Why has standing up for a fundamental Constitutional protection become an act of political courage? That question was one of the least savory aspects of the primary battles that wrapped up this week for U.S. House seats and the Governor’s job in Tennessee but it sadly reflected recent political pandering and religious bigotry at the national level.
This week I wrote about politicians’ pandering to voters over possible fears of Islam — opposing mosques and Islamic community...
Jon Stewart on the Daily Show continued coverage of the New York City Islamic Center controversy last night ("Tennessee No Evil") taking his examination of the controversy from the Park 51 Center (the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque") in Manhattan, two blocks from the WTC, to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, "18,000 blocks" from the WTC.
The “Doomsday Clock” is not really a timepiece. It is a metaphor marking civilization’s proximity to a self-induced conclusion adopted by scientists at the dawn of the Cold War. In 1947 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the clock’s makers, set the time at 11:53 p.m., reflecting the danger of nuclear weapons, the sole province, at the time, of the United States. By 1953 with the introduction of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union and testing of more powerful thermonuclear weapons by both America and Russia, the clock nudged to just two minutes away from humanity’s midnight.
A wise man once told me that it’s much easier to sell people something “they think they want” than something “you think they need.” That dictum is especially apropos to the task of global affairs awareness – teaching people about the world. We are a nation awash in information resources that offer an endless stream of raw data, context and analyses of the world around us but most Americans are content to leave understanding foreign affairs, our interests abroad and international things to someone else.
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