The Most Racist Commercial Ever?

Dr. Boyce Watkins tells us how Mountain Dew gets its buzz:

Mountain Dew Releases Arguably the Most Racist Commercial in History

If you’ve never heard of Felicia the Goat, you’ll know about her soon.  Felicia the Goat is the main character in a recent Mountain Dew commercial, created in part by Tyler the Creator.  The video shows Felicia in a line up of criminal suspects, all of whom may be charged with a crime.

Of course, in the world of Mountain Dew, every single suspect is black.  Not just regular black people, but the kinds of ratchety negroes you might find in the middle of any hip-hop minstrel show:  Gold teeth, “mean mugging,” sun glasses wearing, white-t sportin, hard core n*ggaz ready to “get into some ol gangsta sh*t.”  Apparently, this is the kind of ad you put out if you want to appeal to the black male demographic.

Well, the spot was created by a black rapper/comic and his ensemble, so there is a certain "Go Figure" puzzle as to whether "racist" is exactly the right label. Yes, negative sterotyopes are being depicted, but Ed Krayewski of Reason argues that this might be in the service of art:

The ad was created by the leader of Odd Future, a hip-hop group that’s also behind the sketch comedy show Loiter Squad on Comedy Central (and whose most famous member is probably Frank Ocean, who appears in neither the ad nor the sketch show). All the members are black.

...

The Mountain Dew ad consists of a line up of several members of Odd Future as well as a goat that assaulted a woman (because she wouldn’t give him more Mountain Dew; the goat is a recurring character). If the woman described a goat and the cops brought in a line up full of black men, that seems to me more a commentary on the stereotypes by which cops operate (“oh it’s a goat? Surely you must mean it’s a black man”) than any kind of racist messaging. But that’s how art works; the interpretation is up to the viewer.

Well, OK, but the goat also has the voice of a thug rapper. But why wouldn't it? The goat is the fantasy rap alter-ego of Tyler the Creator:

It all started with a song lyric. On his new LP, Wolf Odd Future ringleader Tyler, the Creator raps "Might fuck around and be a goat named Felicia" on the track "Trashwang." That lyric has come to life thanks to Mountain Dew's comical "Felicia, the Goat" series.

So a black thug rapper envisions himself as a thug goat. Ingenious! But back to Dr. Watkins of Your Black World:

As the woman is shaking, crying and trying to decide what to do, the goat says, “Snitches get stitches fool.”   After that, he says, “Keep ya mouth shut.  When I get outta here, I’m gonna do you up (translation:  Probably beat and s-xually assault you again).”  Shaking in fear, the woman runs screaming out of the room, worried that testifying is going to get her killed by this demonic negro goat and his thugged-out sidekicks.

Mountain Dew has set a new low for corporate racism.  Their decision to lean on well-known racial stereotypes is beyond disgusting.  This doesn’t even include the fact that the company has put black men on par with animals.   The holocaust of mass incarceration and the glorification of violent prison culture has taken a tremendous toll on the black community.  Corporations are making it cool for black men to murder one another, while gun manufacturers ensure that the streets are flooded with the weapons necessary for us to complete our own genocide.

The family of Emmett Till is seeking to boycott the company due to Lil Wayne’s decision to not apologize for a song (Karate Chop) in which he compares Emmett Till’s face to a woman’s v@gina after he’s had s*x with her (Mountain Dew is sponsoring Lil Wayne’s tour).   It appears that Mountain Dew is right on board with the degradation and disrespect for the entire African American community being pursued by the worst in the hip-hop community.  This ad has to be one of the most irresponsible pieces of trash in the history of corporate advertising.

Even worse is that Mountain Dew probably thinks this ad is acceptable because they got the OK from a black man.  In their thorough corporate oversight, Mountain Dew may not have realized that Tyler the Creator is also the man who made a song called “Tron Cat,” with a verse stating that he would “r@pe a pregnant b*tch and tell my friends I had a threesome.”   As a Business school professor myself, I am stunned that Mountain Dew would allow their brand to be connected to a man who celebrates the s-xual assaults of pregnant women.

Black leaders have denounced hip-hop before and will (we hope) continue to do so. More backstory is here, however, and I think we can exponerate the goat for the sexual assault.

The video was the third in a series created by Tyler for Mountain Dew, all focused on the goat (dubbed “Felicia”) encountering trouble with the law in its quest to get more Mountain Dew. The first installment showed the goat attacking the woman – a waitress trying to serve him some of the soda – because he wants the whole bottle (and more). The second showed the goat being pulled over while driving by an (African-American) cop, who discovers the trunk of the goat’s car is filled with empty plastic bottles of Mountain Dew. (Cop: “Looks like we have ourselves a clear-cut case of Dew U I.”) These spots also ended with the goat declaring, “You’re never gonna catch me.”

