Morning Ed: United States {2016.07.12.T}

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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84 Responses

  1. LeeEsq says:

    Sriracha: I like sriracha but do not get the cult behind it. Its a good spicy sauce but it is and was a mass market condiment like ketchup, mustard, and salsa rather than something more exclusive. Having it available at fast food chains isn’t going to make it bad.

    Lind: The article accurately describes the problem with the Right’s nativism but doesn’t quite get how the Left’s multiculturalism or the issues relating to it. Many people on the Left these days are inherently distrustful of national identity and the nation-state. Its why Brexit caused a lot of hyperventilating on the Left. To parts of the Left, the ideal is a world where moving from Honduras to the United States is seen more differently than moving from Wyoming to Arizona. Anything promoting a more cohesive national identity strikes them as bad.

    Many of them are also wielded to the idea that the only way you can get justice for formerly persecuted groups is through aggressive truth-telling even if they are inconsistent in the application of this. I’m growing increasingly unsure about the value of aggressive truth-telling but more than a few liberals and leftists feel that sort of national mythology like Lind’s argument to revive the melting pot stands in the way of justice.Report

    • North in reply to LeeEsq says:

      Yeah I went into the politico article expecting that Lind would lambast cultural relativism or something on the left but all he had was a mealy mouthed kvetch that the left lets people tick different ethnicity boxes on census forms or something. Weak tea indeed though very common these days where the media figures strain and struggle to maintain the pretense of balance by imputing that the derangement in the institutional right is matched by similar derangement in the institutional left.

      Sriracha: How can anything ruin it? You could mix that poison with equal parts used motor oil and it couldn’t possibly make it taste worse.Report

      • LeeEsq in reply to North says:

        I think Lind had some good points like how half of all Hispanics see themselves as white but they are put uniformly in the people of color block by the Left. The Left might be more accurate in how these things work out than the Hispanic Americans though. One of the most interesting things about the Republican Primary was that Rubio pegged more as a Hispanic American than Cruz even though both looked Mediterranean.Report

        • Richard Hershberger in reply to LeeEsq says:

          My prediction from about a year ago on the Republican primaries is that they would nominate a white guy. This was back when people were touting Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina as proof of the party’s diversity. I had a moment when I thought that Cruz might win, and wondered how being the whitest Hispanic possible counted. Then, to my relief, Trump came through for me, making my prediction unambiguously correct.Report

          • Had Cruz gotten the nomination, the media would have embraced the “White Hispanic” term. Some would have tried it with Rubio, too, but it would less likely have stuck.Report

            • Kazzy in reply to Will Truman says:

              Well, White Hispanics are definitely a “thing”. Just as there are Black Hispanics and Aboriginal/Native/American Indian Hispanics and Mixed Hispanics (sometimes called Mestizo). I don’t know enough about Cruz’s ancestry to say which group he likely falls into.

              The term only became a curious one when it was applied to George Zimmerman in part because it seemed a little manipulative by the left media by trying to shoehorn the Travyon Martin situation into a particular racial dynamic and in part because most on the right assumed it was made up because they just assumed all Hispanics were the same.Report

              • Will Truman in reply to Kazzy says:

                It’s a demographic term rarely used colloquially. When it is pulled out colloquially selectively, that’s… suspicious. Like when some folks suddenly decided the president’s middle name is important, or the Governor of Louisiana’s birth name. It’s not that it’s factually wrong, it’s that selective use of it suggests you’re trying to make a point.

                There is a history involved of trying to present conservative minorities as being white or white-ish. If not for that context, I would not have an issue with Ted Cruz being identified as such, but context matters. You’d have to make a pretty good argument for using the term for Cruz in a way that you wouldn’t for others. And then you would need to apply that consistently.

                Typically, if you have a Hispanic surname and your dad (or mom) cones from a Latin American nation, you’re colloquially Hispanic for better or worse unless we’re looking at rather specific demographic issues.

                If we want to change how we approach this, I’m down with that. But not for one or two guys for whom adding (or saying) “white” provides for a cleaner narrative.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Will Truman says:

                @will-truman

                Oh, yes, that is definitely what I was referring to with regards to its manipulative use by the left media. My apologies if I wasn’t clear on that. My broader point was that the term itself is a legitimate one, both in terms of its usage AND that white Hispanics definitely do it exist.

                I think it stood out with regards to George Zimmerman because it was being used manipulatively by the left AND many on the right were unfamiliar with it.

