Racist, sexist graffiti in the new World Trade Center bathrooms.

Port Authority police are now investigating. Who wrote these things? The construction workers?

“Such slurs are offensive and have no place at the World Trade Center site or elsewhere,” PA spokeswoman Lisa MacSpadden said. “The Port Authority has zero tolerance for those who demonstrate intolerance.”

The construction company said it has an anti-vandalism policy which it would "reiterate" to its crews.

Hardhats who toil on the site said the foul writing on the walls is a fact of life at all job sites — and there’s not much anyone can do about it.

Black construction workers, victims of some of the most repugnant scrawls, were furious but said they don’t dare complain when they see the N-word.

“You ask any black person on the job, and they’ll say, ‘What can you do about it?’ ” said an outraged Tyson Patterson, 35, of the Bronx. “You talk and you get fired. I have to be political and pretend it doesn’t bother me.”

"What is the gun community going to do about this tragedy?"

"I dunno. What is the gay community going to do about Penn State?”

The Amish hair- and beard-cutting trial: Is it a hate crime...

... if they felt compassion and wanted to bring strayed Amish "back into the fold"?

"Shopping for a new car, I see that they all look bloated and sloppy, bulkier than need be."

"Restaurants serve mega-portions, sodas are bigger. And have you been on a NYC subway lately? The number of people taking up two seats has increased exponentially. There's nothing patriotic about eating and drinking yourself sick, but our cars and toasters have that same look. America the insatiable. And those of us lucky enough to have health insurance are paying the brunt of other people's overindulgence."

A comment on a NYT column about the proposed NYC ban on extra-large sodas. The column takes the attitude of mocking the "American soft-drink industry" for making "appeals to patriotism" in its lobbying against the ban. The column sounds the anti-business and pro-good-health themes the NYT typically finds fit to print. The comment reveals the dark side of those themes: lowly disgust for citizens with obesity and an irrational fear that the overweight are intruding on the rest of us and draining us of our wealth.

"On The Glenn Show, Glenn [Loury] and Ann discuss the politics of President Obama's recent endorsement of gay marriage."

"The two professors, both of whom have gay sons, defend the religious opponents of gay marriage against the charge of 'bigotry.' They argue that religion can be a force for positive social change, such as during the civil rights movement. Ann laments that politicians so often feel they must demonize their opponents, and Glenn defends Mitt Romney's background in private equity. Ann and Glenn compare the Occupy movement with the Tea Party and find the former lacking. Finally, they celebrate 'the leisure of the theory class' and compare their different approaches to vacationing." (Hyperlinks to the specific items here.)

"So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach..."

"... and saying, 'Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,' you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female..."

... and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed....

Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male....

Trayvon Martin and Tyler Clementi... and the notion of "hate crimes."

Bill Keller, the former executive editor of the NYT, explains "Why Liberals Should Hate ‘Hate Crime Legislation.'"

There is nothing novel about the law taking into account a criminal’s state of mind; one of the prerequisites for a conviction under common law is “mens rea” — a guilty mind, malice aforethought, criminal intent. The law also recognizes gradations of guilty purpose. A premeditated killing is more punishable than one committed in the heat of the moment, which is worse than a killing that results from negligence. New York law compounds the punishment if you kill someone to prevent him from being a witness.

The distinction [law-and-philosophy prof Heidi M.] Hurd makes — convincingly, I think — is that when you penalize intent you are punishing matters of choice. One can choose not to pull the trigger, not to throw the rock, not to steal the purse.

“You can’t choose not to be prejudiced or biased — at least not willy-nilly, on the spot,” she told me, when I called her the other day at the University of Illinois. “We pass moral judgments all the time against bigots and chauvinists and homophobes and so forth. But this is a question not of what we should morally blame people for, but of what we should deprive them of liberty for.”...

In most cases, hate crime laws take offenses that would carry more modest sentences — assault, vandalism — and ratchet up the penalty two or three times because we know, or think we know, what evil disposition lurked in the offender’s mind. Then we pat ourselves on the back. As if none of us, pure and righteous citizens, ever entertained a racist thought or laughed at a homophobic slur.

Via David Lat.

"What about low IQ and Liberal beliefs? Did the study link those to anything?"

