When they were young, my children were big fans of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and I would watch along with them. The show did not have the same entertainment value to adults as Sesame Street but you could not but help like his gentle character and his simple wholesome messages of tolerance and acceptance of diversity. The low production values and slow pace added to its quirky charm. [Read more…]
Dr. Omar Amin, a 73-year old researcher in infectious diseases and resident of Scottsdale, Arizona, was browsing the children’s section of his local Barnes and Noble bookstore looking for gifts for his grandchildren when a store employee arrived and asked him to leave immediately. [Read more…]
One of the most troubling aspects of the so-called ‘war on terror’ has been the unwillingness of the federal judiciary to rein in the excesses of the administration in its assault on civil rights and constitutional protections. [Read more…]
In the comments to my earlier post on Malcolm Gladwell, commenter sisu pointed me to a link to an excellent and detailed article that exposes how Gladwell was groomed from his early days to be a shameless huckster in the service of right-wing and corporate interests. [Read more…]
I had heard of long-time Georgia congressman John Lewis and his role in the civil rights movement but had never actually seen him. I found this interview with Stephen Colbert quite moving. [Read more…]
Malcolm Gladwell has made a name for himself by publishing superficial books that basically promotes a simple theory for everyday phenomena and cherry picking data to support it. He is a good writer and when you read his books his argument initially sounds plausible and it is only later you discover that things are a lot more complicated than he lets on and that his favorite theory either has strong competitors or powerful counter-arguments. [Read more…]
South Korea is one of the so-called ‘Asian tigers’, a modern, rapidly developing, and highly educated country with a large and still-growing role in the world’s economy. So it was a surprise to me to read that they are purging the teaching of evolution from the country’s textbooks. [Read more…]
The New York Times had a long article showing how willingly and easily Obama sidesteps the constitution he has sworn to protect, all the while presenting him as someone who grapples gravely with issues. The article provides another striking example, if one were needed, of what I wrote about before, how constitutional protections are being hollowed out, to become mere window dressing. [Read more…]
Opponents of same sex marriage kept saying that if we allowed it, then it would open the floodgates to every possible combination of marriage, even involving turtles. We laughed at them but, astonishingly, they were right after all. And the new form of marriage that has been spawned is even worse than was imagined. [Read more…]