Tyler the Creator's statement is here; the first episode seems to have been pulled by Pepsi.

In an Update Dr. Watkins tells us that reader Paul Porter (surely the founder of Rap Rehab) succeeded in getting pepsi to pull the ads.

So, was Pepsi racist for running the ads delivered by the edgy black comic they hired? Or are they now racist for silencing this authentic voice of black rage? When Quentin Tarantino drops ten thousand N-bombs and has a sympathetic black guy shoot up half the South he gets an Academy Award Best Picture nomination, so the boundaries of artistic expression are murky.

SINCE YOU ASK: I can't imagine ever approving these ads if I were at Pepsi but I also can't imagine Pepsi seeking the approval of a boring middle-aged white guy for these ads, which are clearly targeting a different demographic. Their bad.

Comments

[James D.]

The idea that any measurable demographic would find this carp entertaining, amusing, or even watchable at all, is thoroughly depressing.

[steve]

The ad doesn't make me want to go out and buy Mountain Dew, but then again, I'm not in the demographic... so I'm as bad a judge of this ad as I would be a commercial for going to the opera... and as such, I'll withhold comment on the merits - or lack thereof - of the ad.

[Rob Crawford]

Looks like I'm permanently switching to "Diet Citrus Drop".

[jimmyk]

"The holocaust of mass incarceration and the glorification of violent prison culture has taken a tremendous toll on the black community."

I find that terminology, especially "holocaust," rather ridiculous, to say the least. And from a Reason article, where presumably there is some deference to personal responsibility?

I suppose the subtext is the libertarian attitude toward the drug war, to which I have some sympathy, but the black community still largely did this to itself, so words like holocaust are out of place.

[Clarice]

And then there's BET whose owner periodically complains about the high rate of Black unemployment, blaming it on racism instead of the way he and rappers suck the brains out of the kids who watch them

[Captain Hate]

The family of Emmett Till is seeking to boycott the company due to Lil Wayne’s decision to not apologize for a song (Karate Chop) in which he compares Emmett Till’s face to a woman’s v@gina after he’s had s*x with her (Mountain Dew is sponsoring Lil Wayne’s tour).

I'm not seeing any positive behavior by anyone in this sentence.

[Danube of Thought]

Do not interfere in this fight. Just hide and watch.

[hit and run]

The "holocaust" usage was after this TM lead in..."Back to Dr. Watkins of Your Black World:"

[Captain Hate]

Mutually Assured Bad Taste

[NK]

I don't watch network TV (except for sports),and I don't watch cable series shows, so my knowledge of pop culture is close to nil. But in the last year or two I got the distinct impression advertisers had gone out of their way to mainstream AA characters, making them more 'regular guys' of hipster gals, and the thug culture was out with advertisers. I guess niche marketing rules.

[NK]

of = or

[matt]

The ad may be one of the worst I have ever seen. Idiotic is a compliment to these people. The goat is actually punching the waitress in the face, which to me is incredibly anti-woman. Then again, these a-holes are incredibly misogynistic anyway.

For Pepsico to develop this and then run it is in incredibly bad taste and is incredibly poor decision making.They got the buzz, but I think even the Mountain Dew core audience of morons will be affected.

Imagine a core market of utter morons. This isn't even lowest common denominator. It is a new low.

[RACCCCISSSSSST]

The sad truth is that the black male is a major drag on our society.

Eliminate the black male from our crime statistics, and we have less murder per capita than Sweden.

Eliminate the black male from our longevity statistics, and our national life expectancies are better than the majority of Europe.

Eliminate the black male from our education statistics, and we are nearly as smart as Japan.

But we can't talk about this. That would be RACCCCCISSSST.

[Ignatz]

The greatest entertainment in these kind of dust-ups is watching some prim and proper, bow tie and Clark Kent glasses wearing professor, who has made a career of destroying our traditional culture and societal restraints, rending his sweater vest and covering himself in non tobacco related ashes at the evil which rushes in to fill the moral vacuum he helped create.

[Rick Ballard]

Jamal Henderson is the Mountain Dew senior brand manager at Pepsico. There is a NYT puffer (Typhuspad won't allow a link imbed) describing Pepsico plans to shovel marketing dollars into Mountain Dew until something happens.

Funny - this Jamal fella doesn't look very racist. The Pepsico marketing scheme doesn't look very intelligent, either. Too much spatter gun targeting.

