Glass houses, glass jaws, glass pipes.

"Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis." Tim Wise

My head spins at the churlish ugliness & ignorance that flourishes. Micro- micro-levels of it on full display in all facets of society: my job is choked with scared, bitter, chickenshit crowd followers whose bravado from hiding is mis/taken for actual courage, their false words as gospel; it's on display in my hobby, where pettiness and unchecked insecurity/hostility/jealousy fuse with excessive disregard for actual fact/achievement. Too much comfort? Too much relativity, spurred by the left but now subsumed by the right? It's a gloomy time, yet all is relatively well. Perhaps that's the problem.