This Is How Very Racist Our United States of America Are

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Video Shows Fatal Shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, Unarmed Black Man In Georgia

A United States citizen. Black.

Out for a jog.

Unarmed.

Shot by 2 strangers, father and son, white, in a pickup truck. With a shotgun.

Jogger killed.

To date, the assailant hasn't even been arrested, let alone jailed or charged.

'merika.

Damn.

And it's all on video.

And he was shot and killed in February.

We're only now talking about it. We're only now considering charges against these two ugly, racist, murderous hillbillies.

Just damn.

Quote of the Day -- On Race in America

William Faulkner wrote these very insightful, telling, even indicting lines all the way back in 1956. They could not be more true of us, then as well as, sadly, even now, today, this much father along in 2017.

That’s what the white man in the South is afraid of: that the Negro, who has done so much with no chance, might do so much more with an equal one that he might take the white man’s economy away from him, the Negro now the banker or the merchant or the planter and the white man the sharecropper or the tenant. That’s why the Negro can gain our country’s highest decoration for valor beyond all call of duty for saving or defending or preserving white lives on foreign battlefields, yet the Southern white man dares not let that Negro’s children learn their ABC’s in the same classroom with the children of the white lives he saved or defended.

More should read the entire, brief article:

Southern Harm, by William Faulkner | Harper's

Additional link:

The White Man's Fear of the Educated Negro

Mardi Gras Weekend!

It's Mardi Gras weekend, y'all, no matter where you live! Go get some red beans and rice or jambalaya or crawfish etoufee' or gumbo or a po' boy or SOMETHING!!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!!

Incontrovertible statistics and hard data on guns, violence, shootings and killings in America

From an article in The Atlantic Monthly from last year, not today:

The Geography of Gun Deaths

"...what are the factors that are associated with firearm deaths at the state level?

Poverty is one. The correlation between death by gun and poverty at the state level is .59.

An economy dominated by working class jobs is another. Having a high percentage of working class jobs is closely associated with firearm deaths (.55).

And, not surprisingly, firearm-related deaths are positively correlated with the rates of high school students that carry weapons on school property (.54).

What about politics? It's hard to quantify political rhetoric, but we can distinguish blue from red states. Taking the voting patterns from the 2008 presidential election, we found a striking pattern: Firearm-related deaths were positively associated with states that voted for McCain (.66) and negatively associated with states that voted for Obama (-.66). Though this association is likely to infuriate many people, the statistics are unmistakable. Partisan affiliations alone cannot explain them; most likely they stem from two broader, underlying factors - the economic and employment makeup of the states and their policies toward guns and gun ownership.

Firearm deaths were far less likely to occur in states with higher levels of college graduates (-.64) and more creative class jobs (-.52).

Gun deaths were also less likely in states with higher levels of economic development(with a correlation of -.32 to economic output) and higher levels of happiness and well-being (-.41).

And for all the terrifying talk about violence-prone immigrants, states with more immigrants have lower levels of gun-related deaths (the correlation between the two being -.34).

And what about gun control? As of July 29 of last year, Arizona became one of only three states that allows its citizens to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Might tighter gun control laws make a difference? Our analysis suggests that they do.

The map overlays the map of firearm deaths above with gun control restrictions by state. It highlights states which have one of three gun control restrictions in place - assault weapons' bans, trigger locks, or safe storage requirements.

Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48).

While the causes of individual acts of mass violence always differ, our analysis shows fatal gun violence is less likely to occur in richer states with more post-industrial knowledge economies, higher levels of college graduates, and tighter gun laws. Factors like drug use, stress levels, and mental illness are much less significant than might be assumed.

Link to original article: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/

A wonderful, true, perplexing and ultimately frustrating, possibly to the point of maddening "Quote of the day"

Americans are wondrous optimists, looking to the upper class and expecting to join it someday. In 1860, many subsistence farmers aspired to become large slave-owners. So poor white Southerners supported slavery then, just as many low-income people support the extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy now.    --James W. Loewen, The Washington Post


Links:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/16/AR2010121606200.html

Kansas City and Missouri: Getting respect (sort of)

Two new surveys are out today--one on cities to visit in the Summer and one on obesity in the US. Good news, too, on both (mostly). Kansas City ranks 17th for cities to visit in the Summer Hey, it could be worse, right? Besides, rather ignorantly, they don't even mention our art galleries, theater or restaurants, as attractions. And Missouri isn't in the top 10 for most obese states in the US. (Unfortunately, we are number 12. Oops. Kansas is only marginally better at 16. Come on, people.) Yeehaw! Both are good news, as I said, I think. Unfortunately for America, however, the obesity rankings show that it--obesity--has jumped up in 28 states, including Missouri, Kansas and too many surrounding states: "More than two-thirds of states now have adult obesity rates above 25 percent," Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, said during a Tuesday news conference. "Back in 1991, not that long ago, not a single state had an obesity rate above 20 percent. There's been a dramatic change in a relatively short period." "Obesity is one of the biggest public health crises in the country," Levi added. "Rising rates of obesity over past decades is one of the major factors behind skyrocketing health care costs in the U.S., one-quarter of which are related to obesity." Mississippi weighed in for the sixth year in a row as the fattest state, with 33.8 percent of its adults obese, while Alabama and Tennessee tied for second (31.6 percent). The other top 10, also concentrated in the south, were West Virginia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arkansas, South Carolina and Michigan tying with North Carolina for 10th place (29.4 percent). The healthiest states in terms of weight were congregated in the Northeast and West. In addition to geographic and economic differences, this year's report also focused on racial and ethnic disparities, finding that blacks and Latinos bear the brunt of the obesity problem. Blacks and Latinos outweighed whites in at least 40 states plus D.C. Important stuff to know. Now, for solutions. Link to the original report on obesity here: http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2010/Obesity2010Report.pdf