You'll have to excuse me for simply stealing Daniel Indiviglio's headline for this chart, but it's really the right way to introduce it:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/a_chart_that_screams_extend_un.html
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Catholicism, Homosexuality, Hate Speech, and … Incompetence.
Kenneth Howell, an adjunct professor of religion at the University of Illinois, has been let go after sending his students an email about Catholic moral theories of homosexuality that one student described as "hate speech."
Debate on the firing has proceeded along two lines of dispute — firstly whether Howell's perceived bigotry places him outside the protections of academic freedom, and secondly whether the concept of academic freedom can even be properly applied to an adjunct faculty member with a semester-by-semester contract.
But I don't want to talk about either of those issues today.
What I want to talk about is this defense of Howell's email, posted at National Review's "Phi Beta Cons" blog:
The university is making a conscious decision to enforce ignorance on its students. The university would rather see its students remain ignorant of one of the world's most common moral theories than have their delicate feelings damaged. This is not education; it's indoctrination in its purest form.
The charge that UI is "making a conscious decision to enforce ignorance" proceeds from the assumption that Howell is competent to teach moral philosophy.
At least, I hope it's an assumption. Because by the evidence of the email, Howell is utterly ignorant of the subject he was hired to teach:
- He badly bungles his discussion of utilitarianism, as when he asserts that any utilitarian would necessarily regard children and animals as capable of consenting to sex.
- Despite cautioning students against drawing conclusions about human sexual morality unless they "have done extensive research into homosexuality," he bases his own conclusions on a conversation with "a physician" who told him that gay men "have been known to engage in certain types of actions for which their bodies are not fitted."
- He contends that "what lies behind the idea of sex change operations" is the belief "that we can use our bodies sexually in whatever ways we choose without regard to their actual structure and meaning."
This isn't serious philosophical or theological instruction. It's not a scholarly discussion of human sexuality. It's what we in the academy refer to as "talking out of your ass."
http://studentactivism.net/2010/07/12/catholicism-incompetence/
Exclusive Intifada Interview with Greta Berlin - Free Gaza Movement
By Elias F. Harb
Elias Harb interviews one of the leading voices in the movement to bring freedom to the people of Gaza.
She is one of the founders of the Free Gaza Movement and was on board the FREE GAZA, the first boat with internationals to reach this besieged strip of the Mediterranean in 41 years. She then helped run three more successful voyages to Gaza between October 22 and December 23, 2008 working on the land crew and media in Cyprus, sending more than 50 human rights workers to Gaza on board the DIGNITY. She is available to speak in Europe or the U.S.
In the pre-dawn hours of Monday, May 31, showing a terrifying disregard for human life, Israeli naval forces surrounded and boarded ships sailing to bring humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. On the largest ship, the Mavi Marmara, Israeli commandos opened fire on civilian passengers, killing at least 9 passengers and wounding dozens more. The final death toll is yet to be determined.
Elias Harb interviews Greta Berlin Co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement
Elias Harb:Can you tell us what motivated you to the Palestinian Cause and the Free Gaza Movement and when was the movement founded?
Greta Berlin: I married a 1948 Palestinian refugee from Safad and have two Palestinian/American children. I've been part of justice for Palestine since 1967. Once you go and see what has happened to the Palestinians (I call them the final victims of WWII, because they have paid the price for what Europe did to the Jews), it is impossible to leave. I am no longer married, my children are grown, I am still working for justice.
The movement was founded in September/October 2006. A group of us were trying to figure out how to bring to the attention of the world what was happening in Gaza. One of the people working for justice for Palestine, Michael Shaik, emailed us and said, "OK. I have been thinking about this for a long time but am aware that I'm better at ideas than practicalities, so I'll outline what I'd envisaged and let the rest of you do the sanity check. My plan was this: - Charter a big boat to sail from New York. Make it clear that its purpose is to "Break the Siege of Gaza" (that can be the slogan of the campaign). It is very important that the boat have a big send off with speeches by important people that will get it as much publicity as possible." That kernel of an idea is what started the movement (of course, in a much smaller set of boats).
EH: How many times have the Free Gaza movement tried to break the Israeli siege and have you succeeded in getting any boasts into Gaza so far?
GB: The Freedom Flotilla was our 9th voyage. We successfully entered Gaza five times. This attempt was the fourth time we were stopped. If you look on our website under http://www.freegaza.org/en/boat-trips/passenger-lists, you will find the stories and passengers there.
