Questions, questions, questions: Now that I’m boycotting Whole Foods, where will I buy overpriced organic produce and choose from 30 varieties of bottled green tea? Do you think Tom DeLay can pull off the Tootsie Roll or the Cabbage Patch? And how long until a gunfight breaks out at one of those town halls?
Unfortunately, we’ll probably find out the answers to all of these soon enough:
Late as usual, here’s your PostBourgie-approved weekend reading material (I’ve started numbering the items again because Shani-o told me to):
1. The big political news yesterday was Kathleen Sebelius’s apparent equivocation on the public option as a leg of health care reform, when she said “it’s not an essential part” during an interview on CNN. The White House tried to walk back the secretary’s statements, saying she misspoke. It might not matter, anyway: Nate Silver notesthat with only 37 senators on-board, the public option is as good as dead, anyway. Jacob Hacker describes why the government option is so important. (G.D.)
2. Speaking of death, James Fallows explains why the myth of the health care reform ‘Death Panels’ just won’t…die. (Shani-o)
3. Once a model for prisons across the nation, the Folsom State Prison in California is a symbol of a crumbling state corrections system: “There’s the deserted shop where inmates used to train to be butchers; it was closed when the prison couldn’t afford to remove the asbestos. Its thriving medical facility was shuttered when it couldn’t keep up with thousands of new inmates. And hovering above the prison is China Hill, a now-barren field where inmates once trained to become landscapers. The prison can’t afford to pay the teacher.” (Blackink)
4. Sigh. “So there you go, gays — at least government will feel bad as it continues to defend a discriminatory law. ” (Shani-o)
5. Stricter laws against registered sex offenders in Miami have forced about 70 of them under a highway overpasson the edge of the Biscayne Bay. It is the punishment after the punishment. “You can hate the sex offenders or feel sorry for them — or perhaps both — but it’s hard to look beneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway without asking yourself: Is this really what we had in mind?” (Blackink)
6. Highly educated black women are less likely to be married than highly educated white women, and the marriage gap between the two groups had grown from 9 percent in the 1970s to 21 percent in 2000-2007. (G.D.)
7. If you’re interested, here’s a linkto an online petition directed at advertisers on Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News. (Blackink)
8. Our friend Jeremy at Social Science Lite talks about ‘reverse discrimination.’ (Shani-o)
9. Hoping to “help overweight Jacksonville residents,” PETA recently unveiledbillboards around the city depicting an obese woman with the phrase, “Save The Whales, Lose The Blubber: Go Vegetarian.” It would be really nice if PETA showed the empathy for humans that it does for animals. (Blackink)
10. Sgt. James Crowley of Gatesgate fame was welcomed with a round of applause at a police convention in California. (Shani-o)
11. Saving socialism: Cuban leaders are looking to private farmers to help bail the island out of a $11 billion trade deficit caused by rising food import costs and falling exports. (Blackink)
12. Shakrukh Khan, a major Bollywood star, was stopped for questioning before boarding a plane to Chicago for a celebration of India’s independence. The irony? The trip was also to promote a movie about racial profiling of Muslims after 9/11. (G.D.)
13. Also on Khan: desis at Sepia Mutiny doesn’t seem to have much love for the cops. (Shani-o)
14. Saqib Ali, a Muslim member of the Maryland House of Delegates, has come out in support of same-sex marriage. (G.D.)
15. Latoya talks about Rev Run’s daughters, two young women of color starring in a reality show that isn’t about them shopping, fighting, or being trashy. (Shani-o)
16. A woman who was raped at gunpoint in front of her children in the parking lot of a Marriott in Stamford, CT is suing the hotel for negligence, saying her rapist had been seen loitering on the grounds for days. The hotel is defending itself by arguing that she “failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use of her senses and facilities.” Wow. (G.D.)
17. Gator-baited? A St. Charles Parish (La.) man was arrested after sheriff’s deputies saw him riding down the street on a bicycle with a 3-foot gator draped over his neck. (Blackink)
18. Alexandra Natapoff, a law professor and a leading expert on snitching in law enforcement, has a new blog about the use of informants, appropriately called Snitching.org. (G.D.)
19. Dear Naomi Campbell: I know you still have legal bills from assaulting people with BlackBerries and hair dryers or whatever … but was this really worth the money? (Shani-o)
20. Rodney King – yes, that Rodney King – will take on a former cop in a celebrity boxing match. I’m sure this event will have all the class and pageantry of a cockfight. (Blackink)
21. Here’s a link to Michael Vick’s interview on “60 Minutes.” (Blackink)
22. The former major leaguer Doug Glanville writes about the difficulties facing athletes with little financial savvy who are transitioning to life after their careers end. (G.D.)
23. Vote for the most memorable moment of Michael Jordan’s career. Or you could do like me and pick a montage of momentsfrom the ninth game of his NBA career. Seriously: YouTube is so dope. (Blackink)
24. Tyson Gay ran the 3rd-fastest 100-meter dash in history, and still got absolutely smoked. In case you didn’t already know this, Usain Bolt is insanely fast. “I knew it was humanly possible for someone to run that fast,” Gay said on Sunday. “Unfortunately it wasn’t me.”
Peace.
