October 30, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear), hosted by superstar comic news anchors Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on the National Mall in Washington, DC, has drawn hundreds of thousands of people from across the country. Turnout was estimated at 300,000 beforehand, but images from the Mall show an edge-to-edge crowd filling the lawn from the stage at least as far back as the Washington Monument, meaning the total could well exceed 500,000 people.
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October 28, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The political battle over immigration reform is in many ways a shameful commentary on the state of our democracy and the core of our political discourse. We have well over ten million people living in our midst who lack basic access to fundamental rights and protections and who are being vilified and even further marginalized by voices from both sides of the political spectrum. This suggests a shameful, and hypocritical hold-out against living up to the founding ideals of American democracy.
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October 27, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, writes: “Every variation of public service, including elective office, should be anchored by one complete and overriding truth and objective—to make a better world,” as part of a powerful statement urging civility and good-will from all who seek to involve themselves in the work of public service. Hagel’s open letter to the political world comes at a time when many election observers say the campaign of 2010 is the most degenerate and ill-intentioned in memory, where lies are prevailing over evidence and the ability to commit to effective and relentless distortion has become the most sought-after weapon of campaigners.
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October 22, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
French president Nicholas Sarkozy’s plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and to reform the pension system has sparked a massive, coordinated general strike that has seen air traffic cut in half, and fuel supplies interrupted across the country. More than one-quarter of filling stations are reportedly out of fuel, and gas lines are causing commerce to break down: strike organizers promise a war of attrition.
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September 10, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In a speech to a packed room at Villanova University, during the university’s three-day celebration of the legacy and work of St. Thomas of Villanova —a celebration that includes scholarly presentations, community gatherings, this keynote address and a day of service in which thousands fan out across the region to do charitable work—, E.J. Dionne called for a politics rooted in conscience and compassion for our fellow human beings. The acclaimed journalist, scholar and Washington Post columnist rooted his talk in Catholic Social Teaching and spoke of an historical drive, in the US, toward comprehensive social justice.
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August 1, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
SB1070 is a threat to the freedom and quality of life of all Americans, but first to Arizonans. The law’s draconian anti-immigrant provisions, —which not only include random stops based on “reasonable suspicion” (clearly an indication that visual profiling is required) but also a form of domestic “extraordinary rendition”, or prisoner transfer out of jurisdiction with no judicial oversight— are an attack on basic Constitutional freedoms that protect all U.S. citizens.
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August 1, 2010 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a Republican who supports the draconian anti-immigrant law, today lied on CBS’ political show ‘Face the Nation’ when he said the federal policy on immigration law is to deliberately “not thoroughly enforce the law”. He also lied about the capability of the “papers please” law to combat organized crime and a rash of kidnapping in Arizona. Responsible citizens must remember: SB1070′s absolute ban on safe interaction with government or community turns hundreds of thousands of people into targets for a drug mafia protection racket.
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July 17, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Buckminster Fuller was one of the 20th century’s most visionary architects, whose philosophy of socially responsible planning and design has influenced cutting-edge technology research and public policy the world over, through the UN’s development programs and pioneering entrepreneurship aimed at lifting billions out of poverty. His vision was, in his own words, “To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”
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July 5, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Sustainable security is a paradigm shift in foreign policy, economic and defense planning: it entails considering that not only diplomatic relations and military preparedness or alliances, but the full spectrum of connections between our society and the world abroad, determine the degree to which our future security and prosperity can be reasonably guaranteed.
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June 11, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Government “can knock down barriers that keep small businesses from getting loans”. Obama noted that “Last year we enacted seven tax cuts for small businesses” and helped put through $29 billion in new loans. The Recovery Act has steered building and infrastructure projects toward small businesses, and due to the healthcare reform package, the IRS notified 4 million small businesses they could be eligible for healthcare tax credits this year.
