Last night protesters in Oakland, CA rioted after a Los Angeles jury convicted former BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle of Involuntary Manslaughter. Mehserle, a whilte police officer, had been on trial for a highly visible shooting of black Oscar Grant in the back during a 2009 New Year’s Day incident at the Fruitvale BART station.You can see Hawk's coverage of the riots and see his Flickr photo stream.
It's still always about Scout to me because there really aren't that many of those girls. There were hardly any of those girls in our real life, and there aren't that many of them in books. So you store them up as a hedge against the attempts of the world to make you into something else.
Scout is totally real and totally imperfect, and she has the best two words in the book and two of the best words that have ever been put into any book by any writer: "Hey, Boo." There are moments in books that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, and "Hey, Boo" is one of those moments.
Kind of remarkable to see a Republican ad with not a single nonwhite face in any crowd scene.
A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act that prohibits the federal government from recognizing gay marriages...
...While the federal challenge to Proposition 8 currently before a San Francisco judge makes broader claims regarding the unconstitutional nature of state laws barring marriage rights for same-sex couples, GLAD’s lawsuit was a precise attack on DOMA, targeting just one section of the law — Section 3 — that limits the definition of marriage, for all federal purposes, to one man and one woman.
During oral arguments in May, GLAD attorney Mary Bonauto told U.S. district judge Joseph Tauro that DOMA constitutes a “classic equal protection” violation for gay couples who are legally married in Massachusetts. “It takes one class of married people in the commonwealth,” she said, “and divides it into two.”
The kids are learning from the society around them. No one has ever taught them there's no free lunch -- and all they see is "free," not the result of hard work, and saving, and scrimping.
If that's what America's children think -- that there's a free lunch waiting -- then our country has larger problems ahead. The Declaration of Independence promised "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It didn't promise anything free. Something to think about this July 4th holiday weekend.
