I agree with all of this. The part in boldface is exactly right — it explains so much of the baffling "I'm not a racist, but ..." crap that you see or hear. And those people who make extremely racist comments and then say, "I'm sorry if anyone was offended. But everyone who knows me knows that I'm not a racist."

You are exactly right about the "I'm not a racist" thing. I can't count the number of instances where I've read about some hateful, racist thing someone has said or posted online, and the person insists (in the same breath, apparently without a sense of irony) that she is "not racist." People genuinely seem to…

The linked news article states that she was on the sidewalk and that the car jumped the curb.

I heard it as something like, "the driver of the car that ran over the stroller was later pronounced dead." But I wasn't really listening that carefully at that point.

You're making yourself look bad by arguing against a statement no one ever made. No one said that New Yorkers are the only people who give directions or otherwise provide help to strangers. Rather, you suggested that New Yorkers are unkind and rude, and LaComtesse merely pointed out (truthfully) that New Yorkers are…

Me too. She made many great, incisive points in this essay, but that anecdote just got me in the gut.

This comment is awesome in many ways.

replying just to bump this post up

bumping

Please say this isn't true: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/elephant-calf-raised-woman-malawi-dies-17706019#.UKJ28Ge5Uv0

I made the terrible mistake of clicking on the "Orphans in the Wild" link on the Moses blog, and am now crying like a baby. So happy Moses was saved from that fate, but so unbearable that other baby elephants aren't.

The blog post about him painstakingly comparing his face and ears with his human mom's, and then (after noticing her nose) spending a long time checking his own forehead to see if he had a little short nose there like she does .... I just don't have any words. I can't stand it.