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The Yale Free Press Blog Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Sunday, June 07, 2009
We'll sing as we heave to the maidens we leave, away, Rio! Sitting with the YGC in a Brazilian buffet/churrascaria at dinner today (which seems to be the only kind of restaurant in existence in Rio de Janeiro) a rising sophomore got up and made an announcement for the students interested in attending mass on Sunday. Thus far he´d only been able to find services in Portuguese, but was on the look-out for anglophone-friendly churches. I made a snide comment about the disappearance of the Latin mass, and the meal continued. Six or seven hours earlier, I was sitting in a McDonald´s off the Avenida Nossa Senhora in Copacabana, eating a Quarterão and listening to Beyoncé. I had four free hours between our dress rehearsal with the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira and the concert that night and no one with whom to dine, so I grabbed a book and ran over to to the nearest McDonald´s, a ninety-second walk from our hotel. I ordered the exact same thing I would´ve ordered back in Nesconset, NY (where I grew up), listened to the exact same music I would´ve heard on BLI, and read Peter Lawler´s critique of Achieving Our Country by Richard Rorty. Aside from the unnerving after-taste of Coca Light and the slightly better tasting cheese on my burger, I could´ve been in any number of fast food joints in Suffolk County or even in New Haven. I was comfortable and at peace, if slightly more aware of my purse slung on the chair behind me. Maybe it was the paleocon propaganda getting to me, but I wondered if this is what we, as a species, have come to- we´ve hyper-localized the spiritual and hyper-globalized the market. There wasn´t a single American in that McDonald´s with me; neither the servers nor my fellow patrons seemed to understand a word of English beyond proper nouns associated with processed beef or saccharine beverages. The Christians in my choir never did find an English service to attend. I´m sure, come the morning, they´ll head out to worship anyway, Christo Redemptor watching over them. But they were among those laughing at my complaint about Vatican II and the eradication of the catholic mass. Do they know what they´re missing, and, worse yet, what they and their ancestors´compliance has helped usher in? Or is this for the best, and is that which is universal truly for the lowest common denominator? | | Thursday, May 07, 2009
Strangers with Candy... and Bibles A Colorado Springs church has been luring children into their vans after school and "baptizing children without their parents' permission." | | Thursday, April 30, 2009
Oink Oink Cough Joe Biden gaffes his way into the swine flu hysteria, and the White House pounces into WHO-5 level preventative spin for Biden's endemic foot-in-mouth disease. Meanwhile, Ron Paul tries to calm people down. | | Everything Your Mother Taught You About Contemporary Europe is Wrong Bruce Bawer provides a brilliant overview of contemporary EU demographic and economic shifts in recent years, chronicling the rise of the European right (which is still pretty left, but hey, gift horse): More and more Western Europeans, recognizing the threat to their safety and way of life, have turned their backs on the establishment, which has done little or nothing to address these problems, and begun voting for parties—some relatively new, and all considered right-wing—that have dared to speak up about them. One measure of the dimensions of this shift: Owing to the rise in gay-bashings by Muslim youths, Dutch gays—who 10 years ago constituted a reliable left-wing voting bloc—now support conservative parties by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. (Source: WSJ)It's a long article but well worth the read-- good mix of numbers and analysis, very good at smashing my now-intuitive understanding of Europe (what's that? France got rid of its famed 35-hour work week? omg!). One thing I can add is that Eastern Europe is also re-treading nationalist paths: "Euroskepticism" (didn't we used to call that communism? or slavophilia? or?...) is on the up-swing again (unsurprisingly, given how even EU members were hung out to dry recently)... As Professor Ivo Banac recently said in a lecture on the future of eastern Europe: "When I gave this lecture three years ago, I was much more optimistic." Related Articles: The Revenge of Geography - Robert D. Kaplan (Foreign Policy) Culture & Barbarism: Metaphysics in a Time of Terrorism - Terry Eagleton (Commonweal) 1848: Year of Revolution (review) - William Anthony Hay (WSJ) Democracy Denied, 1905–1915: Intellectuals and the Fate of Democracy (review) - Adam Kirsch (CityJournal) | | Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Left Has 'Em Too Conservatives aren't the only religious zealots in government. Today the Colorado State House voted to eliminate the death penalty, passing by one vote, 33-32. While Rep. Ed Vigil (D-Fort Garland) cast the tie-breaking vote, Rep. John Kefalas (D-Fort Collins) whispered under his breath "Thou shalt not kill." | | Monday, April 20, 2009
Tweed for Weed The Party of the Right turned out for Bulldog Days to protest for cannabis legalization:     | | Friday, April 17, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Oh, the Irony! They want to fight global warming to save the poor in Bangladesh... but it's the poor in Bangladesh (and many third-world countries) who are causing global warming. | | Monday, April 13, 2009
