thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb Another example of the battle between pro-prostitution and antiprostitution feminists, this one in France. (You can tell it’s French when someone says something like “Prostitution is the paroxysm of a woman’s non-power over herself.”)
It really seems that the anti-prostitution forces need an expanded moral vocabulary, one that goes beyond concepts of power and … More ...
And to round out recent discussions of race, racism and antiracism, here’s a good reference for whiteness studies.
The UN’s on the job, accusing Canada of racism. There may be plenty of PC in Canada, but not enough. Some problem areas: immigrants don’t earn as much as natives, compensation has not yet been paid to survivors [?] with respect to a 19th century head tax on Chinese immigrants, and Ottawa still resists … More ...
More PC in medicine: an English surgeon who complained that patients’ lives could be put at risk by foreign nurses with a poor command of English is facing formal disciplinary action for “racism.” The article mentions that Patricia Moberly, the chairman of the hospital, has made no secret of her ambition to promote the hospital … More ...
In the first favorable sign recently in the continuing scandal involving homosexual predators among the Roman Catholic clergy, eight American bishops have called on their brethren to convene a plenary council to discuss the “root causes” of the current crisis.
This would be the first American plenary council in more than 100 years. According to … More ...
We’ve commented how the combination of management by concept and the diversity imperative has given rise to mandatory sexual revisionism for those who want to work for large companies. Since the cases we commented on were British, it might be worth mentioning one from America: Motorola “homophobia” workshops, other activism creating tension in workplace.… More ...
For another example of how complicated diversity and antiracism make things, here’s something by an Asian woman born in Uganda and now living in London: Racism and the truth about the Ugandan Asians. Say what you like, she’s a woman of principle. The first principle is that everything is really something else. The second … More ...
Canada continues to push the frontiers of PC forward: An Ontario judge has given a man a lighter sentence than even his own lawyer asked for in recognition of the man’s aboriginal heritage. The Supreme Court of Canada, abandoning even the pretence of doing justice as traditionally conceived, has said that sentences for aboriginal offenders … More ...
Boys who are abused are much more likely to become violent criminals if they have one version of a gene associated with chemical balances in the brain than another: Bad behaviour linked to gene. In principle, the finding is not particularly startling. Common sense has always told us that background and temperament account for … More ...
Rights grow ever more equal: a man pulled a knife on his wife, their pit bull attacked him, and he stabbed the dog to death. Result: 90 days for the attack on the woman, 2 years for the attack on the dog. The sentences run concurrently, so the assault on his wife was a … More ...