If they only had a heart

Now, who looks worse?

Fidel Castro, for being a Communist dictator? Or the U.S. government, for preventing Cuba from donating its runner-up share from the World Baseball Classic to Hurricane Katrina victims?

I mean, we already knew Bush hated black folks. It's just nice to see that his hatred of the non-WASP population can dovetail so smoothly with an ineffective, inhumane, 44-year-old grudge.

Only an East Europeanist Could Love This

Franz Ferdinand Frontman Shot By Gavrilo Princip Bassist

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND—Lead singer and guitarist for pop band Franz Ferdinand, Alexander Kapranos, is in critical condition today after being shot by a man identified as the bassist for rock group Gavrilo Princip. "We ask fans to cooperate with Interpol to find the assailant, and call upon British Sea Power, Snow Patrol, and The Postal Service for help," drummer Paul Thompson told music magazine NME Monday. "The suspect had links to The Decemberists and The Libertines, and we are following up on all leads." It is unclear whether the shooting was linked to The Polyphonic Spree's invasion of Belgium earlier this week.

(via the Onion)

An Army of Dumb

Remember, the U.S. military needs extralegal measures like torture to get hard evidence about terrorist networks.

Weeks after complaining about the garbage, he said, he was surrounded by Humvees, hooded, tied up and carted to a nearby base before being transferred to Abu Ghraib. Then the questioning began.

"They blamed me for attacking U.S. forces," he said, "but I said I was handicapped; how could I fire a rifle?" he said, pointing to his hand. "Then he asked me, 'Where is Osama bin Laden?' And I answered, 'Afghanistan.' "

How did he know? "Because I heard it on TV," he replied.

Yup, solid evidence. I'm glad they subjected him and so many others to torture and other forms of abuse. Now we know with certainty that they're linked to al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations.

Colored by color-blindness

ESPN.com's Pat Forde has a new column remarking on the phenomenon that the consensus two best players in men's college basketball this season happen to be white.

Maybr, as Forde claims, it's newsworthy since such a scenario hasn't been around in 30 years or more, a testament to the great strides blacks have made it finding opportunities and succeeding in the college game.

This occurs at a time when today's college kids seem encouragingly unburdened by The Race Thing. There appears to be less obsessing over race, less distrust between races in today's youth, more melding of black and white music and dress and vernacular. That's societal progress.

Of course Forde unwittingly calls that "societal progress" into question by drawing attention to the fact that, oh yeah, the two best players are white -- in the very next paragraph:

Still, anyone who says they haven't noticed that Redick and Morrison are white hasn't been paying attention. And anyone who shrugs it off as nothing unusual hasn't checked the history books.

The way Forde proceeds to laud the accomplishments of white hoopsters seems almost quaintly reminiscent of how the African American press in earlier years heralded the achievements of blacks who did good. Of course, the black press and community needed to latch onto anything and everything they could when it came to black achievements, since racism and discrimination were rampant in American society, and remain so to a somewhat lesser extent. White achievements in, well, anything aren't noteworthy in the same sense, since last time I checked whites had few institutional and societal barriers to success (see the top management of Fortune 500 companies, which in 2000 was 97 percent white male). Poor widdle whites.

Of course, Forde's column has other, more chilling echoes. Were he to have substituted for "white" the term "Aryan," the piece would've read like some sort of perverse Social Darwinian or National Socialist tract.

All of which, again, is to underscore the point that in the way in which Forde writes of this phenomenon as a harbinger of social progress actually reveals how little road has been traveled in the quest for a real transformation of attitudes on race and equality.

Putting the petty in petit-bourgeois

Centuries from now, when archaeologists and historians try to determine what caused the decline of our society, they can turn to this this article for answers.

Yes, hypercompetitive application processes for preschool are a sign your civilization has grown too decadent to survive.