So I was looking through my RSS feeds, and I saw this on boingboing:
It's about how Nike is making a new line of shoes called the "Air Native N7" especially designed for Native Americans' feet. Apparently they've done lots of research and found that shoes on the market today just don't cut it for them. There are a lot of "cultural nods" in the design as well. I thought it was a really cool idea, so I thought I'd just post a short link to it in the blog.
Then I read the comments on boingboing, and I had to comment on them. Most of them are appalling.
I could say that they are the typical things that you might hear from any cynical observer of the modern Native American. It might be true. It doesn't make it a good thing. First there's all the talk of casinos... but I did have another question. Why is it that whenever a company or a group tries to do something cool like this, they get completely torn apart? Nike must have some respect for the Native Americans if they go through the trouble of studying their feet and crafting a shoe especially for them. At any rate, they have more respect for the Native Americans than boingboing readers/commenters. Read the comments on boingboing and tell me if I'm overreacting.
Here, we have some articles from respected news organizations:
...about how dumb the US president is. Apparently, the first one is about a recent speech he gave where he stated the line "Childrens do learn." The second one is about how he needs a pronunciation guide on his speeches for names of foreign heads of state. Entire articles were written on these subjects. The entire time Bush has been in office, it's been the same thing. "Listen to how stupid our president sounds!"
Alright already! We get it! He's not the greatest orator in the history of the world. His father wasn't either. The question, though, is why do these high-profile news organizations have to act like children and tell everybody about stupid mistakes the President makes in speeches? If a news organization was to follow me around all day, they'd probably notice quite a few flubs in my speech. Everyone slips up now and then. I could count at least 10 times in last night's dinner conversation that someone mixed some words up or switched around a letter or two while speaking. Realistically, should the president be held to a higher standard than the average American? In my opinion, no.
So just leave him be, and report the important stuff.
I heard a song on the KEXP Song of the Day podcast called "Thou Shalt Always Kill." It had a line in it that I particularly like, and that applies to today's blog post:
"Thou shalt not think any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a pedophile - Some people are just nice."
Reminds me of the post I made a bit ago about that... and guess what, the guy who wrote the article I was commenting on has written another one:
Wall Street Journal (via digg)
I didn't notice anything extremely different in this one from the last one, but one thing struck me while I was reading this, as well as the discussion forum pages on this topic: It's extremely disturbing that even if men are seen with a child that does happen to be their own, they are still looked at suspiciously. Why? Not only, as the song says, are some people just nice, but some men happen to be fathers. It may seem far fetched, but YES, some fathers play with their children and take them out. It's amazing reading some of these reactions from men to this guy's article. For some reason, they're always having to qualify that they're actually the father of this child. Myself, I'd assume automatically that if there's a man with a small child, it's probably that child's father. For some reason, though, other people automatically assume that if there's a man with a child, he's a pedophile. Where did this come from?
Seriously, where in the heck did it come from? Why are we so afraid to see a man with a child anymore? One reader commented in the discussion topic that he avoids children altogether, including close relatives, and they think he hates them. He says he'd rather they hate him, because there's no suspicion, and problems are solved. But what in the world made this necessary?
My favorite post in the discussion topic said that even though a majority of sexual predators are men, it doesn't mean that a majority of men are sexual predators. It's simply not true. But who will believe it? And how can we stop it?
*sigh*
San Diego Metro News (via digg)
I don't like to use the word "hate" when referring to how I feel about people like this, because hate only breeds more hate. These people do, however, make me furious.
So there's a lady on a plane with her two kids. There are also some Iraqi men on the plane who, incidentally, work for the Marines. This woman didn't know that, and when she saw Middle Eastern men on her plane, she immediately thought, "Terrorists!" The article says that she heard one of the guys "clunking around" in the bathroom, and he had a "suspicious face" when he came out. First, let's discuss this:
Airplane bathrooms are so small that I can't help "clunking around" in them. If someone was completely quiet in an airplane bathroom, then I'd be suspicious. The "suspicious face" he had afterwards was probably just the I-just-got-out-of-a-public-bathroom face that all men have after they come out of the bathroom. It's just natural to have a strange expression on your face after coming out of the bathroom. Stern? Yes! Shifty eyes? Indeed! I have them too after coming out of the bathroom, especially when it involved what we call "number two."
Now, as for this woman's excuse for thinking such things, she said that she was just trying to protect her children. A direct quote:
“How can you overreact when it's your children?” she said.
Easy. You make a gross general assumption based on paranoia and racial stereotypes and demand to get off the plane, resulting in the plane not taking off on time, meaning all the passengers have to wait until morning to catch another plane to where they're going (which is exactly what happened). The woman says she would like to apologize to the Iraqi men, but from her other statements, it doesn't sound like she thinks she did anything wrong. Will she learn anything from this? Probably not. Further, when you see a Middle Eastern man and "all you can think of is 9/11," I think you have problems that won't be easily fixed by anything less than a large blow on the head.
It's sad, though, that this is not an isolated incident. It's only in the news because it cased a 12-hour delay for the passengers. I'm sure this type of thing happens all the time, but to a lesser extent as far as delays go. The culture of paranoia that we have these days is sickening to say the least.
People need to understand that there are more people in the world that can kill you than just Middle Eastern men. What about that white guy sitting next to you? Does he have a bomb? The black guy two rows up? The Chinese guy in the window seat? How would you know? Do you really need to worry about it? NO! Relax! Terrorists are everywhere, but there's no need to get all bent out of shape about it! Your children will be fine! Stop stressing!
The most interesting thing to me was that these Iraqis, far from being terrorists, work for the Marines. These people not only have no desire to take your life, but are actively working with the United States military trying to save it. Makes you step back and say, "Why did I ever think ill of these men," doesn't it?
*sigh* again.
First, I must start by saying that I can't stand spam comments. If there is anyone out there reading this (which would be great, for a start) that knows the best way to curb the enormous amount of spam comments and unwanted pings, without a tedious process of taking every single one of their IPs manually and putting it on the ban list... I'd much appreciate it. These things are insane. There's a reason I don't write about celebrities that often. I had an article about (unnamed celebrity) on the blog a while back, and it got flooded with spam comments with links to various porn sites. Ultimately, I had to delete the article... but I digress... let's talk about tree huggers...
So there's this new movie coming out, from Leonardo DiCaprio (as if that name won't net me a ton of spam porn links in the comments...), called "The 11th Hour." I haven't heard much about it, but I found this article about why it's not going to be good:
Apparently the movie talks about why we shouldn't cut down so many trees. This article, however, from the co-founder of Greenpeace, states that it's really better to cut down more trees, and plant more, since older trees rotting and burning release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Younger trees take in more carbon dioxide than older ones, and no carbon dioxide is released when they are cut down. Sounds like a good idea to me... Any chance to beat on Leonardo DiCaprio is good, too. Go Dr. Moore!!