Go to any county in Pennsylvania which is 95 percent Anglo - in the eastern half of the state, at least - and you will not find a group of happy people tilling the soil and working in their class- and educational-level-related jobs. Instead, you're going to find the German-Americans at the Italian-Americans' throats, the Protestants against the Catholics (see the "Coal Regions" of Schuylkill County for that), the Irish Catholics against the Ukranians, and so on. In fact, there is no more divisive a branch of Protestantism than the Anabaptists - Mennonites continue to split because of miniscule doctrinal differences.

People seem to need to break themselves down into "us" versus "them" categories, no matter how closely related they are genetically. Adding elements of color makes codifying hatred and otherwise-united people circling the wagons so much easier.

As an older reader, I remember my parents' bridge score pads. They weren't lined by geographic orientation, the way the convention is used to describe bridge hands in today's papers. Scoring was always done on a "we" versus "they" basis. Is it surprising that a movie as mediocre as "Crash" was so popular if the topic was the unexpected mixture of race and class? Isn't that what drives all disaster movies?

...for the WASPs to deign to consider equal status to Irish like Hannity and Buchanan.

You'd think that these two twits would have a bit of self awareness about how the Irish were once treated in this country, but of course neither of them has the slightest clue as to how Irish were treated historically.

Well Glenn, if we truly want an honest discussion about race in this country we're gonna have to let Rev. Wright and Mr. Reynolds spew their venom, if only for cathartic purposes. Tip-toeing around the egg shells of political correctness hasn't resolved much. At least in terms of the discussion.

Hate to say it, but can't see either Obama or Clinton uniting the party before or after the convention. A forced marriage might work, but there is so much bad blood among their supporters that even that step could prove futile. If McCain shores up his conservative base, I fear it's four more years of Bush.

Allah, Army and America have been the arbiters of Pakistani destiny for the past sixty years; how does an election, that does not challenge the fundamental premises on which the Pakistani state is based, change that?

However, in Tibet, we have the first significant stirrings in the last fifty years, and so it is significant.

This shows exactly what I'm talking about. Jaded? If you didn't understand the significance of the Pakistani election, you had no right to be jaded. And you have characterized the whole thing in such vague general, macro terms that you haven't understood it. Let's go, Harry, it's just another election.

As for Tibet, anyone who thinks this is the first significant stirrings in the last fifty years is just completely uninformed.

And what accounts for the difference of opinion if you don't really know the facts? I'll take my initial point as proven, then.

"I know that I do a very good job, but will avoid generalizing to others."

-- Cindy Ross

One of my daughters has taught in the public school system for about a decade. She is now in administration. It has been difficult and challenging for her, but she has put her heart and soul into trying to help the kids at the same time she deals with the politics of being a school teacher.

I just wanted to tell you that, and thank you and express my appreciation to you for being a caring teacher and for doing "A Very Good Job"!

The levels of invective toward Hillary especially (but practically everybody gets slimed with it eventually) are outrageous; since they usually repeat wingnut smears, some of them more than a decade old, I assume that the power of the right wing media is so very strong that Dems are completely powerless to resist. The smears are now lodged in Democrats' DNA. No wonder the Insta-Whatevers chortle. Heh. It works every time.Dems are so bone stupid.

And according to the jelling consensus on the right, Hillary is going to be the nominee, you watch. They seem to believe this Wright business has mortally wounded Barack and his chances are fading, fading, fading out. On the other hand, Hillary is the candidate they always wanted the Dems to pick, from years and years and years ago. So getting rid of Barack is win-win.

And of course if this Wright business doesn't do the job, there are plenty of other ways to take care of the Problem.

And once he is taken care of, and Hillary is the nominee, all that invective that was hurled by other Dems at her won't be re-directed at Grumpy Gramps McCain. No, it will keep being hurled -- from other Dems -- right at her.

But if by some chance Barack secures the nomination -- and it could still happen -- the Insta-Racist bile Glenn is pointing to today will be the tip of the shit storm. There will be no end to it.

Most Americans may reject that sort of racism outwardly, but like the Clinton smears, it's worked its way into the national DNA. As Rev Wright says, it was there at the beginning. Talking about it helps, but it takes more than that to get rid of it. And even then...

One can, of course, replace Instapunk's list of "niggers" with a comparable list of fallen white ministers, politicians and celebrities -- or with members of any race, for that matter. Thus, his list might have read like this: Ted Haggard, Britney Spears, Robert Downey Jr., Duke Cunningham, David Vitter, etc.

But we don't think to group white people in this manner. When Ted Haggard uses drugs and sleeps with a prostitute, nobody thinks to suggest that it has something to do with his race. And when Duke Cunningham accepts bribes, nobody says it happened because he's white. This is, of course, the correct approach -- their problems don't, in fact, have anything to do with their race. But when a black person does something offensive, it's immediately attributed to his blackness.

This is also apparent in what is perhaps the most remarkable thing about Instapunk's list: its diversity. There are, it seems, many ways to be a nigger. A black man is a nigger if he breaks the law by using drugs (Barry) or sexually assaulting someone (Tyson); if he is a corrupt politician (Jefferson); or if he's completely law abiding, but says bad things about America (Wright, Farrakan). Consider this: Aside from the fact that they're all black men, what do Wright, Iverson, Farrakan, Barry, and Jefferson all have in common? I, for one, am unable to come up with an underlying similarity not related to their race -- just as I can't think of what Britney Spears and Duke Cunningham have in common.

But, of course, Instapunk's deeper problem with these individuals isn't in their ultimate actions, it's in the fact that they do these actions in a way that's somehow "black." Thus, when he complains of the black males that he says he sees every day, he doesn't identify a single bad activity that they engage in; they're niggers simply because of how they dress. They wear their pants around their knees, so of course he "wants to smack them" and can't help but think of the N-word.

It is this underlying fear of black men's "blackness" -- in any form and regardless of the actions associated with the individual -- that has been, and continues to be, so easily exploited by the right. As Obama pointed out in his speech, it cemented the Reagan coalition and it allowed for the Republican Southern strategy. And, it seems, it is alive and well now.