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POPSAnother View Earlier I clipped the TED video about this movement. Here's another take on this issue. I'm on the fence somewhat with this. On one hand, finding a way to reach fundamentalists and attempt to weaken their message seems like a good idea even if it doesn't address the problems with religion as a whole. Then we have Myer's take on this here which is much more antagonistic. Which will have more of an impact? I honestly don't know.
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POPSWhy Your Boss Is White, Middle-class And A Show-off A very nice study! Pointing just to the point of how things have not changed since men appeared. The more we will not attend to it, individually and otherwise, the more the gaps in relation to the advancement in technology and philosophy... will widen.
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POPSThe Illusion That Is Barack Obama
For all his Camelot-like rhetoric, Obama is a product, in significant measure, of the political culture that Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass described as "The Chicago Way" At no point did Obama, the would-be saviour of US politics, challenge this corruption, except for face-saving gestures as a legislator. Emil Jones, the machine-made president of the Senate, allowed him to sponsor a minor ethics bill. In return, Obama made sure to send plenty of pork to Jones's district. When asked about pork-barrel spending, Jones famously replied: "Some call it pork; I call it steak." Obama repaid the generosity. When he had a chance to back clean Democratic candidates for president of the Cook County board of supervisors and Illinois governor, he stayed with the allies of the Outfit. In the Illinois Senate, he made a specialty of voting present. Obama is such a down-the-line partisan that, in the past two years he has voted with the Democrats more often than did the party's majority lea
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POPSRace and politics Portside columnist Richard Cohen was first to raise the issue of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack's spiritual mentor, whose magazine last year declared that Louis Farrakhan "epitomized greatness." Minister Farrakhan, Cohen reminded his readers, "has reviled Jews in a manner that brings Hitler to mind." This was the old one-two to the midsection. Publicizing the Wright-Farrakhan ties alarmed Jewish voters backing Barack, while African-Americans, many of whom admire Farrakhan as a defiant black man, saw Barack as dissing a brother on the orders of the white liberal establishment. Last weekend, The New York Times gave page-one coverage to the Farrakhan-Wright matter and Jewish concerns about Obama's ties to Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, said the Times helpfully, is "loathed by many Jews. The liberals are playing the race card on each other, and showing real proficiency.
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POPSTribalism, Violence and Poverty The suggestion is that people being ruthlessly exploited by an appeal to their traditional loyalties will, in times of confusion and suffering, shelter first in their family, then in their 'tribe'.
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POPSDefining Bigotry I grew up in the South but thankfully, because of my immigrant parents, was spared the narrow mindedness of my neighbors. Falwells's death is newsworthy because he was able to fashion a coalition of ethnocentric, homophobic, misogynistic like minded bigots. I shed no tears for him on his death. There are legions waiting to take his place. My optimism gives me hope that his death signals the passing of an era marked by suspicion, fear, and tribalism. But I'm not holding my breath.
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POPSMother's day 2007 It's time for a world shift in thinking. Mothers are half of the equation of grief that comes to families stricken with the absurdity of wars. We need to put aside our tribalism and pride. We need to adopt a culture of empathy and social responsibility. We must cast off narrow views of sectarianism. A life lost is a tragedy. War is a lack of imagination.
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POPSAre we born to be racist? Computer modelling shows that being groupist is the best strategy. I wrote this post after reading a fascinating, thought-provoking New Scientist article about the implications of this for racism, which I think merits discussion. If we're inclined to be groupist, I propose that "looks like me" is the obvious grouping method and as skin colour is the most obvious feature - that's why we may be genetically predisposed to be racist.
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