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Congressman Patrick Kennedy

Congressman Patrick Kennedy represents the 1st District of Rhode Island in the United States Congress.

Recent Articles

How Does It Feel to Be a Problem on the Internet?

Congressman Patrick KennedyFeb 04, 2011

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A diagram of comments left on a blog post by a woman who identifies as a rape survivor. The post argues for Penny Arcade's "Dickwolves" shirts to be discontinued. credit @kirbybits

I feel like I promised y'all at least one nerd-culture post, and so far all I've written here is, you know, actual issues. So boring!

Shoot Two Dogs, Keep Your Job.

Congressman Patrick KennedyFeb 04, 2011

Perhaps you read last year about a SWAT team raiding a family's home at night and shooting two dogs, a pit bull and a corgi, in front of the family's 7-year-old daughter, and then charging her father with child endangerment for possessing about an ounce of marijuana. Not an unusual story — the SWAT program's militarized approach to police work means that missteps are horrific — but the reason you heard about it is because it was caught on video.

Have Behavioral Economists Ever Met a Poor Person?

Congressman Patrick KennedyFeb 03, 2011

This morning, Mike Konczal at Rortybomb (link h/t Adam) responds to a bit of behavioral economic wtf-ery that's been around since the creation of the safety net: the conservative notion that aid to the poor feeds a "culture of poverty" and leaves its subjects even worse off.

Konczal sums up the disconnect between math and reality:

Systemic Economic Disparities: Bigger Than Class.

Congressman Patrick KennedyFeb 02, 2011

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(Image via)

(Rich) White People With Asian Last Names.

Congressman Patrick KennedyFeb 01, 2011

My colleague for the week, Jamelle Bouie, gets a shout-out from Ta-Nehisi Coates this morning for his assertion that Asians and Latinos will be thought of as "white" in the U.S. in the next 40-ish years, and that America’s essential black-white race paradigm will simply morph a bit, into black-nonblack. (This is in rebuttal to the idea that "race" will disappear entirely someday.)

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