Culpability

 Posted by  Crime, Disasters and Tragedies, Racism, Terrorism  No Responses »
Aug 312010
 

Make sure to read this excellent article by Stanley Fish, Law Professor and New York Times opinion contributor. This gist of his observation is this:

“If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.”

Continue reading »

Determining A Man’s Worth

 Posted by  Abuse of Power, Disasters and Tragedies, Environment  4 Responses »
Jul 272010
 

How much money should a person make?

For most people, it’s a moot concept. For most white collar workers, the free market (in some loose sense) determines how much we get paid, perhaps marked up or down somewhat depending on a person’s negotiation skills. For most blue collar workers, their wages are determined by collectively bargained contracts. For the working poor, their wages are determined by the federal or state imposed minimum wage, or perhaps in some case by a minimum payment necessary to keep the employee fed and motivated.

But there are a lucky few people out there who get to set their own salaries, who don’t have to worry about the vagaries of the free market or collective bargaining. In particular, there are two news stories today that prompted the question I began with.
Continue reading »

On Bullying

 Posted by  Crime, Disasters and Tragedies, Education  6 Responses »
Apr 012010
 

Bullying has been in the news a lot lately, unfortunately due to a teen’s suicide in a small Massachusetts town and the ensuing prosecution of some of the kids who were involved for statutory rape and civil rights violations.

That particular case is a tragedy all the way around. The behavior of the kids involved was reprehensible, and I do not doubt that it contributed to the suicide of the victim. (Although there is a difference between “contributed to” and “caused” which is often missed…) But I don’t think that charging them in criminal court as adults is the right response.
Continue reading »

Kidnappers With Good Intentions

 Posted by  Crime, Disasters and Tragedies, Latin America  5 Responses »
Feb 042010
 

I have no idea why 10 Americans, in Haiti on a humanitarian mission, thought it would be a good idea to take 33 Haitian kids to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. No one that I have seen has suggested that they were paid or had any insidious motive. My guess is that they were trying to help, but doing so in a naive and arrogant way.

With that in mind, a few thoughts:
Continue reading »

Fox Fiction, Part II

 Posted by  Disasters and Tragedies, The Media  No Responses »
Nov 112009
 

You want to know what bad journalism looks like? Read the article “Free Speech Rights Prevented Probe into Hasan Emails, Investigators Say“, currently the headline article on Foxnews.com. A few days ago I lambasted Fox & Friends for jumping to a quick conclusion that political correctness concerns prevented the military from taking preemptive action that could have forestalled the tragedy at Ft. Hood. Well, here is an article that, at least on the surface, seems to prove Fox News correct. But look a little closer and you’ll see things aren’t quite what they seem.
Continue reading »

 Older Entries
© 2012 leftfielder.org login Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha