"Two years ago, Richmond, Va., installed 17 markers delineating a slave trail, running past the sites of slave markets and a slave jail."

"A national slavery museum is being planned, said Delores McQuinn, a state legislator, who has led the slave trail project. Charleston, S.C., has moved away from its traditionally genteel approach to antebellum history to one that acknowledges the central role of slavery in the city’s development. An International African-American Museum is planned there as well and is seen as good business."

"Tourism audiences are changing," said Mary Battle, a public historian with the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture at the College of Charleston.

"Microaggression" — the word that died.

I've been working on the theory that the term "microaggression" briefly spiked to prominence and then utterly crashed with the story of the professor who was accused of "microaggression" for correcting spelling and grammar errors. I picked apart some details in the way that story was told here, and then I began to Google "microaggression" every day or so to see what was surfacing in the world of microaggression. It's an interesting label, possibly useful, clearly abusable, and I wanted to see where it would get put. But all that came up, again and again, was that spelling-and-grammar-correcting professor. Hence the theory that the word died.

But today's search turned up something new over at Buzzfeed: "21 Racial Microaggressions You Hear On A Daily Basis." A photographer named Kiyun got her friends to "write down an instance of racial microaggression they have faced," so this is a series of people racially microaggressed against, holding signs. This is a pretty good-humored project, and the young people who went along with the photographer's idea object mostly to dumb remarks ("What do you guys speak in Japan? Asian??"), excessively personal remarks, ("What does your hair look like today?") and — here's something to hearten the John Roberts' fans — lack of color-blindness ("What are you?").

You know there's a color-blind way to fight against microaggression: Etiquette!

You think: "What a good-hearted, mellow person I am," I think: "Inside the Madison cocoon."

"Insane Tourists Blatantly Defying The U.S. Government’s Demands."

Can't they read!

People. The Washington Monument is CLOSED. Quit posing with it!

You know, last Sunday, I got out of the car to take this picture, and somehow it didn't occur to me until I got home that I should have walked around that thing just to be funny.



I'm such a rule-follower!

ADDED: I show this post to Meade and he says — quoting me from an old story about something I said to the cops in the 1980s — "You can't close the park, man." Or, no, wait. I didn't say that to the cops. Fallible memory! I said that after the cops told us a park that had no walls or gates was closed. We meekly got in the car and left, but I did my imitation of a hippie backtalking to a cop, in the safety of the car: "You can't close the park, man." I'm normally duly submissive in a cop situation.

"Learn to Love our Natural World." [UPDATED with a list of 9 annoying things.]

Seen yesterday:





Meade points to the signage — orders from The State:


(Click photo to enlarge.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Peter says:

Those photos show a world that's "natural" in the same same sense that downtown Chicago is "natural"- that is, they show the natural world as it's been shaped by humans and their activities for many, many centuries.

The landscapes shown in these photos surely look far different then they would without the presence of humans and the various human activities that have shaped and altered them.

Yes, and the least natural thing is the government imposing signs, and this sign is especially ridiculous, telling people who are already out walking in the nature preserve that they must learn to love nature. Quite apart from the annoying inference that we do not already love nature, I was annoyed by:

1. The presence of any signage infringing on the direct experience.

2. A sign that provides no specific information (such as the names of plants and the history of the restoration).

3. Government seeing our emotions as within its domain of command.

4. The selection of "love" as the specific emotion that should be dictated.

5. Presenting the sublime emotion of "love" as something that is achieved through a process of education.

6. Stimulating an anti-authoritarian impulse that drives me away from love.

7. Stimulating an anti-education impulse that makes me resist learning. (If you want me to learn, give me some information to learn here, not instruction to love.)

8. A subtle state-sponsored atheism.

9. Stimulating a list-making response in me that provokes me to write an item — that last one — that makes me annoying and proud of being so annoying.

"The lack of titles for the posts is strange. You should try doing that for a day or two now and see if it upsets anyone. You know, like the old studies of people walking around with blamk protest signs."

Looking for the war protest. Part 2: The video.

Meade and I approach the Capitol, here in Madison, Wisconsin, on a Saturday morning, thinking if there's going to be action, it will be here. This is before Obama emerged to say that he was going to ask permission from Congress. This is a 10 minute video, but it's edited and moves quickly, I think. Look at the tags below to get an idea of what's in store:

Bumper stickers in a Lincoln, Nebraska parking lot.

Car #1 (click to enlarge): 3 Pro-Life stickers + "Abolish the IRS."



Car #2: Obama hugs Michelle for "Four more years."

Where we were when we were not in Madison.

We were in Lincoln, Nebraska.



For the National Amputee Golf Open Championship, cheering on the Meade family member who comments on this blog as "The Elder" (previously highlighted in this 2010 post).



Lincoln is a fine American city, like Madison, a capital city, and though we are big fans of the state capitol buildings, we skipped that building this time, because we were there in January 2012. Remember those pictures? Instead we got our fix of state capitolosity as we drove home today, via I-80, stopping in Des Moines, Iowa. I have some nice Iowa Capitol pictures, but I'm going to put them in a separate post.

Personal watermelon.

Thirsty?

I could go for a nice big glass of hornets... after a rough day of paddleboarding...



... on Lake Wingra.

"I love when you talk dirty!"

A dialogue between 2 men in last night's open thread "At the Saturday Peony Café":

Palladian: A few years ago, "peony" was a very popular note in perfumery. Many perfumes used this note, which was generally done as a big, fluorescent, loud, fruity-flower odor of no particular interest. Givaudan makes 2-cyclohexylidene-2-phenylacetonitrile, an aroma chemical they call Peonile, which I always find hilarious. Say it: Peonile.

