incapable of shame

the other day, andrew breitbart posted a highly edited, out-of-context video (discussed here yesterday) which he said proved that USDA official shirley sherrod was a racist, and that, by extension, so was her audience—the NAACP. the video spread like wildfire around right-wing sites and sherrod was soon forced to resign.

but then the full, unedited video came to light, and it vindicates sherrod. virtually everyone now concedes that the original clip was a vicious smear. through deceptive editing, it turned reality on its head, transforming sherrod's tale of redemption—of how she came to overcome racist impulses, 24 years ago, long before she worked for the USDA—into a tale of vindictive oppression against an innocent, helpless white man. even breitbart now admits sherrod was wronged, though he's still highly disingenuous about his role in the scandal and why he posted the video in the first place.

virtually everyone, that is... but not gary welsh. gary's credulous post on the subject remains on his site, with no updates or corrections. as recently as 5:22 last night, longer after he should've known better, he was leaving comments defending his assertions that sherrod and her audience were racists.

will gary welsh post a retraction?

personally, i'm certain he won't. and the reason why i know he won't is because gary has never once posted a retraction of any significance. yes, once or twice he's posted minor corrections, like when he gets the spelling of someone's name or their party affiliation wrong. but despite the many laughably false things that gary has posted over the years, he has never retracted a single one, and i doubt he ever will. i doubt he's even capable of it.

despite what he may claim, gary is completely incapable of admitting a mistake and utterly unable to handle even mild criticism. anyone who criticizes him is assumed to be a dishonest political operator, and ends up on his personal enemies list (which is getting pretty long). i don't know if the problem is that he can't realize when he's wrong, or if he's just too proud to admit it, but either way, the end result is the same: the lies just get bigger and bigger.

update: did i call it or what? far from being able to admit he was wrong, gary doubles down on the insanity.

2nd update: can you believe gary is still going on about what a horrible racist shirley sherrod is? we're beyond satire at this point, folks. ¶

on refuting, refudiating, and repudiating racism

last week, delegates for the NAACP passed a resolution calling on the tea party to repudiate racism. the resolution doesn't accuse all tea partiers of racism, as some would have you believe; it simply points out the well-documented history of racists showing up at tea party events, and asks tea partiers to "make clear there is no place for racism & anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry in their movement."

now, when someone asks you to repudiate racism, the correct response is... to repudiate racism. it's pretty simple. tea party leaders could've simply issued a response like this:

we absolutely repudiate racism and other forms of bigotry, and if bigots do turn up at our events, know that they do not speak for us and we don't share their views.

easy, right? had the tea party done this, the story would've been gone in a day, plus the tea party would be insulated against any future accusations of racism—we repudiated racism months ago!

but this being the tea party, they instead went berserk. they accused the NAACP of hypocrisy. they claimed that the "real racists" were the NAACP, not them. and in a development that was probably inevitable, some responded to accusations of racism by becoming even more racist!

that's what happened to mark williams, spokesman for the tea party express. williams first responded by saying that the NAACP makes "more money off of race than any slave trader, ever" and belongs "in the trash heap [...] along with all the other vile, racist groups that emerged in our history."

then, apparently unsatisfied, williams penned possibly the most racist blog post ever, in which he mocked the NAACP for having the word "colored" in their name, then went on to adopt the persona of "tom's nephew", using plainly offensive language to repeat all sorts of horrible stereotypes about african-americans.

the post was so beyond-the-pale, over-the-top offensive that williams was soon forced to take it down, but the damage was already done. williams was demoted; his group was expelled from the tea party federation and denounced by other tea party groups.

so in the end, the NAACP resolution was a partial success: it resulted in the tea party denouncing one of its own leaders.

