Politics often features heated rhetoric. Hyperbolic language is often deliberately used by politicians in order to achieve more modest goals like electoral gains but, like a controlled burn in a forest that suddenly breaks its boundaries and wreaks havoc, it can take on a life of its own that its originators can no longer control. [Read more…]
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I want to come back one more time to the question of when the use of the n-word might be appropriate.
I am a huge fan of English humorist P. G. Wodehouse, especially enjoying his Jeeves and Wooster series. If you have read Wodehouse, you know that his stories largely deal with the life of the British upper classes and aristocracy and are set in the time between World War I and World War II. His funniest writing also occurred in this period, though he was a prolific writer, churning out stuff right up to his death in 1975. [Read more…]
The discussions between Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore about race issues are almost always both amusing and thoughtful. This one from 2011 concerns the controversy I wrote about earlier today about the removal of the n-word from a recent edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. [Read more…]
Photo from New York Post
You now that we have reached a bizarre stage in the so-called war on terror when a court rules that the government is doing something that is likely unconstitutional but legal.
One of the most shameful and appalling actions of the Obama administration is its claim that it has the right to target and kill anyone in the world using whatever means at its disposal, but in practice using mostly drones. Of course the US government, through the CIA, has routinely murdered people for decades but it was done covertly and not acknowledged, which implied that the government knew it was wrong but did it anyway. [Read more…]
It all depends on what the issue is. And when it comes to cracking down on civil liberties under the excuse of fighting terrorism, bipartisan comity breaks out all over the place and a government in gridlock suddenly finds an open lane to move quickly. [Read more…]
President Obama has announced Mary Jo White as new head of the Securities and Exchanges Commission, focusing on her past position as US attorney and her reputation as a tough prosecutor. Since the SEC oversees the operations of many Wall Street activities, this person is someone whom the public would look to to ensure that the rules are followed and that the rights of ordinary investors are protected from the predators who run the big banks and investment houses and which have so far failed at the task. [Read more…]
In hostage situations someone threatens to harm others and sometimes themselves unless their demands are met by those in a position to do so. But the US congress has taken this to farcical levels by threatening such harm unless actions are taken that it already has the power, indeed the responsibility, to take on its own. [Read more…]
News reports are emerging that the Boy Scouts are seriously considering lifting the ban on gay members and scout leaders and that the decision might come very soon.
The Boy Scouts of America, one of the nation’s largest private youth organizations, is actively considering an end to its decades-long policy of banning gay scouts or scout leaders, according to scouting officials and outsiders familiar with internal discussions.
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The new policy, now under discussion, would eliminate the ban from the national organization’s rules, leaving local sponsoring organizations free to decide for themselves whether to admit gay scouts.
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The discussion of a potential change in policy is nearing its final stages, according to outside scouting supporters. If approved, the change could be announced as early as next week, after the BSA’s national board holds a regularly scheduled meeting.
This reversal, coming just seven months after the national body affirmed its ban on gay members, demonstrates the remarkable rapidity with which acceptance of equal rights for the LGBT community is advancing. The Boy Scouts have been getting a public relations hammering and losing donors because of their reactionary stand of excluding gays and seem to have realized that any group that depends on membership of young people cannot have such a policy and survive because young people are way ahead of the old guard in acceptance of diversity.
As I wrote earlier, it is usually the case that in such reversals by large organizations, they usually edge slowly towards doing the right thing by taking incremental steps. The Boy Scout policy change, if confirmed, will not positively welcome gays into the group but simply drops the national banning policy, allowing local troops to make their own decisions. So in the short term one could expect some affiliates to accept gays and others not.
But such minimal steps tend to create their own problems. For example, what happens to a gay scout whose family moves from an area with an accepting troop to one that bans them? What would happen if a gay scout leader rises in the hierarchy to a position overseeing a local affiliate that excludes gays? The proposed change, while it is to be welcomed, will cause all manner of internal contradictions.
It is only a matter of time (I give it five years at the most) before the national group shifts to a more affirmative position, requiring that all affiliates not exclude gays.
Since I complimented Beyonce on her rendition of the national anthem at the inauguration, I feel let down by the news that she may have lip-synced her performance. Although it can hardly be considered a scandal, if true it does signify a lack of professionalism on her part, especially if the other charge that she did not devote enough time for rehearsals also holds up. [Read more…]