El Pollo Raylan: The name is apt. I see lots of structural rigidity in the linear nitrile portion which has a nitrogenous lone pair at one end. Then there's the cyclohexylidene portion which is quasi-floppy, but made stiffer by attachment to the olefinic core. The phenyl is of course rigid except for its rotational degree of freedom.

Palladian: I love when you talk dirty!

Also in the comments, a dialogue between 2 women:

Freeman Hunt: We had some new tile installed in our kitchen this week. One afternoon the installers washed their tools outside and left without coming back in. Because they did not come back in, they forgot to turn off their radio. The radio was across the newly laid tile that we were forbidden to walk upon. So we listened to popular, contemporary country music all that evening and for three hours the next morning. Heh. (That story is much funnier to people who know me in real life. I don't listen to anything in the background. Ever. No television. No music. Nothing. I only turn something on if I want to listen to it actively.)

Synova: I don't listen to "background" anything either. I can see you standing at the edge of the tile... yearning.

Freeman Hunt: "yearning"... Perfect word.

Intruding on this perfectly female dialogue was the aforequoted Palladian: "That's what a handgun and good aim are for."

Also in the vicinity was another man, Lem. Unlike Palladian, he wasn't commenting on the music and yearning, at least not directly. He just told his own story — "We went to see a new friend perform at a local establishment and I took a picture of a sign near the entrance" — and showed us this:

"Rest in peace SHAME!"

Only one mean image mixed in with the the BBB's otherwise lovely collection of pictures from the funeral of Baroness Thatcher.

ADDED: Here's the NYT article:

"This, at Lady Thatcher’s personal request, is a funeral service, not a memorial service with the customary eulogies. At such a time, the parson should not aspire to the judgments which are proper to the politician; instead this is a place for ordinary human compassion of the kind that is reconciling."...

There was no immediate sign of large-scale protests by anti-Thatcher demonstrators but the police kept watch on anyone who might seem suspicious....

At Ludgate Circus, close to St. Paul’s, a small group of protesters gathered, some with banners reading: “Now bury Thatcherism.” Some jeered and shouted, “good riddance.”

Which Americans are in attendance? 3 former Secretaries of State: Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, and James A. Baker 3d.

"President Obama did not send a senior serving member of his administration."

At the This Way Café...

... find your inner wolverine.

Black man in a KKK outfit on a street corner in Philadelphia...

... holds a sign saying that black-on-black murder today exceeds — every 6 months — the total number of murders the KKK inflicted on black people over a period of 86 years. 

The man, Sixx King, is a filmmaker. A lot of people are angry at him.

"I need over 7 rounds (rapists are harder to kill than deer)."

Sign at a "Guns Across America" rally.

At the Live Free or Die Café...

... think of all the alternatives.

Video from the "Guns Across America" rally here in Madison, Wisconsin today.

Here's some edited video showing the crowd and the signs.



In the middle there is a prayer, and at the end is the national anthem. Once you get to the national anthem, it's all national anthem from there on. I decided not to edit that part down because you get a good view of the people who attended the rally and their attitude.

The prayer is quite interesting, including some discussion of what Jesus said to Peter after he cut off a man's ear. (Jesus didn't tell Peter to surrender his sword. He told him to "put it back in the holster." My Bible says "sheath," but Jesus wasn't speaking English.)

At 2:07, you see a sign that says "Political Power Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun. Mao," held next to a second, matching sign that says — in between 2 peace signs — "Support and Defend the Constitution."

At 2:15, I'm talking to this man about his nice-looking but hard-to-stop-and-read sign:



He asks me if I recognize the face and (despite knowing I'm wrong) I guess Michael J. Fox. He lets me know it's Ayn Rand and I say I'll read it later (knowing I've got the still). It says: "The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology."

At 2:35, I talk to a counter-protester with a sign that says "Ban High Capacity Magazine Clips" and ask "What's a magazine clip?" She knew there was some question about that term, but she'd researched it on the internet and decided that was the term she wanted to use. Perhaps saying "magazine clip" is a way to signal which side you're on. A shibboleth.

ADDED: Other stills from the rally here.

Meade drove me up to the Capitol Square to catch the "Guns Across America" rally.

I jumped out of the car almost before it stopped moving to catch up with this sign: "The Experts Agree/Gun Control Works":



"Rights Don't END Where Feelings Begin" — note the rifle-handle for the sign:



Not sure whether the Anonymous crowd is for gun rights, but the masked man's sign, not fully visible in the photo, said "The Only Criminals That Care About the Gun Laws Are the Ones in Office":






A gun-shaped staff for the the American flag along with a dramatic "Come And Take IT" flag:







These two are focusing on the mental illness problem:





This sign had 2 sides. Side 1:



Side 2:



"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it" is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but according to the Monticello website, there is no evidence that he ever said or wrote that (or the variation ""The people will not understand the importance of the Second Amendment until it is too late").





Out in front of the Hans Christian Heg statue, there were a couple of anti-gun-rights sign-holders. "Keep Your Guns AWAY From Our Children":



This last photo is by Meade, with me posing:



ADDED: Here's the "Wisconsin Guns Across America" Facebook page.

AND: Here's some video I did.

"Carpenters' union protests Madison businesses; refuses to back up claims."

"On two occasions, two people at two separate NCSRCC offices have sworn emphatically that a phone call would be returned that day or the next, but no calls ever materialized. Someone named 'Tony' from the union once left a voicemail, but then never answered a returned call."

I've seen the 3 guys holding up the sign out by Hilldale shopping center. Twice I tried to read the sign to figure out which place they had a beef with. I assumed it was the steakhouse, which was the place they were closest to, but I couldn't read the name of the place at the bottom of the sign, because the men were letting the sign droop. Now I see their target was Lululemon Athletica, a shop with some nice-looking athletic-wear. Makes me want to run over there and buy some toasty tech tights.