[Jim Eagle]

Isn't Pepsico supposed to be the "left" drink bottler and Coke, the "right" drink bottler? Read something about that sometime back.

[Dave (in MA)]

Jimmy from Minneapolis points out that the ad is already being flushed down the memory hole.

[NK]

In my adult lifetime, Mountain Dew has gone through several 'Brand' iterations-- NASCAR/Redneck, Suburban-Slacker-skateboarder-- now gangsta. I guess bottles of dubiously flavored uber sugar/caffeine/calories can only go so far on its own merits.

[Threadkiller]

They should have used white-hispanics.

[James D.]

Just signed up at TypePad - testing to see if this works...

[James D.]

Changed the avatar - the boat photo is too small to get the joke...

[NK]

Dr Watkins seems like quite the blowhard.

[hit and run]

JiB:
Isn't Pepsico supposed to be the "left" drink bottler and Coke, the "right" drink bottler? Read something about that sometime back.

Well.

[MarkO]

I don't always drink Mountain Dew, in fact, I drink Dos XX.

And, when I do, I realize that everything is about race or sexual preference.

I'm offended.

[Captain Hate]

Where's the identity imbecile to inform us how this is all an identity right wing plot.

[Rob Crawford]

the black community still largely did this to itself, so words like holocaust are out of place.

Largely? Completely.

They weren't forced to commit crimes. They weren't forced to use drugs. They weren't forced to abandon their children.

Using "holocaust" in this context is just another example of trying to appropriate one of history's great horrors. In this case, I think it's intentionally to pass the buck onto people who are completely innocent.

[Rob Crawford]

Imagine a core market of utter morons.

Then imagine Congress.

But I repeat myself...

[Rob Crawford]

Pepsico plans to shovel marketing dollars into Mountain Dew until something happens.

To what end? They already have the gamer, stoner, and geek markets, and nearly unassailable brand loyalty in those segments.

Unless the "something happens" is the abandonment by their consumers. If that's their goal, why not just reformulate it to taste like cat piss?

[Janet]

Here is video #3 of LiveAction's latest undercover work.

I don't believe most Americans realize what gruesome things are going on in these places.

[Ignatz]

--They weren't forced to commit crimes. They weren't forced to use drugs. They weren't forced to abandon their children.--

No, but to ignore the poisoned chalice of "help" extended to them by the white leftwing "do gooder" architects of the AFDC welfare state is to absolve people of their crimes who deserve no such absolution.

[richatatgmu]

If that's their goal, why not just reformulate it to taste like cat piss?

Doesn't it already?

and it is looking like I'm having posting problems.

[Rick Ballard]

NYT Puffer

[Danube of Thought]

Brother. That young woman in Janet's link shoulda stood in bed.

[James D.]

I agree with Iggy - there is blame for the ills that the black community faces, and it falls squarely on the leftists.

The black community has had two full generations of "do gooders" who are perfectly happy to see it suffer in hopeless poverty with outrageous crime rates and all the other attendant problems, so long as the do gooders keep getting elected to office, and can keep their snouts fully submerged in the DC money trough.

[richatatgmu]

test to see if this goes through.

[richatatgmu]

odd a twitter like comment works, but something longer doesn't

[Rick Ballard]

Typhuspad is certainly entertaining. The NYT Puffer link above explains the "marketing strategy" (throw money away at an increasing rate) being employed by Pepsico to develop new social disease media.

Pepsico ought to borrow 90 bazillion and buy back stock in order to replace the morbid pallor induced by flat sales and earnings with the fresh glow which comes with energetic data manipulation.

[richatatgmu]

maybe the Obama/Pepsi target demographic is experiencing the joys of "funployment"!

[richatatgmu]

great link Rick

first sentence: beyond the realm of traditional advertising and into the world of editorial and entertainment known as content marketing or branded content

ha is that what politics and journalism is all about.

[rse]

Mountain Dew and a goat. Oh My.

Well today's is one of those seminal posts where I pull together how education is being used to sell the self-proclaimed new political economy of the Left. And how the language lays out why Regional Equity and a Social Citizenship vision are so integrally necessary.

http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/future-common-communicative-competence-with-regional-economies-focused-on-effective-social-relationshipsd/

I couldn't help thinking about what the immigration bill does to this already toxic transformation vision. The ultimate socially excluded group in need of being made equal by government in the developed countries.

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

Don't miss Spengler today. It's the best description of our Wile E. Coyote stock market I've seen. The OPM Famine is just starting to bite, there's no Stim left and ZIRP is turning into a very flimsy mask.

I don't know what we'd do without all the new hires in the scientistic data fabrication sector.

