So you’ll remember that on Tuesday, a DOJ report found that John Tanner, the former chief of the department’s voting rights section, had told a colleague over email in 2004 that he liked his coffee “Mary Frances Berry style — black and bitter.” Berry, an African-American, was at the time the chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights.
Now Tanner is trying to make amends. Moments ago he forwarded to TPMmuckraker a letter of apology he sent to Berry dated January 13.
The backstory compounds Tanner’s predicament.
Schlozman surrounded himself with like-minded officials at the Department of Justice. When he was due to meet in 2004 with John Tanner, then chief of the Voting Section, he asked how Tanner liked his coffee.
“Mary Frances Berry style — black and bitter,” Tanner replied by e-mail, referring to the African American woman who chaired the U.S. Civil Rights Commission from 1993 to 2004.
Amused, Schlozman circulated the e-mail. “Y’all will appreciate Tanner’s response,” he wrote.
Tanner only apologized after the DoJ Inspector General report on Schlozman revealed that little gem to the general public, over a month after a black guy won the race for President. If Tanner thought that people might misunderstand his little gem then he might have spoken up while his boss was forwarding it around the DoJ.
You know, I can understand conservatives saying incredibly offensive things to each other when they think they have the room to themselves. It’s who they are, and the more ideologically pure a conservative gets the further his private statements get from anything a normal person would say in public.
What I don’t get is how these guys always deny themselves three times when they get caught. People like Tanner always claim that they couldn’t possibly mean to say what they obviously said. Refusing to stand behind what they say suggests an insecurity about their beliefs, a fundamental emotional immaturity. Unlike Aryan Nations types who at least stand behind their (sick, hateful) opinions with pride, all that Tanner has to take home now is shame.
jibeaux
Plus, badly plagiarizing Airplane! movies has got to have some consequences…
Ash Can
He can apologize by singing like a canary in an investigation of the politicization of the DoJ under Bush, Gonzales et al.
…What? I can dream, can’t I?
ed
Republicans.
Shygetz
I think the fact that racists feel public shame when outed as racists is progress. I would actually feel worse if Tanner had replied "Yeah, I said it, so what?"
Notorious P.A.T.
At least he’s apologizing. That makes. . . one in a row.
gopher2b
Meanwhile, Boner is going ballistic over the $850 Billion stimulus package. I gave it a quick review and the only silliness I noticed was 16.5 Billion for more Pell grants. The rest looks like real job creation stuff in areas we need (infrastruture and alternative energy…btw, we need to come up with another name for "alternative energy").
Also, not to harp on my critcisms of TARP but Citi and Bank of America are about to fail along with our $75 Billion in "investments" in them. All I have read since last fall is that letting Lehman fail was the worst mistake eva, but somehow this was better.
Delia
Racist comments with the gang around the water cooler? Anyone can do it.
Immortalizing your racist snark in an email to your boss? Priceless.
Sniveling and groveling as everyone scrambles to save themselves in the Days of the New Order? Pass the popcorn.
Jon H
On the one hand, they’re authoritarians. On the other hand, they get off on the feeling that they’re getting away with being naughty. They’re like students misbehaving when the teacher walks out of the room.
Delia
@gopher2b:
Oh crap. My account’s with B of A. I was sort of okay up to now, if you don’t count my IRAs crashing.
ppcli
Read his letter – it’s the Platonic form of an ass-covering non-apology "apology".
.
"I’m sorry what I said has given people a bad impression of me because of course, I’m really a wonderful guy who’s done noble things all my life."
jake 4 that 1
But if Berry doesn’t accept his apology, call him a wonderful human being and shine his shoes the GOP will declare her an ANGRY BITTER NEGRESS.
El Cid
The honest version of the apology:
‘I extend my most sincere regrets that anything I said may have caused me any degree of inconvenience. I assure you that at no time were my words intended to cause me any trouble whatsoever.’
Comrade Dread
If one is going to make racist jokes, can I at least encourage them to spend some time watching some comedians (Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, etc.) and make funny ones?
gopher2b
@Delia:
Savings account? If so, your fine. Its FDIC insured (up to $125 or $250k…can’t remember if they changed it). Plus, I just read on that BofA is getting another 100-200 billion.
Ruth
These creeps think everyone agrees with them, but it’s politically incorrect to say racist disgusting things, so we restrain ourselves. They’re encouraging us to let our hair down and go ahead and be the creeps they think we all are. Sorry, I live in TX, I know a lot of them.