                So you had those opposed to its usage often saying, “Hey… they’re trying to craft a narrative with some made up term!” At which point the debate shifted to whether it was a real term or not instead of whether it was being used unfairly.

                The term is real and should be used fairly. Full stop.

                And when liberals (not all, some) respond to, “Hey, the GOP nominated a Hispanic!” with, “Yea, but he’s a *white* Hispanic,” they are indulging in the racism they claim to abhor. Just like when they try to imply that Black conservatives aren’t REALLY Black or are just lapdogs or whatever.Report

              • Will Truman in reply to Kazzy says:

                Kazzy,

                This is all quite reasonable and fair. Do we need to give you a class on how to appropriately use the Internet, because I’m not sure you’re doing it right.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Will Truman says:

                You’re right, @will-truman . I’ll try less hard.Report

              • Richard Hershberger in reply to Will Truman says:

                What we see here is tension between the racial dynamics within Latin American culture, and the racial and/or ethnic (the two get confused here) dynamics of how Hispanics interact with broader American (in the “USA” sense) culture. Within Latin American culture it makes a difference whether someone is of European, African, or Amerind ancestry, or if mixed, with what proportions. The question is how these get classified in the American context. Does the individual of primarily European ancestry get classified as a white person due to his ancestry, or as a Hispanic due to some combination of his name, more recent ancestry, and/or language?

                I think in practice, someone whose first language is English, has no noticeable accent, and whose physical affect is of being white counts, for most purposes, as white. If you and Ted Cruz worked in the adjoining cubicles, you probably wouldn’t think of him as your Hispanic coworker. “Cruz” being a homophone with “Cruise” gives this an additional push.

                What will be interesting down the road is how all the talk of building a wall to keep out the “Mexicans” will affect this. Will persons presenting a white affect, but with Hispanic surnames, be pushed into the “Hispanic” category in the name of purism? Or will they assimilate even more? Back about a century ago a bunch of Muellers and Schmidts became Millers and Smiths. So far as I know we aren’t seeing Cruzes becoming Cruises, but it could happen.Report

              • Insert joke about Asian Hispanics here.
                Insert joke about Jewish Hispanics here.Report

              • Richard Hershberger in reply to Jaybird says:

                There were Chinese in Mexico City by at least the 17th century. Even weirder, there were samurai guarding Manila galleons to Acapulco.Report

              • Though generally called Chinese, there was a small but continuous traffic of slaves from S.E. Asia (mostly Philipinos) into Mexico n the XVII century. Very few women were brought in, though.Report

              • In the Mexican city across the border from my hometown (Mexicali), there is one of the oldest Chinatowns south of San Francisco. As an 8 year old, that blew my mind, but it also shows how diverse Mexico was/is.Report

              • J_A in reply to Roland Dodds says:

                The Mexican government imported Chinese labor as labor into the Northern part of the country of the country in the late XIX century, roughly following the same reasoning why they were brought into the USA at that time: the region was deemed to hard for White or Native workers.Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Jaybird says:

                My Dad had a good friend who was a Jewish guy from Mexico, so I always assumed there was a thriving Jewish community there. Nope, only 67,476 in the whole country.Report

              • Richard Hershberger in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                Speaking of Mexican historical oddities, there are the crypto-Jews of New Mexico.Report

              • They’ve almost been wiped out in their wars with the bloodto-Jews.Report

              • Brandon Berg in reply to Jaybird says:

                Insert joke about Asian Hispanics here.

                Peru had a Japanese-Peruvian president, Alberto Fujimori.

                Insert joke about Jewish Hispanics here.

                Sephardim?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Brandon Berg says:

                Y’all’s jokes suck.Report

              • Brandon Berg in reply to Jaybird says:

                Sephardim? I barely know him!Report

              • El Muneco in reply to Brandon Berg says:

                By percentage, Peru has over half as many Asian-descended citizens (3% or so) as the USA (close to 6%), which puts it in the top five of the Americas, possibly the top three. It’s a legitimate thing.Report

              • LeeEsq in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

                Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay with their massive Italian, German, Ukrainian, and other non-Spanish and Portuguese European derived citizens make matters harder.Report

              • I think the whitification of Hispanics is fully underway. Not just the very white ones like Cruz or Rubio or J_A (who ticks both the Hispanic and White boxes because he fully meets both criteria). I think it will encompass almost all Hispanics in a few decades.

                The reason is, I’m afraid, because the racial issue in America is only about the place of black people in America.

