From what I can tell, racism exists where minority groups are large enough to be considered a threat to the status quo.

**********

I live in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania. In 2000 the population of the county I live in was 41,373. 98.11% were white and the black population was at 0.60%. I have never lived around more racist attitudes than I do around here. Most of them have never even talked to a black man but they know they hate them. Now of course not all of them are like that but it's definitely not better than the South.

Even when I lived in Georgia for 4 years I never saw the outright hatred of blacks as some of the people around here have.

Come on, folks -- why so serious?  Let's get back to solid American values . . . based on humor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3_95F5e-Ac

;-)

From Maureen Dowd's column this morning in the NYTimes, some amazing new Sarah Palin gibberish:

>>Here’s Palin defending herself on the contention that she got confused about Africa:

“My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.”

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”<<

Ah, but here's a ol' journalism trick: Plenty of people speak in run-on sentences - the way Palin did in the above passage. But many journalists will "clean up" a source's speech. They don't change the actual meaning of the words, but they insert proper punctuation and take out extraneous words (the "y'knows" and "ums" we almost all use).

However, if you don't like a particular source, you quote them verbatim. A Boston newspaper famously did this to Roger Clemens years ago, putting in ever "um" and "er" he said. They did it to make him look like a stammering fool, even though many of us talk that way in casual conversation.

Not saying Dowd necessarily did that to Palin. But it does happen.

EDIT TO ADD: Here's how a sympathetic journalist might "clean up" Palin's quote: "My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa. The relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars. Never, ever, did I talk about, 'Well, gee, is it a country or a continent? I just don’t know about this issue.' "

Comes off a lot better, doesn't it?

The latest on the economic bailout front: Nancy Pelosi now wants a rescue package for the auto industry.

Many of you here saw this coming as the bailout was being discussed. If the government gives a rescue package to the financial services industry, then how can they say no when the auto industry comes calling? The $700 billion bailout set a very dangerous precedent.

I almost guarantee that the airlines industry will be the next to come calling hat-in-hand.

Bruce, my partner and I were discussing the auto bailout this morning over oatmeal and he said something profound, I thought.  "Maybe the auto companies wouldn't be in such bad shape if they'd build the kind of cars people wanted to buy."

At first, I kind of snorted, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right.  Why are you trying to continue to manufacture gas-guzzling SUV's and then bitching that nobody wants to buy them?  (Of course, it doesn't help that SUV sales are up this month thanks to the lowering gas prices.)

But really, who NEEDS a Hummer?  And before Al beats me to it, I'm gonna add, "Not THAT kind of hummer, guys!"