John Cole
How about… ENERGY.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell a difference if my grill cheese is cooked on an electric stove fueled by solar power or by coal burned electricity.
Shygetz
Didn’t BoA recently engage in a distressed assets buying spree to take advantage of everyone else’s difficulties? And now they’re on the verge of failing? Does not compute…
Comrade Stuck
@Delia:
Indeed!
The Moar You Know
@Shygetz: I wouldn’t. I like knowing if a person thinks of my fellow human beings as being "people" or "niggers". It’s going to influence how I deal with them quite a bit.
Pretty obvious what category Tanner falls under.
Captain Goto
Is it just me, or when the Schloz’s nauseating mug comes on the screen, along with that whiny excuse for a voice, does *everyone else* have to restrain the overwhelming urge to hit him in the face with the Empire State Building?
The Empire State Building…with 6-foot steel spikes coming out of every window?
nota bene
Both Notorious and Cole are right….it is progress that the guy feels the need to apologize once he’s caught, and JC’s right that it makes him a fucking loser who can’t be man enough to own up to what goes thru his own head.
That is the pattern….lots of passive voice, "mistakes were made," bullshit. They apologize for the existence of controversy rather than the bad act that caused the controversy in the first place, as if the real bad act were to notice that somebody is behaving badly and to say so publicly.
That’s been the formula employed on behalf of racists, thieves, torturers, bribe-takers, murderers, and airport-bathroom-stall-solicitors. All these people trying to hold these jackasses to account are themselves guilty of causing such a bad scene, not me, cause I’m all Family Values and shit.
Shygetz
@The Moar You Know: Sure, but the fact that they feel shamed by society when their bigotry is publicized shows that their views are on the way out, which is a net win. The alternative is the ’60’s, where it was socially acceptable to redline blacks because they weren’t clean people. Sure, you knew who the racists were, but that didn’t help you if you were black and trying to buy a house.
Just Some Fuckhead
WTF? That’s funny shit there.
bootlegger
Who likes bitter coffee? Dude’s obviously a loon.
former capitalist
Unfortunately, these guys are imbedded in every nook and cranny in DC. It’ll take years to find them and clean them out. (I suppose the PE’s folks could just look for grads from Regency, Liberty and ORU and show them the door, but I suspect they’ll have bigger fish to fry.)
The Other Steve
I did not mean to offend anyone. If you felt offended, then I’m sorry you feel offended.
The Other Steve
The GOP seems to be having a bit of a problem with this Eric Holder guy.
First off, the bastard apologized for doing something dumb.
Then he said they were all living in a pre-9/11 world.
They’ve resorted to asking him whether or he’ll start enforcing the ADA for unborn children.
update: I though holders response was lame. He should have said "The law as written doesn’t support that. If you can get the law rewritten and survive reelection, I suppose I’d have to enforce it as you wish."
But then that’d be snarky, and he’s try to be pleasant.
Just Some Fuckhead
Christ, when did Balloon-Juice turn into Daily Kos?
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Refusing to stand behind what they say suggests an insecurity about their beliefs, a fundamental emotional immaturity.
I agree about the emotional immaturity, but I think they’re plenty secure in their beliefs. They’re just worried that, once they’re associated with those beliefs publicly, they’ll – well, be disapproved of by the mass of faggy, pacifistic liberals who couldn’t hurt a flea, according to them. And that’s scary to a real manly-man.
For some reason.
Brick Oven Bill
I’d disagree with you and add a third category John, those who believe that the evolution of the human brain did not stop 30,000 years ago, and that this further evolution was influenced by environmental and societal pressures. The real hypocrites, in my opinion, are those types who mock Creationism, and then go on to argue that only the human form, and not the mind, have evolved since a few hundred people left West Africa.
And, in a twist, these evolution-deniers are in part responsible for bitterness in certain communities. If you spread the message that everybody is biologically-equal, and then some segments of society underperform in certain tasks, this can cause bitterness in these communities, who logically blame social structure. I have come to terms that my body does not seem to be designed to run marathons.
I get the chance to work in Central America from time to time and there is very little evolution-denial. People seem to get along better. I talk about this in public and do not think I am hateful.