                As ethnic groups come in, initially they are othered: Italians were not White, nor were the Irish, nor the Jewish people, and then one day they were white by virtue of not being black. But, yoU see, there can only be one Other. All the rest is just Not Other (not Black). Even Native Americans that no longer live in reservations but among the general community are more or less whitified too.

                At the same time, the relationship between Hispancs and Blacks have been tepid so far. Practically the only thing they have in common is an allegiance to the Democratic Party. Besides any other reasons, let’s not forgot that racism and racial stratification is a big thing in Latin America, where the Spanish Crown set and enforced a strict hierarchical table, a table in which Native Americans were higher than Blacks, and mixed white-native (mestizo) where higher than mixed white-black (mulato)

                And you can see this transition taking place already in the most strange place: prison gangs. Some White Supremacist gangs in Texas and CA (far from all) have already accepted Hispanic members.Report

              • LTL FTC in reply to J_A says:

                This is why the notion of a majority-minority America is never going to happen. Hispanic immigrants intermarry and consider themselves white in a generation or two. You can see the same happening with Asian-Americans.

                The idea of cross-POC activism is strong within the academy, but events like the Korean grocers’ boycott or the Garcia/Emmanuel Chicago mayoral primary vote breakdown show that it doesn’t really work outside of that bubble.

                Sooner or later, after the accents flatten out, the melting pot does its thing and it’s back to black and not-black as the two salient groups in America.Report

              • Saul Degraw in reply to LTL FTC says:

                @ltl-ftc

                I am not sure I fully agree. Many minority groups in the U.S.A. seem to strongly identify with African-American culture in solidarity of being a minority/immigrant.

                There are a lot of mixed race Asian and Caucasian couples but my general understanding is that a lot mixed-raced kids seem to identify more with the minority culture and being an outsider.Report

              • LTL FTC in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                Yes, there are minority groups (and people within minority groups) that identify with African-Americans. There are white people who do as well, either as a countercultural statement or a political posture.

                There are also African-descended Hispanic, recent African immigrant and Afro-Caribbean communities that have different prerogatives than African-Americans who have been here longer. I’ve heard Nigerians talk about African-Americans in ways that would make a Dixiecrat blush.

                But the general trend, I believe, is that being “the other” has a shelf life.Report

              • J_A in reply to LTL FTC says:

                That’s one future social problem I don’t know how it is going to play: when Afro Caribbean and African immigrants (AC/AI) and their descendants become a significant percentage of the total Black community.

                Given that the AC/AI and the multigenerational African Americans don’t see eye to eye, will they be forced together by the Not Black community, or will the Not Black allow the AC/AI to integrate into the Not African Americans?Report

              • LTL FTC in reply to J_A says:

                That’s a very good question. I suppose it won’t make a whole lot of difference to the cops (Amadou Diallo, etc.), but already you’re seeing real estate agents take note here in NYC, which has had a large Carribean presence for years and an increasing number of African immigrants. I assume bankers will follow.

                There have been a couple of cases recently of an African immigrant student getting accepted into every single Ivy, followed by some (non-elite) grumbling that slots “belonging” to the descendants of American slaves are getting taken by AC/AI kids. They’re not wrong: when I worked for a large law firm, you could see the diversity of the incoming associate classes mostly provided by AC/AI.

                Worst case scenario, non-immigrant African-Americans become an underclass within an underclass. Best case scenario? White people become more accepting of AC/AI people as they see them in professional capacities, which benefits AAs.Report

              • Kim in reply to J_A says:

                Asking a question that doesn’t need answered, you are.
                That question is so totally mooted by other matters, it’s not even funny.Report

              • @saul-degraw How profound is this solidarity? Just based on my personal experience growing up in a majority Mexican community and having married into a Mexican-American family, I saw more in the way of antagonism than camaraderie.

                Now, around universities and urban areas in the north of the state, that may be different.Report

              • Per one of the links in the OP, Hispanics are less supportive of BLM than whites are.Report

              • Yep, that would back up the anecdotal evidence from my life. Was at a BBQ this weekend with mostly Mexican/Mexican Americans. You should have heard the things working class (and illegal resident) Mexican men had to say about the police shootings of black men (hint: it would get them kicked out of a university).Report

              • LTL FTC in reply to Roland Dodds says:

                Exactly. If you look at rates of police-involved death, Hispanics are far closer to whites than African-Americans. The same goes for the relative safety of majority-Hispanic neighborhoods.