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June 9, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Gulf of Mexico coastline of the southeastern United States has been hard hit by the ongoing BP oil disaster, with catastrophic environmental damage, the collapse of the local fishing and shrimping industry, and tourism bottoming out in some places near zero, just as summer gets going. There is a moratorium on deepwater exploration and drilling, which is putting a strain on the job market across several states. A serious investment in renewable energy resources would build a more vibrant, more reliable jobs market into the regional economy and help prevent the environmental fallout of offshore drilling.
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June 4, 2010 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
The Guardian reports that a proposed piece of legislation up for debate in the Italian senate would mean: “No more reporting of criminal investigations before they come to trial (even if that takes years). No more recording or photographing of anyone, even a Mafia boss, unless that person approves. Only members of the state-approved “National Order of Journalists” allowed to film or record. Fines approaching half-a-million euros for publishers who transgress, with €20,000 per reporter also on the table.”
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June 1, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
“The minds on the margin are not marginal minds” is the guiding philosophy of the project Anil Gupta discusses in this talk, aimed at highlighting efforts to find indigenous Indian entrepreneurs who might have the best ideas for shaping a better future, though they lack the resources to get their ideas into the mainstream culture or the realm of cutting-edge science.
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May 8, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is now looking at ways to use legislation that grants the power to regulate traditional phone networks in order to establish a regulatory paradigm of ‘net neutrality’, meaning internet service providers (ISP) who provide connectivity cannot block or slow traffic to some sites while privileging traffic to others. Bandwidth itself is an important limiting factor in the physical environment, and so efforts to expand bandwidth may be crucial to making real net neutrality work.
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May 3, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The 1st of May brought massive immigration rights protests across the country, calling for fair treatment, equality before the law, humane reform and the repeal of Arizona’s immigrant-ID law. The wave of protest this year may have swelled due to widespread anger over Arizona’s passage of a draconian anti-immigrant law that establishes a mandate for police to stop anyone whom they have a “reasonable suspicion” that person’s immigration status is not fully up to date, demanding papers.
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April 29, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
El estado de Arizona —antiguamente parte del territorio español que vino a ser México, y uno de los estados de mayor población de ascendencia hispana— ha legalizado el perfilamiento racial y la persecución sistemática de los inmigrantes. La ley denominada como propuesta SB1070 no sólo permite, sino exige, a los agentes de policía estatales y municipales pedir los documentos migratorios a cualquier individuo que se les parezca “razonablemente” sospechoso de ser indocumentado.
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April 28, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
MSNBC reporter and host Rachel Maddow reveals the foundation of clear and overt racist ideology that helped shape and promote the anti-immigrant legislation that has been passed and signed into law in Arizona, requiring policemen to demand documentation of residency from anyone who “looks like” they might be an undocumented immigration.
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April 25, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The governor of Arizona has signed into law a measure that would allow police to demand proof of legal residency in cases where they believe an individual might be an undocumented immigrant. The same law would also require people to carry proof of legal residency. It is unclear how the law would be enforced without racial profiling and whether or not US citizens would be subject to legal penalties if caught not carrying proof of citizenship.
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April 23, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Today is the Day of the Book, in part spurred by the urge to recognize two of the great progenitors of modern literature, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who both died on 23 April 1616, at least according to the official history. Their work and the various arts that go into making books, as such, are celebrated around the world as staples of modern global civilization and the human element of culture. But the book is more than those sweeping historical energies; it is a concrete, observable register of intent and of meaning, which carries evidence of our humanity forward and informs and improves future worlds.
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April 22, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Earth Day 2010 finds our world, in many ways, at a moment of crucial historical importance, on the issue of climate destabilization and environmental stewardship. The combined effects of major scientific advances, which have brought a wealth of hard evidence, the global campaign to raise awareness, and the deteriorating conditions of the carbon fuel sector’s relationship with consumers’ interest, now mean awareness of the urgent need to achieve a more sustainable global economic infrastructure has spread rapidly.