‘Black and bitter’ is a common term for ordering coffee. So is ‘black and sweet’ (sugar), ‘blonde and bitter’ (cream), and ‘blonde and sweet’ (sugar and cream). This term is then commonly followed by the phrase, ‘just like I like my women’. I guess that makes me hateful.
Rainy
I cannot stand people like those guys. It’s like they get off on being cruel and mean to others. What’s the point?
Cyrus
@gopher2b:
Not to worry anyone unduly, but "you’re fine" is putting it a little strongly. Link.
How much money has already gone up in smoke? Over a trillion? Even if only five percent of that would result in personal savings accounts vanishing, that’s more than the total reserve of the FDIC. And that article came from August 2008, so I imagine things haven’t got better since then.
Corner Stone
@Shygetz
Of course it does. This is what happens every few decades when the little people start acquiring a little too much of the property/goods/education. Now BAC is poised to not only be wayyy too fricking big to fail, but they’re going to not fail by using all our money to not fail with. They’ve swallowed up lesser (but still shuge) weaker competitors, but now who could possibly take them on?
The banks like BAC will scream at the top of their lungs how their failure is imminent, their paid shills in Congress and punditland will bleat helpfully that "we simply can NOT allow BAC to fail!!11!", they will be approved for probably 6 or 7 rounds of public funds with no oversight. They’ll then stick that cash on their swiss cheese balance sheets, never display them to the light of day, but keep sending out periodic warnings about how bleak things still look. They won’t lend anyone a fucking penny so the little guys will be laid off, lose their home, have their kids drop out of college and become future potential wage slaves, then the banks will miraculously swoop in through proxies and purchase up all the good real estate/collateral. AND by then they’ll most likely have tapped into SS as well (since it’s really the only source of wealth left) so all us little sheeple will be absolutely well and truly F’ed.
Bank on it.
Comrade Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Shorter Corner Stoned — Jump you sheeple motherfuckers, your all gonna die anyway.
J Royce
Dear Fuckhead,
What does this mean: "Christ, when did Balloon-Juice turn into Daily Kos?"
I’m being serious, what are you talking about .. ?
Comrade Stuck
@J Royce:
Ever watch the episode of MASH where every day at 5 pm some dude flew his airplane over the camp and dropped a grenade. I think they called him 5 O’Clock Charlie, or something. Well, our 5 O’Clock Fuckhead is doing his duty at BJ.
Joey Maloney
It just so happened that last night I met someone who claimed that he went to school with Tanner and worked with him about 15 years ago, when they were both junior staffers at DoJ. Back then, Tanner supposedly was a straight arrow, worked his cases diligently and was highly professional in every way.
He had no explanation for how the Tanner he knew could have morphed into someone who would make the Berry crack or would even find it funny. We speculated he was going along to get along with the Bushite scum that came to infest Justice. Personally I find that more despicable than if he were a stone bigot from the get-go.
Shygetz
@Brick Oven Bill:
So please, enlighten us…which society and/or environment exerted selective pressure to breed dumbasses? And how did they manage to maintain a stable societal pressure for the thousands of years required to effect meaningful evolutionary change in a large population, when human societies tend to be measured in the hundreds of years? And how was evolutionarily meaningful change accomplished in roughly 1200 generations, when multiple studies have found that usually tens of thousands of generations are required for meaningful evolutionary change?
Or maybe you have no idea what you’re talking about, and just try to use evolution to justify your preconceived racist ideas to those without the proper education to challenge your bullshit? Maybe that’s it.
James F. Elliott
Hah! My grandfather liked to tell the story of "Bedcheck Charlie," a German fighter pilot who would strafe the supply depot he was stationed at during the Battle of the Bulge. Now I wonder if grandpa was fibbing!
Deborah
And people laughed that the Obama people were asking something to the effect of "Have you at any time sent a stupid or embarrassing e-mail?"
Also, second Shygetz and add that you need to keep your population isolated, not interbreeding with every group of traders or marauders who pass through. For millennia.
Tonal Crow
You’re incorrect. Their attempts to transform their heartfelt opinions into "jokes" when caught are a sophisticated rhetorical technique. It aims to (1) signal their hard-right supporters that they really believe that stuff; (2) create enough ambiguity so that many others will give them the benefit of the doubt; and (3) paint their opponents as humor-hating, free-speech-infringing, Nanny-State scolds.