                The idea of pan-POC solidarity may be an almost entirely elite phenomenon. If you think the identity politics project will continue at your institution, you need that solidarity to get your piece of the pie in terms of departmental funding, hiring goals and the like. Witness the common spectacle of a Korean- or Chinese-American campus activist rebutting the well-being of Asian-Americans in general with “b..b..but what about the Hmong?” as if their relative poverty can rub off and kick that activist a few notches up on the Oppression Olympics leaderboard.

                But on the ground, nobody cares that you fill out the same census bubble as someone who has it worse off.Report

              • Brandon Berg in reply to LTL FTC says:

                Exactly. If you look at rates of police-involved death, Hispanics are far closer to whites than African-Americans.

                Isn’t it weird how selective the racism of our Asian-supremacist police force is?Report

              • J_A in reply to Roland Dodds says:

                Inter minorities solidarity exists either as (a) a signifier that I am multicultural enlightened and progresive, like Kale eating or driving a Mini Cooper; or (b) in a two party system, as a mechanism to bring more of the pie away from the majority (hence all minorities: blacks, Asian, Hispanic, Jewish vote Democrat)

                Culturally, Hispanics are very different from each other depending on their country of origin, but along a culture axis in which a Kansas white evangelical Republican is in one end, and an African American from the Deep South or the Chicago projects is in the other, almost every Hispanic person will be much closer to the KS white than the Chicago black. Even Hispanic Afro Caribbean people would be closer to the white than the black USA culture.

                This is because, Latin American racism notwithstanding, there was never a segregation of the communities. Everybody was more or less specter to do and live the same way. The hierarchy, both the jure and de facto, limited what positions you could rise to, in Government, or the Church, or Society. But no one was outside the society, so everybody, white, mestizo, mulato, assimilated the (distorted) European culture.

                There were some Native Americans in Guatemala, Southern Mexico, the Andean region and the Amazonas that were never integrated, but for the rest, even the ex slaves, shared the same culture. It makes a difference.Report

              • Lyle in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                It is not really the second generation but the third that tells the tale. By then the experience of the previous culture has become more second hand, and an interesting question is how many actually speak the original language fluently in the 3rd generation
                Of course by the 3rd generation some things from the culture of the immigrant will have become mainstream. (take the tortilla as an example).Report

              • LeeEsq in reply to Lyle says:

                Technology and the ease of travel compared to the past might make cultural retention easier. German Americans managed to keep their separate identity and bilingualism going from colonial times until the mid-20th century. That was with slower international travel and much less German media to import. It took two world wars to really get rid of German American identity.

                It’s a lot easier to travel to the country of origin and import media from it in the present. The mores of kind of changed against total assimilation. This might make it easier to retain culture.Report

              • Michael Cain in reply to LeeEsq says:

                I was a kid on the rural northern plains up through the 1960s, when the pronounced ethnic patterns (Germans, Danes, Swedes) in that region were finally breaking up. Some of the durability there was a matter of isolation. The population peaked early in the 1900s and began to decline — few “outsiders” came in after the initial wave of settlement. I’m of average height, brown hair, light brown eyes — but in my grade school class, I was the short dark kid mixed in with all the vikings.

                The churches in my town were interesting. There was a tiny Catholic church, a small Baptist church, one good-sized Methodist church, and a half-dozen sizeable Lutheran churches. You could tell the blond kids’ ethnic background by which Lutheran church their family attended.Report

              • Richard Hershberger in reply to Michael Cain says:

                You could tell the blond kids’ ethnic background by which Lutheran church their family attended.

                Darn tootin’! We’re not going to go to church with a bunch of Swedes! (Unless the alternative is Finns, of course.)Report

              • One of the other faux pas that was possible was to write down “Paulson” for “Paulsen” or vice versa. The local weekly newspaper printed corrections for that mistake regularly. Me, when I got older, I took the easy way out and dated the Lund sisters. The elder of which cracked everyone up telling stories about her mother’s reaction: “What kind of name is ‘Cain’? And that hair!” The latter criticizing that it was brown.Report

              • LeeEsq in reply to LTL FTC says:

                I think it is going to be contemplated. There is going to be a partial but not entire assimilation of Hispanics and Asians into White America. Whiteness is both an actual description of skin color and a state that means not Black in American society. During the early part of the 20th century, there were court cases arguing whether Arabs were White or non-White and whether Indians from the subcontinent were white and non-white. It was decided that the former were white and the latter were not.

