The long and ugly tradition of treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place, Laura Seay and Kim Yi Dionne, Washington Post, August 25, 2014

This week’s Newsweek magazine cover features an image of a chimpanzee behind the words, “A Back Door for Ebola: Smuggled Bushmeat Could Spark a U.S. Epidemic.” This cover story is problematic for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that there is virtually no chance that “bushmeat” smuggling could bring Ebola to America. (The term is a catchall for non-domesticated animals consumed as a protein source; anyone who hunts deer and then consumes their catch as venison in the United States is eating bushmeat without calling it that.) While eating bushmeat is fairly common in the Ebola zone, the vast majority of those who do consume it are not eating chimpanzees. Moreover, the current Ebola outbreak likely had nothing to do with bushmeat consumption.

Far from presenting a legitimate public health concern, the authors of the piece and the editorial decision to use chimpanzee imagery on the cover have placed Newsweek squarely in the center of a long and ugly tradition of treating Africans as savage animals and the African continent as a dirty, diseased place to be feared.

Bob McDonnell Showed Us The Meaning of Conservative Family Values Depends On The Circumstances, Adalia Woodbury, PoliticusUSA, September 6, 2014

[McDonnell] was the Republican Party’s walking billboard for “family values”. We got a peek at what “family values” really means to Bob McDonnell when he rejected a deal that would have spared his wife of any charges and the couple could have avoided a trial. Bob McDonnell would have escaped conviction on all the corruption charges, in exchange for accepting a plea on one felony fraud charge.

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However, the day McDonnell rejected that deal was the day we learned that McDonnell’s version of “family values” means the dutiful loyal wife takes the fall while hubby assaults her character.

Before the McDonnells faced criminal charges, they were the picture of the ideal happily married conservative couple. Then they offered up the broken marriage defense.

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Suddenly the same women who Candidate “family values” McDonnell said did the heavy lifting of raising their five children, while building a business and was on demand as his political prop became the “nutbag” who had eyes for his “friend” and brought about a Republican shining star’s political downfall.