[daddy]

Good Morning! And since we're discussing culturally offensive topics...

Captain John Smith: This is excellent chow Pocahontas, can I interest you in another leg bone?

Pocahontas: No thank you Captain Smith, I didn't think I'd like English cooking, but 'm stuffed, absolutely stuffed.

John Rolfe: Me too Captain Smith. Couldn't eat another bite.

Captain John Smith: 'Burp.'

Pocahontas: When my people overeat, we usually take a few puffs of this delightful weed we call tobacco. Can I interest either of you gentleman in taking a couple whiffs? It helps spur digestion.

John Rolfe: Sure Pocahontas. Gimme' that pipe. 'Puff, puff--- cough, cough cough'. Say, that is good Poke. Really helps to settle the stomach after a good meal!

Captain John Smith: 'Burp.'

[Ignatz]

Thanks for the Spengler link, Rick.

[Gus]

Hi!! I'm Kermit Gosnell, and I drink Mountain Dew. You should too!!

Soon.

[Threadkiller]

"Shortly before the charges against Tsarnaev were announced, the White House insisted he would be tried in the US civilian court system, despite pressure from Republicans for him to be treated as an enemy combatant in the "war on terror". Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said: "We have a long history here of successfully prosecuting terrorists and bringing them to justice and the president fully believes that the process will work in this case."

Carney said the decision was taken by Holder and supported by Barack Obama's national security advisers. "We had no choice under the law," said Carney. "He is a US citizen.""

http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/apr/22/boston-bomb-suspect-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-charged

Clarice, AliceH, DoT, I thought his citizenship made no difference? It seems to have narrowed the DoJ's choices.

[richatatgmu]

Rick-

Thanks for the links. When I read the NYT article had a facepalm moment. Young men creating "branded content" for young men...oh this is going to be great (and wouldn't it also be great if those young men you were marketing to, you known, had jobs and money in their pocket-whatever)

daddy-

Saw that earlier so I didn't click the link. Just ate lunch.

[richatatgmu]

not a lawyer but...

Yousef isn't a US citizen and was tried, convicted, and sitting in jail today. Noriega spent a while in Club Fed, pretty sure he isn't a US Citizen. Not sure how citizenship was going to make a difference with how the Boston bomber would be treated.

[Rob Crawford]

Good Morning! And since we're discussing culturally offensive topics...

Weird how quickly they come to that conclusion, when clearer evidence from other cultures is always treated as equivocal at best. Bones that have signs of being cooked in a stew are "possible" signs of cannibalism when it's native tribes.

[Threadkiller]

So, Carney is seeking cover from a non-existent law?

[daddy]

And since the Pentagon is now against any possibility of proselytizing one's Religion in our Military services, it naturally follows that we must now only enlist practitioners of non-proselytizing Religions in our Armed Services filling the roles previously filled by our Military Chaplain Corps.

So no Christians, no Scientologists, no Islam's, no Rastafarian's...who else am I missing amongst the Proselytizers?

On the non-proselytizing side we should still be okay to have Jewish Rabbi's, Taoists, Shintoists, Druids, Animists and Quetzalcoatlists in Uniform.

What about Shakers? They are Christians, but they seem pretty intent on intentionally becoming extinct? Secretary of Defense Hegal, could you and Sally Quinn of the WaPo get together and give us a ruling on Shakers?

[Strawman Cometh]

"We had no choice under the law," said Carney. "He is a US citizen."

"The Great and Powerful Preznint 0 could revoke his citizenship with an executive order, like he passed the Dream Act" says I.

[DoT on iPad]

TK, here's my current understanding, unrefreshed by any research:

--a U.S. citizen can be classified as an enemy combatant. The result of that classification is that he can be held indefinitely and interrogated without a lawyer being present.

--even if he is classified as an enemy combatant, he can still be tried in federal court instead of before a military commission.

--if Tsarnaev were so classified, it would have to be done by a combatant status review tribunal. I doubt that such a tribunal would find him a proper fit for the classification.

--it is hard for me to imagine how it makes much difference at this point. The older brother, had he been taken alive, mighthave warranted a different conclusion, even had he been a citizen.

[NK]

Hamdi held that even US citizens can be detained as Unlawful Combatants, but they have the Due Process right to challenge that status. The various concurring opinions yielded a 4 Justice plurality that due process meant a Habeas Petition to US Dist Court. Joker COULD HAVE been detained as an unlawful combatatant pending charge before the Military Commission, subject to a habeas petiton, which Joker would have probably succeeded on. Carney is, of course, leaving out the details when he says US citizenship requires Indictment in Fed Dist Court, that's not correct, but the reality is if Joker was held as an enemy combatant, the case likely would have wound up there-- b/c there are proabbly no nat security problems with a Dist Ct trial.

