The constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage and civil unions in North Carolina passed yesterday. Defeating it was perhaps too much to expect in a state that in 1875 passed an amendment that prohibited inter-racial marriage that stayed on the books until 1971, and even has a pastor who advocates that parents beat any children who show any signs of not being heterosexual. [Read more…]
Whenever I travel on work, as I did last weekend for a conference, the peculiarities of the pricing of items associated with hotels and airlines strike home.
Like a lot of people, I was annoyed when airlines started charging extra for meals, checking baggage, and so on when they used to be ‘free’ (i.e., already included in the ticket price). But after some thought, I think that this new policy makes sense. The practice of bundling everything into one price was introduced at the dawn of airline travel but that was a different time. After all, when we travel long distance by train or bus we do not expect to get meals as part of the ticket price. Why should air travel be different? [Read more…]
I watched a lot of Sesame Street with my children when they were young. It was not purely out of a sense of fatherly duty but also because I thoroughly enjoyed the program and thought that it was one of the best things on TV. In fact, I remember a lot of more of the sketches and songs than my (now grown) children do. [Read more…]
Diana Johnstone examines the politics of the various parties in the French elections and gives a forecast of what we might expect of the new president. She says that he will face a lot of pressure by the banks to continue the austerity program but may be able to move on social issues. [Read more…]
Last Thursday was the annual celebration of futility known as the National Day of Prayer. There were events in Cleveland from 9:30am until 2:00pm in Public Square downtown. The Plain Dealer sent a reporter and photographer to cover the event. The report did not estimate how many people showed up (usually a sign that few attended) and the photos seem to confirm that. [Read more…]
In his latest film The Descendants, George Clooney plays the father of two daughters, one of whom is grown, coping with the consequences of his wife being in a coma as a result of an accident. He is suddenly thrust into a parenting role that he had abdicated up to that point and for which he is not prepared. The film begins with a familiar trope that I detest but one that American filmmakers seem to be enamored by, that of rude and obnoxious children who mouth off to their parents. But fortunately that phase passes fairly soon and the rest of the film deals with the three of them coming to terms with each other and their situation. [Read more…]
How stupid/bigoted/ignorant (circle all that apply) people like Wanda Brown ever get elected to office is beyond me.
(This clip appeared on May 3, 2012. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
Religion seems to attract some of the biggest exploiters and it is not hard to see why. The absurd tax exemptions given to religious organizations, coupled with the reluctance of the IRS to strictly enforce the rules because of the privileged position religion has in society, has resulted in one racket after another coming to light. [Read more…]
All those governments in Europe who thought that it was a great idea to combat the recession by imposing drastic austerity measures and balancing their budgets by squeezing the poor, labor, and middle classes are taking well-deserved drubbings. Yesterday, the governments of France and Greece joined that of the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark in getting kicked out of office. [Read more…]
As a scientist who interacts a lot with the general public, I am often asked to explain phenomena that lay people have observed. I used to take those observations at face value and was often stumped at coming up with an explanation because of the inconsistent elements the observations seemed to contain. But I have found from experience that what people tell me they ‘saw’ is not purely raw observational data but that when you go back and actually repeat the situation, the observations are different from what was originally reported and that much of the paradoxical elements go away. [Read more…]