Mon - December 13, 2004
Sun - December 12, 2004
Tue - November 16, 2004
Wed - November 10, 2004
Tue - November 9, 2004
Scopes Monkey Trial Redux and lots of random questions....
Is anyone following this case in Georgia?
In Cobb County, outside Atlanta, teachers used to tear pages out of textbooks rather than wrangle with the divisive topic of evolution. Two years ago, the school board reached a more modern compromise: On the inside cover of a biology textbook, a sticker warns that "evolution is a theory, not a fact."
Does public education have to bow to local curricular guides? What if instead of religion, it was some other community preference that was responsible for warning labels on textbooks? Isn't the idea of a warning idea on a textbook very orwellian? where does federal funding for public education fit into all this? digressing: does anyone else see this push for "faith-based initiatives" as just kickbacks for votes? shouldn't churches that engage in politics lose their tax-exempt status?
In Cobb County, outside Atlanta, teachers used to tear pages out of textbooks rather than wrangle with the divisive topic of evolution. Two years ago, the school board reached a more modern compromise: On the inside cover of a biology textbook, a sticker warns that "evolution is a theory, not a fact."
Does public education have to bow to local curricular guides? What if instead of religion, it was some other community preference that was responsible for warning labels on textbooks? Isn't the idea of a warning idea on a textbook very orwellian? where does federal funding for public education fit into all this? digressing: does anyone else see this push for "faith-based initiatives" as just kickbacks for votes? shouldn't churches that engage in politics lose their tax-exempt status?
Posted at 10:51 PM
Thu - November 4, 2004
intelligence + urbanity + worldliness
Here's an article on the percieved differences between NYC and the rest of the
country. I'm sure if looked today, I could find a very similar
article on Chicago.
I'm starting to put together triptychal model where the base intelligence of an american is inter-related with their urbanity and their "worldliness"* and from these three factors you could generally guess their political stances and willingness to use military force to achieve the ayatollah bush's trotskyite goals of "world revolution".
---
*by "worldliness" I'm alluding to ones ability to understand other cultures. Whether you have extensive travel experience, lived abroad, or have a recent immigrant experience in your family, or even have a number of international friends. (the Diversity of your interactions are in the "urbanity" quality).
I'm starting to put together triptychal model where the base intelligence of an american is inter-related with their urbanity and their "worldliness"* and from these three factors you could generally guess their political stances and willingness to use military force to achieve the ayatollah bush's trotskyite goals of "world revolution".
---
*by "worldliness" I'm alluding to ones ability to understand other cultures. Whether you have extensive travel experience, lived abroad, or have a recent immigrant experience in your family, or even have a number of international friends. (the Diversity of your interactions are in the "urbanity" quality).
Posted at 01:28 PM
Thu - October 28, 2004
The economist reluctantly endorses Kerry
Continuing my absense from weblogging --
here's the Economist's take on the American Election.
Posted at 10:11 PM
Mon - October 25, 2004
From the American Conservative Magazine
Excerpts from an
article in American Conservative Magazine
*:
"Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation’s children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can’t be found to do it—and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail."
...
"Bush has accomplished this by giving the U.S. a novel foreign-policy doctrine under which it arrogates to itself the right to invade any country it wants if it feels threatened. It is an American version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, but the latter was at least confined to Eastern Europe. If the analogy seems extreme, what is an appropriate comparison when a country manufactures falsehoods about a foreign government, disseminates them widely, and invades the country on the basis of those falsehoods? It is not an action that any American president has ever taken before. It is not something that “good” countries do. It is the main reason that people all over the world who used to consider the United States a reliable and necessary bulwark of world stability now see us as a menace to their own peace and security."
...
" George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support. "
---
* Pat Buchanan is one of the editors
"Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation’s children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can’t be found to do it—and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail."
...
"Bush has accomplished this by giving the U.S. a novel foreign-policy doctrine under which it arrogates to itself the right to invade any country it wants if it feels threatened. It is an American version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, but the latter was at least confined to Eastern Europe. If the analogy seems extreme, what is an appropriate comparison when a country manufactures falsehoods about a foreign government, disseminates them widely, and invades the country on the basis of those falsehoods? It is not an action that any American president has ever taken before. It is not something that “good” countries do. It is the main reason that people all over the world who used to consider the United States a reliable and necessary bulwark of world stability now see us as a menace to their own peace and security."
...
" George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support. "
---
* Pat Buchanan is one of the editors
Posted at 11:13 PM
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Saul Williams (DJ set)
12/11/2004 @ Sonotheque
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Moolaade
12/9/2004
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Published On: Dec 13, 2004 11:17 PM
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Published On: Dec 13, 2004 11:17 PM