                I think something similar is going to be happen in the present. The more European looking Hispanics will get acculturated into White America but the more Native American ones will not. Asian-Americans will probably associate more closely with White Americans than people of color but will never be fully let into White America. There is also much less of need of the in-between groups to fully adopt White identity these days.Report

              • LTL FTC in reply to LeeEsq says:

                I agree with you that whiteness is “a state that means not Black in American society.” Everything else is just transitory.Report

              • Richard Hershberger in reply to J_A says:

                I think that Hispanics will be blanched out about one generation after significant Hispanic immigration to the US ceases (which may have already happened, though it is too early to be sure).

                I have been hearing all my life (remember I grew up in Southern California) that Mexicans are different because they refuse to learn English and assimilate. This is bullshit, and has been all along. Hispanic immigrants follow the same pattern as everyone else before them. But because this wave of immigration is still going on (or was until recently) there is a constant flow of new immigrants not speaking English.

                I also think that the current anti-immigration hysteria might delay things, depending on how persistent it turns out to be.

                To further complicate things, when a lot of people think of Hispanics they really are thinking of Mexican and Central American mestizos. Blachifying these are one thing. But when the conversation turns to, e.g., Caribbeans with lots of African ancestry, then the whole black issue comes roaring back. To the extent that people have trouble with nuances (which is to say, a lot) this will confuse the question of “are Hispanics white?”Report

              • j r in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

                I have been hearing all my life (remember I grew up in Southern California) that Mexicans are different because they refuse to learn English and assimilate.

                Yes. You have to be a special kind of dense to look at a man of Mexican ethnicity, wearing tight wranglers, a cowboy hat and boots, driving a pickup truck and listening to country music and somehow conclude that he will never be able to assimilate into “American culture.”

                And the denseness starts with the failure to realize that there is no such thing as American culture in the southwest absent the culture of Mexico. And more broadly, there really is no American culture absent the influences of all the immigrant groups and ethnicities that make up America.Report

              • I have been hearing all my life (remember I grew up in Southern California) that Mexicans are different because they refuse to learn English and assimilate.

                So, this New York couple goes to the local deli, like they do every Sunday, but today the counter man is Chinese! And not only is he Chinese, but he asks them what they want in Yiddish! So they order bagels and lox with a little whitefish to take home, and, amazed, go find the owner.

                “Where,” the wife asks, “did you find a Chinese man that speaks such wonderful Yiddish?”

                “Sssh! He thinks we’re teaching him English.”Report

              • Kim in reply to Mike Schilling says:

                This joke is older than time itself.
                (doesn’t make it any less funny, tho)Report

              • Kazzy in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

                @richard-hershberger

                This is why respecting the right to self-identify is so important. Ultimately, we should refer to Cruz (and everyone else) using whatever terms he opts for, provided he can make a reasonable claim to them*.

                * So, no Rachel Dolezal can’t identify as Black because she lacks anything that is consistent with being Black — ancestrally, genetically, even her life experiences before her little stunt. Meanwhile, Cruz should have every right to say, “Dude, my dad is from Cuba… I’m fricking Hispanic fer crying out loud.” He also has every right to say, “Dude, my mom is Canadian and my dad’s family all hails from Spain*… I’m fricking white fer crying out loud.” He also has the right to say *both* those things if he so chooses or to say one thing in his 20s and another in his 40s.

                * I initially said Portugal here which was dumb and risked further confusing the matter. Hispanic and Latino share lots of overlap but are not interchangeable.Report

              • LTL FTC in reply to Kazzy says:

                Thank goodness someone is sticking up for the Lusosphere.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to LTL FTC says:

                I worked in a school where one of our teachers was Brazilian. At one point, we needed to submit demographic information on our faculty to an accreditation board. My head of school noted we had one Hispanic teacher. But we didn’t. We had one Brazilian teacher who identified as Latino but not Hispanic. This did not matter to our boss.Report

              • J_A in reply to Kazzy says:

                Your boss was right.

                “Definition of Hispanic or Latino Origin Used in the 2010 Census: “Hispanic or Latino” refers to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.”

                Brazilians, being South American, count as Hispanic, though Portuguese do not (but Spaniards like me do)Report

              • Kazzy in reply to J_A says:

                Per the Census. But among Hispanics and Latinos generally, Hispanic refers to people of Spanish-speaking origin… so it includes Spain but not Brazil or Haiti and some other Central American, South American, and Caribbean locales while Latino refers to Latin America… so it includes all of the Caribbean and Central/South America but not Spain or Portugal.