still, many wingnuts continue to ignore the williams debacle, pretending that there are no racists in the tea party movement and that the NAACP is full of hateful hypocrites. melyssa "miss ann" donaghy—who you'll be either pleased or bemused to learn recently resurrected her blog—tried to pretend that all the racists at tea party events are leftist "infiltrators" sent "to pose as racists". she also suggested that the NAACP were hypocrites because they didn't speak up when a black conservative got beat up this one time, stating that "I hope it is ok by the NAACP to be black and conservative in America!"

apparently to melyssa, the NAACP are hypocrites if they don't specifically and individually denounce every incidence of racism ever, even if they've never heard of it. of course, given the opportunity, they would gladly denounce racist violence against kenneth gladley or anyone else, just as benjamin jealous had no problem denouncing the new black panther party on this week's meet the press. (also, note to melyssa: michael steele, RNC chair, is a longtime NAACP member.)

at least melyssa admits that racists have attended tea party events. gary welsh couldn't even bring himself to do that. first he tried to pin the resolution on michelle obama, simply because she was present at the meeting. (she was actually there to discuss childhood obesity.)

he also trotted out an out-of-context video that's been making the rounds of a black USDA official confessing to having stuggled with racism while performing her job, citing it as proof that the NAACP, not tea partiers, are the real racists. (the NAACP quickly condemned the official, but naturally that's not good enough for gary, who's just looking for an excuse call andre carson a liar.)

gary, and people like him, have a shockingly naive view of racism and bigotry. he has no trouble identifying bigotry when directed at People Like Him by People Not Like Him (though he seems to have completely stopped discussing homophobia—supposedly one of his blog's signature issues), yet he seemingly defines white racism as dressing up in a sheet and lynching folks. and since he and his fellow right-wingers aren't out burning crosses (well... most of them aren't), they therefore aren't racists and their actions are thus not racist. this is why gary doesn't understand when others call him out for racist attitudes in his blog. he assumes that he isn't a racist and is thus incapable of racist thought, so when others point out problematic content, he assumes they must be political opponents who are trying to discredit him. he never bothers to analyze what he's written and why it might be offensive—and perhaps he never will.

of course, everyone has racist or bigoted thoughts from time to time. the key to overcoming bigotry is to recognize these thoughts for what they are and act accordingly.

update: unsurprisingly, the USDA official's story becomes a lot less damning when viewed in context.

2nd update: NAACP has issued a new statement:

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.


Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.

The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech. They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.

Moreover, this incident and the lesson it prompted occurred more that 20 years before she went to work for USDA.

Finally, she was sharing this account as part of a story of transformation and redemption. In the full video, Ms.Sherrod says she realized that the dislocation of farmers is about "haves and have nots." "It's not just about black people, it's about poor people," says Sherrod in the speech. "We have to get to the point where race exists but it doesn't matter." ¶

fight violence with violence, or indianapolis blame expo

shorter abdul hakim-shabazz: you know who i blame for last night's expo shootings? al sharpton! stuff like this proves that black kids deserve to get the crap beaten out of them sometimes. in fact, i'd like to beat some up myself. ¶

hot streak!!!!!!!!!!!

from the journal-constitution:

Indiana among hardest hit by job losses, report says

Indiana has had one of the steepest declines in employment since the recession began, according to new rankings from an economic policy group.

The share of the state's population that's employed dropped more than in all but five other states between November 2007 and May 2010, according to the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project.

The share of Hoosiers employed dropped from 63.5 percent in November 2007 to 57.2 percent in May 2010.

Indiana's 6.3 percentage point drop was even bigger than the 5.6 percentage point decline in Michigan, which has had the highest unemployment rate among states for most of the recession but which also got hit earlier than other states.

good thing we have a financial genius like mitch daniels in the governor's office! ¶

because it's easier to be unfair

shorter indiana supreme court: yes, the fact that absentee voters don't need to show ID is unfair, and essentially defeats the whole point of the voter ID law, but that's okay because checking absentee voters' IDs would be difficult.