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April 18, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Share the best practices and legal remedies for preventing identity theft, whether by digital means or wireless harvesting, or in the physical realm of paper, plastic and voice. What laws give consumers leverage in reversing fraudulent charges? What pending legislation will do the most to help protect the sanctity of individual identity? How can we leverage consumer technologies to protect against the most aggressive, innovative attackers? What can the credit scoring universe do to assist and protect consumers?
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April 13, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
In signing the healthcare reform “fix-it” bill, Pres. Obama also signed a series of reforms that will shift the responsibility for making student loans from commercial banks to the federal government, so that subsidies to those banks can now be saved, and steered toward making student loans more affordable for the students themselves. The reason for the shift is partly to do with banks’ reaction to the credit crisis, where lending fell off sharply and the unraveling of predatory lending practices brought into stark relief the sometimes prohibitive costs of higher education.
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March 24, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Google has announced it will stop censoring search results for users in China. This radically reverses the dynamic of its relationship with the Chinese government, which had demanded as a condition of being searchable in China that the internet giant systematically bar certain content from appearing in lists of search results. Google had agreed to enter the Chinese market filtering out search results related to the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of June 1989, even to the word “democracy”, but a cyber-spying attack that originated in China caused Google to rethink the validity of the initial agreement.
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March 21, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
The House of Representatives approved passage of the Senate’s version of healthcare reform, by a vote of 219 to 212, with the crucial 216th vote cast at 10:45 pm EDT. Republicans then proposed a motion to recommit, with instructions, an effort to use language relating to abortion policy to prevent the measure from being signed by the president.
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March 18, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Great Recession has begun to push through to basic public services that affect us all. Education funding has dried up and across the country, cities facing major budget shortfalls are taking the radical step of shutting down schools in order to address the budget crisis.
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March 13, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
El ciber-diálogo de Gender Links, para el jueves, 4 de marzo 2010, efectuó una conversación robusta sobre cómo mejorar el ambiente mediático de la Copa Mundial del 2010 respecto a los derechos de la mujer. Los, partícipes, en Nueva York y en Sudáfrica, se entrevistaron, cambiando ideas y comparando ambientes socio-culturales según favorezcan o no la entrada de las mujeres y las niñas en el ámbito del fútbol. Un ejemplo clave fue el caso de Estados Unidos, donde las niñas muchas veces tienen acceso a programas de deporte de la comunidad o a através de la escuela y donde las figuras más conocidas del fútbol internacional son mujeres como Mia Hamm.
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March 10, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
On the second morning of the 54th Commission on the Status of Women, Gender Links and the African Woman and Child Feature Service —through the Gender and Media Diversity Centre— hosted a roundtable dialogue involving Marren Akatsa-Bukachi of the Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI), Francisco Cos-Montiel of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Revai Makanje of Hivos, Norah Matovu-Winyi of the African Women’s Development and Communication Network, and Jennifer Lewis of Gender Links as facilitator, with Mwendabai Yeta Mkhize and myself providing event support and reporting.
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February 27, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
‘Psychic numbing’ is a relatively new term, assigned to the phenomenon which shows people tend to feel less urgent compassion, and tend to give less, when the suffering in question is shown to be more systemic and more pervasive, or affecting larger numbers of people. Some psychologists believe it is linked to our intuitive sense that if one suffers alone, the suffering is worse, but if one is accompanied, there might be some security in numbers, not just emotionally, but practically.
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February 14, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Esperanza Spalding, a rising star in the jazz world, and an increasingly recognizable face at high-profile cultural gatherings, performs “Tell Him” at last year’s White House Poetry Jam, in this video. The song is a moody, jazzy blend of love and meditation, an apt message for a weekend on which we celebrate both the virtues [...]
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January 30, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Pres. Barack Obama yesterday attended a first-of-its-kind question and answer session, as part of a Republican Congressional caucus conference in Baltimore. The president took some aggressive questions, classed by media analysts as “grandstanding”, from some Republicans who pushed the party line on the refusal of Democrats to deal with them. Obama adroitly and with a [...]