I tell you, whatever else these guys do, they (or their masters) sleep with a copy of Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ (and Sun Tzu’s _Art of War_) under their pillows.
gex
Ah yes, the sweet sounding apologies of a right-wing asshole.
My employer sent around one of those "Real American" emails at work which included calling people like me non-Americans. I raised a stink and received the boilerplate asshole apology. He was "sorry if anyone was offended" in his follow up email. Because as you know, it was our fault for being offended, not his fault for being offensive.
Cyrus
@Shygetz:
To be fair, is this accurate? I thought punctuated equilibrium was the latest thinking on evolution, the idea that some/most changes happen relatively quickly, followed by long periods of relative stability.
gbear
@Brick Oven Bill:
B.O.B., I’ll buy your coffee for you if you go into a Starbucks and loudly ask for a coffee that’s "black and bitter, just like that person sitting over there". Make sure you point out the person so the barista knows just what you want. I’ll buy you a coffee any and every time you want to do that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@J Royce: Politically correct, maximizing offense at every little thing, shrill. Not the front pagers of course, the commenazis and the regularly recommended diaries telling everyone how to behave.
Pardon my friend Stuck in the Past. He’s on a quest to discover how irrelevant he is.
Delia
Something suddenly comes to mind about monopoly capitalism and ever widening crises . . .
Michael D.
@John Cole:
I usually toast my grilled cheese over a coal fire.
Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm TOASTY!
Brick Oven Bill
Dogs were wild until around 12,000 years ago. Border Collies have different minds than Greyhounds. The family adopted a greyhound once and, when thrown a ball, it kept running straight. That was the last time they saw that dog.
The subject of HBD and representative government has been the toughest issue our Republic has faced. People from all areas have traits all over the bell curve, so denying political empowerment based on race is unfair. Lincoln intended to deny political empowerment based on race, my thought is to tie political empowerment to performance in society. This seems fair and functional. Try and tell me that Detroit has a functioning representative government.
I figure that political empowerment should be awarded to people paying $3k/yr in federal taxes. I set this number based on the labor of a truck driver. I cannot think of a fairer system that is sustainable in the long term.
demimondian
@John Cole: Oh, you’ll be able to tell. The difference? Price and reliability.
Shygetz
@Cyrus: Punctuated equilibria requires large-scale die-offs due to catastrophic selective pressures, and has mainly to do with macroevolutionary events. If you were talking about something like evolving resistance to smallpox or the Black Death, perhaps you could argue punctuated equilibria towards evolution of resistance factors in urbanized Europe versus, say, the Native American population. If you’re arguing about black people being genetically stupid, you’d have to find a large-scale die-off of smart people in Africa. Good luck with that.
les
Cyrus, true enough; but "relatively quickly" in this context is still tens of millions of years; and it takes isolated populations subject to "rapid" environmental change. It takes ignorance, bigotry or trollishness to argue that there’s been significant differential evolution between human "races".
Napoleon
@Cyrus:
I think punctuated equilibrium has held sway with a significant chunk of scientist active in the evolution debate for some time (20+ years) and personally, as someone who reads a lot in that area, I have always been sold on the theory. For what its worth the more they learn about how genes work it seems to me the actual mechanics of it point strongly to punctuated equilibrium being something that could easily happen in the real world since a very very small chunk of your genetic material basically operate as the genetic high command, meaning that very small changes in that code could have very profound consequenes. In fact some believe that chimps carry the same "worker type" genes as man, the differance between us and them being the command genes.
les
@Brick Oven Bill:
Dear BOB: the plural of anecdote is not data.
Shygetz
So you’re saying that some intelligent race came along and selectively bred white people. Didn’t realize you were a Raelian.
Yes, you are a living example of that. Fortunately for you, I am willing to allow you the franchise with the trust that those more capable of rational thought will outweigh your stupidity at the polls.
Well, we’ve managed to get along without property requirements here for, oh say, 150-200 years here with no signs of stopping. So perhaps we shouldn’t be weighed down too much by your lack of vision (and lack of understanding about evolution).
Xenos
@Brick Oven Bill: The arc of the cognitive universe bends toward idiocy.
Justathought for MLK weekend.
Napoleon
@Cyrus:
And a PS, with closer tracking of populations of certain animals over the last 50-100 years there is some amazing evidence of some fairly rapid evolutionary change even in some fairly small windows (20-40 years). It is my understanding that due to evolution it is possible to tell if someone comes from Icelandic stock with genetic test, and even what part of Iceland, even though they are a group that has been apart from the general population from which they came only around 400-500 years.
