Monthly Archives: February 2011
Osler: The death penalty replicates the actions of the killer
“The more heinous and despicable the crime committed by the offender, the more these victims’ family members wish to have nothing in common with him. They do not want to sink to his level, to replicate his actions by killing.” Continue reading
Filed under Criminal justice reform, death penalty, innocence, The politics of crime
Wisconsin: ‘Welcome to our world’
If Wisconsin workers wanted to live in North Carolina, they’d move there. As Chris Kromm argues over at Facing South, union-busting politics is really about the Dixification of America. Southern workers to Wisconsin: ‘Welcome to our world!’ By Chris Kromm In … Continue reading
Filed under "civil rights", "Social Justice", economics, the politics of race, Uncategorized
Stories we believe in: learning from Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm
By Alan Bean American liberals can’t fathom the appeal of the Tea Party phenomenon. Here we are, struggling to recover from a recession created by massive tax cuts, military adventurism, and an under-regulated financial sector and what are they asking for: … Continue reading
“To save money, let’s all quit our jobs and drop out of school!”
In order to rebuild the economy, we must cut education spending, cut job training, cut supports for the low-income and elderly, cut access to health care for those who can least afford it AND give tax cuts to those who have no track record of utilizing tax cuts for 10 years to provide jobs to stimulate the economy?! And, after we have enacted all of these cuts, the poor and low income, the untrained, the elderly, the homeless, the hungry, the incarcerated, the sick and the poorly educated and the inadequately educated will provide the foundation for a new and revived economy?
Seriously?
It’s the equivalent of a family deciding that, in order to save money on gas, we will all quit our jobs and drop out of school. Continue reading
Filed under "Social Justice", common peace consensus, economics
Adapting reality to the white viewer
The New York Times recently ran an article lamenting the all-white list of nominees for this year’s Oscars. Randy Shaw (see below) points out that it ain’t just the movies; television offers few characters or programs aimed at the non-white audience. Shaw references David … Continue reading
Campolo: Why the Christian Right will Dominate
As an evangelical Christian with a progressive social agenda, Tony Campolo has occupied and defended an uncomfortable patch of territory in the American religious world. I’m not sure how much of the horror story Tony relates in this article is autobiographical, but we can be sure … Continue reading
McLaren: Is God Violent?
This succinct article summarizes a chapter in Brian McLaren’s excellent book, A New Kind of Christianity. This piece was originally published in Sojourners and has also appeared in Christian Ethics Today. How should Christians think and feel about the criminal justice system, in … Continue reading
McWhorter: end the drug war and racial tension evaporates
John McWhorter is a conservative African-American who enjoys needling white liberals and the “racism-is-still-real” brand of civil rights advocacy. For over a year now McWhorter’s take on race has taken on a decidedly libertarian tone. He’s for legalizing drugs; all of them. The Cato Institute’s current newsletter contains a … Continue reading
Haley Barbour won’t denounce KKK license plate
Haley Barbour would like to take a run at the presidency, but his close identification with Old Dixie keeps getting in the way. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the Sons of Confederate Veterans are sponsoring … Continue reading
