The Nutmeg of Consolidation

Those squatting in Malheur are not patriots. They are not soldiers. They are not citizens. They are an armed rabble of selfish malcontents, thieves and scoundrels, louts and violent drunkards. They believe they are protecting themselves from government, but civilization, government, exists to protect us from them.

They are nothing but bums with guns.

And that too is an American tradition, this ongoing lunatic tolerance for sedition in our own midst.

We ignore the cancer while it eats us alive. This is not freedom. This is not the liberty our ancestors fought and died for. This is not patriotism. This is like living with a rabid dog, one who foams at the mouth and bares its diseased fangs at our families and who sooner or later will be at our throats.

• Women in Combat, in their own words
• Women veterans' struggle to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
• George Takei on fighting hate with humor.

Patricia Banks was one of the first Black women to sue an airline for racial discrimination. She graduated from flight attendant training school at the top of her class and applied to several airlines. But it was 1956 and the U.S. airlines had never hired a Black woman. After 10 months of trying, an airline recruiter pulled her aside and admitted that it was because of her race. Which, of course, it was; airlines disqualified any applicants that had broad noses, full lips, coarse hair, or a “hook nose” (to weed out Jews).

Banks sued. After four years of litigation, Capital Airlines was forced to hire her. She postponed her marriage and took the job (airlines only hired single women as flight attendants).

I decide to make a beeline for the open doors in the car. I struggle to push my way about halfway to the door squeezing past people, much to their chagrin. I am stopped in my tracks by a salaryman who refuses to move.

1. actually listen to the song;
2. sit through the Lady Gaga video. Yeah. SF tropes. Still not my thing.

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