July 2010

  • Throw Your Own Breakthrough Boot Camp

    By sarajean on 7/31/10 2:14pm
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    Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo EmersonThough the Breakthrough Institute’s annual activist boot camp is over, it’s still possible to get in on some of the learning that occurred there. Based around the Breakthrough Institute’s core values of imagination, integrity, and audacity, the boot camp offered ten activists the chance to learn about political issues in terms of national security, energy, or climate. The activists were able to do so with the support of staff, completing projects throughout July. Their lessons were based on a curriculum outline that is available online, here, for anyone who wishes to follow it. The syllabus is also available at the site.

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  • Support Criminal Justice Reform

    By sarajean on 7/30/10 4:49pm
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    One of the issues that really makes me sick to my stomach is the death penalty. Though so many other developed countries—and lesser developed nations, as well!—have abolished it, we continue the grisly practice, and have conducted the fifth highest numbers of executions in the world as of 2009—beaten only by China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Given how so many of our country’s citizens feel about the governments in these countries and their noted human rights abuses—particularly in cases where women are stoned for adultery and people are hanged for speaking out against the government or being gay—you’d think we wouldn’t want to be grouped with them in this violent category.

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  • Your Cross May Be in Vain

    By sarajean on 7/29/10 6:10am
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    What if I told you that the cross that many Christians like to wear around their necks—as well as bumper stickers, tattoos, wall art, and whatnot—may have nothing to do with Christ’s death? A scholar has controversially declared just that.

    Gunnar Samuelsson, of Gothensburg University, says that there’s no evidence to support that Romans crucified anyone on a cross—and instead of being based on fact, the story of Jesus dying on a cross came from Christian traditions instead, as well as historical illustrations. The Bible itself, he maintains, makes no reference to a cross, either, but only to a “staurus,” which could also mean “pole.” None of the bloody nails or other equipment we learned to sing about so gruesomely in Sunday school are mentioned, either.

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  • Business ethos -- what?!

    By dfunzy on 7/21/10 3:24am
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    The Associated Press reports --"British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday (yesterday) he would not order a fresh investigation into why a convicted bomber was set free or whether BP had a role in it. President Barack Obama stood by his new peer but said that "all the facts" must come out."

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  • More Money for the Deficit...

    By studio7manga on 7/14/10 4:53am
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  • Even Afghanistan Has Funding Issues

    By ecoscott on 7/2/10 12:18pm
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    And the Afghanistan war marches on. The House approved funds on Thursday to fund the troop surge that Obama has proposed in advance of next summer’s troop withdrawal. The catch, though, is that the withdrawal did not get approved: so what we have is an approval of funds for more troops but a rejection of any sort of withdrawal timetable. Not exactly what had been promised or pushed for by the administration…

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  • Asking For It? As If!

    By erika on 7/1/10 3:55pm
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    Not Ever, a project of Rape Crisis Scotland, has launched an amazing new ad campaign.  A man in a bar glances over at a pretty girl and a short skirt and leers "She's asking for it."  

    Cut to the woman shopping for skirts at a clothing store.  Unable to decide between two skirts, she explains to the clerk "I'm going out tonight, and I want to get raped.  I need a skirt that will encourage a guy to have sex with me against my will."  "Definitely the blue," the sales clerk responds.

    We recently had a flurry of comments by an anti-feminist troll a few weeks ago.  One of the tactics he trotted out was to ask "wouldn't you blame the home-owner for having their house broken into, if they had left it unlocked?"  The problem is that the only thing these two scenarios have in common is that they are both crimes.  


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