Archive for January, 2004
Miller
I watched a bit of Dennis Miller’s new CNBC show the other night. I nearly choked on my own bile. He had his head so far up Schwarzenegger’s ass that it would have taken a team of elephants to pull him back out. It was as if Schwarzenegger couldn’t do enough to push his own […]
Ambivalence
I’ve written several times about my ambivalence towards General Wesley Clark. This Democracy Now interview, in which reporter Jeremy Scahill brilliantly forces the General to answer questions about alleged war crimes committed under his command in Yugoslavia, only furthers my ambivalence.
Clark’s response is much more informed, forthright and honest than the kind of answers we […]
Anti-Semitism
Earlier I discussed the rampant misuse of the term “Anti-Semite”. But Daniel Levitas points to some really disturbing trends within the United States, that have nothing to do with Israeli attitudes towards the Palestinians:
According to the latest and most comprehensive surveys, fully 17 percent of adult Americans are “strongly anti-Semitic.” These 35 million people don’t […]
Surprise
The American commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan says he expects to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice by the end of this year.
How much do you want to bet that Bin Laden is caught, oh, about ten days before the elections?
Remember the October Surprise? (And also here.)
AWOL
Saying Bush was AWOL is perfectly, wholly, and completely factual.
Housing
Columbus Ohio has a radical idea for dealing with homeless people: give them housing!!! Amazing thing is - it works.
Columbus’s story “may foretell the challenges that lie ahead for other cities,” says Dennis Culhane, who teaches social-welfare policy at the University of Pennsylvania. In its size, its age, and its underused housing resources, he explains, […]
Lunch
When I was studying Chinese the school had a policy that we had to speak Chinese all the time, even during our lunch breaks. A well intentioned rule, but simply not one we were able to follow. Especially those of us whose Chinese was still not good enough for causal conversation. But while it might […]
Maps
I’ve been spending some time this morning looking at different ways of charting electoral votes:
(1) The traditional “red and blue” map, showing electoral votes by state for the 2000 elections (related article):
(2) A red and blue map of the 2000 elections by counties:
(3) A map showing “money contributed as a proxy for votes” for the […]
Expression
From the National Coalition Against Censorship newsletter, an important article about students being punished for dark or violent writing (emphasis added):
The shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, as a practical matter, resulted in the restriction of free expression in the nation’s schools, as much as the 1988 Supreme Court decision, Hazelwood […]
Brown
For those who didn’t look at the “Education Life” supplement to this week’s Sunday Times, there was a nice collection of articles covering the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. Including a nice portrait of Thurgood Marshall. Although it makes it sound as if Marshall thought of the NAACP’s legal strategy all by himself, […]
An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, 
