Nice going Matt. The CogDiss of blackity black people on skis will cause your readers’ heads to explode like one of Rush’s butt zits.

The CogDiss of blackity black people on skis

I still think that’s the most galling part.

I still think that’s the most galling part.

Especially since they’re skiing at uber elitist Vail.

And that whole “ribs” “1,575 calories per serving” stuff is just lying garbage.  The article says she ate “a braised shortrib” along with a bunch of veggies.  At a very high end restaurant by the way.  At least they didn’t try to claim she ate lobster and caviar.

The article says she ate “a braised shortrib” along with a bunch of veggies.

Well you know us colored folks. Put us within 200 yards of ribs and we lose ALL CONTROL.

I heartily encourage conservative pundits and others of the shiftless persuasion to engage in endless merry tootling of this particular dogwhistle.

It’s not quite as silent as you think.

You know bout us black folk and our ribs..?

Hell they probably wouldn’t be satisfied ever…even if we rolled into the resturaunt like this:

Huh… nowhere in the article does it mention the calories or fat content of their meal. Though it does mention that the Obamas paid their own personal expenses.

Quite a few deleted comments, as well.

The recipe has 6 servings for a total of 1575 calories; 1575/6 = 262 calories per serving. Republicans can’t do math so they’ll never notice.

They totally buried the lede—where’s the part about Michelle screaming for more motherfucking iced tea?

I think that says “per serving,” Glix. But that’s just one recipe on Food.com, and for all Drudge knows, Michelle’s ribs were prepared from mutant lean-fat dietary hogs and cooked on a George Foreman Grill.

There are about 113 calories in the average 1-oz. portion of spare ribs. A 12-oz. serving puts you over 1300 calories. Maybe he had a 6-oz. portion. Maybe that was all she ate that day. Maybe she just picked at the vegetables. But Drudge doesn’t know, and he really doesn’t care, and he’s fairly oblivious to how stupid he looks trying to make a war crime out of a rather fit woman eating some healthy, non-red meat and some vegetables. It’s not like she was wolfing down a bucket of chocolate-covered Crisco balls.

Mmm… ribs.

Wait, black people SKI?! Next thing you know they’ll start going to Martha’s Vineyard. Oh wait…

Wait, black people SKI?!

I hear they’re black even underneath their clothes.

[H/T National Lampoon, circa 1972]

Hi Strange, hope you’re doing well.

In my leftist days many moons ago, a book stirred a lot of discussion.  I think it was called “When Class Trumps Race.”  (I might be wrong about the title.)

The general idea was that the societal stratification that had previously been characterized by race had changed.  Now the societal stratification that was more powerful and influential than race was socio-econimic class.

In my experience, this was one interesting subject on the left that turned out to be prophetic.  In my circles, class definitely trumps race.  In fact, I tease one buddy of mine when I tell him that I am blacker than he is.  We both laugh because we both know that it is true at least in the terms that I offer it to him. (I spent a lot of time on the streets as a kid, and his dad is a doctor.) 

All of which brings me to Halle Berry.  She is the product of a mixed marriage.  One of her parents is white.  Then Halle got involved with a white guy, and they have a little girl.  So here this child has a white father and a white grandparent.

So they asked Halle whether she was going to raise the kid black or white.  Halle Berry said she would raise the kid as black.  So they asked her how that works when you consider a white grandparent and a white father.

And Halle replied that she believes in the “one drop rule.”

Now some of my black friends are young and I’ve actually had to explain to them how preposterous her statement was.  The one drop rule was a derivative of the ante-bellum South used as an argument by segregationists and Klan members and red-neck sheriffs who did not want public schools to be integrated.  It is an out-and-out racist proposition.

Therefore, it is deeply ironic that Halle Berry, living among the tough streets of Beverly Hills in the celebrity culture, would seize on an old racist idea with which to try to preserve her chops as part of the victims’ aristocracy.

Yay Amherst has come back to us!

We were worried that the judge would be less than lenient after your latest ... misadventure with the you know whats.

Oh good lord.  Can we get a pie filter up in here?  I hate when people make up fictional friends in order to prove a point. 

And, you know, putting aside caloric intake and whatnot, I don’t recall Michelle ever saying, “YOU CAN ONLY EAT BROCCOLI AND DRINK MINERAL WATER, MUTHAFUCKAS!”  So, whatever else she’s being, hypocritical is not one.

Uh, I never knew there was a difference between raising a child black or white.  How did I miss this crucial information?  I probably did it completely wrong and raised my son as Pacific Islander.  Is it something about potty training or Sesame Street?

Uh, I never knew there was a difference between raising a child black or white.

There isn’t. Unless you drink a lot of anti-freeze and hallucinate Halle Berry is discussing child-rearing practices in your vicinity.

Go easy on Amherst folks. Those extended involuntary commitments are hard on a fellow.

