Autiello: Will True Christianity Please Stand Up?
Nick Autiello, Contributor
The notion that homosexuality is a sin and un-Christian is one that is less than a hundred years old. It is wrong, and has no basis in scriptural or historical reality.
SASSO: The Coming New Year
James Sasso, Associate Editor
As the tumultuous 2011 comes down to its final day, this column could contain an obnoxious summary of the year’s extraordinary events. Rather than once again discussing the protests around the world, the death of Osama Bin Laden, Fukushima, America’s political ineptitude, Europe’s demise or the increasingly frightful weather patterns, here I attempt to predict what 2012 holds in store.
SASSO: Kicking the Can
James Sasso, Associate Editor
For one of the first times in his tenure as Speaker, John Boehner has made a statement with which every American, Republican or Democrat, should fully agree; the two-month Senate bipartisan extension of the payroll tax cut fails to fix the nation’s problems sufficiently. Providing a short-term band-aid to a long-term dilemma contradicts what a responsible government should accomplish, but fits the pattern of contemporary American politicking.
CIOCCI: A Foolish Consistency
Mitt Romney is guilty of serial hypocrisy, Newt Gingrich is guilty of being a public intellectual constantly scrutinized by the media and others, and Ron Paul never ceases to remind me about one of my favorite quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
AKMAN: Jon Huntsman’s Meaningless Campaign
Josh Akman, Columnist
Jon Huntsman did not participate in the CNN Debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. Short of his family and small (and getting smaller) campaign staff, no one really noticed. In a bizarre and counterproductive effort to impress New Hampshire voters Huntsman skipped the debate to protest Nevada moving its caucus ahead of New Hampshire’s, which has always been the nation’s first primary. It’s bizarre because no one else skipped the debate. It’s counterproductive because right now, Jon Huntsman is polling 6% in New Hampshire.
SASSO: The 99% Rising
James Sasso
Associate Editor
For the past month a movement has grown out of Zuccoti Park in New York with the potential to grab at the very heart of America’s problems. “We are the 99%” is not simply a catchy phrase used by frustrated jobless Americans , but a commentary on the disgraceful economic inequality that has arisen in the United States since the 1970s.
CUEVAS: The Full Monty
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Associate Editor
As America wails over the privacy lost from full-body airport scanners, Cuevas takes a step back to ask, “Is it really so bad?”
CUEVAS: Tech Police
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Associate Editor
As social networking sites become more interactive, the morals police has shifted from the hands of society to the keyboards of technology.
CUEVAS: You Are What You Tweet?
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Associate Editor
As America becomes increasingly more tech savvy, campaigns, news and social justice have taken to the airwaves. More people get their news online than in print, and political campaigns and social justice causes surge social media outlets. But beneath their consumption of our collective News Feeds, are these current events, campaigns and causes really seeping through? Is the social media revolution actually a revolution?
CUEVAS: Silence Does Not Equal Consent
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Associate Editor
As modern America knows by now, Jon Stewart made a call to the “people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive and terrible for your throat” last week. His Rally to Restore Sanity, a hopeful “million moderate march,” is set for Saturday, October 30th. Is the fact that we, Stewart’s fellow fed-up but preoccupied citizens, “have shit to do” a legitimate excuse for it taking us moderates—or us moderately behaved—so long to organize?
CUEVAS: Stranger than Fiction
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Associate Editor
Socially and politically, we function through narrative, and entertainment is not the sole industry responsible. The American education system, too, cultivates a learned method of comprehension. And we can’t forget about the public sphere, where politicians and the media legislate and proselytize using idiomatic portrayals, foils and spin-offs of archetypical characters. We literally relate in the language of stories, of fiction. But have we reached the point where we traffic better in fiction than in fact?
CUEVAS: An Exercise in Agency or a Democratic Denial?
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Associate Editor
Basil Marceaux, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Tennessee, became an Internet sensation during the campaign season. Although he received less than .5 percent of total votes in the Primary Elections, his popularity speaks to America’s love for a spectacle–possibly more, Jesse questions, than a desire to participate legitimately in politics.
CUEVAS: Clearing the Air for Air Safety
New York State’s plan to exterminate two-thirds of its Canada geese population is part of an even greater regional scheme to reduce the population in 17 Atlantic states by nearly half. Officials are calling it a mass euthanizing for the sake of “aviation and passenger and property safety,” but isn’t slicing the population a bit extreme?
CUEVAS: Surprising Opposition Against No-Fault Divorce
Do no-fault divorce laws hurt the sanctity of marriage? Arguably. But do they hurt women? Jesse-Justin Cuevas thinks not.
CUEVAS: The Supreme Court Needs a 20-Year-Old Justice
The Court lacks a new progressive constitutional vision, and the Democratic appointees to the Supreme Court over the last 50-odd years fail to challenge this assertion. As the hearing for Justice nominee Elena Kagan continues without revealing articulation of a new progressive vision, there is a legitimate concern for the left’s preparedness to tackle the constitutional crises looming in the future. Are the contemporary leading progressive constitutional thinkers are out of practice in addressing such structural economic questions?
CUEVAS: The End of Medicare?
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Columnist
Thanks to 1997 legislation containing major Medicare reform, doctors around the country now face a 21 percent cut in their Medicare reimbursements. For providers, this cut could mean a negative surplus in profits, which means that doctors will have to start seeing fewer patients per day to make up the difference or stop seeing Medicare patients at all.
CUEVAS: Mole Versus Moralist
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Columnist Ideology: Left-Independent | Writing from: New York Nearly three weeks ago, the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division arrested SPC Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who allegedly [...]
CUEVAS: Is Technological Expansion Narrowing Privacy?
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Columnist
How do we determine, what is personal, what is private and what ought to be shared in this new world where social media technology – such as Facebook and Twitter – makes almost everything publicly available?
CUEVAS: Family Planning, Responsibility and Selfishness
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Columnist
Can we talk fairly about the selfishness of not having children without considering, too, the selfishness of having children when they may not be given all they need?
CUEVAS: Race As Class
Jesse-Justin Cuevas, Columnist
How is race construed in society today? Does contemporary racial rhetoric actually address nationality and skin color, or does race actually imply class? And how do the cultural implications of race affect our relationships?
CUEVAS: Agencies of Alleviation?
Jesse-Justin Cuevas
As far as western civilization is concerned, adoption has been around since the beginning of time—the Pharaoh’s daughter adopted Moses, according to the Old Testament—or at least since Ancient Rome. International adoption, on the other hand, is a more recent practice.