"Say, gullibility? Conformity? Susceptibility to cults of personality? Unhealthy narcissism? Vanity? Shouting down governors? Locking one's own head to gallery railings? Chanting? Drumming? Occupying? Incessant blowing of vuvuzelas? Did those questions make it into the study?"

"The Muslims Are Coming!"

WaPo highlights a comedy tour that's targeting Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, apparently on the theory that's where the Islamophobes are. They're filming themselves to make a documentary, and as you can see from the glossy clips presented at the linked WaPo page, they've set out to cherry-pick anti-Muslim remarks from the locals... even though they've got almost nothing. (For example, they catch a Southern girl saying she doesn't know what people would think if a mosque opened up in her neighborhood.)

Isn't this all rather Southernophobic? What if 4 comedians from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee called themselves "The Southerners Are Coming!" and went to New York City — comedians just about exactly as funny and perceptive as the 4 comedians in the WaPo story — and they went around trying to elicit anti-Southern remarks from New Yorkers and cherry-picked the meanest/stupidest things people said. I have 2 questions about that: 1. Would the New Yorkers remarks be worse than what the Southerners said in the "Muslims Are Coming!" video? and 2. Would the Washington Post (or the New York Times) promote these aspiring comedians with a big glossy web page like the one at the link?

Answer questions 1 and 2.
	Yes and no.
	No and yes.
	Yes and yes.
	No and no.
pollcode.com free polls

"I’m a Mormon" — the Mormon PR blitz.

After determining that Americans tend to use terms like “secretive,” “cultish,” “sexist,” “controlling,” “pushy,” “anti-gay” to describe Mormons, 2 big ad agencies are hired.

[T]he church’s campaign could prove to be a pivotal factor in the race for the presidency. The Mormon image problem is a problem not only for the church, but also for Mr. Romney. For all their success professionally and financially, Mormons still face a level of religious bigotry in the United States equal only to that faced by Muslims.

Let's be fair. There's a much lower-polling religious category, one held in such abysmal esteem by the general populace that no mainstream presidential candidate admits he or she belongs to it, though I'm sure — they're so secretive! — many do.

ADDED: Here's a Gallup poll demonstrating my point.

"Republican bigots and the candidates who encourage hate."

Another dishonest, embarrassing editorial in the venerable Madison rag known as the Capitol Times.

A clue to the clueless: One man booed, the surrounding audience tried to shush him, and the candidates on stage couldn't hear it.

"Do you believe children should be charged with hate crimes?"

Good framing of the question. The answer is obvious.

"Defecating dog sparks US shootout."

Why did BBC publish this story? It's not exactly big international news!

Two neighbours in the US state of Mississippi drew weapons and fired at each other as an argument over a defecating dog ran out of control.... injuries are not life-threatening... "Just meet me at the levee and I'll shoot you down."...

I think the BBC is into stoking anti-hillbilly bigotry. Bob Wright was doing that yesterday:

As Bristol Palin makes the DWTS finals, the anti-Palin forces say look over here: It's Willow Palin's "homophobic rant."

The 16-year-old Palin was hanging out on Facebook:

Willow's target, a person named Tre who goes to school with the Palin kids, wrote a status update on the night of the show's premiere, which read "Sarah Palin's Alaska is failing so hard right now."

Willow quipped back, "Haha your so gay. I have no idea who you are, But what I've seen pictures of, your disgusting ... My sister had a kid and is still hot," referring to her 20-year-old sibling, Bristol.

She later added, "Tre stfu. You such a f*ggot," and "I'm sticking up for my family," TMZ reported.

Bristol then came to her family's defense, writing to Tre, "You're running your mouth just to talk sh*t."

Do decent people read a 16-year-old girl's Facebook page? But we've read it, so let's at least be decent enough to be fair to teenagers. It's common and casual speech to use the words "gay" and "faggot" like that. It upsets upright people, and it would better if the kids didn't do it — or so it seems, as we look down on the young from our lofty adulthood.

