Hank Kalet

I wasn’t going to say anything about Michael Richards’ obsenity-laden and n-word-ridden tirade the other night. But then I read this perceptive post from Bob Rixon’s The Rix Mix blog and just wanted to pass it along. Read it and consider not only Michael Richards, but Mel Gibson and all those other celebrities that allow their bigotries to spew out. He says the n-word is (bold-facing is mine)

both an awful word & a lazy word. It rarely fails to bring to my mind terrible images. Everyone in my family used it; only in the house, of course – we were raised to have good manners even toward “negroes.” It’s a word I quietly retired from my active spoken vocabulary in high school, which I recall as one of the first times I consciously reasoned with myself about language. I could avoid the word & still be racist, but could never use the word & not be a racist.

Fear charges prejudice, so I wonder what an experienced comic like Michael Richards feared when a couple of hecklers interrupted his act. He’s an edgy, improvisional comedian, but after so many years in show business, you’d think he’d have a stock of responses ranging from bemused to aggressive but funny putdowns. What made that ugly brew bubble up & then boil over?

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The Blog of South Brunswick

This item from Harper’s seems to sum up the political situation among American hawks as it now relates to the Iraq War. The former insiders are now dumping on President Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld — a trio who deserve whatever blame is foisted upon them — but are pretending to have clean hands.

The reality, as Ken Silverstein reports, is a bit different. Writing about one of these so-called insiders (the hawks who are now asking “who me?”), Ken Adelman, a Bush cheerleader in the early days who continued to back the “stay-the-course” line until fairly, he offers this:

Adelman would have us believe that he has absolutely no responsibility for the Iraq disaster? His breaking point on Iraq, he told the Post, was Bush’s decision to award Medals of Freedom to Paul Bremer, General Tommy Franks, and George Tenet. “The three individuals who got the highest civilian medals the President can give were responsible for a lot of the debacle that was Iraq.” Adelman sounds jealous, not righteous. It’s too bad there’s no medal for being a whining, war-promoting hypocrite.

That sounds about right.

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The Blog of South Brunswick

Juan Cole’s Informed Comment is too often criticized, but it is the one place readers can go to get the unvarnished truth about Iraq. This is from today’s postings:

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that on Monday running street battles erupted in several districts of Baghdad between guerrillas and Iraqi police. In Salikh, the Bank district, Sumer, and Tujjar, residents were forced to flee their homes lest they be exposed to kidnapping or caught in the cross-fire. The fighting, mainly with small arms fire, began when guerrillas attacked a police checkpoint. Police attempted to close off the affected neighborhoods. They also closed Salikh Bridge, which is among the main point of access to Baghdad from northern provinces such as Diyala, Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah. The closing created traffic jams and forced drivers to use an alternative route into the city.

The toll of killed and injured from this fighting was not known when reporters put al-Zaman to bed.

Reuters reports political and sectarian violence in Iraq for Monday.

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The Blog of South Brunswick

Some poetic thoughts on Thanksgiving courtesy of the Academy of American Poets.

And James Carroll of The Boston Globe, one of America’s best newspaper columnists, offers some thoughts on the holiday, as well.

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The Blog of South Brunswick

I have to agree with this. I watched part of Comic Relief last night and was glad to see someone step up to speak on behalf of the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Republican neglect. And I was pleasantly surprised that the comics were not shy about going after the administration. (And many even gave their own cash to the cause.)

So, thumbs up for the funny men and women.

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The Blog of South Brunswick