                More importantly, the woman herself identified as Brazilian and Latino but NOT Hispanic. Insisting she was Hispanic was wrong.Report

              • LeeEsq in reply to Kazzy says:

                During the 2010 census, I figured that I legally qualified as Hispanic. This is because my mom’s paternal grand-parents were Sephardic Jews. Even though they were outside of Spain for hundreds of years before reaching the United States it still counts. People come up to me and speak Spanish a lot.Report

              • Kim in reply to LeeEsq says:

                Hundreds of years out of spain? Doesn’t count unless they spoke Ladino. If they spoke Yiddish instead, they’ll be counting as Germanic culturally speakin’.Report

              • J_A in reply to Kim says:

                Sephardim do not speak Yiddish at all (unless they lean it as another foreign language).Report

              • Mike Schilling in reply to Kazzy says:

                Cruz can call himself whatever he wants, but I’ll always think of him as an asshole.Report

          • No you were unambiguously wrong.

            Trump’s skin is the unnatural orange of a spray tan.Report

  2. Damon says:

    Diversity/Seg: Of course. Folk like to live next to folk like them….be that class, race, etc.

    Sriracha I’m sure i’ve had it. I don’t care for heat. I like spicy. But who cares. The purpose of Sriracha is to sell more Sriracha. Couple that with trends…and well…what ever…

    Train safety. I would have been more entertaining if they had used real life video examples. 🙂Report

    • Burt Likko in reply to Damon says:

      I don’t understand “The purpose of Sriracha is to sell more Sriracha.”

      The purpose of Sriracha is to add flavor to food, and thus sell Sriracha. Utility is offered in exchange for money, the same as any other product.

      If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. I like it. I don’t buy it because Big Sriracha has brainwashed me into thinking my life is incomplete without it; I buy it because I like how it makes my pork ribs taste.Report

      • Brandon Berg in reply to Burt Likko says:

        Big Sriracha has brainwashed you into thinking you like how it makes your pork ribs taste.Report

      • El Muneco in reply to Burt Likko says:

        I’m not a big fan of sriracha, and I have to admit – and it will probably require tearing up any SJW foodie card I might have (accidentally) qualified for – the Thai flavor profile doesn’t particularly agree with my palate. I like some of the dishes flavored primarily with native herbs, chiles, and some spices – but I like a lot of Mexican dishes flavored primarily with native herbs, chiles and some spices.

        There’s a relatively well-respected (not Michelin starred, but local buzz) Thai restaurant literally across the street from where I work now, a block from where I worked previously for four or five years, so I’ve hit pretty much the entire menu. I think there’s a direct negative correlation between how complex the flavor profile is and how much I like it, even removing the level of spices from consideration. I just am not the target audience for Thai.Report

  3. Dave Regio says:

    I can’t relate to foodies. In fact, I don’t think I want to. Sriracha is ok, but I neither would know nor care about the differences between brands.Report

  4. Oscar Gordon says:

    One more link: The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure

    It’s a public DOD publication, but it covers ethical failures from all over (not just DOD employees).Report

  5. Jaybird says:

    I was wondering if the sriracha article was going to talk about a boom/bust cycle for the ingredients in sriracha and how, in the future, it might be more difficult to get sriracha because of a market oversaturation in the short run.

    Instead it talked about people liking it. Too many people. The wrong people.Report

  6. notme says:

    Most Obama care co-ops have failed. What a waste.

    http://freebeacon.com/issues/most-obamacare-coops-have-now-failed/Report

  7. Saul Degraw says:

    Apparently the big news today is that Paterno knew about accusations against Sandusky going back as far as 1976 and did nothing about it.Report

    • Kim in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Fuck. Just be glad it’s not your college, and play ball!
      Spoiler alert: There’s plenty more like him.

      I could ask, If I wanted to, what’s known about the pedophiles and worse in college ball. There’s plenty, after all.

      But fuck it, if I can’t do anything, why bother looking at all the blood?Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      On the one hand, “reported the issues to the established authorities and figured that they’d handle it” isn’t nothing. It is, in fact, what we would expect people to do.

      On the other hand, you can certainly make a case that Joe Paterno could have got Sandusky kicked out of the program if he wanted.Report

  8. Jaybird says:

    Puerto Rico houses being that cheap seems to be a recipe for gentrification.Report