EH: Israel declares that it had the legal right to confront the flotilla from reaching Gaza. Do you think there is any justification in that stance??
GB: Israel has no right to stop us under international law UNLESS it wants to admit that it occupies Gaza. Since Israel says it no longer occupies Gaza and Gaza is free, they have no right to stop us. In addition, the blockade is collective punishment against a civilian population that is WAY out of line. International law, Amnesty International and the International Red Cross have all said the same thing. Israel's blockade is illegal. The illegal entity in the neighborhood is Israel, not us.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Exclusive-Intifada-Intervi-by-Elias-F-Harb-100714-234.html
Boom Times for Millionaires
Wealth accumulation among the richest North Americans (excluding Mexico) grew in 2009, with millionaires in the U.S. and Canada enjoying a 15% increase in their total worth. Collectively, these millionaires possessed $4.6 trillion, according to a report from the Boston Consulting Group.
http://www.allgov.com/Where_is_the_Money_Going/ViewNews/Boom_Times_for_Millionaires_100712
A Fine Line Between Reporter and Publicist.
Last night, The Washington Post posted a very important story:
Gingrich says he's considering presidential run
In other news, I, too, am considering a presidential run.
Newt Gingrich's Walter Mitty campaign fantasies are, well, just that. The former Speaker pretends to "consider" tossing his hat in the ring whenever he's got a book to sell. These trial balloons are, as a wise man once wrote, "as perennial as the grass."
In its defense, The Post, which ran an AP story, isn't the only offender. Outlets of all stripes get taken in.
The Root of Economic Fragility and Political Anger
In other words, Americans are keeping their jobs or finding new ones only by accepting lower wages.
Meanwhile, a much smaller group of Americans' earnings are back in the stratosphere: Wall Street traders and executives, hedge-fund and private-equity fund managers, and top corporate executives. As hiring has picked up on the Street, fat salaries are reappearing. Richard Stein, president of Global Sage, an executive search firm, tells the New York Times corporate clients have offered compensation packages of more than $1 million annually to a dozen candidates in just the last few weeks.
We're back to the same ominous trend as before the Great Recession: a larger and larger share of total income going to the very top while the vast middle class continues to lose ground.
And as long as this trend continues, we can't get out of the shadow of the Great Recession.
http://robertreich.org/post/805148061/the-root-of-economic-fragility-and-political-anger
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sen. Kyl: $678-billion tax break for rich should not be offset
Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, believes that any extension to unemployment benefits "ought to be paid for." But when it comes to the $678-billion cost of extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, the senator says no offsetting is necessary.
In an interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday, Kyl argued that Congress and the Obama administration should extend the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush during his first term.
Extending the entire package of tax cuts would cost the US $2.2 trillion over the next 10 years. The Obama administration has argued in favor of allowing to expire at least the part of the tax cuts that applies to people earning over $250,000 a year. That portion is estimated to cost $678 billion over 10 years.
"Tell me, how are you going to pay that $678 billion to keep those Bush tax cuts for the wealthy?" Wallace asked Kyl.
"You should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes," Kyl said.
Are Low Taxes Exacerbating the Recession?
By David Sirota
The real problem facing the Greeks is not how to reduce spending but how to increase revenue collections.
Republicans who ran up massive deficits say the recession comes from overspending. Democrats who gutted the job market with free trade policies nonetheless insist it's all George W. Bush's fault. Meanwhile, pundits who cheered both sides now offer non-sequiturs, blaming excessive partisanship for our problems.
But as history (and Freakonomics) teaches, such oversimplified memes tend to obscure the counterintuitive notions that often hold the most profound truths. And in the case of the WRSTGD, the most important of these is the idea that we are in economic dire straits because tax rates are too low.
This is the provocative argument first floated by former New York governor Eliot Spitzer in a Slate magazine article evaluating 80 years of economic data.
"During the period 1951-63, when marginal rates were at their peak — 91 percent or 92 percent — the American economy boomed, growing at an average annual rate of 3.71 percent," he wrote in February. "The fact that the marginal rates were what would today be viewed as essentially confiscatory did not cause economic cataclysm — just the opposite. And during the past seven years, during which we reduced the top marginal rate to 35 percent, average growth was a more meager 1.71 percent."
Months later, with USA Today reporting that tax rates are at a 60-year nadir, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Brookings Institution audience that "the rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing (major) employment issues…whether it is individual, corporate, whatever the taxation forms are."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/6209/are_low_taxes_exacerbating_the_recession/
REPUBLICANS JUST DON'T LIKE THE UNEMPLOYED, CONT'D....
