Can’t Tell a Person’s Wealth By Their Teeth?

Megan McCardle argues this is true in the US, I argue Megan spends too much time with middle class folks.

My wife came home from Target in South City today and was commenting on a Bosnian. I tried out good ‘ole American toothism on the story and was completely wrong. The Bosnian had great teeth apparently. However, the South Side Hoosier (St. Louis speak) in front of her in line had daggers for teeth.

So I struck out there. Then I thought about growing up in a trailer court and, well, we don’t really need to discuss how only a few of us in that park had reasonable dental care. It was quite disturbing and this was, in the relative term, a rather nice park.

Then we can discuss the issue of race and class. While middle class African-Americans (and many others) wouldn’t be caught dead with bad dental care, spend some time in North St. Louis and tell me there isn’t a difference in dental care. Perhaps I haven’t spent enough time in New York City, but here in the Midwest, there are significant differences in the level of dental care and class is the key difference.

I’ll Go One Farther

Kevin Drum is setting his standard for the war as swimming pools of anthrax. As I mentioned previously, I could care less about most chemical and biological weapons. The level of danger simply isn’t that great and other regimes were more likely to supply them to terrorists.

The exception being smallpox. If we don’t turn up evidence of a nuclear program and/or smallpox, this war was pointless. Nukes are the only real WMD and if he didn’t have an active program (and I believe he did), containment would have worked just fine, thank you.

A Moment of Silence and a Prayer

for him.

?…And so let freedom ring, from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when we allow freedom to ring ? when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God?s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.?

I visited Stone Mountain for the first time about 10 years after that speech. It made the man alive.

Of course, I still have dreams of blasting his face into the face of the mountain….

Mighty Smooth Senator Kerry

And DeLay fell right into it. It is bloody obvious the speech was ready before anyone even bothered to criticize Kerry.

Tom DeLay, hear me loud and clear: I speak out for America, not for politics, and as long as I have air in my lungs I will continue to speak my mind …


And I say to Tom DeLay, one thing I know about America is that in the face of war there are things more important than cutting taxes and it is wrong to reward the wealthiest Americans before we fulfill our solemn obligations to those that have served.