Overstatement of the Day A couple Navy snipers shooting three rag-tag pirates in a lifeboat: "An Early Military Victory for Obama" | | Friday, April 10, 2009
The Foreclosure Robin Hood... and Tie-Dye A "housing liberation movement" called Take Back the Land is helping displaced Americans get back into their foreclosed homes, or into other homes that are sitting vacant. I was having pangs of sympathy until I read this: On a recent afternoon, Ms. Omega sat on the tiled floor of her unfurnished living room and described plans to use the space to tie-dye clothing and sell it on the Internet, hoping to save some money before she is inevitably forced to leave. Being homeless is one unfortunate thing. Being a hippie is another. Being a stupid hippie is yet another thing entirely. Who is this person who wants to tap into the vast online market for tie-dye clothing, an industry dominated almost entirely by 12-year-olds at summer camp? | | Marriage, Children, and Happiness A study of 218 Denver couples found that marital happiness drops sharply after the birth of their first child. Steeper declines are likely if the mother's parents were divorced, the coupled lived together before marriage, or if the first child is a girl. The lead researcher notes, however, that the study fails to capture the deeper fulfillment of raising a family--and I think fulfillment is a better metric in the long-term than happiness anyway. | | Uncanny Similarities Sean Penn is playing Joseph Wilson in a movie about the Valerie Plame leak? That couldn't be more fitting. | | Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Hatfields and McCoys: Pakistani Edition A woman living in Canada slated for deportation back to Pakistan claims she will be dead as soon as she arrives back in her home country. Apparently, she's received death threats from her estranged husband on account of assaults on the family's honor. What awful act could warrant a death threat such as this? Oh, that's right. She worked at a salon, and in the process cutting the hair of both men and women. Outrageous! Her brother, also living back in Pakistan, claims he will exact retribution upon her husband if he makes good on his threat. And so, the terrible conflicts that afflict the Arab world will be reenacted on a micro level. And we wonder why the area seems to be nothing but a pit of infighting and intolerance. On a more practical level, this certainly raises some concerns for not only Canada's but also the Unites States' sanctuary and asylum policies. As they stand now, the fundamental criterion consists in a credible, or well-founded, threat to the individual; however, the polices specify that the threat comes from the other state in question. What happens when the social sanctions and, as a result, unenforced laws, of another country create a climate in which an individual could feel a credible threat from a source other than the state but which the state in question refuses to address? International law and religious fundamentalist countries...who'd have ever thought those two things together might pose a conundrum. Labels: asylum, honor killing | | Sunday, April 05, 2009
The Savior Stumbles I thought the rest of the world was supposed to start loving the US again once we elected Obama. Turns out that's not the case. Anti-American protestors were still at the G-20 summit. French President Sarkozy has told Obama to butt out of Turkey's bid to enter the EU. Bush was called a crazy fascist with ridiculous expansion of executive power. Now, our new President feels it's ok to call on the President of a major corporation to step down. The Senate is considering a new Cybersecurity bill that would grant the President unprecedented power to shut down private networks deemed "crucial to the nation's infrastructure" for "national security" reasons. Gitmo still exists. Troops are still overseas. I said it before the election, but I'll say it again now. Not much is going to Change. Obama's losing the expectations game. He came into office with the majority of the country expecting change the likes we haven't seen in generations; instead, they get a tumbling economy, a President who's as prone to gaffes when speaking off-script as Bush was (see Special Olympics comment), and the advancement of the Bush doctrine (spend like crazy, fight inefficiently, have the world despise us, and look stupid doing it). Update: Look he did it again: "President Barack Obama invoked "state secrets" to prevent a court from reviewing the legality of the National Security Agency's warantless wiretapping program, moving late Friday to have a lawsuit that challenged the program dismissed." Source1 Source2 | | Saturday, April 04, 2009
