Remember Tibet
Fifty years of occupation. Colonizing a neighbor instead of another continent doesn’t make it all right. Having an empire now instead of two hundred years ago doesn’t make it all right. Fifty years of...
View ArticleA sad anniversary
This has been hard for me to write. It’s part of the reason I haven’t wanted to write anything for a while. I didn’t think I’d be here at this point. I started my blog because I was devastated that the...
View ArticleIt’s about who decides
This has been brought on by a comment thread at Reclusive Leftist. The post was about feminism, but the thread kept veering off into abortion. Could you be a feminist and be antiabortion? Folks, that...
View ArticleIt’s About Who Decides (One More Time)
Being forced to die against my will would be terrifying. And I, personally, wouldn’t care whether the death panels making that decision were staffed by private bean counters from an insurance company —...
View ArticleWikileaks
Let me just get this straight. On one side: a few small people who have killed nobody but may have endangered some in the interests of having a real democracy. On the other side: some enormous people...
View ArticleNoise is not Free Speech
We’re on a collision course with technology. Free speech is being killed in order to save it. Something is always boiling up that involves free speech. Cartoons are drawn of the “wrong” person,...
View ArticleCongratulations to Egypt! … But …
Now comes the hard part. Mohammed El-Baradei talked about the “joy and happiness of every Egyptian at the restoration of our humanity and our freedom.” Unfortunately, no. The regime is out. The...
View ArticleWomen Don’t Need Their Own Revolution
Mary Rogers has made one of the saddest statements I’ve read on the horrible treatment of CNN’s Lara Logan. The gut-wrenching sexism of some of the commentary is sad. One more reminder that we’ve...
View ArticleWe’re living in hell
I think this is the saddest story I’ve read. Amy Ernst writes about the rare Congolese men who stand by their wives, despite rape. My mind’s eye sees these headlines, too: “Man’s family says he’s not a...
View ArticleThey say delay is a sign of depression
(Updated below) You have to admit, I have plenty to be depressed about. The rule of law has been dead in the US for years. Now, with the killing of al-Awlaki in Yemen, they put a marker on it, a great...
View ArticleThe Not-so-hot Knobs of Wall Street
The story so far: Some idiot decides to photograph attractive women demonstrating in Occupy Everywhere events. They probably think they’re part of a narrative on all the great ideas happening in the...
View ArticleDemotion of Women to Non-Persons Fails. For Now.
Good for Mississippi for voting that garbage down. But it’s a bit flabbergasting that a question of basic rights is being voted on at all. What’s next? A vote on keeping slaves? Because, you know, the...
View ArticleIt’s about rights, not helplessness
There’s a bit of a flap going on because a famous person named Cynthia Nixon said she’s gay by choice. (Full disclosure: I’ve never heard of her. I only visit this planet now and again) Saying it’s a...
View ArticleMy religion is to kill your religion
The discussion about the birth control pill fiasco has boggled my mind. I’ll explain the title toward the end, but let me start with my bogglement. There are whole swathes of blogland who feel that so...
View ArticleCivil rights aren’t religious
The Prop. 8 stuff here just goes on and on and on. The anti-gay marriage crowd is using the law to delay civil rights as long as possible, and the courts let them get away with it because due process...
View ArticleWhat do they mean, “trafficked”?
This phrase set me off: “a UK initiative established to raise awareness of the plight of workers trafficked into the sex industry.” (1) Why “trafficked”? What’s with this terminology? You see it all...
View ArticleRights are for real people
The two headlines below appeared in Memeorandum (May 23rd, 2012, at 10:23 AM).
View ArticleOur mutilations are good, yours are bad
I haven’t closely followed the story about male circumcision in Germany. A judge ruled that as an elective surgical procedure with permanent effects, it required the informed consent of the patient....
View ArticleNo. We should not respect other people’s beliefs
No. No, no, no. This is not about free speech as opposed to beliefs. It better not be. If it is, we’re headed straight for holy wars. I’m talking about this sort of thing: BBC News – Film protest:...
View ArticleNo, you cannot tell me to live by your beliefs
Just no. I’m not sure what is so hard about that concept. Muslims are upset about some non-Muslim’s pictures somewhere. Again. This was the result in that case. (Via BBC, Day in Pictures, Oct. 2,...
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