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Two things.

One, will someone please explain to me how Republicans keep getting away with playing the “anti-elitist” “I hate Harvard/Yale/people who speak French” card when they themselves went to Harvard or Yale and speak French?

How did Bush keep getting away with it? I’ve never understood that. Andover, Yale, Harvard Business School, grandfather a Senator, father the President, oil money up to the eyeballs, and he got away with pretending to be a Texas workin’ stiff just by drawling and being pig-ignorant.

Now apparently Romney’s getting away with it.

Mitt Romney likes to take jabs at President Barack Obama for representing the values of the Harvard faculty lounge. He should know.

Like the president, the former Massachusetts governor is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Unlike the commander-in-chief, Romney also has a second Harvard graduate degree, in business.

While bashing Harvard is intended to paint Obama as an ivory tower theorist out of his depth in the presidency, Romney owes his chief White House credential — his business career –to the school.

That Ivy League pedigree undercuts Romney’s appeal to many Republicans who already doubt that he shares their values. So as he heads for his party’s nomination, Romney lacerates his alma mater on the campaign trail, seeking to channel the resentments of voters soured on elite institutions.

“I didn’t learn about the economy just reading about it or hearing about it at the faculty lounge at Harvard,” Romney, 65, said on March 18 in Illinois, in a swipe at Obama.

Why don’t people just shout “You pathetic liar!” when he tries that?

Two, oh for the good old days.

Brains and determination were taken for granted at Harvard, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution that is consistently ranked among the world’s top universities. Romney, seen as smart, though not exceptionally so, stood out for the intensity of his work ethic and his commitment to his Mormon faith.

“He was very serious about his religion and his relationship with God,” says Mark Mazo, a member of Romney’s law school study group. “That was highly unusual at the time.”

Ohhhhhhhhhhh wouldn’t it be nice if it were still highly unusual?

 

 

A confrontational mindset

Rachel Maddow on Fresh Air the other day.

On why she came out in the Stanford student newspaper when she was 17

“I think because I was 17 and incredibly cocky and full of myself, and I thought that everything I had to do had to make a statement. I think I had a confrontational mindset. I think I was frustrated by the casual anti-gay stuff that I saw among college freshmen in the milieu that I was in. And my attitude toward that was not to try to bring people along gently, gently, and show people by my evident humanity their callousness. I just wanted to throw something up in peoples’ faces. I’m not sure that I would do it that way now. I don’t really have any regret about it. I wish I had been more sensitive to my parents. But I certainly don’t regret coming out. I think that everybody has to find their own way on coming out issues. And some people decide never to. I tend to think it is always better to be out than not out. But not everybody has the option. And when I was a freshman in college, I felt like I had the option, and I exercised it with an exclamation point. I think it says more about being 17 than it does about being gay.”

Not everybody has the option – but some of us do, so we go to Reason Rallies or we write confrontational blog posts. Ya.

Leo in Geneva

Leo Igwe has an excellent article about religious laws versus human rights, which I think is a statement he made to the UN Human Rights Council a few days ago. Leo has very concrete, in your face, up close and personal experience of the relationship between religious “laws” and human rights, since he spends much of his time trying to repair the damage done by witch hunts and witch hunters and people who make claims about child “witches” in order to get money from the children’s parents to get rid of the “witches.”

Religious laws are legalised religious doctrines. They are “revelations” turned into rules to govern society. Religious laws are sacred dogma institutionalised. They are sins criminalised. They are religious hatred, intolerance, discrimination and fanaticism turned into state policies. In most parts of Africa, the negative impact of religious laws on democracies and human rights systems is clear and compelling – from the wars, conflicts and anarchy in Somalia, Northern Uganda, and in the Sudan, to the threats posed by Islamism to the Arab Spring in North Africa and the peaceful coexistence of people in Nigeria; from the witch hunts in Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Kenya, Guinea Conakry, Mozambique and the Central African Republic, to the wave of homophobia sweeping across different countries with overt and covert support from the OIC, the Vatican and other religious agencies that foster religious laws and its discontents across the globe. How we address this ‘sensitive’ issue of religious law – particularly here at the Human Rights Council – will go a long way in determining the future of democracy and human rights in the world.