My wife and I are trying to raise our son as Vultan, but I don’t think it’s working. He doesn’t even have a beard, and he’s nowhere near as shouty-crackers as Brian Blessed.

@Mike—Just remind him daily that nobody wants to live forever, and make sure there’s always clean paper at the bottom of his cage.

Yea! Amherst is here to derail the conversation, which was about the racism that motivates most of the spittle-flecked incoherent hatred against our First Family, and particularly the First Lady’s food intake.

Ooo Flash Gordon reference! Seriously, are there any Roasters under the age of 35 (I’m being generous here) who didn’t have seriously geeky childhoods (other than Betty)?

@J., I’m not under 35, but I did not have a geeky childhood.  I also didn’t hear my first pop song until I was in 6th grade.

Don’t EVEN get me started.

The two idiots - Bachmann and Palin last week spouting off about beastfeeeding, Palin dissing the First Lady on the faux travelogue, and now this…more attempt to make the First Family “the other”

Short ribs were a delicacy served in many Jewish homes….just ask any grandmother….so now is she going to be accused of….??????

C’mon, Steve, you know all ribs look alike to Republicans.

I must be a Republican, because I was convinced these were pork ribs.

And a Big Mac has 576 calories. Not exactly Henry the Eighth territory.

But you’re right, it’s too late. Drudge teed-up Rush and Glenn and Michael Savage and a bunch of other people to wax outraged over this manufactured non-story,

Drudge links to some random rib recipe at Food.com that he wants you to believe is the same thing Michelle ate, but the ribs Michelle ate weren’t even beef—they were bison (the linked article doesn’t say so, but it does name the restaurant, and the restaurant’s Web site says so, under “Main Courses”).
Comment by Steve M. on 02/21/11 at 10:15 PM

Even if they were beef, I’ve never seen a short rib where the fat content is almost three times the amount of the protein content (as per that recipe)  Usually it’s around 75% protein and 35% fat.  There’s nothing else in the recipe that would account for such a high fat content so I can only conclude that whomever put the values in doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

Rebecca, I was just thinking about you as I was reading the news about Christchurch. Are you all right?

Yes thanks Strange, I’m in the North Island luckily.  I’m just watching it all on the news.  The quake while lower on the richter scale (6.4 compared to 7.2) was only 5km deep compared to thirty something last time.  Lyttenton where it started is destroyed apparently but they can’t get any cameras in there because the tunnel is closed.

My SIL and a neice and nephew are in Timaru (140 odd km away from Christchurch) and they felt the last one.  Still haven’t seen them online to see if they are okay.

I completely stuffed up the spelling of Lyttelton there, sorry.

I’m glad you’re safely north, and hoping your family only caught the outer band of this thing. The wire reports of damage and trapped people are pretty terrifying, and there have already been several major aftershocks.

Between earthquakes, droughts, volcanoes and riots, it’s all starting to get an End-Time-y feel to it. If this keeps up, I may have to pick a religion toot sweet.

Stay safe, and check back when you get a field report from the clan at Timaru.

Ooo Flash Gordon reference! Seriously, are there any Roasters under the age of 35 (I’m being generous here) who didn’t have seriously geeky childhoods (other than Betty)?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m probably the only regular under that age. I’m 30, and I used to collect novelisations of the Dr Who tv episodes.

So, no, in answer to your question.

It really doesn’t matter how many calories there were in the First Lady’s dinner: her point, and the point of most nutritionists and dietary pooh-bahs is that any sort of delicacy is fine as a treat. Michelle’s efforts to improve the nutrition in kids’ everyday school lunches makes inarguable sense, unless you are a typically addled RW hack.

The Obamas’ vacations always feature exercise of some sort—skiing, hiking, swimming—and often some kind of treat, after which there’s the usual clucking from nitwit Teabagging pundits. 

Please, Michelle. Please please please, start a “Just Say No to Self-Immolation” campaign.

@ Amherst:

victims’ aristocracy

::facepalm::

@ Rebecca:

Glad to see you’re okay, and I hope your family is safe.

@ Mrs. Polly:

Please, Michelle. Please please please, start a “Just Say No to Self-Immolation” campaign.

There would be such a shortage of charcoal lighter fluid that BBQs nationwide would have to be canceled. It wouldn’t affect me, though, as I prefer to fire up my briquettes via a chimney.

C’mon, Steve, you know all ribs look alike to Republicans.

Le Win.

@ Amherst:

victims’ aristocracy

::facepalm::

Yup. So sad when someone who at first presented himself here as a “reasonable conservative”—albeit one who thinks Palin is a credible politician and defends the Tea Party—debases himself to outright race trolling. We have so much in common with these people. Like central nervous systems.

debases himself to outright race trolling.

It’s either this or public masturbation and the judge just gave him his last warning.

