Most New York University students would give up their right to vote for a full year’s tuition. One in five will give up their right to vote for an iPod touch. Continue reading How much is your vote worth?
Tag Archives: Politics
Planning on ever having an illness?
“Too bad for you…” says President George Bush. Continue reading Planning on ever having an illness?
National Survey Explores Race and Gender in 21st -Century Politics
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) – A team of political scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the University of New Mexico, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Notre Dame has completed a groundbreaking survey that explores how race and gender is changing the political landscape of the United States. The scholars presented their findings today at a press conference at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.The Gender and Multicultural Leadership Project is, to date, the most comprehensive multiracial, multi-office national survey of Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American elected officials holding position at state and local levels.Principal investigators include Pei-te Lien, a professor of political science at UC Santa Barbara; Christine Marie Sierra, a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico; Carol Hardy-Fanta, director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston; and Dianne M. Pinderhughes, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. They constructed a national database of over 10,000 public officials in federal and selected state and local office. Survey respondents were drawn from this database and included 1,354 officials, slightly more than half of whom are African American, over one-third are Latino/a, seven percent are Asian American, and two percent are Native American. Among other topics, respondents discussed their positions on issues such as the war in Iraq, the No Child Left Behind education policy, immigration, and the Voting Rights Act.
Continue reading National Survey Explores Race and Gender in 21st -Century Politics
Substantive local journalism? Really?
It would be nice. Hey, a few years ago one of our local affiliates was bought by Fox. So one day you have Robin and Jeff doing a pretty darn good job of delivering the news, and the next day you have the same people … Robin and Jeff … screaming sensationalist crap into the news camera. Same stories, same actors, different tone. And, of course, Fox fed a different flavor of national feed into that local system for good measure.(Well, OK, they weren’t exactly screaming, but you get the point. Oh, and I do remember how uncomfortable they looked with their new edgy and sometimes over the top copy.)But other than that, oh and one great local weatherman on a different channel (we love you Paul!) there is nothing amazing to report about Twin Cities Local News.Until now, perhaps … Continue reading Substantive local journalism? Really?
“Like the tree that stands beside the water …
We shall not be moved. …”Fifty five of us jammed in a bus designed to hold fourty people plus a driver, rolling down Highway 90 from Upstate New York to Chicago. As a teenager (just turned 15), I was thrilled to be going to Chicago to attend the Fight Back Conference, a thinly disguised Communist Party meeting. I was going, in part for Keith, the young African American kid (about 12 years old) who was shot in the back by a state trooper just under a year earlier. Keith was driving a mo-ped down the toll road, on the shoulder, where he shouldn’t have been. It appears that he did not notice the trooper pull over behind him, so he just kept driving off. Or maybe he was trying to escape. If memory serves, he was the first human to be shot and killed with one of the brand new Magnum sidearms that the troopers fought so hard to arm themselves with, to replace the old .38’s typical in those days for police officers. He was shot square in the back. Continue reading “Like the tree that stands beside the water …
Animal Rights and Animal Rights Wrongs
Check out these two posts on animal rights issues.Discourse on Animal Experimentation Marred By ViolenceAnimal Rights Extremists Wreck Scientist’s HouseIn the first, Shelley Batts discusses this verbiage from the Animal Liberation Front:
A new era has dawned for those who fund the abusers and raise funds for them to murder animals with. You too are on the hit list: you have been warned. If you support or raise funds for any company connected with Huntingdon Life Sciences we will track you down, come for you and destroy your property with fire.
In the second, have a look at Mark Hoofnagle’s commentary on this issue, with this concept as central to what he is talking about:
The reason I consider animal rights extremists denialists is because like other ideologues with an anti-science agenda, they lie about science to accomplish their goals.
I’m all for animal rights, within reason, and in fact, I’m not against extreme actions under certain circumstances. The threat of violence is a right coopted by the state, and perhaps that is where it should stay. The problem, of course, arises when the state is out of control. But that is another topic.
ADDED: Shelley Batts has correctly pointed out to me that the above paragraph conveys the idea that I’m not against extreme actions by animal rights activists against, say, scientists. Very very bad writing on my part. I do not condone such actions in any way shape or form. The above paragraph should be parsed as follows:
Regarding the topic at hand:
I’m all for animal rights, within reason,
Regarding political action in general:
and in fact, I’m not against extreme actions under certain circumstances. The threat of violence is a right coopted by the state, and perhaps that is where it should stay. The problem, of course, arises when the state is out of control. But that is another topic.
Below, in the comments section, you will see Shelley’s comments and my response to them. Please have a look.
There was an attack by a cell of ALF here at the University of Minnesota several years ago. They broke into labs and “liberated” several lab animals. What was left of many of the animals were found later by police in various parks and other localities, the ones that were still alive freezing and staving to death and wandering around aimlessly.Lab materials related to research in process and equipment was destroyed as well, and a few graduate students had their work on cancer set back months or a year or so.I think scientists do have to take more responsibility as a group for better treatment of animals, or even to curtail unnecessary animal research. Especially on primates. Rodents, I don’t care so much about. I mean, I love rodents, but more as objects of wonder than political allies.Anyway, go check out these much more lucid sources of discussion pointed to above.
Racism, Creationism, Darwinism
Racism and it’s various manifestations such as eugenics is a Janus faced monster of human society. One side speaks to people’s fear and hate, and is social and political. It speaks a sermon to the angry and downtrodden who love to hear that their “race” is superior, or to the social managers and engineers who benefit from a handy excuse to explain the results of repression and economic inequality as the natural outcome of history and circumstance beyond our control and thus not the fault of those self same social managers and engineers.
The other face is the biological one, the scientific description of “race” itself, and the scientific explanation for racial differences.
Each of these aspects of modern racism can act independently and to some extent have different histories, but by and large they are two parts of the same trend. Prior to Eugenics, the biological side of this monster was not scientific, and was in fact typically religious. When European Christians needed to explain the people of the New World (how the heck did they get there, and who were they, really?) or the “savages” of Africa, they turned to the bible, and there found the basis for Continue reading Racism, Creationism, Darwinism
911 Reverberates in Boston
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Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They may be scary looking but they are cartoons, not terrorists. |
On September 11th, 2001, George Bush made one of the most significant and critical errors of his presidency.
Personally, I think George Bush is a total boob, and he has made many mistakes and we will all be paying for some of them for years to come. This particular mistake, though, is one that a lot of other people in the Office of the Presidency may have made, so I don’t want to lean too hard on Ol’ George for this one. But it was a mistake. Here is what happened.
A well trained and well funded group of nineteen criminals hijacked four airplanes. They flew three of them into buildings and a fourth into a cornfield in Pennsylvania, having been thwarted by an impromptu attack by the passengers on the plane (they had planned it seems to fly that plane into a public building in Washington D.C.). Thousands died.
The mistake that Bush made in concert with his advisors was to ground all nonemergency civilian aircraft for a number of days. This had immediate and long term economic effects and Continue reading 911 Reverberates in Boston