The American Muslim Advisory Council in the town of Manchester, Tennessee invited the US attorney Bill Killian and the special agent for the FBI in charge of that region Kenneth Moore to talk about hate crimes, in order to foster a “public discourse in a diverse society, with a particular focus on the Muslim religion.” [Read more…]
As regular readers know, I blog on a fairly predictable schedule, each day consisting of a fairly longish think piece first thing, followed by two or three shorter items. I choose to do it this way because I like having a routine and these self-imposed demands help me maintain a writing discipline, while enabling me to also do my job and live the rest of my life. [Read more…]
As regular readers know, I have long been a great admirer of the work that Glenn Greenwald does. In a recent essay he discusses reader-funded journalism which he thinks is the way that quality news will be generated in the future, because it will enable writers to free themselves from the clutches of big corporate media entities and thus not be confined by their boundaries of what constitutes ‘acceptable’ journalism or commentary. It is an interesting take, worth reading for those who care about ensuring quality news media.
He also mentions his annual fundraiser to help support his work and I urge those who believe in this type of journalism to contribute here.
For reasons that are obscure to me, Andrew Sullivan and his blog The Dish are highly popular. He is often cited as someone whose opinion is worth considering and is a frequent guest on talk shows. But he has always struck me as someone who has no internal compass to guide him but worships power and those who possess it. The only purpose he serves to me is as a reliable indicator of where the boundaries of conventional wisdom lie, because he cruises close enough to give himself the air of a daring thinker while not threatening the current social order. [Read more…]
Via Kevin Drum I came across this graphic that shows that health care costs in the US are much higher than those in other developed countries. This should, of course, come as no surprise to anyone.
But why is this the case? Many of the easy answers don’t quite cover it. This article by Elisabeth Rosenthal from which the graphic is taken looks at possible explanations. [Read more…]
Yesterday was the second day of the Bradley Manning trial. Nathan Fuller of the Bradley Manning Support Network is summarizing the proceedings day by day (day 1 and day 2) and the transcripts can be seen here. [Read more…]
Following Mitt Romney’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election and other setbacks to their hopes for gaining ground in the Senate and House of Representatives, the Republican party has commissioned studies to see how to gain ground with young, female, and minority voters. The results should not be that surprising, since the party’s problems with these demographics were fairly obvious. [Read more…]
I wrote recently about the children in some Ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools who spend most of their time studying the Torah and other religious materials and very little time on regular secular education, leaving them woefully unprepared to work in the modern world. As a result of that post, I became interested in the question of to what extent religious groups can deny access to secular education for their children. [Read more…]
I am sure many saw the news reports of the Pew survey that found that “a record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family.” This was up from just 11% in 1960. [Read more…]