http://leftfielder.org Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:41:29 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Imam Rauf, who is in charge of the proposed Lower Manhattan Islamic Cultural Center, was on CNN last night discussing the controversy. (You can watch a heavily edited version of the interview here, or click here for part 1 of the full version on YouTube--although being copyrighted material I ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/09/09/the-imam-speaks/ Who'd have guessed? http://leftfielder.org/2010/09/09/castro-on-communism/ 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 ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/08/31/culpability/ My wife has been on a "what does it mean to be feminist" kick lately, and so I would like to dedicate this post to her. The New York Times website has been running a series of "conversations" about current news topics, usually between columnists Gail Collins and David Brooks. ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/08/19/feminism-and-stereotyping/ The Anti-Defamation League (the ADL; an organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism) has participated and encouraged closed-minded and offensive behavior. They ought to know better, and I think they (and many other people in this instance) owe an apology to every person of faith. Alright, now that I have your attention ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/08/16/what-good-men-doing-nothing-looks-like/ Both of the top Republicans in the House and Senate have now expressed support for rewriting the 14th Amendment. Their goal? To prevent the children of illegal immigrants from becoming American citizens. Thankfully, it will never happen, for reasons that I'll get to in a bit. ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/08/10/taking-the-14th/ As you've probably heard, a federal judge ruled yesterday that California's Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage in California, is in violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. The case was peculiar on many levels. The California State Attorney General's office refused to defend the law, ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/08/05/ending-marriage-as-we-know-it/ I heard an interesting argument the other day. Many states have laws that prohibit people in prison from voting. And the percentage of African Americans in prison is much higher than the percentage of Caucasians in prison. The argument was that denying prisoners voting rights constituted a ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/08/02/prison-and-jim-crow/ I'd like to point out a series of odd coincidences, that I haven't observed anybody else commenting on. In the past few months: 1) As everybody is aware, there was an explosion at an oil rig and catastrophic oil leak at a BP platform, causing great damage to the gulf ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/07/30/1229/ 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, ... http://leftfielder.org/2010/07/27/determining-a-mans-worth/