Paradigm Shift for Religious Right

Linked is a brief Newsweek article by Lisa Miller. Read it and then let's discuss. To warm you up, the writer is suggesting that the religious Right has shifted the focus from moral issues such as sexuality, divorce, etc. to patriotism in the form of anti-socialism, anti-big government, and anti-immigration. I'm wondering if some Christians feel disenfranchised by this shift, that is, that their religion is so political to begin with, especially on issues that are ambiguous in the Bible.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/09/one-nation-under-god.html

Election Disappointment

Just a brief thought on the election. I've really only been paying attention to politics for the last ten years. What seems to be increasingly clear to me is that there really is no reason to expect any improvement out of parties or legislators. Why do so if your party is swept out of office in one election, then can come back saying the exact same thing two years later and sweep back in?

To me it seems ludicrous that people should be fed up with Republicans in 2008, then think that the best option is going back to many of the same people in 2010 because they don't like what the Democrats did in those two years. If there was ever an opportunity for a third party to establish itself, it seems like this was it. Instead of a legitimate third option arising, all that we saw was what appears to be a faction of the right wing that's further away from 'center' and so doesn't really pose as a long term third option other than moving the Republican party further to the right and polarizing the process even more.

I would really like the American public to realize that politics need not be thought of as a continuum, where every issue falls on one side or the other, and the degree to which it varies from center determines how appealing it is. If you disagree with some issues but agree with others for a party, there really isn't going to be any candidate that can possibly appeal to you.

But like I said, if ever there was a time to establish this possibility, this year's election was it. As such, I suspect another method may be necessary if that system will ever change. I know we've discussed alternate voting methods before, but I suspect those will be nigh impossible to implement, as those in power are complicit in maintaining that power structure, so they have no incentive to change it.

What is the proper course of action for past transgressions?

Wellesley professor unearths a horror: Syphilis experiments in Guatemala

I don't have a lot of time to write this up very formally, but I thought this was a noteworthy article that was forwarded to everybody in SPH by another student.

My question is what is a government to do 70 years after the fact? Obama has apologized for this to the Guatemalan government, but if I remember correctly (I read this a few days ago), there was also a question of possible reparations of some sort. Personally, I don't really see what good it would do. The impression I got was that there were unlikely to be any descendants of these people. In that case, the suffering inflicted can not be undone or assuaged. The horror some may experience now is unlikely to be any higher than you or I might experience reading about this. And with a Guatemalan government complicit in the act at the time, how are the United States any more guilty than they?

What are your thoughts?

Book Review: Polio: An American Story

Title
Polio: An American Story
(Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in History)

Author
David M. Oshinsky
George Littlefield Professor of American History, Department of History, University of Texas

Publication Date
2005

Publication Information
Oxford University Press; 288 pages

Political Trackers: Potentially benefitting society, but more likely not.

Here's a recent article on political trackers from the Star Tribune:

http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/101038219.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUycaEacyU

I haven't really heard of these people before, but it doesn't really surprise me given the ease of recording and disseminating video now.

One of the goals of tracking as listed in the article is ensuring politicians keep the same message instead of telling different groups what they want to hear, which seems to be a good thing. However, if it's more a witch hunt for the "gotcha" moment as is also mentioned, I wouldn't view it as favorably. Since people are rarely as noble as they like to make out, I tend to think it's more of the latter than the former.

Either way, I'm a bit skeptical of this tactic. It seems regardless of the intent, if this is employed successfully, the end result will be encouraging political parties to get candidates that can maintain a strict public persona without any hiccups or flaws, which is likely to mean that they're good at being fraudulent. The less politicians are able to be human and err (in normal ways, I'm not referring to corruption or anything like that), the worse off we are.

Thoughts?

MR OBAMA, TEAR DOWN THAT MOSQUE!

Before I say anything, I just want to make it clear that it is somewhat amazing to me that this even makes national news as it should have stayed in the confines of the Lower Manhattan Zoning Office, thank FoxNews in all likelihood for that.

Is college worth the costs?

Original Post by Papa TaggartRR (e-mail correspondence)
Posted here via TaggartRR
Feel free to join the conversation.

Interesting. I have thought this for a while. If parents took the same $80-90k that the spent on college and invested it in the child's name and the child learned some trade, would they be better off at 50 years old?

Is it worth it to go to college?
For people considering college, perhaps the greatest lesson of the Great Recession is not that you shouldn't go to college but that you should make sure the investment will pay off.

Source:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38561562/from/toolbar