter-racial couple" sounds like an antiquated term..."

I hope to live to see that day, baring a real economic colapse which would in my estimation set us back on issues of race.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

silentbeep — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:52:51 -0000

Sure. Not surprised about her comfort in the West Coast. I've heard Los Angeles once described as being part of the most northern edge of Latin America, while simultaneously being part of the most western edge of the Pacific Rim - this is true not only literally in terms of geography, but metaphorically and culturally (of course).

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Joshua Lyle — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:49:50 -0000

Black, hot or iced.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

LarryGeater — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:48:37 -0000

@dmf

Thanks for the link. It looks like we are rid of him for good (as mayor anyway though I am not looking forward to the 2010 congressional primary). He is a good example of why we should be wary of calling people who are not playing the race for calling it. It makes us lose credibility when we point out people like Dr Herenton who undeniably are.

How do pols like him get away with claiming that they are the victim of racism when their constiuency is 61% black?

Re: Open Thread At Noon

silentbeep — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:48:22 -0000

Other author/book recommendations: Jorge Ramos.

A blurb from harper collins -

"Jorge Ramos has won eight Emmy Awards and the Maria Moors Cabot Award for excellence in journalism. He has been the anchorman for Univision News for the last twenty-one years and has appeared on NBC's Today, CNN's Talk Back Live, ABC's Nightline, CBS's Early Show, and Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor, among others. He is the bestselling author of No Borders: A Journalist's Search for Home and Dying to Cross. He lives in Florida. " He's written other book on contemporary Latinos as well.

...and Richard Rodriguez, Gregory Rodriguez, Ruben Navarette, Ruben Martinez's book The New Americans was written in 2004..

I could go on. Obviously! But I will restrain myself...

Re: Open Thread At Noon

LarryGeater — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:39:28 -0000

Can we quit judging the state of race relations in America by what the dumbest representatives of a given race are saying? Of course we have racist, knucle dragin' PWT out there (I am even related to some of them) but there are plenty of whites who are upset by police and GOP stupidity. The first post I saw oon the AMA photoshop was by a white blogger who had also defended Obama's statement about the officer in the Gates incident's undeniable stupidity.

BTW I agree that post racial is a goal that is yet to be achieved . Obama is not so much an indication of a post racial nation as he is an indication that some blacks can be judged as extraracial by a significant portion of the white populace. He is, in the insulting language discussed elswhere in this blog, America's black friend who is 'Not like other black people'.