ladies[heart]tk

When Air America first started broadcasting I tuned in on a regular basis.  One day during a show co-hosted by Janeane Garofalo, the on-air crew was beefing with Condoleeza Rice.  This was during the ramp-up to the war in Iraq.  One of the male hosts started ripping on Secretary Rice’s physical appearance, describing her as a “gargoyle.” I kept listening for a while waiting for Janeane or one of the other hosts to jump all over him but it didn’t happen.  That was the last time I ever listened to Air America.

It’s perfectly valid to disagree with Secretary Rice on her policy views, but trivializing her accomplishments by dissing on her face is what I would expect of a buffoon like Don Imus.  Raise your hand if you’ve reversed a $20 million budget deficit at an elite research university.  I didn’t think so.

Now Governor Palin is being subjected to the same frat-boy treatment.  Like any troglodyte on frat row Joe Biden is talking about her appearance because that’s the easiest way to trivialize a woman’s accomplishments.  No fat chicks, right Joe?

WTF?  What do her looks have to do with anything?    It’s so trite.  So disappointing.

At first I pooh-poohed the Clinton camps claims of sexism in the DNC, but the more I think about it the more irritated I become.

I was infuriated when I read this opinion piece in the WSJ advocating that the U.S. drop its H1-B visa cap on high tech workers. The author, Shikha Dalmia, says that the U.S. will lose its competitive edge unless it works harder to attract smart people from other countries to move and stay here. Around the same time, there was a spate of news stories about the extremely high dropout rate in American urban centers - in some places as high as 50%. Some journalists danced around the issue but David Harsanyi of the Denver Post frames the issue bluntly:

This catastrophe is predominantly about minority kids living in inner cities.

So on the one hand, we have American businesses fiercely lobbying for the opportunity to hire more knowledge workers from second world countries like India and China and on the other hand we have American kids who have voluntarily checked out of the labor market and who will in all likelihood burden society until their dying breath.

I have an idea. If we need skilled labor so badly, why can’t we up-skill some of these kids who are dropping out of high school? Why do we need to go halfway around the world to find workers? It is frickin appalling that someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language can come over here and take jobs away from kids who were educated in America.

I realize that I am coming off as a nativist but I don’t give a crap because you know what? Those dropout kids are in a competition, whether they like it or not. They’re not just competing with rich kids from the suburbs. No they’re competing with kids who come from places where there’s no food to eat; kids who will come over here and eat their lunch without a second thought. What the effin eff is going on?  How can we have let these kids down so badly? Why can’t our society produce people we can employ?

Boy the left is sure doing a good job of eviscerating itself.  Is dethroning Hillary a pyrrhic victory?  Republicans are squirming with delight.

I wish Obama and Clinton would stop saying they’re going to “end the war.” What they really mean is that they’re going to quit fighting. It’s not the same thing. War has afflicted the Middle East for centuries and it will continue to do so whether or not the U.S. is there to play shot-caller. Now if Obama and Clinton want to throw in the towel, they should just say that and be done with it. But claiming that they’re going to “end the war” is just messianic self-aggrandizement. Talk about American hubris.

I am sick and goddam tired of seeing black comics ridiculing Asian people. It seems every other time I tune into Def Comedy Jam there’s another black comic making fun of the way Asian people talk, the jobs we have, how we look, what we wear, what we eat. Yes, some Asian people do have accents. But guess what? They’re bi-lingual! How many Americans can say they’re bi-lingual? Aside from the plain racism of these buffoons, the sad fact is, they’re not even funny. Which is why it really puzzles me to see an entire audience laughing along with these so-called comics. What’s so funny about picking on someone else’s culture?