Elite immunity

One of the ways is which ordinary people are intimidated is by the government passing all manner of laws that violate basic rights and then selectively using those laws to go after those they dislike or are powerless, while exempting the elite classes from prosecution. This has the effect of making people, especially political activists, constantly have to be on the alert in case they violate this or that law passed in the war on terror. [Read more…]

Back to the 19th century!

You have to hand it to the Catholic Church. In their obsession with upholding their antiquated doctrines, they are willing to risk becoming even more irrelevant in this modern age. Their opposition to equal rights for homosexuals is long-standing and well known. What is truly surprising are recent developments in the US where they have chosen to go to the mat in vociferously opposing contraceptive services to women, a losing battle if there ever was one. [Read more…]

The ‘Bread and Peace’ Model of election forecasting

In a comment to my post on what really matters in predicting presidential election outcomes, where I said that political scientists tend to look at things like the change in disposable income, reader Vincenzo kindly provided a link to an essay by political scientist Douglas Hibbs where he spells out the model more precisely. Hibbs has what he calls a ‘Bread and Peace’ Model, which looks at [Read more…]

Will Doonesbury appear in your paper next week?

Some newspapers are going to pull the Doonesbury comic strips for next week because it deals with the transvaginal ultrasound issue and the whole Republican assault on women’s access to health services. Strip creator Garry Trudeau is no stranger to controversy over his strip but says that to not address the issue would have constituted ‘comedy malpractice’. [Read more…]

Mixed news on the racist organization front

The number of organizations classified as ‘hate groups’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center has risen in recent years, seemingly fueled by the bizarre idea that president Obama is some kind of weird Muslim, Kenyan, communist usurper of American legitimacy who must be overthrown by force before he destroys motherhood and eats all the apple pie. These people cannot seem to see the obvious, which is that Obama is the latest in standard-issue, center-right, pro-oligarchic, authoritarian, political leaders. [Read more…]

Reducing the level of war rhetoric

On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart thinks that the bellicose language about war with Iran is the result of politicians pandering to their own constituencies, and tries to lower the intensity of the war rhetoric.

(This clip appeared on March 6, 2012. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)

Calling all partners

Some years ago, two friends and colleagues of mine in different academic departments, both divorced, started living together and had children. They did not pretend they were married nor did they advertise that they were not. The female member once told me that since they were not married, she referred to the other person as her ‘partner’. She discovered that when she did so, people assumed that her partner must be female as well, [Read more…]