[see masson's blog and indiana law blog for more] ¶

perfecting the paranoid style

shorter advance indiana: i believe every anti-obama conspiracy theory. obama hates jews and wants to destroy israel! he's a secret muslim! he wasn't born in this country! he has coked-up gay sex with shady characters! you name it, i believe it... and i have links to crank right-wing web sites that prove it all! ¶

a new design, and some old ones

my latest glitch illustration is now up for voting at threadless—it's a glitch rainbow! if that sounds cool then you'll probably like it; if not then maybe you won't:

in related news, i just set up an account at society6.com. society6 is a site where artists can upload their portfolios, collaborate with each other (and with vendors), and sell gallery-quality prints, t-shirts, and laptop or iphone skins. i have a couple shirts for sale as well as art prints of some of my best illustrations from the past year. enjoy! ¶

we're #28! (according to charity navigator)

charity navigator, a site that researches the finances of various charities, has just released its 2010 metro market study. i wanted to be sure i posted about the study, because its findings contradict the beliefs of a certain right-wing blogger who routinely criticizes local charities despite having no comprehension of how the nonprofit sector works.

in the study of the nation's 30 largest metro areas, indy ranked 28th (up from #29 last year). we ranked below average in every category except administrative expenses, working capital ratio, total expenses, and total net assets. even worse, indy ranked dead last in the categories of fundraising expenses, program expenses, and program expense growth.

our relatively high ranking for administrative expenses (#10) is the opposite of what you might expect if you've been relying on the opinion of said blogger, who regularly claims that indy's charities are bastions of corruption and waste. overall, our charities are actually quite good in this regard. another category i want to point out is indy's low ranking in terms of CEO compensation. yes, despite what some would have you believe, many local charities actually pay their executives too little, and suffer for it. the indy star explains:

In the increasingly complex work of fundraising, the ability to solicit a lot of cash at a minimum cost is paramount. That requires savvy leaders with business and social skills, perhaps honed in the private sector. And it requires someone who won't hesitate to scrap time-consuming, money-wasting donation methods, such as phone solicitations.

Attracting such leaders takes money that some Indianapolis charities have been unwilling to pay.

"Indianapolis has consistently ranked low in CEO compensation," Minuitti said. "These organizations are really multimillion-dollar operations, and that requires a certain level of compensation to attract and retain top talent."

in short, you can't hire just anyone, pay them peanuts, and expect them to do quality work. if you want talented executives, you have to pay them what they're worth—a concept that you'd think right-wingers would understand.

other factors dragging down our rating include the fact that we have a lot of human services charities—which "tend to be hit hard" during recessions—and a reliance on inefficient means of fundraising such as telemarketing, direct mail, and expensive fundraiser events.

of course, the charity navigator study has its flaws. first and foremost, it's lacking in context and can be difficult for the layperson to understand. also, the site's analysis centers on finances, which isn't necessarily the best measure of how a charity is doing—in some fields, it would be better to focus on results. it doesn't matter how efficient your fundraising is if you're not getting good results, and likewise, a bit of inefficiency is fine if you're doing great work. ¶

holding their feet to the fire

shorter gary welsh, this morning: indianapolis star political reporters are just stenographers, uncritically repeating what the city's elite tell them to without researching anything on their own. disgraceful!

shorter gary welsh, last night: police sources tell me that the kid who got beaten up by police deserved to get his ass kicked, but the officer who got fired for kicking his ass didn't deserve to get fired. ¶

allegedly in need of a beatdown

shorter abdul hakim-shabazz, black republican: police are justified in beating the crap out of kids if they suspect one of the kids may have committed a crime. ¶

everybody draw moe howard day

today is everybody draw moe howard day! here's my contribution:

draw your own and add a link in the comments! ¶

the problem with machine-generated directions

for some reason, i don't trust these directions google gave me. ¶

a quick question

how crazy do you have to be to freak out over the fact that this year's miss USA is muslim?

keep in mind that this woman is not only willing to appear on tv in a bikini or a bustier and fishnets, but is also pro-birth control... so she's not exactly an advocate for sharia law.

