Three-fer.

[kyburg]

Something I was tempted to do with yesterday's comments - but didn't - was respond to each one with a version of 'people who would abandon pets in situ have done it - it's the NICE people who are doing it now and you should fear.'

I had the cat with five kittens brought to me - but then again, Jim asked for that so I can't balk. But I strongly suspect I'll find something tied to the mailbox anyday now waiting for us to come take over. Or left in a box on the doorstep.

The dicks have had their day - it's people who have called everyone in town and found out the Real Story that are placing their pets themselves...without asking. Because if they did use the services their taxes paid for (not so well, actually), they'd find their pet would be euthanized within three days or less...and I think people truly love their pets. So. You see the other option employed.

Could have said it three times and more. People, watch for it.



And last, but not least - an oldie but a goodie - On the one hand, of course, such slurs are quite obviously inappropriate and offensive, and ought not to be used. That said, I pointed out that even the mention of the words “honky” and “cracker” had elicited laughter; and not only from the black students in attendance, but also from other whites.

The words are so silly, so juvenile, so utterly pathetic that they hardly qualify as racial slurs at all, let alone slurs on a par with those that have been historically deployed against people of color.

The lack of symmetry between a word like honky and a slur such as “nigger” was made apparent in an old Saturday Night Live skit, with Chevy Chase and guest, Richard Pryor.

In the skit, Chase and Pryor face one another and trade off racial epithets during a segment of Weekend Update. Chase calls Pryor a “porch monkey.” Pryor responds with “honky.” Chase ups the ante with “jungle bunny.” Pryor, unable to counter with a more vicious slur against whites, responds with “honky, honky.” Chase then trumps all previous slurs with “nigger,” to which Pryor responds: “dead honky.”

Jesse Jackson is an idiot.

And I've had less than four hours sleep. Expect weirdness.

Comments

[kshandra]

<nitpick>It wasn't Weekend Update. It was a job interview (transcript here).</nitpick>

[tomlemos.livejournal.com]

Jesse Jackson is an idiot.

I couldn't agree more.

[makeitepic.livejournal.com]

na nanananananananana katamari democracyyyy

[stormdragon.livejournal.com]

It's a real damned shame that Obama supported the FISA bill. I really wanted to like the guy.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I really wish Boxer had ran instead of Clinton. Really really.

[turandot.livejournal.com]

'people who would abandon pets in situ have done it - it's the NICE people who are doing it now and you should fear.'

That's why I abstained from commenting. Once you hear enough reports of people leaving their dogs in their home with just a bag of food and some water after they have to vacate them following foreclosure, or about people abandoning three week old litters of kittens by the side of the highway, your expectations change.

I couldn't help but think to myself: "Well, at least they decided to leave it with someone who looked friendly and could possibly help. For all the person who found her knows, the person who left her is a neighbor who's already sized the woman up as the kind of person who wouldn't take the pup straight to a shelter." It's sad that one's expectations are lowered so, but it's really tough out there. A lot of people end up with no home and not knowing a soul who could take them in during their tough times, let alone knowing anyone who could take their dog.

I have a friend on my FL who has two dogs. He and his wife just got evicted from his house. Her friends, who they lived with while they got back on her feet faced foreclosure on their home, so everyone had to leave by the 10th. The wife was disabled, and was waiting for disability to kick in, and he kept getting laid off every place he's worked for the past five years due to budget cuts. They have no support aside for lots of friends who themselves are cash strapped and close to the brink of falling through the cracks themselves.

Anyway, they had the hardest time finding someone who would take him in with his pets. Even the wife's brother, her only living relative *sic*, was like "You, your husband and the pug can come stay with me [at their mother's house, who he either inherited or muscled his sister out of after their mom died] for a week at most, but the Great Dane is not welcome here". :( They declined the offer, and managed not to relinquish their Great Dane (when it got really bad, I pointed him to a couple of rescue groups for Great Danes in his area), but now they're living in a one story house with 11 people and eight pets. Can you say overcrowding? The next step for the guy is living under a bridge with his dogs (because he loves his pets and he's like "No, I can't give them up to a shelter, that would just destroy me - besides I've been homeless before, and I know what to expect."

[foogod.livejournal.com]

Fankly, the fact that he thinks that "honky" can't be just as nasty as "nigger" just proves to me that he's never actually heard the word used by somebody who truly means it, with full venom behind it (and I have heard this (I should note, not aimed at me), and it was every bit as chilling as "nigger" would be in other contexts).

But then it also begs another question: Is racism only racism when somebody's expressing it with racial slurs? If we get rid of the word "nigger", does racism against blacks stop being racism? Or is, perhaps, the important racism, the stuff we should be worrying about, the kind that isn't said outright, with nasty words, but instead harbored under the surface, shrouded by a veneer of social appropriateness, the kind that doesn't need a horribly offensive epithet to exist at all?

The belief that racism can only exist in one direction is itself a fundamentally racist belief: It is stating that one group of people is inherently incapable of doing something that another can, based solely on the color of their skin.

[djdig.livejournal.com]

Your "nerds for Obama" button just inspired my post.

[moropus.livejournal.com]

I live on a dirt road. We get drop offs. The local animal shelter makes you pay to drop them off and if you could pay, you might be able to feed your pet.

However, when I drive by early in the morning, I notice lots of cardboard boxes and dogs tied to the fence.

[monkeyfruit.livejournal.com]

I have a problem. Based on her name, the nickname I've been calling my little sister for most of her life is 'Honky'. This is a BIG problem when I want to call her over from a distance in public. Sigh.