Sarah Palin vs. Albert Einstein

by Nomad

I saw Palin was criticizing Obama's dress sense the other day.  

“People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil,” she told Sean Hannity Monday night. “They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.”

Victoria Woodhull: The Fascinating Story of America's First Female Presidential Candidate

by Nomad

Does the name Victoria Claflin Woodhull ring many bells? Probably not, but she was without argument one of the most talked-about women of the 19th century. Although something of an eccentric with a slightly unimpressive background, her biography, with its ups and downs, is a fascinating one. Her outspoken opinions about women's rights put her far ahead of her time.

  

Most of us think of the Victorian era as a time when women, like children of that time, generally were seen but not heard. A woman's place was in her home and any adventure outside of that realm could bring infamy.
Not altogether true.
Take the story of Victoria Woodhull.  As we shall see, her life contradicts that conventional wisdom. It's only surprising that Hollywood hasn't made a film about her tumultuous life; there's a lot of material there.

The Rise of A Radical

Her early life was hardly promising. Victoria Claflin and her sisters were raised by parents who used the girls as  "spiritualist mediums and faith healers in the family’s traveling medicine." They eventually married her off to Dr. Canning Woodhull when she was only 15. It must have come as a salvation to her since she stayed married to him for 11 years. ( As one source tells us, she would subsequently remarry three times and divorce twice more, in an age when divorce was unusual and socially disapproved.)

Eventually, she and her sister moved to New York City and became famous for giving financial advice from the spirit world to rich investors. In a twist of fate, despite her radical thought, her name was on the lips of many influential capitalists who took her stock tips.

Among her radical thoughts, Woodhull was most famous for being an early advocate for the right of women to vote. At heart, Woodhull was a social reformer. She was an advocate of free love- which despite its tantalizing name- actually only proposed marriage reforms. At that time, The Free Love movement's initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. These issues, proponents claimed, were personal matters and need not be legislated by others. Her opponents claimed she was simply promoting promiscuity and scandal.

That was to be expected, These were radical ideas for that time and even today we are still struggling with the same issues.

Comparing Justice: Breivik, Manning and Calley

by Nomad

Let's take a look at three very different crimes and three very different forms of justice. What can we learn from the comparisons between a mass murderer, a whistleblowing soldier and a soldier that committed war crimes? How does justice reflect a society's values and what does it say about a nation's values?

How a nation hands down justice and who it punishes and how it punishes reveals a lot about its values and its people. In fact, I would say that it's a defining benchmark. Where the courts are corrupt is where civilization ends. And where it is justice prevails is where fairness and civilized society flourishes. The law of the jungle was not after all intended to be a model for humanity.

As George Washington reminds us:

The administration of justice is the firmest pillar of government.

With this idea in mind, I thought I'd explore three very different cases to examine how justice was administered and what could be learned about how values change from country to country and over time. 

Breivik in Norway

In the summer of 2011, Anders Behring Breivik conducted a carefully-planned attack on government buildings in Oslo, Norway, which killed eight. While police sifted through the rubble looking for clues, Breivik traveled to camp on the island of Utøya. There he systematically hunted down and murdered 69 victims, mostly teenagers.

According to his 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, Breivik's apparent motive for his acts of terrorism revolved around his far-right militant ideology which included hatred for Islam, feminism, and Zionism.

The tone of the national response to the painful events was set by the prime minister Jens Stoltenberg in his address at the memorial service in Oslo cathedral two days after the tragedy:

"We are still shocked by what has happened, but we will never give up our values," Stoltenberg said. "Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity." Norway, he suggested, would not seek vengeance as America had done after the 9/11 attacks." We will answer hatred with love," he said.

Seeing From the Outside: A Quote by Gore Vidal

by Nomad

Why Gay Rights Victories in Arizona are Small but Important Steps to Greater Equality

by Nomad

Arizona has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. The state legislature under the thrall of the Tea Party Republicans attracted a lot of negative attention from the whole country.
But those events should be balanced by the good news from Tempe, Arizona. 
Altogether it highlights a larger question: Isn't it time that the federal government put a stop to this state-by-state nonsense once and for all? 

The Other Side of Arizona
After a couple of weeks of really bad press coming out of Arizona, it looks as though the cloud is lifting. After the GOP-led State Legislature drafted a controversial "religious freedom" law which allowed gay discrimination based on "sincerely-held beliefs," the eyes of the nation were focused on Arizona. Would the governor would actually approve of the law?

Human Rights and gay rights groups led calls for a veto, and later they were joined by corporations like tech giant Apple joined in calls to walk away from the bill. On the other side were various religious organizations, right wing pundits and of course, the Tea party.

With all that pressure, Governor Brewer wisely decided against the law.

Now there's a little more good news to report.