update: truly, it requires a mind skilled at doublethink to simultaneously believe this woman is both an islamist threat to our freedom and a pole-dancing stripper slut.¶

get ready for a huge smash!

as previously announced on the stAllio! facebook page, a huge smash—the full-length follow-up to mash smarter not harder—will be released in summer or fall of 2010.

for a while, i toyed with the idea of shopping this release out to one of the "big-name" audio collage labels (as if there were more than one!). but for a number of reasons—first and foremost that the thing is already way behind schedule—i will be releasing it for free download from bad taste.

when i first started developing this new post-mashup style of music, i was so excited about it that i couldn't wait to share it with the world. so i rushed out the first four tracks (and a remix by drbmd) as an EP: mash smarter not harder. the point of that EP was simply to introduce certain musical ideas that i intended to explore more fully over the coming years, much as you might take a pre-calculus class before moving on to studying calculus. hence the title of the first track, "introducing the new style".

the original plan was to rapidly follow up mash smarter either with a full-length or with a series of EP releases. i expected that to happen in 2009, but i ended up getting sidetracked and spent much of '09 working on visual art, design, and illustration. now, two full years later, the time is finally approaching...

a huge smash picks up where mash smarter left off, and from there the samples get shorter, the edits come quicker, and the sound gets distinctively glitchier. this will be the most ambitious stAllio! release ever, and musical culmination of everything i've been working on for the past several years, as the seeds that i planted in mash smarter come into full bloom.

all that, for free download, later this year. stay tuned. ¶

is this the worst idea that democrats have ever had?

i applaud congressional democrats' initiative for wanting to "reform" the immigration "problem" this year, especially in light of the anti-immigrant bill that was just passed in arizona. but my god, if this is their idea of reform...

Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.

The proposal is one of the biggest differences between the newest immigration reform proposal and legislation crafted by late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

The national ID program would be titled the Believe System, an acronym for Biometric Enrollment, Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment.

It would require all workers across the nation to carry a card with a digital encryption key that would have to match work authorization databases.

"The cardholder's identity will be verified by matching the biometric identifier stored within the microprocessing chip on the card to the identifier provided by the cardholder that shall be read by the scanner used by the employer," states the Democratic legislative proposal.

they literally want to fingerprint every worker in america. this is like some insane caricature of a proposal, the stuff of conspiracy theories. i almost can't believe it's real. are they trying to drive voters away? ¶

cause & effect redux

i always knew indygo—indianapolis's public transit system—was bad. there are too few buses, the route map is a mess, buses come infrequently, and fares are relatively expensive. but i didn't know until a couple weeks ago that indygo is one of the worst in the country. (a recent analysis found our bus fleet tied for last place with eugene, oregon... a town 1/5 our size!)

so how do you become worse than the worst? it sounds like a zen koan, but we're going to find out the answer!

IndyGo is counting itself as the next victim of the state's property tax caps and dwindling funding.

On Tuesday, Indianapolis' municipal bus agency said it is considering cutting service and jobs to make up for a $3 million shortfall this year.

Those cuts could include eliminating some bus routes and curtailing door-to-door paratransit service for people with disabilities.

yes, the system that has too few routes already may be forced to cut more routes! this is thanks in large part to property tax caps, which were instituted a couple years back after proto-teabagger stormed the streets demanding them, despite the objections of those of us who knew the cuts would wreck local government budgets throughout the state.

but the caps aren't the only cause of indygo's woes. fundamentally, the city has never truly embraced indygo or given it the funding it needs. comparable cities tend to devote much more to transit, often with dedicated taxes. (st louis's transit budget is almost six times ours.) the system has been neglected for years; its failure goes back several administrations.