I've been marveling in recent months at the ways in which Republican lawmakers and candidates seem to actively dislike -- on a personal level -- those who've lost their jobs in the recession. It's kind of odd, given that the unemployed don't seem to have done anything to offend the GOP and earn the party's disdain.
In the latest example, we see Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett (R), the frontrunner in this year's gubernatorial race, arguing publicly that jobless workers in his state are choosing not to work, preferring to live on meager unemployment aid.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett on Friday accused some jobless Pennsylvanians of choosing to collect unemployment checks rather than going back to work, prompting swift criticism from his Democratic opponent and one of the state's top labor leaders.
"The jobs are there. But if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there," Corbett told Harrisburg radio station WITF at a campaign stop in Elizabethtown. "I've literally had construction companies tell me, 'I can't get people to come back to work until . . . they say, "I'll come back to work when unemployment runs out." ' "
I obviously can't speak with confidence about what some guy told some other guy who in turn told Corbett. But the general argument is getting quite tiresome.
"The jobs are there"? No, they're really not. Nationwide, there are five applicants for every one opening, which is a terribly painful ratio. Pennsylvania's unemployment rate is currently at a 26-year high.
Corbett not only seems confused about economic conditions, but his animosity about the jobless' attitudes is awful. Yes, I can appreciate the fact that an unemployed worker who's exhausted his/her benefits will be more desperate to take any job than an unemployed worker who's still receiving public aid. But this dynamic matters a whole lot more when there are plenty of job opportunities for those who want them. That's just not the current reality.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024674.php
The people should be able to gerrymander, not just the politicians
by Mark Schaver
Legislative redistricting should be more open, two Brookings Institution fellows argued in a column in The Washington Post last week.
Politicians often use redistricting as an opportunity to cut unfavorable constituents and potential challengers out of their districts. Barack Obama, for example, learned the rough and tumble of redistricting politics when Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) carved Obama's Chicago home out of Rush's congressional district after losing a 2000 primary challenge to Obama, then a state senator.
Critically, these decisions are made with little or no public input or accountability. While Arizona and California are among the few states that give the public a chance to see and participate in how the boundaries are set, by using open redistricting commissions, most states gerrymander legislative lines behind closed doors. Figures from both major parties tilt the electoral playing field so much that one party is essentially assured of winning a given district, controlling the state legislature or winning the most seats in the state's congressional delegation. In other words, the democratic process is subverted. In this system, politicians select voters rather than voters electing politicians.
The column notes that most Americans are ignorant about the process and makes the case that with advances in technology, there's no excuse for not doing it out in the open.
http://www.depthreporting.com/2010/07/people-should-be-able-to-gerrymander.html
In Memoriam, Dr. Hans Georg Behr
Dr. Hans-Georg Behr, noted neurotoxicologist and author, passed away on the evening of July 7 2010, at the age of 72.
"I am as happy as Charlie Chaplin when he was given an Oscar," joked Dr. Behr when he received the news.
Hans Georg Behr's work has not always been met with such appreciation. His book Von Hanf ist die Rede, Kultur und Politik einer Droge ('Hemp is the Question- the Culture and Politics of a Drug') was published in 1982 and remains a relevant and authoritative work on cannabis. In the storm of indignation which arose after the publication of his book, police searched Mr. Behr's home and found 0.318 grams of cannabis.
Dr. Behr, who had never made a secret of being a 'kiffer' (cannabis smoker), was dragged before the courts. The show trial which followed lasted for 52 days and ended with the dismissal of the charges against him. Despite this experience, Dr. Behr could laugh about the collective panic of the times: "Until now I have not properly described the phobia about cannabis. I name it the distinct madness of the Germans. Paranoia Germanica."
http://marijuanacannabis.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/in-memoriam-dr-hans-georg-behr/
Methane bubble "doomsday" story debunked
For several days, bloggers and journalists have been passing around a news story about how the BP oil disaster will unleash a "giant methane bubble" and initiate a mass extinction. Yes, it's a myth. And we've busted it.
In this article, called "Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event," a guy named Terrence Aym takes some information he got from a "Mega Disasters" TV special on undersea methane bubbles and mixes it with comments about how there are "giant rifts" beneath the sea and an "information blackout." He proposes that a "twenty mile methane bubble" dislodged by the BP oil disaster will erupt from the ocean floor, causing tidal waves and giant explosions. The sad part about all this is that news organizations and blogs took the story seriously.