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January 22, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
The Supreme Court of the United States has taken a special interest in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which regards the claim that campaign finance regulations limiting the amount an entity can donate to a political party are an infringement on freedom of speech. Yesterday, the Court issued a 5-4 ruling against those campaign funding limits that is now expected to unleash a wave of virtually unlimited corporate funding for political campaigns. Numerous observers have claimed the integrity of American elections would be threatened.
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January 14, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The disaster response for the Haitian earthquake has been swift and coordinated, channeling massive international resources to the affected area. But the logistics of deploying the resources, personnel and technology needed to deliver comprehensive disaster assistance, are beyond complicated, with roads and transport overwhelmed, and means of contacting the wounded almost non-existent.
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January 9, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
It is a serious question whether distance learning holds virtues that are ignored due to a prejudice that holds that physical presence of the instructor is necessary for learning. Clearly, in some cases, this is entirely untrue, and there may be an over-emphasis in some circles on the idea of physical presence as the metaphysical prerequisite to consider that learning is occurring. However, it is not clear that physical presence and phonocentrism —emphasis on the spoken word as the more effective mode of instruction— amount to the same “fixation”, when it comes to the question of how best to communicate knowledge.
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January 4, 2010 :: Carmen Visna :: Comments Off
La luna se aleja, no veo el camino; estoy lista, medito, pero el futuro no me pertenece. Por lo tanto, no duermo. Busco en las tinieblas, hacia las cuatro, mi nombre; ya no existe. Esta experiencia desconcertante me gusta, porque ayuda a definir los límites; sé hasta dónde tengo que limitarme en sociedad. Imagino que el yo, en general, es un fenómeno menos comprobado que lo que pensamos.
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December 15, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Barack Obama’s campaign for the United States Senate, in 2004, was driven by a clear moral commitment to the need to make government more open and more accountable to the people. His record of work in state government to tackle predatory lending, corruption and ethics conflicts, helped make him a national figure almost upon entry into the Senate. He sponsored and pushed the most sweeping ethics reforms in over a generation, to make government more transparent, and promised to do so as president. Now, the White House has issued a studied and comprehensive open government directive that will ensure greater transparency and a freer flow of information to the public.
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December 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Intellectual property laws designed to help protect the ability of researchers to retain compensation for major innovations have led to a uniquely problematic “innovation” in the laws themselves, where specific genes, or the informational access to them, are patented, barring individuals or their physicians from dealing directly with those genes except through the for-profit patent-holders.
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December 10, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The deepest image ever taken of the universe, using the ultra-powerful Hubble Space Telescope, known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, shows there to be 100 billion galaxies in the universe, some projecting light from a distance of 47 billion light years. A study of the Doppler redshift of galaxies speeding away from the Hubble’s vantage point has allowed astronomers to create a 3-dimensional projection of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, the deepest photograph ever taken of the observable universe.
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November 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Malaria is one of the 21st century’s great plagues. It is responsible for anywhere from 1 to 3 million deaths per year, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Efforts to eradicate the disease are mounting: in the year 2000, just 3% of children under 5, in sub-Saharan Africa, slept with mosquito nets; by 2008, that figure had risen to 56%. Aid groups now project that aggressive preventive measures can protect 100% of the population by the end of 2010 and reduce the number of deaths to near zero by 2015.
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November 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Through the work of writing, I have learned first and foremost that nothing is what it tells us it is, because there is always another level, another way to play at naming, with reality, to bend untruths to be more true, as medicine, as savior, as demon filtered for taste, as a ritual mark of [...]
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November 11, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
One of the smears Republican opponents of heathcare reform have been pushing is the idea that the reforms passed by the House and under consideration in the Senate would “allow government bureaucrats to get between you and your doctor”, and make decisions about what treatment you can receive. In fact, this is an outright lie, put forth by interests that already do interfere with your doctor’s discretion and deny you care, for profit, and they’re pushing the lie because they don’t want people to know the bill bans any insurance provider —including the government— from dictating treatment options.