[henry]

Daddy, there are always Quakers. We don't proselytize (we are supposed to lead by example... please ignore mine), few of us would be any good at the fighting stuff (pacifism is common, but not universal), and of course we don't have any formal positions like preachers & whatnot (any such person would lead a silent reflection anyway). Oops, I better stop before they draft me.

[richatatgmu]

Didn't see the press conference. Did he mean the law in general terms or a specific law dealing with enemy combatants? Not sure why anyone would be surprised (or even try to make it an issue) that the Boston Bombers are going to be tried in a US court with rights and rules of evidence. Even foreign born subjects are tried in US courts (hell one of the crimes Yousef was convicted of in a US court was bombing a PAL flight that neither took off nor landed at a US destination and the bombing killed and wounded Japanese citizens).

[matt]

daddy:

I would have thought they would have gone out for Indian instead of eating their own.

[richatatgmu]

guess all I really needed to do was wait and read.

NK-

Thanks again for your help. Issue cleared up.

[Jack is Back! (On his iPad)]

daddy,

I think the essence of the new rule is prosylestizing by command coercion. IOW, the C.O. is a protestant and you are a secular private. Do you want to remain an E-2 or an E-5 Baptist some day:)

[Kevin B]

One for the ironists out there, (especially those whose comments are failing to get through despite all the removal of links, LUNs etc. etc.):

At the end of the last thread is the spammiest spam comment in the history of spam comments, consisting, as it does, entirely of links complete with LUN, and which appears to have sailed through Typepad's inestimable spam filter without a glitch.

(and no, I haven't clicked to see what it is yet.)

[Kathy Kattenburg]

Rob Crawford, your 12:36 pm:

"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge" --Thomas Carlyle

"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind." --Henry James

"Take a look in the mirror, look at yourself, but don't you look too hard. 'Cause you just might see the person that you hate the most. Lord, what's happening to this human race? I can't even find one friendly face. Brothers fight brothers, and sisters wink their eyes, while silver tongues bear fruit of poison lies. Take a look at your children, born innocent, every boy and every girl, denying themselves a real chance to make a better world. Oh Lord, Lord, Lord, what's happening to your precious dream? I think it's washing away on a bloody, bloody stream. Take a look at your children before it's too late, and tell them that nobody, nobody wins, when the prize is hate. No, no, no, it's not too late. We gotta tell all of our children that love, love, love, is the way." --Natalie Cole

I agree with you about the word "holocaust" in this context being inappropriate.

[NK]

richgmu-- Carney's 'citizen' stuff misses the point. As DoT pointed out above -- the point of Unlawful Combatant status is to hold and interrogate indefinitely, rather than strictly 'punishment' for a committed crime.the classic example was Hamdi, who was a US citizen suspected of plotting terrorist attacks with AQ associates. The Feds picked him up (at O'Hare if I recall) and then whisked him away to the Navy Brig Charleston to isolate and interrogate him to get intel about any wider potential attacks. Joker seems to lack any national security issues (his laptop may say otherwise--TBD), so it seems that US Dist Ct should be able to try him under Fed Rules Crim Pro. But Mirandizing him and indicting him in Dist Ct before that was all sorted out, was a knee jerk political decision by the despicable Holder. Non-citizens have complete 5th and 14th Amendment Due process rights because they are 'persons'-- the question is what due process is owed to Joker-- Holder refuses to consider Military tribunals because of his bigotted hatred of all things Bush and the Military. Course Carney won't say that.

[Ignatz]

Here is a good discussion on legal issues surrounding religious speech and proselytizing in the military.

[daddy]

Thanks Henry,

BTW, are there any good Quaker jokes? (Besides the obvious one of Sidwell Friends School claiming it's a gun free zone while having 26 Armed Secret Service Agents packing heat to protect the kids of our nations Elites)

For instance, I was brought up Episcopalian, and we always had the one where the guy comes in and says he's an "Ecopalian", and the other guys queries "Ecopalian?", and the punch line is the first guy replies that he went to a Baptist Church to hear a Fire and Brimstone Sermon and it scared the "pis" out of him:)

And I s'pose if we let in Quakers to The Chaplain Corps we'd probably have to let in whirling Dervishes. (Which reminds me---Sue---are there any "Whirling Darvish" jokes?

Let me see, hmmm. Here's the ingredients:

Yu Darvish, Texas Rangers Number 1
Baseball Pitcher, Dad's Iranian, Half Japanese and speaks Jap,

There once was a Jap Whirling Dervish
Whose cutter made Al Pujols nervous
but that was nothing as sad
as when Josh Hamilton played bad
and went 0 for 16 against former teammate Darvish!

