[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]
- Two Notable SCOTUS Rulings (Shakesville)
- 1. Federal officials can indefinitely hold inmates considered "sexually dangerous" after their prison terms are complete. This ruling applies only to federal inmates, and, like any extrajudicial detention policy, there is a huge potential for abuse.
But, unlike most other crimes, perpetrators of sexual assaults have a high recidivism rate and are more resistant to rehabilitation. Convictions for sexual assault frequently don't come with sentences that reflects that reality, with average prison terms being appallingly low. So, something's gotta give.
I'd personally prefer to see long mandatory sentences with multiple parole opportunities, with parole contingent on rigorous and comprehensive rehabilitation, some demonstrable evidence of success, and a required lifetime commitment to ongoing treatment, the failure to comply with which automatically triggers a reversal of parole.
[While I think that the last quoted paragraph is on the right track, the first one still makes me crawl out of my skin. It's WRONG and BAD and our judicial system is effed up enough already. -L]
- Speaking of Racism… (Shakesville)
- So, there's this article in The Guardian, which is headlined: "A $95,000 question: why are whites five times richer than blacks in the US?"
Can you answer that in one word? I know I can.
The article itself spends more than 850 words answering the question in its title, detailing many of the current and historical institutional inequities that have resulted in this racial wealth gap. But none of those 850+ words is "racism."
…I'm not suggesting, of course, that there's something wrong with the article for exploring structural inequality—quite the contrary, it was unusually well done in that regard.
I do, however, question the reluctance (not unique to this article) to incorporate the word racism into discussions of structural inequality based on race. It would be like a medical paper talking about a cure for the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the human body without ever using the word cancer. I don't believe it's possible to properly address racism if we're unwilling to even call it by name.
- Quote of the Day (Shakesville)
- "Hezbollah is laughing at us, tonight."—Conservative commentator and renowned genius Debbie Schlussel, on the occasion of Lebanese-American Rima Fakih (Miss Michigan) having been crowned Miss USA last night.
- All That Was Missing from the Polanski Story… (Shakesville)
- …was definitely: But what does Woody Allen think? [Trigger warning.]
- How Will They Spin This? (Paul Krugman)
- So, via Joe Romm, the NASA-GISS data show that the past 12 months were the hottest 12-month period on record. Here’s my plot of the temperature anomaly — the difference, in hundredths of a degree centigrade, from the average over 1951-80…
- How anti-feminism gets redefined as Real Feminism (Pandagon – Amanda Marcotte)
- 1) Misconceptions about who feminists are….
2) Misconceptions about what feminists believe…
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