In these days where so many seem to be challenged by facts and where truth can be at a deficit, it is helpful to have a few fact checking sites at our disposal. Here are 5 that are, as far as I can tell, among the most reliable. Continue reading “Fact Checking Sites”
Category: Civil Rights
The Professional Press and the Public Interest
For most of us there are moments that stand out . Having been a child right after WWII when prejudices were still raw, I can’t help but be sensitive to what could prevent anything like another holocaust. So it is perhaps to be expected that when a professor spoke about how to prevent future holocausts I listened and still remember his thoughts. Leo Kuper had been an associate of Nelson Mandela and when Mandela decided to go into the bush as a means to protect himself against encroaching South African authorities, Kuper who was also on the same list to be arrested, or banned, or Continue reading “The Professional Press and the Public Interest”
About a Refugee Selling Sex
There’s a rundown large park in Athens, the Pedion Aeros Park, there a section of the park is known as a place to get sex. Mostly older men walk by at night in search of it. There too several refugees from Afghanistan and other countries, live in tents or however they can, and earn a living selling themselves. One 20-year old Afghan interviewed for the article I read said he was ashamed of what he did, but that was the only thing he could do. The alternatives were to steal, or deal in drugs and that seemed the least violent to him. He is in Greece illegally, cannot find any country that will have him and has no money to pay smugglers. In a place where sex can readily be had, the price goes down, so he gets Continue reading “About a Refugee Selling Sex”
Political Correctness and Sensitive Speech
One subject that Donald Trump has renewed conversation about is political correctness. He is not for it, and that has pushed many to also challenge it. Political correctness is now often allied with identity politics and that is seen by its critics as a cause of liberals. On the other hand there are those who still believe in the values inherent in free speech and political correctness even if their meaning is not always uniform. Yet, for others still free speech has come to mean being able to say what one wants without regards to notions of political correctness. Free speech came out of the free speech movement of the 60’s which itself ushered in or reinforced the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and LGBT rights. The idea was to leave behind old ways and old patterns which were discriminatory, for example Continue reading “Political Correctness and Sensitive Speech”