Okay, so it ain't Shakespeare:)

[James D.]

Just saw this on Drudge...

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/bradshaw-gets-1-million-for-violence-prevention-un/nXbs4/

Florida House and Senate budget leaders have awarded Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw $1 million for a new violence prevention unit aimed at preventing tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., from occurring on his turf.

Doesn't sound unreasonable. Until you read further...

“Every single incident, whether it’s Newtown, that movie theater, or the guy who spouts off at work and then goes home and kills his wife and two kids — in every single case, there were people who said they knew ahead of time that there was a problem,” Bradshaw said. “If the neighbor of the mom in Newtown had called somebody, this might have saved 25 kids’ lives.”

Bradshaw is readying a hotline and is planning public service announcements to encourage local citizens to report their neighbors, friends or family members if they fear they could harm themselves or others.

The goal won’t be to arrest troubled people but to get them help before there’s violence, Bradshaw said. As a side benefit, law enforcement will have needed information to keep a close eye on things.

“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,” Bradshaw said. “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’

The fact that an elected official who is in a position of public trust could say that, is horrifying.

The fact that he is only one of countless elected officials who feel the same way, and would implement similar programs themselves if they could, is terrifying.

[AliceH]

--Clarice, AliceH, DoT, I thought his citizenship made no difference? It seems to have narrowed the DoJ's choices.--

The question I answered in the affirmative was "is he a citizen". I did not weigh in on whether that was relevant to any other questions.

If I knew your question was a set up, I'd have opted out of playing.

[Jeff Dobbs]

Figure I'll run with the whole log in to typepad thing as a test for a bit.

[Neo]

This odd episode seems to indicate that the Black culture of Hip-hop is at odds with the sensibilities of Blacks, but this is merely a a repeat, a throwback to the 70's ...

They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft.
THEN WE CAN DIG IT!

[Threadkiller]

No setup intended, Alice. I remembered the previous conversation differently, and I was incorrect about what you said.

Sorry.

DoT and NK, thank you for clearing up my concerns over citizenship and its relevance. I was tricked by the statement from Carney barker.

[narciso]

Why does the wider media, celebrate the fratricidal violence and misogyny, because it sells, isn't a good enough reason, conversely, why do high academically talented minorities,
stigmatized, maybe we could take this up with 'former' criminals like Curtis 'fifty cent' Jackson

[daddy]

I blame Global Warming.

Are lingering Winter Conditions what drove a Bear in Kenai last week to go berserk attacking humans?

One has to go back decades to find a season like this on the Kenai Peninsula, where the National Weather Service reported the third-coldest April on record. Couple that with heavy snows in March and near-record snows in April, and spring in the Kenai area ended up looking more like winter, which is not the way any mammals are accustomed to finding things.

All over Anchorage, people can be heard grumping about the non-arrival of spring, which officially swept across America on March 20. In Alaska this year, March 20 turned out to be the heart of the 2012-13 winter. And spring still doesn't appear anywhere close as the calendar rolls into May.

"The cool temperatures combined with the amount of snow received in April has left measurable snow from the season on the ground (in Anchorage) as of May 1st," the National Weather Service said. "This has happened only three times in Anchorage since snow depth measurements have been taken."

The story is much the same across the state.

"April 2013 was among the coldest Aprils in the past 74 years over much of Alaska," the Weather Service said.

That's enough to make any old bear grouchy, so maybe that explains the erratic behavior.

[henry]

Daddy, the most common joke is self-referential: consider thee in thy actions, all things in moderation... especially the thing about moderation.

I'm not sure it translates well to non Friends.

[MarkO]

""A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge" --Thomas Carlyle"

Someone is watching too much TV.

[daddy]

Doesn't sound unreasonable. Until you read further...

“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government,...

I hate the Government. How about somebody post this idiots Office Phone number and we have a national day of calling the SOB up and flooding him with calls from Americans who hate our Government.

Plus he's got the equation backwards. The ones to be afraid of in this Nation are the ones who say that they like our Government.

[Melinda Romanoff net thumbprints]

Howard Kurtz fired from Daily Beast.

[bgates]

“We want people to call us if the guy down the street says he hates the government, hates the mayor and he’s gonna shoot him,” Bradshaw said. “What does it hurt to have somebody knock on a door and ask, ‘Hey, is everything OK?’

To which James D replies,

The fact that an elected official who is in a position of public trust could say that, is horrifying.

Why is that?