I would completely agree.
El Cid
I want more of our evolutionary science to be carried out by people reflecting on their common sense deductions about dogs and stuff. That seems like a real scientificky way forward.
nathaniel
I am going to have to disagree with some of you. Yes it the comment was completely inappropriate but I don’t necessarily see racism here. The comment was about a physical trait, yes this trait was skin color, but to me it is no difference then if he was calling her ugly.
In this isolated incident, and my opinion would change if there were mulitple incidents, I don’t see evidence of racism. There is nothing in the comment suggesting that he thinks this women is inferior due to her race, just that he doesn’t think highly of her for some reason. Again I am not ruling out race as that possible reason, I just don’t have enough evidence to say for certain.
BP in MN
JSF,
For me it’s not that the comment in and of itself is so offensive that it requires a serious apology. It’s a combination of the ridiculous non-apology apology and, more importantly, the context and the attitudes toward the job that the guy exhibits.
Other people have covered the hugely lame apology. But the reason it’s offensive is the outlook the comment reveals about Tanner’s view of his job, the job he’s doing on behalf of all of us. A woman who’s worked her whole life to make sure black people can exercise their Civil Rights is dismissed as "bitter" by the people who are supposed to be enforcing those rights. That’s the really offensive part: the contempt for upholding the laws of this country. The joke is just the tipoff of the his and Schlozman’s attitudes.
Napoleon
?? The common ancestor to Chimps, Bonobos and Humans lived 5-7m years ago. Only 1.1 to 3.1m years from that date we have fossil evidence of australopithecus afarensis (of which Lucy is the most famous example) having come out of the trees and moved on to the plains of Africa, walking on 2 legs, and likely having a significantly differant social structure (i.e there is a good arguement to be made they were monogamous by that time and lived in families). The Chimp/Bonobo split is a million years ago, and in a lot of ways they are significantly differant animals.
BTW, using genetic test the 3 are the 3 closest related living things on Earth.
Brick Oven Bill
I’ll tell you why I want to believe in a certain degree of Creationism in humans, flipping the argument. The four roommates were away at training, leaving me along in the apartment, asleep. Then there was a noise in the next room. When you hear this, your mind goes into denial mode, and tries to convince you that this is not happening.
Your entire conscience changes and time moves extraordinarily slow. This is not just me, soldiers report seeing unusual cans moving through the air, that are later identified as spent cartridges, in firefights. Then you get into the fight or flight mode in seconds that seem like minutes. You can feel your fingers. You plan your actions and go through them multiple times in a short period of time. Scream, rise, loudly cock the spring action, and hope whatever is next door gets scared off.
And then, when it is done, your whole body aches. Not from physical stress, but from the adrenalin. I hope this was created in us instead of being evolved into us through the process of unimaginable stacks of bodies.
JL
@nathaniel: Now that’s who I would want in the Civil Rights Division of Justice. NOT
Comrade Stuck
"If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."
Yogi Berra
Just Some Fuckhead
@BP in MN: Well, when ya drive past the actual comment (which was a riff joke off the theme of a joke that people make all over the country every day, whether it’s "black and hot" or "black and sweet" or "brown and sugary", etc.) into the uncharted territory of what you think it might indicate, where to stop? Surely the man wears underwear with swastikas and drinks the blood of ethnic children, right? And if not, well, we can’t really know, can we?
So why do I care what you feel like his comment indicates?
It’s not a racist comment and it doesn’t say anything about him except he made a mean joke and got called out. To my mind, he’d be a nice fit in the BJ comment threads.
Edit: Remember how we heard 5000 outraged versions of what "You’re likable enough, Hillary" actually meant?
El Cid
John Bolton wouldn’t have apologized. John Bolton would have followed up by screaming and throwing staplers at the woman.
El Cid
Also, Macaca!!
demimondian
@Just Some Fuckhead: Is it a tasteless comment? Yes. Is it tasteless by the standards of the fine products of our own comment section? Hell, no. Is it appropriate for someone *in the voting rights section of the civil rights division of the USDOJ* to make? Equally, hell, no.
Delia
@Brick Oven Bill:
I read in some scientificky journal that people who build brick ovens in their backyards have several genes floating loose on their chromosomal strands. It’s supposed to produce a tendency to pontificate pointlessly on the internets. Pretty frightening stuff.
