74 posts
The Economist Again, and Those Funny Rightists War is Good I don't mean to pick on The Economist (and I doubt they'd care if I did). I love the magazine. But the oddities are piling up. The current issue is dedicated to "Dealing With America's Fiscal Hole."… Continue reading
More Signs of the Creeping Militarization of US Society Hi everyone, forgive my long hiatus. If anyone here is considering moving back from Tokyo, living in a house while it's being renovated, and finishing a manuscript all at the same time, I would… Continue reading
Double Standard for a Latina I just read this article in today's New York Times: "Sotomayer Says Identify Won't Distort Her Positions." "Judge Sonia Sotomayor insisted on Tuesday, in the face of sometimes skeptical questioning from Republicans, that she would… Continue reading
The Willful Stupidity of Anti-Gay Prejudice This post began as a response to a series of comments on my FaceBook page, where I posted a video of Rachel Maddow interviewing Rep. Patrick Murphy, an 82nd Airborne Iraq war veteran, winner of the Bronze Star, and… Continue reading
The Torture Temptation What I find most remarkable about America's debate regarding torture – beyond the fact that such a debate could even be necessary in America – is the continual recourse of both proponents and opponents to the question of whether torture… Continue reading
How to Give a Great Talk This one's a little off topic, but enough people have asked so that I thought I'd post it here, too. If you want to know how to give a great talk, here are my thoughts following TEDx Tokyo. Enjoy. Cheers,Barry Continue reading
The Torture Mentality, Part 4 It's impossible to keep up with the ever-creative arguments of torture apologists, but I'm trying. For the moment, let me step back from the cornucopia of metastasizing specific torture apologies and focus for a moment more on… Continue reading
How it Looks to the Terrorists Transcript of an intercepted conversation between two terrorists in a cave somewhere along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border: Did you hear Dick Cheney's speech to the American Enterprise Institute last week? I did. It was funny… Continue reading
Our Warden-in-Chief Mostly I agree with Glenn Greenwald that only a politician's actions matter, and speculation about his or her motives is pointless. But when a politician reverses himself repeatedly on core campaign promises and rhetoric immediately after… Continue reading
The Torture Mentality, Part 3 Still trying to keep up with the messages I receive from torture apologists. Recently I received one from a gentleman named James R. Hostert on my Amazon blog. Mr. Hostert's opinions in favor of torture are depressingly common… Continue reading
Incoherent Truth Suppression As op-eds go, this one in the NYT praising President Obama for reversing himself and deciding to block the publication of additional torture photos is particularly vapid and incoherent. You have to read the whole thing to… Continue reading
The Torture Mentality, Part 2 Last week, I posted a set of pro-torture talking points sent to me by a persistent torture apologist, along with my responses. The talking points were extensive, by not comprehensive. There are plenty more to enumerate, but today… Continue reading
