Browsing the news

I had the chance on a flight layover to read through the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune for today.

Will Michelle Obama unite nation's feminists? by Amanda Erickson 07/06/08 is mainly about blogs. Dare we hope that the newspaper industry is finally figuring out that blogs are more than snark-fests? (At least in the liberal blogosphere, that is.)

Another human-interest story - or, actually, chimpanzee-interest story, had blog news, too. Old but still a swinger by Michael Martinez 07/06/08. The San Jose Mercury News was getting into the act today, too: Web site builds community of those displaced by Big Sur fire by Lisa Krieger 07/06/2008.

A piece by Rex Huppke, When outsiders look in on black America, deals with the perceptual limitations that institutional racism creates. For instance:

Mike Terry is black, and he knows that a black man giving someone a fist bump is not news. He also knows that calling a man's wife his "baby mama" is derogatory, and that no self-respecting black person he has ever met would use the term "whitey," even if they wanted to insult a white person.

They featured a local story of wider interest, Public housing limbo by Jason Grotto, Laurie Cohen and Sara Olkon 07/05/08. Another story relating to institutional racism.

Paul Howey raises a question that we will not hear debated in this year's Presidential campaign, Is it time to retire the Pledge of Allegiance? He writes:

Conservatives are up in arms about presidential candidates wearing flag pins. I'll bet precious few of them, however, are aware the Pledge of Allegiance was written by a left-winger, a socialist even, and that corporate profits were the sole motivating factor behind it.

There's even a long article in the magazine section about the comedian Lenny Bruce, 'Nobody, nothing was sacred' by Rick Kogan 07/06/08

Tags: pledge of allegiance, lenny bruce, racism

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