Just Some Fuckhead
@demimondian: The man merely made a riff joke off the I like my ____ like I like my ____, _____ and ____. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with the voting or civil rights, no matter how much you excitedly make that claim. Try bolding more words next time.
Edit: What kinda fucked up priorities do you have to possess to excuse the Israeli’s egregious and murderous behavior towards the Palestinians, for instance, while insisting a stupid joke is the end of the world? Just curious.
les
@Napoleon:
True; sorry, I was not clear, but was thinking of the Cambrian "explosion" which is an anti-evolution touchstone, with major body plan and other species changes occurring "suddenly." Homo Sap has had a couple hundred thousand years to work; still leaving poor BOB with bigotry…er, egg…on his face.
Comrade Stuck
I do believe the point of Tim’s post was not that it was so awful what he said, but that wingnuts tend to deny what they say, which is especially rich in that he emailed the remark to others. And then offered a smarmy non apology apology.
demimondian
@Just Some Fuckhead: Simple. You’re a hypocrite, Fuckhead. I’m not.
HyperIon
People like to make fun of other people.
Some people mock others for saying stupid things, acting inappropriately, etc. IMO dim Repubs mock people for being black.
This is rather like the dim Repub who talked about how the president’s residence would no longer be called the White House. Ha ha!
It’s not about racism; it’s about dim Repubs who have the mocking skills of a 12 year old boy.
At some point children grow up and realize that some topics are best avoided when telling jokes that might be made public.
But I agree with someone upthread: the main issue here is the "apology" and that only now he thinks he has to apologize…after he has been exposed as a dim Repub.
Douche Baggins
I like my coffee how I like my men: pale, weak and bitter. Oops, gotta run, EEOC staff meeting in 5.
r€nato
uh, I do. I love italian espresso with only a little sugar to take the edge off.
BC
Tanner said this to Schlozman because he knew Schlozman was a racist and would appreciate it. Then, fates (or an election) intervene and the new boss is not the same as the old boss (and the old boss may be in a world of hurt legally), so Tanner makes his fake apology. You recognize the type – the asskisser of the office. He’s the guy who laughs at all the boss’s jokes, offers to run all the errands the boss wants, takes credit for what his underlings do, throws said underlings under the bus when the boss doesn’t approve of what they do – you know him and have only contempt for him. He is a contemptible being. Maybe not racist, just one of those brown nosers who have no actual principles or integrity.
Xenos
Of course, we could always check to see if ANY FUCKING ANIMALS have demonstrated the ‘fight or flight’ response, COULDN’T WE?
Christ. I would say you are completely useless, but I would really love to have a hand-built brick oven in my back yard. Fuck science. I need pizza.
demimondian
@Xenos: Dude. BOB is clinging bitterly to the notion that human brain capacity has evolved significantly since we developed language. It’s all he’s got to hold on to — otherwise, he’d have to admit that he really is as stupid as he seems
Comrade Darkness
@Xenos: have a hand-built brick oven in my back yard.
Have you seen this site?
traditionaloven.com
If you build the uber version you can cook for ten hours after the fire goes out. I have a notion of building one of these and hosting bread parties, where everyone brings their loaves of dough.
Comrade Darkness
@Shygetz,
It computes perfectly. They kept their noses clean through the debacle, decided they wanted a piece of the taxpayers flesh like all their golfing buddies, bought up enough crap to make themselves absolutely too big to fail, and now have their hand out.
What’s to be confused about?
Crazy like slimy, greedy foxes.
Brick Oven Bill
Just to clarify, because some people here have been known to project in the past, and the comment was in moderation for a while, that incident happened to me junior year. The noise in the next room was an intruder, who ran through the apartment and jumped off a second-story porch. There is a police report.
The subject was creation and/or evolution of the human brain. I hope a large part of it was created for us, because the amount of evolution necessary to produce the changes in brain chemistry and physiology that I experienced that night is sobering. This is consistent with my life philosophy that our collective goal should be to minimize human suffering.
Tonal Crow
@BoB:
As already has been pointed out to you, even tadpoles experience the fight-or-flight response. Further, casual observation will not infrequently show you the response among common higher animals. BTW, who created the Creator?
Whether you accept the fact of evolution has no bearing whatsoever upon whether evolution has occurred. You goal is laudable, but your means nonsensical.
