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This thing about believing in the natural inferiority of people having yellow, red, brown, or black skin, promoted by pre-21st-century people having white skin is something I have never understood. Just can't seem to wrap my brain around such a ludicrous idea.
Even when I was just a tiny tyke, back in the 1940s when racial slurs were common, indeed were a fact of life in my rural Indiana hometown, I was uncomfortable with the name-calling and did not myself use what is now referred to as 'the N-word.' I like to think this peculiarity was ingrained in me by my grandmother, who lived next door to Mary Pinkerton who was the daughter of a slave. I'll never forget Grandma shaking her finger in front of my five- or six-year-old face and saying, "I'd better never hear you use that ugly word. If I do, I'll twist a knot in yer tail."
In later years, when I was in the Air Force in the late 1950s, I was once a member of a multitudinous protest against a large cafeteria in Texarkana, Texas that had separate dining room spaces, each with its own sign 'Whites' and 'Coloreds', and separate entrances and exits, Whites in the front and Blacks in the back.
Later in that same era, I was once assigned temporarily to a two-man room at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. My roommate was a black man about my age. We got along fine and had many late night talks about our civilian lives. We got to know each other pretty well.
I remember one evening when two other black men visited my roommate and they sat huddled together across the room talking with their heads down. One of the visitors looked over to where I was dozing on my bunk and then looked back at my roommate, who shook his head and said, "Chambers OK." -- and they went on whispering together.
I think I will always remember that.
Sadly, though, I cannot for the life of me remember my roommate's name.
My point (I think) is that even though I consider myself leaning slightly to the politically Conservative side, I have for most of my life embraced many of the more Liberal (Progressive?) ideas and principles.
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TRIVIA
Rats and horses can't vomit.
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HISTORICAL EVENT
On this day, July 2 in 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.
The most sweeping civil rights legislation passed by Congress since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, the Civil Rights Act prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public places such as schools, buses, parks and swimming pools.
In addition, the bill laid important groundwork for a number of other pieces of legislation--including the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which set strict rules for protecting the right of African Americans to vote -- that have since been used to enforce equal rights for women as well as all minorities.
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WORD FOR TODAY
obtrusive
adjective
Noticeable or prominent in an unwelcome or intrusive way.
synonyms
officious - meddlesome
What is the difference between intrusive and obtrusive? The distinction between these words, and those between each of them and their synonyms, are subtle but useful.
To be intrusive is to involve oneself into the affairs of others, generally in an objectionable manner, tactlessly but not necessarily in a way that calls attention to oneself. To be obtrusive, by contrast, is to interfere without regard for propriety or subtlety. They therefore can apply to the same situation, but intrusive emphasizes the effect on the recipient of the attention, while obtrusive focuses how the attention is perceived from the outside.
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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
(born July 2, 1986)
Lindsay Lohan is an American actress, model and recording artist. She began her career as a child fashion model when she was three, and was later featured on the soap opera Another World for a year when she was 10. At age 11, Lohan made her motion picture debut in Disney's remake of The Parent Trap (1998), a critical and commercial hit. Her next motion picture, Disney's remake of Freaky Friday (2003), was also a success at the box office and with critics. With the release of Mean Girls (2004), another critical and commercial success, Lohan became a household name and a frequent focus of paparazzi and tabloids.
Lohan's debut studio album, Speak (2004), was certified platinum. Her second album, A Little More Personal (Raw) (2005), was certified gold. Earlier in 2005, Lohan starred in Disney's Herbie: Fully Loaded, another box office success. In 2006, she received positive comments on her work in independent films, including Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion and Emilio Estevez's Bobby.
In 2007, two driving under the influence incidents led to Lohan being put on probation, and together with three visits to rehabilitation facilities caused the loss of several movie deals.
(born July 2, 1947)
Larry David is an American actor, writer, comedian, and television producer. He is best known as the head writer and executive producer of the television series Seinfeld, from 1989 to 1996, and as its co-creator, with Jerry Seinfeld. David has subsequently gained further recognition for the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, once a mostly improvised sitcom, also created by David, in which he stars as a semi-fictionalized version of himself.
(born July 2, 1970)
Yancy Butler is an American television and movie actress known for her roles as Natasha Binder in the 1993 John Woo film Hard Target and as Detective Sara Pezzini on the TNT supernatural drama Witchblade.
(July 2, 1946 - March 15, 2009)
Ron Silver was an American actor, director, producer, radio host and political activist. He made his film debut in Tunnel Vision in 1976. From 1976-78, he had a recurring role as Gary Levy in the sitcom Rhoda, a spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Additional screen roles include a performance as the devoted son of Anne Bancroft in Garbo Talks (1984), an incompetent detective in Eat and Run (1986), the pistol-wielding psychopath stalking Jamie Lee Curtis in 1989's Blue Steel, and the lead in Paul Mazursky's Oscar-nominated Enemies: A Love Story (1989).
Silver starred as Jerry Lewis's character's son in the episode "Garment District Arc" of the crime show Wiseguy (1988). He portrayed defense attorney Alan Dershowitz in the true story Reversal of Fortune (1990), based on the trial of Claus von Bülow. From 1991-2000, Silver served as president of the Actors' Equity Association. He played a film producer in Best Friends opposite Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn and a film director in Mr. Saturday Night (1992).
In 1998, he starred opposite Kirstie Alley for season two of her TV comedy series Veronica's Closet. Silver portrayed real life attorney Robert Shapiro in American Tragedy (2000), the story of the O.J. Simpson trial. He portrayed tennis player Bobby Riggs in the TV docudrama When Billie Beat Bobby (2001), about Riggs' real-life exhibition tennis match against Billie Jean King, which Riggs lost.
Silver was featured as Muhammad Ali's boxing trainer and cornerman Angelo Dundee in the biopic Ali (2001). From 2001-02 and again from 2005–06, he had a recurring role as presidential campaign advisor Bruno Gianelli on the NBC series The West Wing. One of his final film performances was as a judge in another true story, 2006's Find Me Guilty.
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I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.
--Albert Einstein
NASA TV
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