J's Cafe Nette

Archive for July 13th, 2008

I was ready to post this article as soon as things settled down around my house, with my granddaughter visiting for a couple of days after a flight from Dallas, and then taking her to her other grandparents yesterday.

I have had three grandchildren around most of the time since Thursday and it has been a hectic time in the J and D household. Pleasant, but hectic.

I read this article a few days ago and saved it in my One Note to write about, but then Tony Snow passed away and I didn’t want to intrude on that post.

We have a man here who is an official in the Dallas County government. It doesn’t state whether he is a commissioner or not, but does name others as being commissioners.

This official took umbrage at a commissioner describing the collection of tickets as being a “black hole”

Now, when I think of a black hole I am thinking in terms of the universe and a place that has collapsed on itself to the point that nothing, including light can escape, and I believe that was what the commissioner meant when he said it.

Somehow, it has become a racist comment.

What do “black hole,” “angel food cake,” and “devil’s food cake” have in common?

They’re all racist terms, says a Dallas County, Texas, official.

A county commissioners’ meeting this week over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county’s collections office was like a certain astronomical phenomenon.

“It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole,” Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting.

One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable.

At the meeting, Mayfield said he intended his comments to be taken in the context of the scientific meaning, and became upset that he was being misunderstood.

In astronomy, the term black hole refers to a star that has collapsed upon itself, creating something so dense and small that it does not have any physical properties besides a gravitational force so great that even light cannot escape its pull.

Later, Price told MyFOXdfw.com that he believed it and other terms were racist.

“So if it’s ‘angel food cake,’ it’s white. If it’s ‘devil’s food cake,’ it’s black. If you’re the ‘black sheep of the family,’ then you gotta be bad, you know. ‘White sheep,’ you’re okay. You know?” Price said.

Price said people should watch their words when it comes to stereotypes.

Give me a break! Angel food cake or devil’s food cake are cakes; period. I have never associated them with race. Being the black sheep in a family is being the one who is the ne’er do well, the different one in the sense that there are more white sheep than black so he is different, but not because of race.

I’m sure we all have black sheep in our families and yet no one I know has ever associated it with race. Neither has anyone I know, white, black, red or brown ever associated angel food cake, devil’s food cake or black holes with race.

It’s time for the people who are always looking to be offended about race to get over it when a common language term is used and accept it for what it really means.

Perhaps the commissioner and official think in those terms, but I would bet a majority of people do not, and I don’t even want to go down that path of saying things and censoring myself when no racial reference is made.

Thursday I made a chocolate sour cream pound cake and put white icing on it. Was I making a racial statement or was I just making a cake that tastes good? If you have any doubt, I was making a cake that tastes good and my grandchildren thoroughly enjoyed it.

This commissioner and official who demand an apology and the other commissioner who is upset he upset them that he’s trying to explain what “black hole” meant to him need to all take a break.

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Want a good laugh? Read this from Classical Values.

With a sentence structure such as this:

I call it righteous indignation because if he is elected president, he will probably did something wrong and he will need to be impeach.

you have to only imagine what you will find at the link.

I don’t know. Do they?

Michael Barone takes us back to the Truman days and shows a parallel with President Bush:

Another is that presidential determination to avoid defeat and retreat can prevail against the advice of experts. Just as Truman’s Pentagon opposed the airlift, so George W. Bush’s Pentagon mostly opposed the surge strategy in Iraq. In late 2006 and early 2007, the advice from experts, notably the Baker-Hamilton Commission, was the same as that Marshall and Bradley gave Truman: get out with whatever fig leaf you can. The surge, like the airlift, was said to put undue strain on the military, to degrade the readiness of men and materiel for other missions. All these claims were plausible and, in the case of the surge, dominated press coverage and were supported by the incoming leaders in Congress.

Well worth the read.

This Irishman is not shy about his thoughts on our Presidential election.

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