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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmeCnhLJ-r8AVjG5TPYaJbsLmKtgD9BFI3HG0

AKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. — An Arizona councilman made insensitive remarks about Jews during a meeting about a contract for the city manager.
Councilman Lee Barnes referred to himself as "just a little Jewish" when it comes to finances while discussing the contract of the ousted city manager during a special meeting Tuesday.
Mayor Mark Nexsen referred to Barnes' statement as "inappropriate." Nexsen said he plans to talk to Barnes about his poor choice of words. The mayor added that Barnes owes the community an apology.

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j810GNtjYD6SGBWQd7qW-uQMcE0gD9BF10PO2

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Two Republican county officials in South Carolina have apologized after they disparaged Jews in a newspaper op-ed in support of a fiscally conservative U.S. senator.
The chairmen, Edwin Merwin Jr. and Jim Ulmer, wrote the newspaper in backing Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's opposition to congressional earmarks.
"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," according to the piece published Sunday in The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg.
DeMint called the comment thoughtless and hurtful Tuesday, and one of South Carolina's two Jewish legislators, Democratic state Sen. Joel Lourie, said he was outraged.
"The words of these key Republican leaders are disgusting, unconscionable and represent prejudice in its purest form," said Lourie, D-Columbia.

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Neither chairmen returned telephone messages from The Associated Press, but they released statements through the state GOP.
Ulmer, the Orangeburg County chairman, said the remark was "truly in admiration for a method of bettering one's lot in life" and he meant nothing derogatory.
Added Merwin, the Bamberg County chair: "I have always abhorred in the past, and shall continue to do so in the future, anti-Semitism in any form whatsoever. I ... beg that any and all who were offended will accept my deep felt apology."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-paper-satire,0,5274452.story

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A student editor at a college campus-run humor publication in Portland says he and others plan to be more cautious when making decisions about the newspaper's content after running a phony article that said students at another college killed all the Jews at their school.

Glenn Harrison, a student at Reed College and an editor and writer for The Pamphlette, said in an e-mail to The Oregonian that the student-run newspaper's staff has repeatedly apologized for hurting or offending people on campus with the article, which was meant as satire.

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The article appeared last week, and it took aim at students at Lewis & Clark College, another private liberal-arts school in Portland. Anti-Semitism is a sensitive issue at Lewis & Clark, where swastika graffiti was found in the library bathroom a few weeks ago.

The article carried the headline "LC students kill Jewish people."

It begins: "In what is being called a 'tragic, but all too predictable' event, the staff of The Leaphlette, a student humor publication at Lewis & Clark College, have been accused of rounding up and gassing all of the Jews on their Portland, OR, campus."

The phony article goes on to describe students asking the chemistry department for a chemical to conduct "Jewsperiments" and a "towering crematorium" where the library once stood.


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Yes, 3 stories, of 3 apologies in 3 days. If that's not a trifecta what is?

So can we as a people not take a joke or did the said individuals really strike a nerve with some of you?

I dunno, the backstory indicates that LCU had someone put a swastika in the bathroom and this got made into a big deal, apparently.

So yeah, I understand the farce and what the joke is.

Someone drew a swastika on the wall, LC humor paper writes a tongue and cheek article about how books like the "Diary of Anne Frank" help enable anti-semites. Which of course, i making light of an issue, makes the origional slant even MORE outrageous.

So of course, the neighboring school had to write about how the staff of LCU's campus humor magazine were killing jews because they had made light of anti-semitism awareness.

I do see the first two incidents as anti-Semitic. The third isn't. (The swastika-painting is, mind you -- but the response to it, lampooning the anti-Semites, was just anti-jerkfaces.)

The first two incidents, on the other hand, both focus on a common stereotype: Jews as stingy penny-pinching misers. It's a generalization, and worse, it's done so "quietly" that some folks will just accept it without noticing it. It's like bacteria. If you SEE a lump of excrement on the sidewalk, you'll steer around it, so it's not a danger to you. But if someone puts a tiny dab of something nasty on a paper towel, then rubs the paper towel on your kitchen counter, you'll prepare food on the counter and eat it without realizing it, so the bacteria will enter your body without your noticing. Same with those "little" anti-Semitic comments that pass right by without notice.

Yeah but it's one of those stereotypes that is a positive generalization.

Like saying that asians are good at math, or black people are good dancers.

Mind you I know a Filipino girl who can't do algebra and have seen black people with two left feet.

I also know people in Boston who cheer for the Yankees and my OWN BROTHER doesn't like deli food.

But how many times have you seen something where people in the same ethnic group reinforce their own stereotype.

I mean to think that I could be upholding a stereotype by not spending all my money by the time my next paycheck is due. Or not try to get my kids (when and if) into law school or medicine or banking.

Just because you spend money like a Jew does not mean you would spend all winter in a cold house, because you don't want to pay to fix the windows.

It means that as Jews we do not spend money for the sake of spending money.

Well unless of course you're my brother, who takes weekend excursions to other ciites, just to watch football... 10 or 11 times a year.