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October 30, 2009 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
It’s a busy day as usual in the city-centre, with everyone moving about their daily business. Looking around, it seems that you will mostly find women and girls sitting by the roadside selling fruits and vegetables, while men are operating bigger businesses, like construction.
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October 28, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Intellectual property rights are complicating and expanding at an unprecedented rate. Now, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, lawyers are writing contracts that require artists to sign over all potential distribution and marketing rights for their work, “across the universe” and “in perpetuity”.
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October 13, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
An attractive woman, 34-ish, drives a compact station-wagon, late model, over a still-cobblestone side street in the center of Madrid. She advances slowly, toward a red light, and talks on her cell phone. She seems equally concentrated on both activities. Driving an automobile is a potentially dangerous activity, in which one’s own life or the lives of others may be at risk, while a casual conversation is not so much that. Yet she seemed to give equal weight, her body, her manner, seemed to give equal weight to both activities.
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October 2, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The phenomenon of “re-tweeting”, reposting and linking back to items already posted on the real-time updated short-message feed site Twitter, has allowed for the emergence of what sometimes turns into a global roundtable discussion, made up of short, sometimes superfluous, sometimes provocative ideas, and in many cases links to surprising but potentially effective online sources that spread a message or expand and deepen awareness of an issue.
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September 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Apple’s long-awaited tablet computer, likely to run a version of Mac OS X and to merge the touchscreen stylings of the iPhone and iPod Touch with the full functionality of the MacBook line, is expected to be aimed at revolutionizing the way print media deliver text to readers. If true, the device would again put Apple at the cutting edge of a field where Amazon, Microsoft, Sony and others, are trying to set the standards for e-book distribution and licensing.
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September 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The field of ecological research and reporting is a part of the basic human urge to engage the world through reason and a quest for understanding. It is not about seizing control of society’s urges and services and limiting the freedom of anyone, but rather about making sure we have the information we need to make the best choices, then advocating for those choices, when inertia and custom stand in the way of better health — for individuals and in the manner in which human individuals respond to their social and natural environments.
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September 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
DVR is an increasingly popular consumer-oriented technology which simultaneously liberates viewers from strict TV viewing schedules and also imposes new constraints on recording freedoms (including sharing). DVR is a concession by content providers, advertisers and infrastructure (connectivity) providers, to the advantages of digital technology, and to the common individual demand for more freedom to control when information (content) is accessed. And the technology is framing a new logistics of consumer access and corporate control.
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September 23, 2009 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: One Comment
The issue of women’s equality is a question as old as human history. And even now, in the most modern of democracies, which guarantee more or less political and economic equality for women, there remain fundamental imbalances in rights, privileges and enforcement. Women are often guaranteed freedom from discrimination, but nevertheless suffer essential inequalities that do in fact alter the landscape of their choices and freedoms.
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September 16, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old track-and-field phenomenon from South Africa, is a woman whose hormonal chemistry is unusual for the average adult female. Test results are reported to show that her body naturally secretes three times the normal female levels of testosterone, the dominant “male” hormone, which some competitors say gives her an “unfair advantage”. The issue has raised perhaps the most serious challenge to the notion of fairness in sport, and to conventional attitudes about gender.
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September 15, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Capitalism is “survival of the fittest”… capitalism is rooted in the idea of merit; everyone should be compensated according to his or her contribution (to the common good?)… capitalism is about the movement of capital; the more it moves, the richer everyone gets… capitalism is an upgraded feudalism, where the capitalist is an overseer of an abstract terrain made up of investments, not of arable lands… capitalism is democracy; the free spirit of an open society requires capitalism to support the liberties of individual citizens, and protect against government overreach… capitalism is virtue… or, capitalism is the absence of virtue…
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