I'm only going to post this once...

IT'S TOO DAMN HOT! I managed to make my way through a couple of Dallas summers, but there is no lie to the ole "it's not the heat, it's the humidity" claim. This week in Huntsville, we're expecting highs of 100-103 degrees and rare clouds. Add the 70-80% of relative humidity and it is damned impossible to breathe when outdoors. I will take the whithering dry heat of Dallas with the solid wall of overheated steam that one walks through upon exiting a building and trying to inhale enough oxygen so you can get into your car and survive until the A/C gets into gear.

Let it be known, I'm going to be a twitchy, angry bastard over the next week as I suffer through this. Thankfully, I mowed the yard last week and won't have to brave the heat to keep the grass in check. Every July and August I'm reminded why I was so adamant to move to Chicago or further north after college. What I always have to prepare myself when September comes around is to take advantage of the two weeks where things will be absolutely delightfully 70's before the sudden shift to the 50's.

Would you like the fondue or the salad?

I was reading an article about interracial marriages on CNN at the end of lunch today and it reminded me of an old debate I used to have in college and in talk radio.

Which path is more likely to lead to “racial harmony:” assimilation to a common American culture where homogenization and incorporation adds spice but doesn't distract from the majority/shared culture (“melting pot”) or voluntary segregation with people placing cultural/racial traditions and values as top priority with big chunks of diversity as what pleases the public's palate (“tossed salad”)?

Growing up, I believed that the melting pot was what everyone did in America. What were once Italian immigrants over a generation or two become Americans of Italian heritage and another generation or two later, they're just Americans (with their blood mixed in with enough other ethnicities/races).

When I went to college and found myself in a predominantly black dorm, I didn't hear the guys in the hall with me dreaming of a time when they would become one with a common American culture. They wanted to have their diversity acknowledged by the majority-white America and not visa-versa. There wasn't a desire for “racial segregation,” but the analogy of voluntary segregation in the school cafeterias was brought up on several occasions.

But it's that whole “voluntary” aspect of segregation that is key. Sure, whites are more predominant in South Huntsville, while the north side of town is predominantly black. How much of that distribution of races in the city is due to the govt or society being racially biased and how much is “freedom of association.”

Also along these lines is an article about a new school in Huntsville that is overcrowded while several adjoining schools are at half capacity. Obviously, the families/children from the old school districts want to go to Providence because of the new aspect. But one black parent said, “I don't want my child at an all-black school."

Is the problem her n'hood school being 90+% black or that it's an older school with low morale and standards? Assuming that one isn't pristine while the other is overrun with rats, is the children's education better at an overcrowded school with a large white population or at a school at half-capacity with people of the same race? People deserve a good public education, but will the future residents in the Providence village be forced to put their kids in private school because the n'hood school is overcrowded and will that enrollment at private schools be blamed on racism or the inept school system?