Duly Noted

Couple points of interest:

– Legislative misuse of graphics can be entertaining.

– How the NSA surveillance program fits into a post-9/11 authoritarian paradigm.

– Documenting gun violence: homicides, suicides, and accidents.

– Perhaps the most perfect example of America’s dysfunctional health care system: childbirth.

– White privilege in a couple of nutshells: the idea that being called racist for one’s racist behavior is somehow a greater injury than the initial racist behavior; the notion that cities and counties which have repeatedly required preclearance under the Voting Rights Act have somehow, by virtue of that necessity somehow transcended their own racism; the belief that an exceedingly mediocre white student somehow “deserves” a spot at a highly competitive public university, a spot she claims – without any evidence – was “stolen” from her by a minority student in a “case” which – somehow, remarkably – was heard by the Supreme Court.  The ever-wise Ta-Nehisi Coates explains how the structures of prejudice – overcome this past week in the sphere of same-sex relationships, re-entrenched in the sphere of racial hegemony – have real-world, intergenerational consequences.