I read this article by Jeffrey Goldberg, about the most extreme, fanatical wing of the Israeli settler population. Though published in 2004, I have no doubt many of these people are still alive today and have not moderated their views in the slightest. As I read it, I found myself disturbed, quite a bit more so than I expected, and I tried to put my finger on why that was. Obviously, a big part (and the part that was quite “expected”) was the simple fact that these people are, in the...

Being tolerant of your gay, lesbian, or bisexual child significantly reduces their risk of suicide. Trying to “help” them by trying to change or challenge their sexual orientation, by contrast, causes their risk of suicide to spike. Stunning, isn’t it?

Though my own posts haven’t been bad, I think the folks over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money have probably the best package of coverage regarding Israel’s latest operation in Gaza. One of the things I think they’ve done effectively is avoid some of the easy traps that obscure efforts to actually evaluate what Israel’s doing. Trap #1, emanating from the left, is the “disproportionality” argument. In international law, disproportionality is a term of art: It does not...

Some of you may know that I’m currently in an open relationship with my girlfriend (as I continue to cement my place as the liberal hippie of the TMV crowd). One of the reasons why is that traditional “closed” relationships are a little too reminiscent of the view of women-as-property (property being, at root, that to which you have the right of exclusive use). At times, this justification feels a little anachronistic. But then, I read insults to the Jewish community like Dennis...

Quin Hillyer argues that limiting big government isn’t just a good principle for Republicans, but historically has been good politics for them as well. He proves his point through the brilliant argumentative strategy of (a) defining “big government” only to encompass things that conservatives dislike (no critique of the partial-birth abortion ban here!), (b) excluding all counter-examples, like the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections where George W. Bush was specifically running on big...

A brief exploration stemming from some 3 AM musings.

I’m not well-versed enough in college football to know if this is fair analysis by the LGM crowd. But I do know that the lack of Black coaches in D-I football is a long-standing problem, and one the NCAA has bent over backwards to avoid correcting. LGM’s story is about the coaching moves by Auburn University, which just fired Tommy Tuberville after a disappointing 5-7 2008 season. Tuberville, prior to that, had gone 42-9 over the past four seasons. Still, college football is tough business...

After radical Israeli settlers launched what can only be described as a pogrom against innocent Palestinians outside of Hebron, are we finally seeing the formation of a broad-based anti-settler backlash amongst mainstream (and even conservative) Israeli and American Jewish elements? Because if so, it will be well past time.

CNN has a video story up about high school cheerleaders who were kicked off the team, after it was revealed they had texted nude pictures of themselves to their boyfriends. Everyone CNN talked to was in 100% righteous fury mode, absolutely convinced the school did the right thing, lamenting how today’s girls are sluts, and slamming the parents for trying to get their daughters reinstated. Can I try and offer a dissenting opinion here? Read the rest of this post

The University of Ottawa chapter of PIRG (Public Interest Research Group — one of the largest and most mainstream sources of college student activism) rejected a request by the campus Hillel to fund a speech on interfaith education efforts and sustainable development projects by the African Jewish community. The reason? Hillel’s “relationship” with “apartheid Israel”.

Israeli groups are fighting back against ultra-Orthodox Judaism’s version of the Taliban. These people make my entire religion look bad.

Some conservatives are now claiming that the Mumbai massacre was made worse because Indians simply aren’t tough and manly enough. We heard this same refrain from these characters after Virginia Tech. It was appalling and juvenile then, and it’s appalling and juvenile now.

That’s the lesson drawn by a 14 year military veteran who volunteered as an interrogator during the height of violence in Iraq. Torture is immoral, unnecessary, and gets Americans killed. It’s as simple as that.

If most American Catholics are pro-choice, what will they do if the Church hierarchy decides that a vote for the Freedom of Choice Act is grounds for “automatic excommunication”?

I mean, it’d be good anyway, but footnote 19 catapults it into legendary status.

A female Egyptian “human rights” attorney made that statement in the course of urging Arab men to, at the very least, sexually harass Israeli women as part of their “resistance” to Zionism.

Joe’s post about al-Qaeda’s recent foray into racial commentary raises an easily-overlooked opportunity. For years, the United States was plagued in its Cold War battles with the USSR because our domestic racism was so easily wielded against our protestations of righteousness and morality. Why not learn from our own mistakes? Racial progress tends to smoke out the reactionaries, as al-Zawahiri as so conveniently demonstrated. I wonder how well his racist commentary will play in Pretoria,...

New research indicates that in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods, GPA has a positive correlation with juvenile delinquency. This, to put it mildly, is distressing news, and really throws a kink into how we address the obstacles faced by urban youth.

Obama was elected President this week (didja hear?). And that’s fantastic. But most people of color are not Barack Obama. And declaring that his victory means the era of significant racial inequality is over, or that racism is effectively dead for the Black community writ large is a serious mistake that must be avoided.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the moment. For someone like me, this is really the first time I’ve seen a Democrat win on the national stage. The historic nature of the candidacy only adds to the emotion. But I wanted to focus on some other things. First, an open letter to my conservative friends, who still have a valuable role to play in our democracy for the next four years. I look forward to your engagement. And second, and more somberly, it’s important to remember...

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news The White House is asking its (now totally apolitical!) Justice Department to hamper 200,000 Ohio residents from voting. Black voters are really nervous about the integrity of this election. A Black Brazilian immigrant gets a lesson in racism upon arriving in America. Lawyers have finally secured access to a top-secret Guantanamo Bay camp where we hold high-ranking terrorist suspects. The total number of hate crimes dropped slightly this year, with...

I flagged this study by Yale law professor Ian Ayres in the civil rights roundup [The link in which I've now fixed -- DS], but I just wanted to block quote some of the findings: We found persistent and statistically significant racial disparities in policing that raise grave concerns that African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles are, as we put it in the report, “over-stopped, over-frisked, over-searched and over-arrested.” After controlling for violent crime rates and property crime...

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news Breath-taking results from a study by Ian Ayres on racial profiling by the LAPD. I’m probably going to write a separate post on this one — the data is jaw-dropping. [Link fixed -- I was wondering why I was getting all those hits to my post on cotton subsidies] The polls on Proposition 8 have been narrowing, and it looks like the right to gay marriage will go down to the wire. Three Jews, Four Opinions has a good perspective on how Jews...

I didn’t do a roundup today, but I did write two posts that are pretty directly tied to civil rights (not including the Sarah Palin’s wardrobe post I just linked to below). First, the data is now out on how barring affirmative action affected minority enrollment at Michigan’s state universities. The result? It’s a mixed bag, but the overall trends are a shift in minority enrollment to less-prestigious universities, a greater difficulty in attracting even qualified minority...

What feminism can tell us about the high price of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe (and whether she should pay taxes on it).