• I have never felt as proud or as committed to a politician as I am for Barack Obama tonight. His speech on race today will be considered historic, and if he is not our next president it would to America's shame. Time has a good analysis of the speech.
• For what it's worth, I think Rev. Wright's statements weren't expressed in the best way, but I don't think he was wrong, either.
• Speaking of race, I thought this was interesting:
Immigration Reduces Crime Rates
By LiveScience Staff
Contrary to popular stereotypes, areas undergoing immigration are associated with lower violence, not spiraling crime, according to a new study.
...
Not only does immigration appear to be "protective" against violence in poverty areas, violence was significantly lower among Mexican-Americans compared to blacks and whites. Sampson refers to this as the "Latino Paradox," whereby Hispanic Americans do better on a range of social indicators — including propensity to violence — than one would expect, given their socioeconomic disadvantages.
Sampson’s analysis also revealed that first-generation immigrants were 45 percent less likely to commit violence than third-generation Americans. Controlling for immigrant generation even narrowed the violence gap between whites and blacks in Chicago by 14 percent.
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Immigration is therefore not just a Hispanic issue; although little noticed, increasing foreign-born diversity among blacks (e.g., from the West Indies and Africa) is associated with lower crime even within segregated black communities.
The whole article is right here.
• Holy shit — is that Apollonia in the Shakin' video?!
• So right now I'm going through about four years of photos on the ol' laptop, so expect to see photos popping up here on a fairly regular basis. Y'know, random stuff like this picture from the 2004 Austin Kite Festival:
Don't say I didn't warn you!
4 comments:
GObama!
You got time on your hands son, you just trawling YouTube for 80s music videos?
Nice kite shot! Yer a fine photog indeed sir. Love that airplane kite too!
Ha! Naw, Lopez! and I heard that song on the radio yesterday and she had never seen the video. When we watched it I couldn't believe it — Eddie Money introduced Apollonia to the world! In your face, Prince!
And thanks - believe me, there were a lot of crappy photos, too. The airplane kite was awesome, and there was also one that was a diver being chased by a shark. I was geeking out.
Man I'm with you on Obama, he totally won me over with that.
It still baffles me that in this day and age race even comes up. I guess when you don't hang out with morons you forget how many there still are left. Seriously, how dumb do you have to be to pick your president by race? You can't read or understand the words they say so you just go by how they look? It really does explain our current president though, doesn't it?
If people can't see that this country needs a change and votes in a candidate who'll only guarantee the status quo, then they deserve what they get. I just feel sorry for the people who'd be stuck living with someone else's shortsighted decision.
Well, race kind of came up when we had first started that other game, remember? It was that kind of thinking that made me feel as if I had to drop out — bigotry is insidious, it doesn't always have to be in your face. I'd be curious to know what that guy thinks of Obama ...
And you're so totally right about Bush! I couldn't believe that so many people would say they liked him because "he's down-to-earth, he's like one of us." Look, I'm an asshole - I don't want a president who's like me. I want a president who wants to be better, and wants people to understand they can be better, too.
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