“of them.”  I did not finish my sentence.  Mea culpa.  Oh, and for Amherst.
Comment by asiangrrlMN on 02/21/11 at 06:04 PM

I work for one of those “new fangled” civil rights organization (with a predominantly white) that can’t understand why the communities where we organize always seem view us as outsiders/don’t take us seriously, despite the civil rights cred of our famous Executive Director.

Forwarding this article ASAP. Thanks!

Betty Cracker, I always feel I’ve come up in the world when you respond to a post of mine.

If you don’t like “victims’ aristocracy” then choose another name.  But look, Halle Berry is a hard-core member of the rich and famous.  Beverly Hills ain’t exactly Hell’s Kitchen in 1950.  However, despite being one of the rich and famous, she wants to maintain the status that normally is attached to the underprivileged.  You know, we should all only be so lucky as to live the life of a wealthy Hollywood star.

Many of you must live very truncated lives.  About a third of black Americans are part of the middle class.  And believe it or not, they don’t rush back to the ghetto.  They live and work right alongside white folk. 

If any of you have kids, you understand that there is very little racial friction in most middle class high schools where blacks and whites grow up with each other.

As a consequence, it is now very commonplace for white and black middle class people to become friends and share activities.  If you don’t realize this, you need to get out a little more.

The most important part of my post was the idea that class now trumps race.  This view originated from a writer on the far left.  And I’m saying that it looks to me like this was prophetic.  Who do I want to live next door to?  A nice black family or some white members of the Hell’s Angels?  It seem obvious to me that almost everyone would prefer the nice black family.

It’s a different world, my friends.  And most of our recent right and left rah-rahs for our ‘football’ teams have only led to the atrocious predicament we find ourselves in.  When I was a kid the N word was a terrible insult.  Now that the hip-hop culture has gotten through with it, half the white kids want to be the N word.

As a consequence, it is now very commonplace for white and black middle class people to become friends and share activities.  If you don’t realize this, you need to get out a little more.

Thanks for the newsflash. Let me know when you get around to making a point about Drudge.

Hold tight folks. Once that load of much-abused sweatsocks is out of the dryer, Amherst’s hands will be really ... busy for the next few hours.

Betty Cracker, I always feel I’ve come up in the world when you respond to a post of mine. ... blahblahblahblah ... Now that the hip-hop culture has gotten through with it, half the white kids want to be the N word.

Christalmighty, you need a stringent and robust editor.

And no, I’m not volunteering.

Strange, I agree with you completely.  I fail to understand why anyone in the Western world would care whether the First Lady ate a rib.

As far as I’m concerned, most people ignored Mrs. Reagan when she said, “Just say no,” and I imagine that most people are paying very little attention to Mrs. Obama’s nutritional advice. 

As a consequence, it is hard for me to get my mind around a motivation for concern about her personal diet.  I wish it were possible to sweep all of the left and right snark into the sea and have conversations about these subjects as human beings.  Regrettably, I do not see this forthcoming anytime in the near future.

Regrettably, I do not see this forthcoming anytime in the near future.

Socks are done.

Class trumps race at cocktail parties and society fundraisers. Elsewhere, not so much.

Socks are done.

And in this case, they fucked themselves.

It’s almost as if Amherst, from his own truncated perch, can’t allow that Halle Berry’s choice to self-identify as black has fuck all to do with how much money she may or may not have.

And no, if he’s jerk enough to throw “victims’ aristocracy” (and Halle Berry, too boot) unprompted into an otherwise civil discussion about a demonstrably racist meme that’s being propagated, then I don’t think anyone owes it to him to rescue him from that revealing insight.

But since he’s too busy superciliously soiling his sockdrawer to allow for the fact that the commenters and posters here have their own life experiences (and much less has a scooby’s about who here is black, white, or whatever), words are obviously wasted on him. On with the motley.

@ Amherst, I don’t know anything at all about Halle Berry except that she doesn’t always choose her movie roles wisely. But the phrase “victims’ aristocracy” conjures up a white dude bitching about how minorities and chicks are always using their “protected class” status to screw him out of a promotion. Hence the facepalm.

As for socioeconomic status supplanting race as an American fault line, would that it were so. In that parallel universe, you wouldn’t see Social Security recipients and middle-class white folks attending Koch Bros.-sponsored “grassroots” rallies and agitating to lower taxes when the income gap is at Gilded Age levels.

Have perceptions of race changed in America since the really bad old days? Absolutely. I grew up down the road from a little ghost town called Rosewood, and I’ve seen it in my community in my lifetime.

But we’ve still got a ways to go, and there are powerful people who understand that it is their best interest to make sure that as many working class black and whites stay at each others’ throats for as long as possible. Rush Limbaugh is one of them, and he’s not just some radio loudmouth; he’s an opinion-maker with an audience of millions before whom elected Republican officials bow and tremble.