I'm at my girlfriend's parents' house in Owatonna, Minnesota for the week. I'm tempted to duck into a Chinese restaurant tomorrow just to see who (member of the tribe or otherwise) will show up in the rural Midwest.
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A federal court has struck down the provision of federal law prohibiting the registration of offensive trademarks. Most people are following this issue because it is the legal basis for stripping protection from the Washington Redskins. But this case involved an Asian-American band that sought to trademark its name, "The Slants." This nicely illustrates one of the central problems with "hate speech" regulation (broadly defined) -- it is hard (at least as a legal rule) to separate out subtle, subversive, or reclaimative usages of slurs.
Ha'aretz suggests that Arab countries are quietly reaching out to their Jewish diaspora (particularly in the United States) as a means of establishing back-channel links to Israel.
Israeli authorities have opened an investigation into the grotesque video showing Jewish wedding attendees celebrating the murder of a Palestinian child in the Duma firebombing.
Mark Graber has thoughtful comments on BDS.
Kevin Jon Heller and I had a very nice conversation about how discourse about anti-Semitism is situated inside discourse about Israel.
While I had trouble following your first response to KJH, your second response is the single most well-written and insightful comment on BDS I've encountered on the web.
ReplyDeleteAs with many things you write, it deserves a larger platform.
"I'm at my girlfriend's parents' house...."
ReplyDeleteDid you have a wife?
Please feel free to delete if this is not an appropriate topic.
And Happy Festivus!