"OK John, we'll vote one more time; Those in favor of
razing
Syria in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, raise a hand."
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Minnesota is launching a massive awareness campaign to get people to sign up for its new insurance program. Millions of dollars are being used for the ads, which feature two of the state’s biggest celebrities: Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.This is like paddling your canoe with a violin, or using a vintage bottle of wine to crack walnuts. Sure it can be done, but why?
It seems there was a language barrier: The clerk's English isn't great, and Winfrey probably doesn't speak Swiss. "This is an absolute classic misunderstanding," the store's owner, Trude Goetz, told Reuters, which paraphrases her explanation: "The sales assistant had wanted to show Winfrey that the bag was also available in other materials, which may have given the TV host the impression the shop did not want to sell it to her, Goetz said." The News reports that Goetz apologized to Winfrey via a Swiss newspaper, but in her Reuters interview she implied that the celeb's account didn't make sense: "Who wouldn't want to sell a purse for 35,000 francs?"Let me take this opportunity to confess: to my everlasting shame, I admit that when I heard someone say that Oprah was too fat for that purse, I chuckled and thought it funny. Can you imagine? Me, a privileged white man, laughing at what surely must be a low point in this poor oppressed woman's life. I hide my face behind my axe in shame.
Thirty-five thousand Swiss francs is equivalent to some $38,000, or 72% of the median U.S. household income. If most women spent that kind of sum on a handbag, all they'd have is an empty handbag. That's not true of moneybags Winfrey, but even she was put off when she eventually learned the price tag: "Turns out that store clerk did me a favor. Just found out that bag was $38K!!! She was right I was NOT going to buy."
Oh, well, never mind then...
...What Winfrey construes as a racial episode is actually a story about class--a wealthy, privileged celebrity aggrieved by a lowly saleswoman's lack of deference...
Last month, a report authored by a group of former United Nations scientists used DNA testing to link the cholera bacteria responsible for the outbreak to UN peacekeepers from Nepal. The evidence, which offers strong support for the UN’s culpability, caused international outrage and demands that the United Nations take responsibility for its unintentional infection of Haiti earthquake victims.
However, while the Nepali workers may have brought the cholera into Haiti, according to Rita Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation and renowned climate change researcher, unusually warm weather and other climate change factors also contributed to the rapid spread of cholera in the months following the earthquake’s devastation in Haiti.
“Climate change and cholera have a complicated link,” Colwell said in an exclusive interview with United Nations based media agency UNEARTH News published August 7. “As far as Haiti is concerned, the disease outbreak was triggered by a complicated set of factors. The precipitation and temperatures were above average during 2010 and that, in conjunction with a destroyed water and sanitation infrastructure, can be considered to have contributed to this major disease outbreak.”This story contains everything you need to know about the religion of Climate Change.
“It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police. They didn’t care about how they looked," Rangel said.Maybe like me, you'll have difficulty remembering a Tea Party releasing of the hounds. Or bombing. Or even using water cannons. They have asked for equal treatment by the IRS; maybe that's what he's talking about.
Because of this, Rangel said the Tea Party could be defeated using the same tactics employed against Jim Crow.
"It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough. ‘I don’t want to see it and I am not a part of it.’ What the hell! If you have to bomb little kids and send dogs out against human beings, give me a break,” said Rangel.