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Iceland Stops Whaling for Wrong Reason
Tweet Share on Facebook August 31, 2007 CommentREYKJAVIK, Iceland—I had just returned from the wind-battered, historic seaside village of Stokkseyri on the north Atlantic when news broke that Iceland has agreed to stop its whale hunt. Why? Because of lack of demand for whale meat.
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Throw the Book at Vick
Tweet Share on Facebook August 29, 2007 CommentU.S. District Judge Henry Hudson displayed great courage during Michael Vick's guilty plea in federal court, emphasizing that he is not bound by the prosecutors' recommendations to give Vick as short a prison sentence as 12 to 18 months for the Atlanta Falcon's now infamous dog-fighting, dog-torture, and dog-killing activities. Let's hope the judge keeps it up when he hands down the sentence. Federal guidelines allow him to impose a maximum of five years.
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The Housewife Stereotype Lives On
Tweet Share on Facebook August 27, 2007 CommentSome people just never give up trying to turn back time. The latest wrinkle comes to us from the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which is fighting back against "the collapse of the American family" by offering bachelor's degrees "with a concentration in homemaking" to women students only. The idea is to reinforce outdated stereotypical gender roles by training women to become full-time homemakers. The degree equips female students with such skills as cooking, sewing, and child psychology.
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Presidential Hopefuls Talk Religion, Take Two
Tweet Share on Facebook August 22, 2007 CommentIn Sunday's debate on ABC, Sen. Hillary Clinton displayed her prototypical propensity to put licked finger to the wind rather than say what she thinks. This is her signature flaw as a candidate. She can only play it safe and try to offend no one. By so doing, she fails to inspire confidence. Her answer to the religion question was, "I am very dependent on my faith and prayer is a big part of that." Talkin' loud and sayin' nothin.'
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Presidential Contenders Talk Religion
Tweet Share on Facebook August 20, 2007 CommentDuring yesterday's Democratic presidential candidate debate, the most interesting exchange, in this observer's opinion, came in the form of responses to a question on religion. The man who posed the question, Seth Ford of South Jordan, Utah, e-mailed: "My question is to understand each candidates' view of a personal God. Do they believe that, through the power of prayer, disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Minnesota bridge collapse could have been prevented or lessened?"
The most relevant portions of each of the candidates' responses follow in the order in which they were delivered:
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Women in Politics
Tweet Share on Facebook August 17, 2007 CommentWe are at a bizarre juncture in American politics where one voting bloc's influence is rising, while that same group's representation among state and federal lawmakers is on a plateau and could start to decline. Female voters are increasingly important to presidential and congressional hopefuls, because women are the majority of voters. In the most recent presidential election, 54 percent of voters were women.
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Economic Worries Finally Kick In
Tweet Share on Facebook August 15, 2007 CommentWhat's taken them so long?
Why have American consumers been so slow to recognize important economic weaknesses? A new Reuters/Zogby poll answers that question, sort of.
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Romney Faces a Credibility Gap
Tweet Share on Facebook August 13, 2007 CommentWatching Iowa straw poll winner and would-be Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney squirm on Fox News Sunday was a bit discomfiting as the former Massachusetts governor tried to explain away his now infamous 180-degree flip-flop on abortion rights to host Chris Wallace.
He essentially said (to paraphrase former Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry), "I was never really for it, but I pretended to be for it before I was against it" (meaning a woman's right to choose). Check out the transcript of the show, and decide for yourself.
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Why There's Too Little Digital Diversity
Tweet Share on Facebook August 10, 2007 CommentI offer up several possible answers to the series of questions posed in this blog earlier this week. First among them, perhaps the blogosphere is more female than mainstream media present it. After all, two of the most popular and widely read blog websites are female owned and female dominated: Huffington Post and Fire Dog Lake.
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It's a Long Road to Digital Diversity
Tweet Share on Facebook August 8, 2007 CommentYet another cultural pillar as supposedly take-it-to-the-bank reliable as the freedoms guaranteed us in the U.S. Constitution has come to a crashing, disappointing tumble. The blogosphere is not wide ranging, open to all manner of opinions and diverse in its viewpoints. In fact, according to some media reports, it is singularly white, male, somewhat sexist, and possibly even racist. What, say you? How did this happen?