mayor ballard hopes to improve the city's transit system. i sincerely hope he can. (he surely can't make it much worse.) but i don't have much hope, considering the kinds of solutions he's come up with so far. after all, ballard was a leading proponent of the property tax caps that have gutted his budget. and his proposal to fix the city's water and sewers has extra crap tagged on that means rates won't be as low as they could be; in exchange he gets a one-time cash infusion that he can pretend he didn't raise taxes for. (never mind that it would have the city sell off the city's water system outright; even the governor's controversial "major moves" deal would give the state our toll road back after 75 years.)

the last time i rode an indianapolis bus was when i was too young to drive. this is because the system is such a pain to use—there are few places i could even reach by bus without going downtown first, and most buses only come once an hour at best. but i've ridden public transit in other cities, so i know it doesn't have to be like this. ¶

but it's so easy to get an ID!

whenever anyone complains that indiana's voter ID law is too strict, proponents get bent out of shape. "everything else in our society requires ID, so why not voting?" they say. "besides, it's not that hard to get ID."

meet brent jones, profiled in tully's latest column (which ran in sunday's paper but was embargoed online until today). when brent was a baby, his troubled mother would often leave him with a local child care center, sometimes for days at a time. eventually, she disappeared entirely. the people who ran the child care effectively adopted brent, but no paperwork. 17 years later, brent was preparing to graduate high school, but had no birth certificate, no legal record of his identity. as such, he was unable to get a license, a college scholarship, or full-time work. and of course, unable to vote in indiana.

"People don't understand how ridiculous this is," Brent said. "It's crazy. No matter how much you try to explain, people say, 'There has to be a way.' No. I've tried everything."

As frustrating as Brent's case is, Marion County juvenile court Judge Marilyn Moores said it isn't unique. She comes across a handful of such cases each year. As with Brent, the story often begins with a birth parent handing a child off to a friend without taking the legal steps required.

"All of the systems of government have to become more sensitive to this issue," she said. "You can't tell these children they don't exist as far as our system is concerned. You can't penalize the child for the sins of the parent."

[...]

Brent was allowed to enroll at the schools because students who are unable to prove their identity aren't turned away. Nonetheless, the system did fail him. Many school workers knew his story, but nobody made the effort to help resolve his lack of legal documentation.

getting ID might not be so hard for those of us priveleged enough to come from stable homes, who were fortunate enough not to have our paper records destroyed by fire or tornado. but not everyone is so fortunate. it's easy to pretend that people like brent don't exist, or that they don't matter, but these people are real. they exist, and they are marginalized by bureaucracy.

in the end, brent's story has a happy ending. tully and the star's research department scoured public databased and made a lot of phone calls, and eventually were able to locate brent's mother, who was fortunately still alive and doing well. but again, this is sheer luck. brent had the good fortune to meet a newspaper columnist who happened to be writing a series of columns about manual high school, where brent had happened to transfer recently. surely, not everyone who lacks a birth certificate will meet a matt tully, and even if they did, tully and the star surely don't have time to locate them all.

there are others out there like brent: legally ghosts, with no tangible identity. these are people who've been treated like numbers, and their numbers got skipped. ¶

more award-winning journalism from abdul

abdul hakim shabazz apparently won a journalism award last week... and immediately used the opportunity to take a cheap shot at his critics (then escalating a few days later after one of his critics fired back). if you burst out laughing at the idea of abdul's site being the "best journalism website" in indiana, then you're probably familiar with abdul's work: it's vapid, petty, and what passes for news analysis is usually poorly thought out if not downright disingenuous.

for example, let's take his latest post, about indiana ending its pursuit of "race to the top" funds.

you're probably heard of "he said, she said" journalism, where journalists print quotes from both sides of a dispute and make no attempt to ascertain which side is correct (if either). abdul practices a simpler form—you could call it "he said" journalism—in which he gets quotes from one person and repeats them as unmitigated truth.

behold: here is his post in its entirety:

Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett told me this morning that the state is ending its pursuit for "Race to the Top" funds. "Race to the Top" is a federal program that provides up to $4 billion for states that implement reforms in their education system.

Bennett says there was not enough support from the Indiana Teachers Unions for the state to take a second shot at the funds. Lack of union support was the one of the original reasons Indiana lost out on the first round of "Race to the Top" funds.