Human Rights Watch V The Washington Post criticizes the "self-aggrandizement" of some celebrity adoptions: "While it is admirable for a star to use her popularity to draw attention to a worthy cause, there's no ignoring the fact that she is also luxuriating in the spotlight and enhancing her personal brand. When that celebrity is named Madonna, a significant amount of manipulative, narcissistic intent is assumed. Throw in photos of her in sunglasses, camouflage cargo pants and layered T-shirts against the backdrop of an impoverished Malawi as she searches for an orphan to adopt, and the stench of self-aggrandizement is nearly overwhelming. This is an image we do not trust." | | Heartland Values? The Iowa State Supreme Court just recently legalized same-sex marriage in the state. The lawyers arguing on behalf of the couples whose rights had been trodden upon did so on state constitutional grounds so that the case could not be appealed to the USSC. Very clever. They forgot one thing. California passed Prop. 8! This is the same state that in the very same election voted to exempt 16 year old girls from notifying their parents before having an abortion. The state that bans smoking everywhere they can (heck, in San Franciso, you can't even smoke on public property out-of-doors). Do these folks honestly think that the voters in Iowa won't amend their constitution the same way Californians did? Same-sex couples in California at least had the option of civil unions with essentially the same privileges as a state-sanctioned marriage, but the couples in Iowa would have no such safety net. In the opinion of this blogger, the gay rights activists in Iowa displayed their ineptitude by not going for civil unions first. | | Friday, April 03, 2009
Human Rights Watch IV Malawi has rejected Madonna's adoption plans, ending the terror of The Lost Generation--children forced into the bondage of Madonna's erratic behavior. | | Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Liberal Semantics Democrats often criticized former President George W. Bush for utilizing the "language of fear," but we now come to find the Obama administration doing something quite similar. Only this time, its a language of obfuscation. The officials in Obama's White House instructed the Pentagon recently to rename the Global War on Terror as "overseas contingency operations" and terrorism as "man-caused disasters." But it's not just in the realm of military operations that the new administration has renamed our current state of affairs. In the financial sector, spokespeople are using "legacy assets" as synonymous with "toxic assets." Basically, our government has told us we can't handle the truth! Now, I realize a large portion of the United States is based on consumer confidence and this may simply be an attempt to allay the fear of the people, but one has to wonder if there is an ulterior motive. | | Monday, March 30, 2009
Human Rights Watch II Roland Martin thinks that Madonna should be more patriotic (read: protectionist) with her adoptions, kind of like kicking the tires on a Dodge truck. | | Human Rights Watch How many more children have to be forced into adoption by Madonna before the international community does something about it? | | Saturday, March 28, 2009
PETA Hypocrites So according to a new study put out by the Center for Consumer Freedom, it turns out that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals kills 95% of the pets placed in its animal adoption program. Of the 2,124 animals up for adoption last year, PETA found homes for only 7! Basically, it's ok to kill man's best friend without adequately trying to find him a home, but the cow in Texas, whose sole purpose on this earth is to end up in the slaughter house, should be preserved at all costs. I'm so glad I had that hamburger this afternoon. For an organization that prides itself on bringing the message of the near human-like status of animals to the world, PETA seems to have no compunctions about euthanizing 21,339 dogs and cats since 1998. I congratulate PETA on their newly attained mass-murderer status. Labels: animals, hypocrites, PETA | | Monday, February 23, 2009
Libertarianism: It Happens "The local Jewish communities (kehillot), in place when Józewski arrived, funded themselves. The contributions of local Jews were supplemented by donations from Jewish emigrants in the United States. Services provided by the communes supplemented those of the state, most visibly in education. In the 1938-1938 school year, there were seven functioning private Jewish high schools in Volhynia. By comparison, there was one Ukrainian high school, and it was public. Every town in Volhynia had a Jewish library, and the larger towns had Yiddish weeklies." | | Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Religion of Peace Doesn't Get Irony "The founder of an Islamic television station in upstate New York aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes has confessed to beheading his wife." | | Sunday, February 15, 2009
If It Works Or If It Doesn't, We're Right The White House claims that the economy won't show results until the second half of 2009. Funny, that's what the outgoing Bush administration said before this $787 billion stimulus package was on the table. | | Saturday, February 14, 2009