Comrade grumpy realist
BoB, go read "Consciousness as Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." Julian Jaynes. You may be right, but the changes have nothing to do with skin color/intelligence.
Also, isn’t the ability to drink milk after childhood without horrible intestinal problems also linked to a relatively recent genetic mutation of about 10,000 years ago?
scarshapedstar
One time I called a dishwasher a ‘spic’, but it was only because I saw a TV commercial where they said that a detergent could get your dishes ‘spic and span clean’ so really I was complimenting him on his abilities.
I can haz wingnut welfare?
Brick Oven Bill
Lactose intolerance is near universal in the Sub-Saharan Africa, and rare in the latitudes where farming came into existence. This is because populations that evolved around cows had to either evolve to tolerate lactose, or be largely removed from the genetic pool.
Here is a good graphic.
rachel
@r€nato: Sugar? In coffee? Bleah.
Original Lee
Then, of course, there’s the blue eyes mutation, which occurred around 6,000-10,000 years ago. I’m sure BOB can figure out why blue eyes were an evolutionary advantage in Europe when he’s done such a good job of divining which ancient peoples had access to milkable herd animals such as sheep, goats, cows, and water buffalo.
goatboyslim
I’m reminded of Sat. Night Live’s "Karma Biker" skit with Bruce Dern: " I like my coffee the same way I like my women: cream, with two sugars."
Broadway Carl
@ #6, gohper2b –
I don’t know how silly Pell Grants are, gopher. They helped me get through college when I was working full time to make ends meet.
P Smith
Of course the neo-clowns "deny themselves three times".
Rightwingers "think" they are ‘god’, after all. And they "think" people who reveal their indiscretions are judases (judii?).
Carl Gordon
The party’s over….
My tedious mangling of my lines is the unwatchable stuff of locust baby dreams in my ever twirling head. Spicy hot and amazingly blended, it sits in abject frustration, not able to seek solace in the siren’s call of the ocean due to the harbor lights not allowing it, it’s notorious lava snoot party favor annoyance coughing up the baby teeth of is vexations. Having to suffer the humiliation of being dry-gulched by some spazz in middle management, all assembled notice a definite dearth of the once familiar sugar water dripping from the over-sized tear ducts, now hideously reddened from under lubrication, disturbing all party-goers now streaming in with the unsettling hot water pipe quacks and sandpaper scratchy sighs. You sense it nearby and make every effort to avoid, perhaps ducking into the kitchen foyer, narrowly missing Clara clutching her broken biscuits, when a frost wind of steel stilettos hammered Christ-like into your spine tells you instinctively that the 89 cent double chili cheese dogs with onions special was ill advised, taking into consideration the run on the tuna Dixie cup pate by the now visibly distraught caterer busily trying to bail diaper-fuls of the foul runoff juice into a nearby Staghorn Sumac freshly arrived from Kansas. Insane merry-go-round pipe smoke, spinning and spewing forth from the decidedly dry skin covered flagon and it’s at this time that Rosemary throws her hands up, drops the pail with all it’s effluvia and exclaims, “Everything’s a mess”, a thin spindle of spit punctuating the growing desperation in the room. Every good idea you ever had wrecked – lying on your feet of clay, tracked into the room, much to the derision of the maid of honor, and all you can think is how bad you want it. Junk mailed advertisements that tell you God is dead piled high on the bassinet that fucks up on a regular basis. Yes that, and the incessantly constipated TV cheese-dick nun advertising 20 brands of diseased cow lemon shit in 60 different languages. Phony businessmen punks in thick rimmed glasses lifting collie topped highball glasses and toasting bad comedians, aping the dim Hallelujah chorus of various hangers on and wanna-bees – out of key (slightly), just enough to annoy you. Cheap perfume rotting Madonna’s cheek meat, dead but popular. Wriggling little things, gelatinous, stillborn and screaming into the broken mike – out of key (slightly), just enough to annoy you. Lost teeth, abortions, garbage, so pungent it hums with hidden life – out of key (slightly), just enough to annoy you.
Raconteur
Hey! That’s how I like my wimmin!
ColonelPanik
@John Cole:
John: Your utility bill will tell you.
Bill
Today starts the downfall in earnest of the USA. Fathered by a black man, deserted by him as tradition sictates, and raised by white folks on the dole. This can only spell trouble for the US. Socialism here we come.