October 29, 2009 – 11:33 am
Earlier this week I (and, as it turns out, many other North Carolinians) received a postcard from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina:
(The rest of the mailing is after the break.)
I, like many others, was infuriated that a nonprofit–which, apparently BCBSNC is–was using either my premium dollars or my tax dollars, or a [...]
October 7, 2009 – 10:07 pm
Princeton postdoc Amin Ghaziani writes of his decision to have his undergraduate class, “Queer Theory and Politics,” demonstrate against the National Organization for Marriage and then reflect upon and analyze the demonstration for class. The writeups–in the CBSM Newsletter and in Gay and Lesbian Studies–are thoughtful, informed, and thorough. Together they demonstrate that this exercise [...]
September 25, 2009 – 11:16 am
Today’s NYT features, on the front page nonetheless, a story under the headline “Poll Finds Frustration on War and Health Plan.” Note that on the website they’ve changed the title to “In Poll, Public Wary of Obama on War and Health.” There are several interesting, problematic elements to the poll and the way it’s presented.
August 8, 2009 – 12:13 am
One of the big stories of the August congressional recess is the “disruptions” of congresspeople’s town hall meetings across the country with respect to health care reform. The left-wing talk radio I like to listen to (Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz, in particular) has been denigrating the protestors, claiming (a) that they’re disrupting and not [...]
…a hilarious blog that wants us to rehash our most eloquent “is this image racist?” conversation of a few months ago by titling this image “…but if *I* asked to do this, they’d call me a racist:”
My vote: adorable.
I can’t remember the last time I browsed through the NY Times headlines and saw a prominent sociologist commenting on a major social problem, but that’s just what happened today (that link is only good for today, btw):
Okay, sociology doesn’t get credit for it in the byline, but it counts for me. And the article [...]
I’ve been emailing with someone I know who is rather more conservative than I (though he still calls himself “very liberal”). I’ve noticed that in many of his arguments he returns essentially to a concept of hypocrisy. A favorite line of his is that for liberals, “What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is negotiable.” Recent [...]
February 20, 2009 – 6:55 am
President Obama stopped by Ottawa yesterday, making Canada his first foreign visit since taking office. It made us feel all squiggly on the inside. This morning, there are reports that he bought maple leaf cookies and a snow globe. He and Prime Minister Harper discussed trade relations, the economy, and the environment. Apparently, more sensitive [...]
February 18, 2009 – 11:41 am
Republican state legislators in Georgia are picking on some courses on sexuality, claiming that they are inappropriate uses of taxpayer money. I hadn’t posted on this before, because by the time I found out about it, the case seemed closed. The scholars in question testified before the Georgia House Committee on Higher Education, which received [...]
February 7, 2009 – 8:55 am
After our lively discussion of what if about the proposal to cut science funding from the stimulus package, you may want to know what happened. The Republicans gave up substantial ground, but some cuts were secured. The NY Times story didn’t have the specifics I was looking for, but ScienceDebate2008 sent it in an email:
They [...]
January 23, 2009 – 10:31 am
You have never, ever seen anything like this in an American president’s agenda. It is, by a mile, the most far-reaching statement of support for lesbian and gay rights this country has ever seen. Sure, it doesn’t include marriage, but it includes everything else, like federal discrimination protections for transgender people, along with lesbians and [...]
January 20, 2009 – 10:38 am
At this morning’s drop-off, the head of the school stuck his head out into the -12* weather to make sure I knew that the kids would get to watch the inauguration speech. “Not all of them will get it, but I think [Kid] will.”
Back at the home front, Kid and I decided that ice cream [...]
December 5, 2008 – 7:54 am
The government is shut down up here. The gist of the story is that our recent election resulted in a Parliament where no party had a majority, but the Conservatives had more seats than the others. This is called a minority government, and the Prime Minister is the leader of the Conservative party, Stephen Harper.
Well, [...]
November 25, 2008 – 7:11 am
The Chicago Tribune has a column on Barack Obama as a basketball player.
But Obama, to borrow a playground term, is a “baller”—a player, even at age 47, of a populist, sweat-inducing, real sport and the possessor, to judge from the video of him in action, of no small amount of game. (He played Sunday at [...]