A Modest Proposal Since we're kowtowing to the Keynesians now, I want to propose another way to jumpstart the economy with $787 billion: invade Cuba. Wars are a great way to We have been lusting after Cuba since the 1890s. Isn't it time we treated ourselves to a little imperialism in our own backyard for a change? | | Casualties of the Welfare State A 13-year-old British boy has had a baby with his 15-year-old girlfriend. Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith said that "the birth highlighted another case of 'broken Britain' where 'anything goes.'" The most interesting thing to me, however, is the Sun's accompanying article titled "Benefit bonanza if pair 'move in'." I don't think the Sun could have created a better podium-thumper for the Conservatives. | | Thursday, February 12, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Bailout Blues So our newly minted Secretary of the Treasury began to speak this morning, clarifying how the rest of former President George W. Bush's $700 billion bailout would be spent, and guess what happened...the market tanked. My favorite line from the whole NYT article was, "The stock market, which had been trading down all morning, fell sharply as Mr. Geithner began speaking around 11 a.m. Geithner said that the US Treasury would essentially spend the money to build a toxic bank which would buy up all the bad assets held by various financial institutions, and the market responded, expressing its discontent." Oh, how I love the smell of socialism in the morning. | | Thursday, February 05, 2009
We're the kids full of nerve / As long as it's conserv- / ative, we're Barry's boys. File this one under "Dispositional Conservatism, Lameness of": What conservatives have yet to do is confront the large but inescapable truth that movement conservatism is exhausted and quite possibly dead. And yet they should, because the death of movement politics can only be a boon to the right, since it has been clear for some time the movement is profoundly and defiantly un-conservative--in its ideas, arguments, strategies, and above all its vision. ...Oh, I'm sorry. Did we get our movement in your status quo? Oops. American conservatism has always been counterrevolutionary conservatism, whatever Russell Kirk says. Even more than that, it's always been a youth counterrevolutionary conservatism. It was born at the 1960 Republican Convention among the "young fogies" who swarmed the halls with their blue and gold balloons. National Review reported, "They greeted Richard Nixon at the airport with Goldwater signs, and did the same thing for President Eisenhower the next day. They drove one Nixon aide into muttering in exasperation: 'Those damn Goldwater people are everywhere.'" And then, of course, the let-down. Goldwater comes on stage. The room goes wild. And then he starts to talk: "We have had our chance. We have fought our battle. Now, let’s put our shoulders to the wheel of Dick Nixon and push him across the line. This country is too important for anyone’s feelings. This country, in its majesty, is too great for any man, be he conservative of liberal, to stay home and not work just because he doesn’t agree. Let’s grow up, conservatives."(In the Youth for Goldwater suite, L. Brent Bozell turned away from the TV and said simply, "That son of a bitch.") But the young conservatives didn't grow up, at least not the way he meant. They got up the next morning, and they got together, and they changed the world. (Watch the video of Barry's Boys. Go to 1:30 if you don't need a history lesson.) Just remember, boys and girls, "la Contre-Révolution ne sera pas une révolution contraire, mais le contraire de la Révolution." | | See how it feels Dems... Obama's already feeling the heat (btw, I understand many people dislike Bill O'Reilly and his techniques on his show can be appalling; however, in written form, he's denied such tactics and can be quite interesting) that comes with being President (although, as Jake has said, not enough to turn down the thermostat and put on a sweater), but he'll soon have it turned up a notch whether he likes it or not. In an attempt to do something on abortion our President has decided to implement a program of Faith-Based and Neighborhood initiatives to help decrease the number of abortions. That's right folks, he's done exactly what you'd expect. Not only has he taken one of President Bush's suggestions (the idea of faith-based initiatives), he's sidestepped the issue at hand, whether or not abortion should be legal. Speaking of whether abortion should be legal, President Obama may have the opportunity to change all that with an appointment to the SCOTUS. Justice Ginsberg is ailing (I'd like to point out that we should all pray for her and her family; cancer is a terrible disease), and she may decide to step down to spend more time with family before the disease spreads. In such a case, Obama would, quite early, have an opportunity to apply Change to the court. Although in this instance, I doubt he would. | | Wednesday, February 04, 2009
One R Down and Another Added So, the unholy trinity of Relief, Recovery, and Reform has reared its ugly head again in American politics. President Obama, despite our government already having pumped $700 billion of tax payer money into the economy, has decided to push for his so-called "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." Any conservative out there knows to head for the hills when the word recovery starts spewing from the mouths of liberal politicians, but Obama's added a new flavor to the socialist Neapolitan. Reinvestment. That's right folks, your money goes to the government and gets reinvested not amongst your fellow Americans (an act with which some folks have problems to begin with), but to private enterprises selected by the United States government (who then, of course, go on lavish retreats). Let these businesses fail or restructure their crazy union plans. The market may take a dive, but it will be nowhere as severe in scope and longevity than if our new President has his way. | | |
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Designed by Joseph A. P. De Feo |
