phranque's blog

video of the police brutality

My jaw dropped.  Read More »

I swear.  If Rudolph Giuliani runs for president I will vomit.

My projectile vomiting will be so fierce, and so continuous, that the people will elect anyone that finds a better solution for spew inundation.

UGH.

Rudy Giuliani... seriously, folks... why on earth would anyone vote for this guy?

This is scary.  I know that many people are proud and passionate about their beliefs, but I think this goes a little overboard: http://www.pptkids.org/

I think this goes beyond comitted.  Why do people try so hard to drill belief into the minds of children?  Does it seem precocious to make little children act like their praying to God?  I mean, is it up to God to push a political agenda?  Read More »

You know what?

I've got it.  I believe that this whole immigration ordeal has been taxen the American public far too heavily.  It simply isn't up to U.S. citizens to support the economic and political well-being of other nations.  Well, that is, unless there's an unlimited amount of oil sprouting out of the ground in said nation...  But I digress.  I think that I've found the solution to this pesky and ridiculous issue.  Read More »

I had an amazing experience yesterday. 

As soon as I had woken up (my mother was shaking me in a suspiciously violent manner), my stepdad suggest that I go to the Latino book fair that they set up every year.  Naturally, I was a little reluctant.  I'd gone a few times, and although I did find some interesting stuff, it wasn't a super-fun exciting time.   Read More »

I was surprised...  I mean, I consider myself to be an educated person, you know?  I'm socially aware and up-to-date on whatever is going on.  However, I read something in the newspaper that I didn't know.

Did you know that just about all undocumented workers here pay taxes?  They pay taxes through the food and clothes that they buy at the store (they are consumers, after all).  When they pay their rent they also pay property taxes- that pays for the education of their children.   Read More »

ter·ror·ism  
n.

The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

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• Genes were the justification for the enslavement of African-Americans, for lynching and for segregation. Racists continue to consider African Americans "genetically" inferior and to imprison Black people more than white people.
• For part of the 19th century, the Irish were not considered white.
• Based on 19th century scientific presumptions, the U.S. had 600 separate anti-Asian laws limiting Asian citizenship. Whites could kill Asians with impunity, since they could not testify in court.
• Early sexologists supposedly proved "scientifically" that there were genetically based physical differences between the sex organs of homosexuals and heterosexuals that justified -- among other things -- incarceration in mental hospitals.
• By 1914, to prevent the inheritance of disabilities, 12 states had laws using genetics to justify the sterilization of the developmentally disabled, the blind, the deaf, the "deformed", and the drunk.
• Laws passed by the U.S. Congress in the 1920s, based on the supposed genetic "feeblemindedness" of Eastern and Southern Europeans, severely limited the immigration of Jews fleeing Hitler in the 1930s.
• By 1928, Eugenics, the scientific study of breeding "good" genes, was so popular in the U.S. there were 376 separate college courses on it, with an enrollment of up to 20,000 students. Elements of the American Eugenics movement were models for the Nazis, whose racial interpretation of it led to the Holocaust.
• Eugenics was also the basis for new arguments against inter-racial marriage. By 1915, 28 states had made inter-racial marriage illegal.
• Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 included racial registration as well as a legal definition of "whiteness". Within 10 years similar laws were found in Nazi Germany.
• To preserve the Aryan race, the Nazis exterminated anyone they deemed genetically inferior: Jews, people born with disabilities, gypsies, and yes -- homosexuals.
• To develop a cheaper work force of women free from child care, the U.S. government and the local government of Puerto Rico sterilized 1/3 of Puerto Rico women between 1930 and 1965.
• Puerto Rican women were also guinea pigs for testing contraceptive pills in 1956. The doses tested were 20 times stronger than the pill now on the market.
• In the 1996 bestseller, "The Bell Curve", Charles Murray argued that poverty is caused by genetic predisposition.
• The President of the Harvard University recently suggested that genetic difference might account for the lack of tenured women scientists.