We might say that anyone who cares about gay people should strike those words from their vocabulary. But not everyone who hasn't already laundered their speech of those offensive words is "homophobic." (And not everyone who has, isn't.) You're "homophobic" if you actually feel antagonism toward gay people. There's absolutely zero indication that Willow has any negativity at all toward gay people. She's just pissed at Tre and talking like a teenager (or a "South Park" character). To tar her as homophobic is like saying if you call someone an "idiot," you hate persons with Down Syndrome.

So leave Willow alone, you creeps. And in saying "creeps," I mean no antagonism toward arthropods.

If we should be talking about the Palin kids at all today, we should be talking about Bristol. A complete underdog, Bristol Palin made it to the finals of "Dancing With the Stars." She had no experience as a performer, certainly not as a dancer, and it's incredible that she kept going at all, as the judges and others either tore her down or — when they saw the votes flowing in? — were modestly supportive. Week after week, she landed at the bottom of the judges' scores, but she made it up time and again as regular people called in enough votes to overcome the disadvantage the judges had imposed.

This week, the people bumped her ahead of the judges' darling Brandy:

Last night, Bristol Palin made the finals of Dancing with the Stars, and I think nobody was more shocked than Brandy, who got eliminated. Brandy was so shocked she didn’t even congratulate Bristol! Brandy really wanted that spot; in face earlier in the show, they had shown us a video tape of her saying how much she wants it, and that she “humbly” thinks she deserves it. Most people would agree with her, but Bristol beat her out anyway.

So whatever the reason: Tea Party Conspiracy, Brandy’s arrogance, Bristol getting all the teen votes, Bristol working her “butt off,” or Mark Ballas’ incredibly good teaching…the question remains: Can Bristol win DWTS season 11?

Maybe she will! Congratulations to the shy, unassuming teenager who didn't particularly ask to be thrust into the spotlight 2 years ago, who went through an accidental pregnancy in front of millions of people (many of whom didn't mind insulting her in any manner they found amusing), who didn't hide herself away in shame, and who tried, again, in front of all of us, to dance. How many of the people who snipe at her, are too big of a pussy to dance anywhere, including on crowded dance floor at a local club?

Yeah, I said "pussy." Does that make me a misogynist?

"But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism."

Writes Christopher Hitchens, noting the naivete of the talk of religious tolerance in defense of the mosque near Ground Zero:

As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter …

As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.

In this view, it's good to frame the debate in terms of tolerance, but don't wimp out halfway through. Keep going, and insist on tolerance all around. I think that's a better position than meeting intolerance with intolerance. It's more enlightened, it puts us on the path to liberty, and it requires quite a bit more courage.

"If I read the press release correctly, the ADL is opposing the building of the mosque because bigots also oppose it."

Jeffrey Goldberg reads the Anti-Defamation League's press release and opines.

Columbia University won't turn over the video showing who hung the noose on the black professor's door.

So. The evidence is: Columbia University won't turn over the video showing who hung the noose on the black professor's door.

Infer.

UPDATE: Decision reversed. Good. It's absurd to report this to the police and then not cooperate. If you want to keep it private, resolve it internally.

ADDED: This Daily News article has a picture of the noose hanging from Professor Madonna Constantine's doorknob. There's also some info about her colleague Professor Suniya Luthar, whom Constantine is suing for $100,000 — some defamation case that we'll need to hear more about. We're told Luthar is not a suspect, but right under the picture of the noose, the newpaper has a picture of Luthar with worried expression on her face. In the photo, Luthar is caught wearing an oversized "Phantom of the Opera" T-shirt and short shorts. This exposure of Luthar — we see her thighs — seems really unfair.

AND: By contrast, this long NYT article about Constantine doesn't even mention Luthar's name. We're told only that Constantine has "filed a defamation lawsuit against another professor in her department" and that she "declined to elaborate on the case." (I want to add that it strikes me as inconceivable that Luthar is the culprit here.)

"Someone took our name and used it. It was hateful."

A conservative group sponsors something it calls "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" on campus and feels the hate. For conservatives, apparently. But whoever hates the conservatives doesn't mind making the Muslim students feel hurt — as long as they feel hurt by conservatives.

UPDATE: 7 GW students confess:

"It is to our great dismay that the student body and the media missed the clear, if subtle, message of our flier: the hyperbolic nature of the flier was aimed at exposing Islamophobic racism," the e-mail said.

We didn't miss it here, of course.