Palestinians protest Islamic Militants
The Associated Press reports on a Palestinian protest against Islamic militants. “They (the militants) claim they are heroes,” said Mohammed Zaaneen, 30, a farmer, as he carried rocks into the street. “They brought us only destruction and made us homeless. They used our farms, our houses and our children … to hide.” (Via Shark Blog).
Alterman and Fund: the “little bit nutty” defense lives on, damn it
Mac-a-ro-nies and Body and Soul have both written good posts on what’s wrong with liberal columnist Eric Alterman’s defense of accused batterer John Fund. From Body and Soul:
Equally important, women who are abused often come across as unstable. Try living for awhile in a situation in which you never know when or why you will be attacked, and which you have absolutely no control over, and see how stable you seem to people with calmer lives. Once again, if you know anything about the patterns of domestic abuse, you ought to realize that the fact that a possible victim seems odd to you doesn’t mean she isn’t telling the truth.
Another Satisfied Customer
Eszter is happy with the drawing she commissioned from me. Say, wouldn’t an original Ampersand drawing be just the perfect thing for your/your friend’s wall?
Originalism: Where does it end?
A typically fascinating post from Jack Balkin discusses a problem with theories that Courts should use formalist techniques in judging – or, rather, “neoformalist.” Many of our dearest rights (Balkin has an amazing partial list) are rooted in court decisions that used methods the neoformalists disdained. We’re talking about stuff as diverse as the right to marry, Congress’ right to pass civil rights laws, women’s equality, the existence of the Federal Reserve bank, paper money…
In my view, the problem is that the Constitution is badly written; as written, it’s simply too hard to change the Constitution to keep up with changing social needs. But society isn’t going to come to halt just because the Constitution did; if we can’t have the laws we need according to the letter of the Constitution, then we’ll have the laws we need some other way.
Mass Graves in Iraq and everywhere else
The Shadow of the Hegemon has a good post on the mass graves in Iraq. Permalinks are dead, of course (step AWAY from blogspot!), but look for May 15’th post. “Therein lies the paradox- these mass graves are being used to justify the historically unique intervention of the United States by the supposedly unique evil of the Iraqi regime, yet the existence of these graves only shows that there was nothing unique about Saddam. His evil was a sadly common one.”
Stupid, stupid racist people!
Pandagon relates an encounter he had with a racist store clerk last week (I won’t describe it, go over to his blog to read it) and asks: “Have you ever had something so racist happen to you that you just can’t say anything?”
Does anti-Semitism count? I once had someone refer to insurance fraud arson as “Jew lighting,” for instance. Another woman – in a rural area of a rural state – told me, in all seriousness, that she thought Jews had horns. In both cases, I was unable to reply – it was like the rug had suddenly been yanked out from under my aplomb.
Arundhati Roy converts to republicanism, praises Bush
Okay, not really. Scott M. (formerly known as “Sam” around these parts) links to a new Roy speech on Iraq, entitled “Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy. Buy One, Get One Free.” I haven’t read the full speech yet, but I love Roy’s writing, so I’m linking it here so I’ll remember to read it later..