I hope the HRC listened very attentively to Leo, and thought hard about what he said.

Also inspired by religious laws are those persecuting alleged witches in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Burkina Faso, the Congo, Central African Republic, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Angola. Even where there are enabling state laws to address the problem, in many cases the religious laws in the minds of the people overwhelm, and take precedence over state laws. Or the existing law will be twisted and misinterpreted to convict the alleged witch and acquit the accuser.

Hence it should not surprise anyone that theocratic agencies like the Vatican, the Church of England, the OIC and their member states have not come out openly and categorically to condemn accusations of witchcraft and spirit possession sweeping across Africa and Asia and among African and Asian overseas communities.

It’s a good question, isn’t it. The Vatican is terribly terribly concerned about fetuses…why is it so unconcerned about children accused of being witches? The OIC is terribly terribly concerned about “defamation” of religion and “blasphemy” and cartoons and the like – why is it so unconcerned about children accused of being witches? Why do theocratic organizations have such horribly twisted priorities?

Homophobia: And now compare the deafening silence and indifference of African states to combating witchcraft related abuses with their vehement and strident opposition to recognizing the human rights of gay people. The reasons often cited to justify and sanctify homophobic legislations in the region are as follows: That homosexuality is unbiblical, un-Koranic and ungodly! In other words, the African states have these sacred texts, not their constitutions, as their grundnorm.

Recently, many African states and most of the OIC member states walked out of the session convened by the Council to discuss violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. With that walk out, they have made their position clear:  they do not want these human rights violations to be discussed or addressed, nor will they be party to addressing them. They should not be held responsible and accountable. In other words, they are saying that the human rights abuses on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity should continue, because that is in accordance with the ‘divine’ law in these countries.

Exactly so. How terrible it is that Leo’s voice is such a singular one.

Sliding back

Shannon Rupp went to a “Wellness show” in Vancouver.

The Wellness Show — or as I think of it, Current Trends in Snake Oil — attracts an audience of about 30,000 to see a disparate collection of businesses hoping to find new customers in the demographic that’s chasing wellness…

Office assistants act like barkers pulling in the punters, and on hearing I have no back problems one swears her boss can cure my allergies with a spinal adjustment. On hearing I have no health problems at all, another assures me chiropractic is about prevention. It’s like going to the gym, she says: it’s how you prevent illness!

Then there’s the guy selling “transnasal light therapy” – a new gizmo that shines a light up your nostrils and promises to heal everything from diabetes to dementia along with a variety of viral infections.

It’s funny, in a Duke and Dauphin sort of way, but then there’s

Dr. Divi Chandna, a licensed medical doctor and a “certified medical intuitive”…

Last year Dr. Divi billed the Medical Services Plan $294,290.53 for services rendered to patients in her conventional medical practice. Simultaneously she runs a user-pay business peddling the sort of magic and mysticism usually associated with the dark ages. She runs The Bridge Health Center with husband Ed Light, an energy healer, and she offers readings based on her “gifts for intuition.” She explains that this includes being clairvoyant and “clairsentient” — she gets messages from spirit guides…

Dr. Divi doesn’t mention what her very own six week long “holistic” program for treating depression and anxiety costs, but the brochures list her medical intuition readings at between $99 and $199 a session. The deluxe reading comes with a written report and a little energy healing.

Dr Divi peddles woo, and she uses her genuine medical training for extra credibility. Regulators are leery of messing with “anyone’s spirituality” so generally nothing is done.

Ironically, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is sharing space with the Wellness show at Vancouver’s convention centre, and they’re discussing climate change and its deniers. President Nina Fedoroff is widely quoted as saying she is “scared to death” by the anti-science movement that is sweeping North America and most of the western world.

“We are sliding back into a dark era,” she tells The Guardian. “And there seems little we can do about it. I am profoundly depressed at just how difficult it has become merely to get a realistic conversation started on issues such as climate change or genetically modified organisms.”

I’d like to say something optimistic here, but I got nothin.

Words

I’m reading Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven.

The core facts: a Mormon man [Dan Lafferty] converted to radical polygamist female-subservientist fundamentalist Mormonism and converted his five brothers. The oldest brother [Ron Lafferty] was divorced by his wife as a result. The wife [Brenda] of the youngest [Allen] resisted all of them. Ron and Dan killed her and the pair’s baby daughter.