[Jane -]

Where and why are you signing up for Typepad? Does it fix the problem?

[bgates]

"We had no choice under the law," said Carney. "He is a US citizen."

The law is clear: A US citizen is entitled to trial in a civilian court with all of the Constitutional protections the Founders wrote plus the ones the Burgher Court discovered, unless it's more convenient for a Democratic President to blow him to hell with a missile.

The more interesting question is which prestigious university gives him a faculty position when he gets out.

[NK]

Here is a Politico article which is hostile, but I believe a factual report about Cruz's aspirations http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/ted-cruz-2016-president-90843_Page4.html

[James D.]

bgates, it's horrifying first of all because it's equating dislike of government or legitimate anger over the behavior of our leaders (such as you can read here every single day), with mental illness or incipient violence.

Yeah, the quote says "hate the government, hate the mayor and hes gonna shoot him", but it's inevitable that the "shoot him" will not be necessary for a call, and that the "hate the government" will be considered enough for an intervention by the police.

And anyone who thinks the police will politely knock on the door, ask if everything's OK, and accept a "yes, we're fine here" with no further trouble, is kidding themselves.

Not to mention the possibility for abuse, as people will inevitably use this new program to settle grudges against their fellows.

This is straight-out totalitarianism, and it has no place in a country that still, supposedly, has a Constitution that means something.

[Jeff Dobbs]

Trying to answer Jane's question about signing up/in to -t y p e p a d- got thrown into spamland.

Typepad FTW!

[Jeff Dobbs]

Hah! It kept putting my comment into spamland until i broke up t y p e p a d like so.

I needed a good laugh.

[James D.]

Jane, right above the box where you type your comment, there's "Comment below or sign in with TypePad Facebook Twitter and more..."

Click on TypePad and it'll take you to a page to register a TypePad account. You can upload an avatar and set your display name. I haven't had any posts eaten since I did that.

The only downside I can see so far is that you can't post a LUN - if you click on the poster's name it takes you to their TypePad profile instead.

I'm trying now without it, just using the form on the screen like usual...

[James D.]

And now I just posted without being logged into TypePad and it worked even with the LUN. I wonder if a second post in a row will work...

[DrJ]

I've never signed in to TypePad, and I've not had a post disappear.

[Jeff Dobbs]

It eats posts just fine while logged in. but now i have a Titos pic with every comment

[Jeff Dobbs]

Melinda:
Howard Kurtz fired from Daily Beast.

Heh. I don't know how American journalism can possibly survive this.

[Melinda Romanoff net principles]

17" of snow in Rice Lake, WI from this storm. Wow.

It is absolutely, stunningly beautiful there, BTW.

[Jack is Back! (On his iPad)]

I suggested everyone sign. in to typepad on the other thread not to ensure ease of posting but to make it more difficult for the Prickster moron to sockpuppet you if you choose a unique avatar he can use. A picture of your garden, pet, a landmark, a building in your area, etc.

[Jack is Back! (On his iPad)]

...he can't use...

I hate typing on iPad,

[rse]

Rich-I am glad your problems are over. In the future though, if you or anyone else is in a dispute with a college or university, I would assume that the administrators may well be able to read your student email account under certain conditions. I would guess they view those conditions differently than you would.

Just a heads up and treat it somewhat like you would a workplace email where your boss might be able to read it.

I'll give you an anecdote. When email first came out and the company was giving out email addresses I would not let them include me. I wanted anyone from our various locations to tell me bad info on the phone. Not in writing via email where it would be subject to discovery.

I hate typing on anything JIB. Hunt and peck.

[Kathy Kattenburg]

""A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge" --Thomas Carlyle"

Someone is watching too much TV.

LOL! I was waiting for that. :-)

[jimmyk]

When I said "largely" before about the black community bringing misery upon itself, I did have in mind what Iggy and James D. said. At the same time, there's nothing race-specific about the welfare state, so the fact that the "poisoned chalice" seems to have affected them the most suggests there's something else at work, and that's the culture and "leadership" like Jesse and Al and all the other race hustlers, as opposed to the Tom Sowells, Clarence Thomases, and Ben Carsons whom the community ought to have as role models.

[Jack is Back! (On his iPad)]

Wow, has the weather been exceptional in Southampton the last 4 days. Our Forsythias are a blooming bright golden yellows, the huge line of Norweian Maples my grandfather planted 100 years ago are budding their light green-yellow flowers and Mrs. JiB is potting all the terra-cotta and stone jars with all these colors of spring flowers. Really a nice quite relaxing time to be here.

Plus our red red robin has come bob bob bobbin along....

