Using liberal causes for conservative ends

Yesterday, I highlighted an important article by Glenn Greenwald about how Chuck Hagel’s 1998 opposition to a gay nominee for US ambassador is one of the tools being used to try and torpedo his nomination for Defense Secretary, even though such views were much more common at that time and were similar to those held by people, like Barack Obama, who are now viewed as liberal icons. Furthermore, Hagel has rightly since apologized for those remarks to the person about whom they were made and other commentators have pointed out that his views on gay issues have progressed considerably since that time, as has been the case for so many of us. [Read more…]

Film review: My Man Godfrey

I saw the 1936 black-and-white comedy My Man Godfrey over the weekend and really liked it. I hadn’t expected to because it seemed to be about the high life of a very rich but eccentric family indulging in endless rounds of vapid partying in the post-1929 crash period. I watched it out of solidarity with my visiting daughter who has developed a taste for classic films and discovered that the film was not only funny, it had a pretty good social message too. [Read more…]

The importance of school recess

When I attended a K-12 school in Sri Lanka, we had eight class periods that started at 8:30 am and ended at 3:05 pm. Within the day, there was a 15-minute recess from 10:30-10:45am and one hour for lunch from 12:05-1:05pm. When he were in middle school grades and below, during the recess period we would dash out to play pick-up games of cricket or soccer or whatever, and during the one-hour lunch break we would quickly wolf down our food in order to continue the games we had started earlier in the day. These were wonderful breaks in the days. As we entered the higher grades, we did not use that time for play but instead spent it hanging out and chatting with our friends. [Read more…]

The Hagel nomination for Defense Secretary

I tend to not get too interested in presidential nominations for cabinet posts, feeling that it is only under extreme circumstances that the president should be denied his choice since after all cabinet members are supposed to be the agents that execute the policies that the president campaigned on. Once a president is elected, he or she should be given considerable freedom in selecting those around him whom he thinks will do just that. [Read more…]