WHAT TO READ
You Won't Believe Your Eyes
If you have nothing better to do than to get your blood boiling, here are some things to read, in order from infuriating to aggravating:
- Conservative columnist and talk show host Dennis Prager has sparked a small online movement by suggesting that Minnesota Congressman-Elect Keith Ellison, the first (!) Muslim elected to the House of Representatives, should not be allowed to take his oath on the Koran because "the act undermines American civilization." I hate giving bigots any extra traffic but it's good to remind ourselves what ignorance sounds like.
- "The Manifesto of Ascendancy for the Modern American Nigger" by John Ridley - this month's Esquire features a well-written, thought-provoking, and ultimately frustrating focus on "the new Black America" and the seven days when two black people ruled the world.
- "Borat: The Memo" by George Saunders - I still submit that Sacha Baron Cohen's characters all serve, in large part, as a subtle and subversive mechanism to unearth other's racism, homophobia, intolerance, and ignorance. In my opinion, those arguing that Borat is a cruel version of Candid Camera or that it's a minstrel show debasing people from Kazakhstan aren't getting the point. But then again, George Saunders cleverly raises some painful counterpoints.
- Killing Habeas Corpus by Jeffrey Toobin - In this week's New Yorker, Toobin sheds light on the political backdrop behind the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a dreadful piece of legislation that empowers the White House to declare any alien an enemy combatant, indefinitely detain him, and forbid him from using our courts to challenge his incarceration. He does this mainly by focusing on how Senator Specter severed his own balls.
- "Ten Fallacies About the Violence in Iraq" by John Tirman - I'm not sure how credible or objective Tirman is, but his list certainly bolsters my hunch that McCain's plan to send 30,000 additional troops to Iraq is only inviting further disaster and death.
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