Listen, My Children...

India!

I'm off to India -- see y'all later!

No Freedom of Choice

Gotta love things like this -- Women should have total freedom of choice, so long as their priorities are family second and work first (and not the workplace first -- consideration for others is also unacceptable -- but one's own salary first), and so long as they make Kelly Ripa's practically-going-into-labor-on-air choice rather than Elizabeth Vargas's choice. 

Every Guy's Dream

Well, many of them anyways -- how many guys would love to hear this:

"he might still have a career as a stud"

Treaty/ies of Paris

No wonder my World History students thought history (and France) was silly and hard to keep straight: Treaty of Paris.

Odd definition of racism

Any of my old schoolmates who stop by here might be interested to read this post: Only Racists Think Ahead?.

I have been one whole year out of higher academia, but I hadn't been aware of temporal orientations as unacceptably culturally biased.  Is that really a common perception these days?

Tests

You know those emails, "things children say," where they put in bad test answers such as, "Noah's wife was Joan of Arc"?

I could compose one of those from exams I read yesterday.....

Loving

Loving v. Virginia is one decision for which I am rather grateful; perhaps Loving v. Missouri is next?.

Income and Politics

Have all day been having people who listen to stereotypes express surprise that Senator Bentsen was a Democrat (but he's rich!). Although it's a bit over-bolded and seriously under-linked, Limousine Liberals: Hypocrisy Made Manifest is a fun counter-read....

Border Guards

What with all the fuss about border guards, I figure I'll get my beef in:

They should be near the border.

I was driving around West Texas with Bob the other day, and the border guards stopped us (80 miles from the border -- we hadn't left nor did we intend to leave the country) and asked us to declare our nationality, then asked him to repeat it.

What if they'd doubted his answer? (Or mine, of course.) What if they'd asked proof of ID? There is no border in central West Texas, and there are no immigration restrictions on US citizens driving around inside the state, to my knowledge. What if he wasn't carrying proof of nationality -- something US citizens generally aren't required to have with them at all times, but only when traveling internationally?

I don't like it. Border control, where you stop every person and check their nationality, should be at the border.

(I'm not talking about proof of ID when arrested, when seeking employment, or any of the other places foreign nationals are often found out. Just the people set up to check the actual borders.)

Hippocrites

I don't know whether it would be worse if the national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens actually did call Cingular "hippocritical," or if the Brownsville Herald (through malice or ignorance) wrote it that way themselves....