thoughts in and out of season
What to do about AIDS in Africa? Easy, says a New York Times Op-Ed by Kati Marton of the International Woman’s Health Coalition. It’s mostly a disease of powerless and victimized women, so the answer is empowerment: female condoms and microbicides, and programs that train women how to resist sexual predators. Sex and disease are … More ...
Any incident is good enough when it’s something you want to do anyway: Connecticut College cancels classes to discuss problems of racism. A couple weeks ago someone wrote “nigger” on a poster relating to Black History Month, and a few days later someone told a “student of color” [sic] to “go back … More ...
Breaking down the barriers at Scotland Yard: London police change policy to recruit first transsexual officer . They had wanted to recruit transsexuals, whom they regard as an “under-represented group”, as police officers. Unfortunately, PC was stymied by a requirement that suspects be searched by officers of the same sex. Since transsexuals haven’t been able … More ...
The claim that race is a myth because of the overall genetic similarity of human beings was transparently silly, but people bought it because they liked the way it sounded. It’s hard to know whether the genome researchers who promoted it believed it or not, but it certainly helped them avoid funding problems. Here’s evidence … More ...
Here are some objections to Christianity that are common today:
A few years ago New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman fired Carl Williams, the state police superintendent, within hours of the publication of an interview in which he said:
… More ...“If you’re looking at the methamphetamine market, that seems to be controlled by the motorcycle gangs, which are basically predominately white. If you’re looking at heroin and
Steve Yates gives a lengthy summary of where educational policy is going in line with recent Federal legislation: FedEd: Education for Global Government. It’s a useful discussion, partly because his somewhat rambling presentation brings in a lot of the important background, like the centrality of world government, the notion of business-government “partnership” (a.k.a. corporatism), … More ...
Makes perfect sense: the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the leading UK charity dealing with child protection, has been spending its money on campaigning to outlaw parental smacking rather than protecting actual children. So they join the American Catholic bishops, who would rather pronounce on racism, foreign policy and social … More ...
“Outside the Church there is no reality.” What could such a statement possibly mean?
It’s hard to view the world we know as real unless it has an intrinsic connection to our thoughts and intentions. If it doesn’t, then we can’t grasp it in thought, and it seems to become an unknowable whatever that somehow … More ...
Current departures such as “gay marriage” are often defended as examples of the natural development of institutions with the times. To oppose them is said to be an arbitrary attempt to freeze social development at a particular point. Such claims don’t hold up. While it’s true that changing conceptions, interests, and ideals have repeatedly led … More ...