[jimmyk]

On the Coke/Pepsi thing, back in the day (like the 70s), I'm pretty sure Coke was Democrat and Pepsi Republican. I vaguely recall Pepsi being a Nixon supporter, and then Coke, with its Atlanta base, being big on Jimmuh. But now it's just all the general corruption of the media and crony capitalism.

[Frau die Kalte]

TypePad likes DrJ *more*...

daddy, Europeans know that frost is not over until St. Sophie the Cold comes and goes on May 15th.

[NK]

JiB-- that fine Southampton weather will continue for another 4-5 days. We are 4+" below average rain since March 1st-- it's getting to be a problem-- drought?- hope not.

[Jack is Back! (On his iPad)]

jimmyk

Role models like RGIII are already being torn down. He's the new Tebow but with better stats. Its really going to get complicated for the pundits and hustlers to damage him without damning themselves. We shall see. Nothing like a paradox to sell more popcorn.

[daddy]

I may have found the answer to Tom Brokaw's quandary about what in American Society made these good kids go bad---Hard "K" penis envy.

If you think about it you'll realize that none of the Tsarnaev's; not Mom, not Dad, not Tamerlane or Dzojar has a "hard K sound anywhere in their identity. Nor is there a hard K sound in their homeland of Russia, Checnya or Dagestan. And they got along just fine and dandy with no hard K sound.

But they come to AmeriKa in the 80's, and on every TV Show about tough guys; Kojak, Kannon, Dirty Harry Kallahan, Kitt (the talking car guy), Captain Kirk, SpocK, 24's JacK Bauer, everybody on Miami' Vice (James "Sonny" Krockett, RiKardo "RiKo" Tubbs, Martin "Marty" Kastillo , Gina Navarro Kalabrese) , Don Korleone, Sonny Korleone, Mikal Korleone, etc, every tough guy on the planet has to have a hard K sound in their names, and here these wimp Chenyian political refugee's show up hard K less.

No matter how hard they try to assimilate into AmeriKan society, they just couldn't fit in no matter how hard they boxed or wrestled in order to be Hard K tough, and it became especially evident after they started hanging with their lone wolf terrorist buddies like Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, who have Hard K's out the ying-yang, and come from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan,etc.

Disenfranchised, and now with horrible cases of AmeriKan induced Hard K penis envy, they go back to the motherland, and whilst touring the old places that they sought political refuge from, they now start looking for their own Hard K's, and where do they find it?

In the Mosques! In the Koran! In the Allah AKbar's of Al Kayda, and IslamicK terrorism against AmeriKans!

So right away Older Bro comes back to AmeriKa armed with Armed K's, dumps the gal-friend he's previously been punching in understandable Hard K penis envy frustration, and quickly marries a hard K Katherine who he Konverts and BurKa's up in nothing flat!

And naturally when his biddies chide him and younger bro' Dzojar about being wimpy non-Hard K boys, they respond by going full Koranic, Ally AkBarish, Islamick, and the rest is history.

Obviously Tom BroKaw and Kris Matthews and Joe SKarborough and MiKa and Larry King and Jimmy Karter and The Klinton's etc could never see the problem because they all already have the Hard K in their names, so they were incapable of seeing, much less understanding the power of Hard K penis envy to create Islamick terrorist amongst nice boys.

Just like you always hoped Mister BroKaw, it is indeed AmeriKa's fault.

I blame KoJaK:

I will be at The Slippery Noodle in Indy for the next couple hours if anybody wants to join me.

[NK]

The Black Family-- Dan Moynihan nailed it's roots and consequences 45 years ago.

But as Murray points out-- white working class families are disintegrating the same way these past 25 years.

[matt]

when I was a kid the local beat cops took an interest in intervening, sometimes physically, when a kid went wrong before it got serious. They knew who the kids were and who the troublemakers were.

Then came the age of "I got rights". So the cops backed off and were called pigs and were spat upon.

Then the pendulum swung a bit the other way and people like Guiliani did a lot to claw back the streets from the hoods.

The crack problem was in the ghettos, where the police had all but given up because there was a very healthy doe of "i got rights" along with defiance and resistance.

Today, an inordinate percentage of the prison population is from the ghetto or its equivalents. Then came 9/11 and the militarization of police forces and a frankly scary government.

It is the combination of militarization and Big Brother that is so troubling. Asking if a neighbor is okay is fine by me, especially if it is the friendly cop or neighbor who is doing the asking.

Setting up another bureaucracy that sounds more like the STASI is another thing altogether.

The imagery is very powerful when you have cops roaming the streets of Watertown in armored vehicles and poots like the guy in Palm Beach County mindlessly parroting the speech of the police state.