Category Archives: Politics and Society

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

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The United States is in the midst of a terrible economic crisis, the likes of which many would argue we haven’t seen since the great depression.   Unemployment rates are very high and jobs scarce.  Many of my closest friends are unemployed and so many of us suffer from crushing debt brought on by predatory lending practices.  We are still embroiled in two conflicts overseas and extracting our forces from Iraq has proven more challenging than many thought.  And there are any number of issues.

And yet I regularly feel a surge of patriotism I have not felt for quite some time.  On November 4th, 2008, I and a few million other of my fellow Americans went to the polls and elected an African-American to be President of the United States.  Rarely, if ever, in modern history, has a member of a minority population been legitimately elected to lead a nation.  African-Americans were brought to this country as slaves, now an African-American is President.  Whether you voted for Obama or not, the historic nature of the Obama presidency is a reason for pride.

Moreover, Obama calls us toward an America, indeed a world, in which America’s greatness stems less from its strength in arms than from the strength of the ideas on which this nation was founded, a vision of democratic governance and of civil rights for all.  When our founders wrote the Declaration of Independence, they wrote

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Let’s ignore the inconvenient reference to only men.  Masculine pronouns have generally been used to refer the whole and they do in most languages.  This was especially true in 1776.  And while later in history Africans would be defined in fractions of a person, they were treated even worse, little better than chattle.  But that distinction is not made in the words here and the fact that it was the case only makes the election of Obama all the more significant.
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Obama’s rehetoric regularly calls us, as a people, to be a better nation and it makes clear that as a nation we will  be an ally to those who who embody these ideals.

…we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.  On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.  We remain a young nation.  But in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.  The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea passed on from generation to generation:  the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation we understand that greatness is never a given.  It must be earned.  Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less.  It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those that prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.  Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor — who have carried us up the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

I am not naive and I am not wearing rose colored glasses.  I have already been disappointed by some of the administration’s policies, and know I will be again.  I fully expect it to falter and to diappoint.  And when it does, I will raise my voice in protest.  But this is the real world.  Politics move slowly and their will be trade offs.  But I choose not to focus on that today.  I choose to focus on the promise of America.  Today is the day we celebrate the United States and the American Dream!  Happy Independence Day!

UK is violent crime capital of Europe – Telegraph

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UK is violent crime capital of Europe

This article from the Telegraph was a real surprise to me.  In fact it turns out it’s a pretty good candidate for violent crime capital of the world.

The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

According to the article, 2,000 crimes were recorded per 100,00 people.  By comparison, only 466 per 100,000 were reported in the US.  I think that it is true the United States is no where close to being as violent a country as people from other countries think it is, due in large part to our movies and media, but also think standards may be different.

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Ministers admitted that some police forces had not been recording offences of grievous bodily harm with intent as serious violent crime. When the offences were included violent crime figures immediately increased by a fifth.
Separate figures disclosed in May showed that the number of people requiring hospital treatment after being seriously hurt in street fights or assaults has risen 50 per cent in five years.
More than 20 people a day were taken to hospital accident and emergency departments in England last year after being hit, kicked, scratched or bitten. Alcohol is blamed as a factor in half of the incidents and raises further questions over 24-hour drinking.
In a country where violent crime so often involves guns and knives, it’s not hard to imagine that people who were simply “scratched or bitten” might have been overlooked.

Amnesty Details Violations in Gaza Assault

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This article from the Financial Times, summarizes the findings of an Amnesty International report on the Israeli invasion of Gaza in January. It is a must read.

The Israeli invasion into Gaza was launched in response to the launching of Qassam rockets into Israel by Hamas.  The report sternly denounces these attacks and

urges Hamas to renounce its policy of unlawful rocket attacks against civilian population centres in Israel and to prevent other armed groups from carrying out such attacks.

While the rockets have killed less than 20 people in Israel, the psychological effect and destruction of property has been devastating. Moreover, the rockets have no guidance system and can only be lobbed indiscriminately, recklessly endangering civilians.

But the bulk of the report’s criticism is directed at Israel for its excessive use of force. It is worth quoting Amnesty’s statement regarding the report at some length.

