Going to Chicago next weekend, Minnesota next week. Lot's of good stuff on my browser, which I don't have as much to say on as I should.
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Bill Donohue of the Catholic League issues a warning: "Jews had better not make enemies of their Catholic friends, since there are so few of them." He attributed the comment to former NYC mayor Ed Koch, but Koch denies saying it.
Arizona SoS, already under fire for being birther-curious, gives the conspiracy a new spin -- Obama was born in Hawaii but lied about being born in Kenya to get into college.
Kieran Healy gives a satirical statement from UVA's Board of Visitors.
The National Review bringing aboard unrepentant racist David Yerushalmi prompts Ta-Nehisi Coates to write two great posts on "politically correct conservatism", where the most offensive thing you can say is that anyone, anywhere is a bigot -- even someone who wants to criminalize being a Muslim with a 20 year prison sentence.
Interesting study on how the triumphs and failures of male and female Olympic athletes are described by commentators.
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4 comments:
Wait a minute, i am absolutely positive someone else said the "jews better not make enemies of" thing just last year no? I can't recall, a presidential candidate maybe?
Perhaps you're thinking of Mike Huckabee?
Ah, yup. That explains why i couldn't remember if it was a politician or a religious zealot.
Re: Yerushalmi as possible Derbyshire replacement, it does feed the theory that National Review fired Derbyshire not for writing something absurdly racist that attracted massive amounts of attention and put NR on the defensive, but doing so in a venue other than NR, such that NR did not get the benefit of the traffic and revenue.
However, I disagree with Coates that anyone who supports any anti-Sharia law must be as flamingly and explicitly bigoted against Muslims as Yerushalmi is. E.g., the Kansas law is facially not targeted at sharia:
"Any court, arbitration, tribunal or administrative agency ruling or decision shall violate the public policy of this state and be void and unenforceable if the court, arbitration, tribunal or administrative agency bases its rulings or decisions in the matter at issue in whole or in part on any foreign law, legal code or system that would not grant the parties affected by the ruling or decision the same fundamental liberties, rights and privileges granted under the United States and Kansas constitutions."
I'm skeptical this law will actually change much of anything (the collection of interest on a loan, for example, is not a constitutional right and so Islamic finance will be unmolested). But if someone is anxious about American courts giving comity to, say, Pakistani courts regarding custody disputes because one believes the Pakistani courts don't give due process to women in such proceedings, I think that's a point that can be argued without also necessarily believing in throwing away the First Amendment's guarantees of religious freedom.
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