While it's true that there are methane bubbles (and methane ice) beneath the ocean floor, they are not about to erupt from Gulf and destroy all life on Earth. This morning I spoke with two Earth scientists, Dave Valentine of UC Santa Barbara and Chris Reddy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who study methane and oil seeps from the sea floor. Valentine has just been out to the Gulf to study the methane levels there, and told io9:
During our recent cruise to the Gulf we observed significantly elevated levels of methane at water depth greater than 2500 feet, in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon spill site. While the total quantity of methane and other hydrocarbons is enough to cause problems with the regional ecosystem, there is no plausible scenario by which this event alone will cause global-scale extinctions.
So yes, there is a methane seep. No, it will not cause tidal waves or explode.
http://io9.com/5585294/methane-bubble-doomsday-story-debunked
The Disappearing Intellectual in the Age of Economic Darwinism
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: geishaboy500, marttj)
We live at a time that might be appropriately called the age of the disappearing intellectual, a disappearance that marks with disgrace a particularly dangerous period in American history. While there are plenty of talking heads spewing lies, insults and nonsense in the various media, it would be wrong to suggest that these right-wing populist are intellectuals. They are neither knowledgeable nor self-reflective, but largely ideological hacks catering to the worst impulses in American society. Some obvious examples would include John Stossel calling for the repeal of that "section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that bans discrimination in public places." And, of course, there are the more famous corporate-owned talking heads such as Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, all of whom trade in reactionary world views, ignorance, ideological travesties and outlandish misrepresentations - all the while wrapping themselves in the populist creed of speaking for everyday Americans.
In a media scape and public sphere that view criticism, dialog and thoughtfulness as a liability, such anti-intellectuals abound, providing commentaries that are nativist, racist, reactionary and morally repugnant. But the premium put on ignorance and the disdain for critical intellectuals is not monopolized by the dominant media, it appears to have become one of the few criteria left for largely wealthy individuals to qualify for public office. One typical example is Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who throws out inanities such as labeling the Obama administration a "gangster government." Bachmann refuses to take critical questions from the press because she claims that they unfairly focus on her language. She has a point. After all, it might be difficult to support statements such as the claim that "the US government used the census information to round up the Japanese [Americans] and put them in concentration camps." Another typical example can be found in Congressman Joe Barton's apology to BP for having to pay for damages to the government stemming from its disastrous oil spill.
This "upscaling of ignorance" gets worse. Richard Cohen, writing in The Washington Post about Sen. Michael Bennett, was shocked to discover that he was actually well-educated and smart but had to hide his qualifications in his primary campaign so as to not undermine his chance of being re-elected. Cohen concludes that in politics, "We have come to value ignorance."
http://www.truth-out.org/the-disappearing-intellectual-age-economic-darwinism61287
Harvey Pekar Dies; Authored 'American Splendor'
The cause of death is not yet known, but Pekar suffered from prostate cancer, high blood pressure, asthma and depression. He was 70 years old.
Pekar was a shlub, as ordinary as a pair of old twill pants — the sort of thing he usually wore. But he translated his life into art: comic books, plays, an opera, even a movie. The 2003 film American Splendor was an adaptation of Pekar's autobiographical comic series of the same name; it revealed the darkly prosaic life of a file clerk who yells at old ladies in the supermarket, loses his keys, and feels rejected and alone.
His comic ideal was articulated in the film by actor Paul Giamatti, who portrayed Pekar: "There's no idealized sh - -. This is the real thing, man."
The Medium Is the Medium
By DAVID BROOKS
Then the researchers, led by Richard Allington of the University of Tennessee, looked at those students' test scores. They found that the students who brought the books home had significantly higher reading scores than other students. These students were less affected by the "summer slide" — the decline that especially afflicts lower-income students during the vacation months. In fact, just having those 12 books seemed to have as much positive effect as attending summer school.
This study, along with many others, illustrates the tremendous power of books. We already knew, from research in 27 countries, that kids who grow up in a home with 500 books stay in school longer and do better. This new study suggests that introducing books into homes that may not have them also produces significant educational gains.
Recently, Internet mavens got some bad news. Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd of Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy examined computer use among a half-million 5th through 8th graders in North Carolina. They found that the spread of home computers and high-speed Internet access was associated with significant declines in math and reading scores.
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