The scale and intensity of the attacks on Gaza were unprecedented. Some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians who took no part in the conflict were among the 1,400 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.

Most were killed with high-precision weapons, relying on surveillance drones which have exceptionally good optics, allowing those observing to see their targets in detail. Others were killed with imprecise weapons, including artillery shells carrying white phosphorus – not previously used in Gaza – which should never be used in densely populated areas.
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Amnesty International found that the victims of the attacks it investigated were not caught in the crossfire during battles between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces, nor were they shielding militants or other military objects. Many were killed when their homes were bombed while they slept. Others were sitting in their yard or hanging the laundry on the roof. Children were struck while playing in their bedrooms or on the roof, or near their homes. Paramedics and ambulances were repeatedly attacked while attempting to rescue the wounded or recover the dead.

“The deaths of so many children and other civilians cannot be dismissed simply as ‘collateral damage’, as argued by Israel,” said Donatella Rovera. “Many questions remain to be answered about these attacks and about the fact that the strikes continued unabated despite the rising civilian death toll.”

More than 3,000 homes were destroyed and some 20,000 damaged in Israeli attacks which reduced entire neighbourhoods of Gaza to rubble and left an already dire economic situation in ruins. Much of the destruction was wanton and could not be justified on grounds of “military necessity”.

The Israeli Army has rejected the report saying it is “unbalanced, and wrongly interprets the law of wars.”

The full text of the report can be downloaded here (PDF).

HRW: Narco-Traffic Whistleblower Unfairly Sentenced

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Human Rights Watch has issued a statement arguing that

the sentencing today of the human rights activist Chekib el-Khayari to three years in prison is a stark reminder of Morocco’s tenuous and uneven progress on human rights…El-Khayari, who had criticized public officials for alleged complicity in drug-trafficking, was convicted of “gravely insulting state institutions,” and of minor violations of regulations governing foreign bank accounts and currency.

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Human Costs of Guantanamo Prison

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Camp DeltaThe closing of “Gitmo” is long overdue, there is no doubt about it. But shutting it down is more difficult than one might think. This post contains two articles that illustrate the problem. They are not the best or the most compelling, they are simply the two that showed up on my computer screen today. Tomorrow there will be another. Where are those people to go? In some cases they have to homes to return to, in others they are persecuted in their home country. In other cases their country of origin doesn’t want them back. Others are stateless.

We have prisoners who have been detained there since the beginning of our invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan who have never been charged with a crime and who, in many cases, are innocent. But if it is true that prisoners in the regular American penal system are hardened by the system and more likely to be come recidivist, what happens when that facility is a military run prison camp. And what happens with the prisoner, once just a taxi driver or farmer in the wrong place at the wrong time, is locked up next to folks who are, in fact, ruthless radical religious terrorists? What is that person going to think of Western democracy and Western systems of justice when he spends years in a prison without even the semblance of due process? I shudder to think!

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Photo by writingJulie @flickr

Iran Election Dispute Plays Out Online – A Guide to Web Coverage

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Share photos on twitter with TwitpicThe Washington Post has published a very useful “guide to web coverage” called Iran Election Dispute Plays Out Online.  The links it includes are definitely worth following if you are interested in keeping up with the situation in Iran first hand.

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Tell your senators: Support a Strong Public Healthcare Option

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This is an extremely important issues.  Americans need to be able to be able to fall back on a public insurance plan that would provide quality, affordable care.  But, private insurers have spent millions of dollars  promoting “reform” of the current system that really changes very little and still leaves corporations making decisions in charge of our health care decisions.

Right now, only 36 senators are on record supporting a public option.  The link below will take you to a site called CREDO action that will help you contact your senator on the issue.

Tell your senators: Support a Strong Public Healthcare Option.

