at this point, i can't remember how i came across this, but the guardian posted a really great spoof article on the 8-year presidency of al gore, under the title "The change we need: After eight long, tiresome years, President Al Gore won't be missed. Even if he did save the planet."
I think I started to dislike Gore when he stirred up a media storm after the Feds broke up the terrorist ring conspiring to fly airplanes into buildings back in 2001. He could have let it pass quietly, as Bill Clinton did with the millennium plot arrests in 2000. Instead, Gore held a press conference to milk it for political gain and scare us into a 15 cent per gallon gas tax. But who can afford to pay over a dollar and a half per gallon? No wonder we're resorting to electric cars these days.
i've seen things like this before, but i'll never not think it's funny. also, this article actually takes a different spin on it, blaming gore for the things he's "done wrong," which we know, in today's reality, to be far better than the situation we find ourselves in currently.
read the rest of the article here.
Showing posts with label article of the day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label article of the day. Show all posts
2.27.2009
12.18.2008
the gays are none too happy with president elect Barack Obama:
Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to deliver the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.
Read the rest of the article here.
12.11.2008
the invisible knapsack, part: 2
another PDF file, found while trying to find the last one i posted.
This article is based on Peggy McIntosh’s article on white privilege and was written by a number of straight-identified students at Earlham College who got together to look at some examples of straight privilege. These dynamics are but a few examples of the privilege which straight people have. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer-identified folk have a range of different experiences, but cannot count on most of these conditions in their lives.
i don't entirely agree with ALL of the points listed (i can't possibly be the only person who's ever been asked to represent the entire heterosexual population, can i?), but again, another good read; can be found here.
This article is based on Peggy McIntosh’s article on white privilege and was written by a number of straight-identified students at Earlham College who got together to look at some examples of straight privilege. These dynamics are but a few examples of the privilege which straight people have. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer-identified folk have a range of different experiences, but cannot count on most of these conditions in their lives.
i don't entirely agree with ALL of the points listed (i can't possibly be the only person who's ever been asked to represent the entire heterosexual population, can i?), but again, another good read; can be found here.
the invisible knapsack
this is an article a coworker gave to me a few months ago that i've been meaning to post:
Through work to bring materials from women's studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women's disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended. Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon with a life of its own, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage. I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.
the author, peggy mcintosh, goes on to list "daily effects of white privilege" in her daily life, some of which are even mildly amusing (#46, "I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin," for example). all in all, it's a great read, and something to definitely be considered.
warning, it's a PDF file. i don't know why you need to be warned about this, but i figure i'll cover my bases, just in case.
Through work to bring materials from women's studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women's disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended. Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon with a life of its own, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage. I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.
the author, peggy mcintosh, goes on to list "daily effects of white privilege" in her daily life, some of which are even mildly amusing (#46, "I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin," for example). all in all, it's a great read, and something to definitely be considered.
warning, it's a PDF file. i don't know why you need to be warned about this, but i figure i'll cover my bases, just in case.
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