Some particulars:

Although standing up to Allen meant standing up to the entire Lafferty clan, Brenda did not shy away from such confrontations…[S]he possessed an impressive command of LDS scripture that allowed her to more than hold her own when debating fundamentalist doctrine with Ron and Dan. They came to despise her for defying them and for her influence over Allen, whom they considered “pussy-whipped.” [Read more…]

Stay where you are

Speaking of Islamic Feminism…

In Afghanistan, it’s a crime for women to leave home without permission.

“Running away” is not an offense found in the Afghan Penal Code. However, women and girls in Afghanistan have long faced punishment from family and local governing bodies for leaving home without permission.

In response to challenges to the practice of charging women and girls with the crime of“running away,” in 2010 and 2011 the Afghan Supreme Court issued an instruction to courts that “running away” is a crime… [Read more…]

The Templeton Prize

Who won who won who won, you cry, on the edges of your chairs.

The Dalai Lama.

Say what? The Dalai Lama won a prize that’s given for doing something or other about science and religion? Where’s the science part?

NEW YORK — The Dalai Lama has been awarded one of the world’s leading religion prizes.

The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader is the winner of the 2012 Templeton Prize for his work on science and religion. The honor from the John Templeton Foundation, announced Thursday, comes with a $1.7 million award.

I didn’t know he’d done any work on science and religion.

The Dalai Lama is founder of the Mind & Life institute for research on science and Buddhism. A series of talks he gave at Stanford University led to the creation of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, which brings together scientists and religious scholars. The Templeton Prize will be awarded on May 14th in London.

Oh I see, he brings them together.

In a way it’s probably better that a religious boffin should win it, rather than a working scientist. It’s less misleading that way.

H/t Cuttlefish.

Job opening in Oxymoron Studies

The Women’s Studies Program at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, will offer a one-year postdoctoral fellowship in Islamic Feminist Studies in 2012-2013.

The Women’s Studies Program at Wheaton College is pleased to announce a one- year postdoctoral fellowship supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The fellow will pursue research and teach three courses in the Women’s Studies    Program during the appointment, including Transnational Feminisms, Introduction to Women’s Studies or Feminist Theory, and a course in his or her area of specialty. Women’s Studies is particularly interested in scholars of Islamic Feminism working on critical sexualities, but welcomes applications from all scholars in this field.

What I want to know is…what the hell is Islamic Feminism?

Tariq Ramadan explains

Ramadan informs us that Mohamed Merah was neither religious nor political; he was just a confused angry guy flailing around.

He seems to have had very precise aim for someone who was just flailing.

Religion was not Mohamed Merah’s problem – nor was his politics. A French citizen frustrated at being unable to find his place, to give his life dignity and meaning in his own country, he would find two political causes through which he could articulate his distress: Afghanistan and Palestine. He attacked symbols like the army, and killed Jews, Christians and Muslims without distinction. [Read more…]

Measuring the distance

Another free speech issue, a tricky one.

France has barred a group of Muslim clerics, including one of the most prominent voices in Sunni Islam, from entering the country to attend a conference.

France’s foreign ministry said Thursday the clerics were invited by the French Islamic Union to speak at a congress in Le Bourget near Paris from April 6-9.

One of those barred, the Egyptian-born Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, says he refuses to come to France.

The ban also includes other high-profile Muslim clerics of Palestinian, Egyptian and Saudi origin.

The foreign ministry said in a statement that “these people call for hatred and violence and seriously violate the principles of the Republic, and in the current context, seriously risk disrupting public order.”

That’s the state banning a particular kind of speech, all right. Free speech liberals think the bar should be very very high for that. Is the bar high enough here?

I don’t know. I suppose I think it’s not high enough as a matter of principle, but as a matter of reality, it may be. I don’t know how to think about it any more coherently than that. As a matter of principle, it seems as if people should be able to hold congresses and invite clerics to speak at them. As a matter of reality, misogynist anti-Semitic xenophobic homophobic clerics can be very dangerous. This insoluble conflict tends to make me despair.