Bennett told me this morning he made an offer to the Unions to meet him next Tuesday to work out a deal, however they turned him down.

Had Indiana been a "Race to the Top" participant, it would have received hundreds of millions of dollars for education. Bennett says, for him, Race to the Top was more about reforming schools than money.

However, I can't help but think of the irony in all this that the teachers unions whine and complain about more money for schools and as soon as they get an opportunity to get more money they turn it down. Hmmm, it must be that whole accountability thing again.

man, union people sure are a bunch of assholes! i sure am glad abdul made no attempt to get their side of the story, aren't you?

in contrast, here's a taste of how the indianapolis star covered this story last week:

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said he is passionately making a case for reforms he considers crucial to improve the well-being of the state's children.

The presidents of the Indiana State Teachers Association and the Indiana Federation of Teachers say Bennett is trying to steamroll teachers in the process and is using unfair tactics. Both have increased their own rhetoric against and criticism of the state.

The debate has come to a head over whether the unions will sign on to the state's second attempt to win stimulus funds.

Bennett has advocated tying job reviews for teachers to their students' test scores, and he has advanced policies that would allow teachers to be paid or dismissed based on job performance rather than years of experience.

wait, so the two sides had a disagreement over some kind of issue? well surely the unions are just being unreasonable...

Bennett held several meetings with union leaders but declined to allow them to see the proposal for the federal grant, saying that other states might steal the more innovative ideas. Both unions were then asked to write letters of support -- for a proposal they had not seen.

emphasis mine. the real story is that the unions were unwilling to sign onto bennett's plan sight unseen. so, rather than share his "innovative" ideas with the unions, bennett decided to not apply for the grant at all.

as doug pointed out last week, perhaps this dispute could've been resolved had the two sides been more willing to work together rather than fire off angry press releases. in the end, both sides lost this one. but surely nobody comes off looking more foolish than abdul, who published an embarrassingly one-sided post that was lacking some crucial details.

the question is: did abdul not know this information, or did he simply choose not to share it with his audience? either one is a glaring journalistic failure, but the former would be merely incompetent, whereas the latter would be downright mendacious. both possibilities are troubling—i'm just not sure which is worse. ¶

handicap rec 001 - act like you understand 12"

i just got my copies of this 12", the debut release from france's handicap records:

Handicap Rec 001 - Act Like You Understand
A1 - Doormouse - Final Eye of the European Breakcore Burnout
A2 - Handbag/Abba - Ruffest Gunark
A3 - stAllio! - Rockin the Pop Charts
A4 - Roundop Ready vs Rektal Distortion - Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas
B1 - Killjoy - Muffhawk Smack Down
B2 - Handbag/Abba - Overnight Celebrity
B3 - Valav - Xhailn

contact me if you're interested in a copy... i'm thinking around $7 each sounds about right.

¶

housin'

as some of you have already heard, virago & i just bought a new house in the "south broad ripple" area. (close enough to broad ripple to call it sobro, but far enough south as to require the use of scare quotes.) we'd been living in apartments for the past couple years, so it's great to be back in a place that we own, that we can decorate and modify at will. not to mention, it's larger than our apartments and the mortgage is less than we were paying in rent.

the previous owners were rehabbers who bought the place for cheap and fixed it up. the outside is unassuming, but the interior is beautiful—if a bit amateurishly done. (the cable installer had to laugh at the unprofessional exterior cable hookup, and our frankenstein's monster of a furnace, with its labyrinthine ductwork and hobbled-together appearance, elicited a similar reaction from the HVAC guy.)

possibly the best part is the basement, which means we no longer need to live among piles of clutter—the clutter all goes in the basement, where we don't have to look at it! this also allows us to get better furniture. for example, virago wanted to get a better storage solution for our vinyl record collections, so we picked up some of these bad boys:

it's like having a record store right in my own house! ¶