Review of the second presidential debate

The second debate proved to be lively, with sharp exchanges between the candidates, dispelling the myth that the town hall format required candidates to tread gingerly, since being aggressive might turn off voters. I never bought that argument, which infantilizes voters and sees them as delicate flowers who wilt at seeing spirited debate. People who tune in to a political debate when they have so many other options are people who don’t need smelling salts at the first sign of disagreement. [Read more…]

Clever

Are you curious about how the Romney-Ryan tax plan is able to achieve the seemingly impossible goal of cutting tax rates that reduce revenues by $5 trillion without raising taxes on the middle class or increasing the deficit? Then see here.

Should doping be allowed in sports?

Every time that there is a major doping scandal associated with sports, like the recent one in which Lance Armstrong was portrayed as essentially a drug kingpin who “didn’t just take drugs: he was the enforcer of a small mafia within professional cycling that moved ruthlessly against anyone who threatened to expose him or his collaborators. He bullied and threatened team-mates, journalists and fellow cycling professionals and officials”, calls emerge that maybe we should simply allow it. [Read more…]

When a Christian fundamentalist pretends to be gay …

Ever since Black Like Me was published in 1961 chronicling the experience of a white man posing as black in the segregated South, others have tried similar things. One of the latest is Timothy Kurek who grew up as your stereotypical Bible belt fundamentalist Christian, even to the extent of attending the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. He naturally hated homosexuality in all its forms. [Read more…]

The annual exposure of my ignorance of literature

I like to think of myself as fairly well read but the season of Nobel-prize winning announcements has just ended and of all the prizes, the literature prize is the one that reminds me each year of how wrong my self estimation is because I have never even heard of almost any of the winners. And the sad thing is that even though I tell myself that I should read those authors and widen my knowledge of great world literature, I almost never carry through on that promise, even though the winners are universally hailed as great writers. [Read more…]