February 22, 2007 – 10:34 pm
On January 11, 2002, the first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Despite much public objection, calls by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, and several legal battles, we still hold over 400 prisoners in Guantanamo today. We are told that these men are the “worst of the worst”, “obvious threats to national security”, “Islamofascists”, and “terrorists”. We use these epithets to justify our new definitions which allow us to hold them outside the regulations of the Geneva Conventions, outside of previous United States law, and outside of our general moral concerns. It is worth a moment of our time, then, to consider who these men actually are, what we intend to do with them, and whether our means will justify our bespoken ends.
Of the 775 men and boys who have been held as “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo, about 340 have been released, 110 are scheduled for release, around 70 are to stand trial, and around 250 “may be held indefinitely”. Only ten have been charged with anything at all.
February 19, 2007 – 10:33 pm
The race for the 2008 Presidential election is off on a premature start, and the results are already being polled by the most respected polling firms. The promises are being rolled out by the truckload, the platforms are being polished and set up for viewing with the utmost fanfare and hooplah. None of this really [...]
February 6, 2007 – 10:28 pm
“Out,out damned spot!” howls Lady Macbeth in one of the most overplayed and psychologically transparent scenes in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. The story up to that point involves some troublesome witches, and the murder of a King that both Lady Macbeth and her husband, apparently, have some issues over. Ms. Macbeth just can’t seem to get the [...]
December 13, 2006 – 10:20 pm
Over the past six years, there has been a gathering swell of complaint from conservative America. Every wrong-headed notion held by the liberals stems from one source, it would seem: the liberal media. The War in Iraq was going just fine until the media convinced people not to support it. The dissolution of traditional values [...]
November 21, 2006 – 10:16 pm
So here’s a simple question for all you students of social psychology these days: What’s up with all the Christmas decorations all ready? It is several days before Thanksgiving. I am driving in my truck with my kid, when…sure enough…I espy another house with lit up, three foot candy canes and a jolly plastic Santa [...]
October 18, 2006 – 9:19 pm
A head’s up for all you folks who have been looking for something to celebrate. Something that will bring us all together, and give us a warm tickly feeling in our hearts that can only be associated with…irony. The President of the United States of America has proclaimed the week of October 21-27 to be [...]
September 6, 2006 – 9:09 pm
This article started as a comment I made on another thread. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that what I had said there wasn’t enough. It seems clear that this is the most important topic of our times. This is what is making me grind my teeth at night; this is [...]
Today, I took my son on a homeschooling field trip to the local news station. It’s not a big place, and I can’t say I have watched their reporting more than once or twice in all the years I have lived here. We don’t have t.v. programming at home, but we have watched enough while [...]