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State of American Higher Education in a Global Context

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I am reading a somewhat worrisome article in The Chronicle of Higher Education with the headline “U.S. Faculty Members Feel a Lack of Clout, International Survey Finds” (account required for access). It concerns a soon to be published study surveying faculty members in 20 different nations, as well as Hong Kong, that was conducted in 2007 and 2008. One of the study’s author’s from the Center for International Higher Education said

the study’s results…show that American faculty members remain relatively isolated from their peers elsewhere. In examining the latest data from the United States, he says, he was struck by “how behind the curve Americans are when it comes to their views of internationalization, their knowledge about what is going on academically around the rest of the world, their use of data from scholars from other countries.”

Anyone who knows me or my work is aware of my concern with the cultural isolationism of the United States and its consequences. The consequences are real and have real world implications, financial, political and social. But this article shows that there is far more to be concerned about. Good scholarship is built on that which comes before it, and without full awareness of it all, one ends up repeating that which has been done before, or simply missing out on helpful information that would advance ones own research.

The study also found that

the United States is seen as losing its advantage over many nations in terms of the perceived quality of its higher-education facilities, and that many faculty members in highly developed nations are less engaged in the affairs of their universities and see their institutions’ management as more heavy-handed than was the case in the early 1990s.

and that the number of publications refereed journals, appears to has declined slightly in the United States while rising quickly in countries like Brazil and some of the new “Asian tigers.” Moreover, American faculty are more likely to disproportionately likely to engage in research that is “socially oriented,” whereas in other places it is basic or applied research that is more common.

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The Pentagon fears a severe shortage of scientists and engineers at government laboratories could erode the military’s technological edge in developing weapons and other projects in coming years, spawning a hiring boom at military research laboratories and an expansion of scholarships, advertising campaigns, and other ways to recruit a new generation of researchers.

Quite simply there is a growing gap between the number of degrees awarded in fields like engineering, computer science, physical science, math, etc., and the number of positions available in these fields.

So now the question is whether or not the current economic crisis will exacerbate the crisis. There are two ways in which it might do so, either by making higher education even less affordable as larger numbers become unemployed or see their savings and investments devoured, or because budget cuts caused by the massive hit the endowments of far too many colleges have sustained in recent months begin to hurt the quality of education.

Technology-assisted collaboration can offer higher education a way to achieve greater efficiency and do things in a more cost-effective manner without compromising standards of education. But it takes creative thinking, planning and a serious investment of time and energy. Certainly resources must be allotted, as well, but sometimes it takes only a reallocation of existing resources. This, however, is the subject of a longer entry, perhaps at some point to come.

Franco will not address UCLA Commencement, Brad Delson of Linkin Park to Fill In

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The Los Angeles Times has reported that a Facebook campaign may have been behind the withdrawal of James Franco as UCLA commencement speaker.

Earlier this week, and just days before the ceremony, the actor announced he was dropping out as keynote speaker. “I deeply regret not being able to keep my commitment to giving the commencement speech at UCLA’s graduation this year,” the actor said in a statement issued by the university, adding that the June 12 graduation date “conflicts” with pre-production demands for his next film.

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The withdrawal left the university scrambling to find a speaker. Conan O’Brien was lobbied by yet another FB group, but ultimately Brad Delson, Linkin Park’s lead guitarist and UCLA alumnus, was announced as commencement speaker.

Iraq’s Gay Life – IslamOnline.net – News

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On the one hand, there are numerous reports of brutal suppression of homosexuals and persons engaged in homosexual activity in Iraq, but there are also reports such as the one below that indicate there is a thriving, albeit underground, “gay scene.”

One possible explanation is traditional society in much of the Arab World and the Middle East (as well as in every other male dominated culture, I hasten to add) is quite gender segregated.  Men are considerably less reluctant to show affection toward other men and women to other women in such cultures because it is not odd. (Remember all the jokes about former President G. W. Bush and the Saudi King-then Prince-Abdullah holding hands?)   It does not threaten the domestic unit and it is assumed that it is not sexual.  In effect this makes it much easier for homosexual relationships to be hidden, even while partners.

That doesn’t change the fact that it is still a crime punishable by harsh penalties, including death, be it meted out by official courts or militias.

Iraq’s Gay Life – IslamOnline.net – News

The story is by Arif Sarhan, whose blog is well worth following.

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