Yeshiva University has taken a step that appears to affirm that it is religious first and a university second. The school’s study body stripped an online student newspaper of funding over a column that discussed a sexual encounter between two students. The attack on free speech and free press occurred after the students rightfully refused to censure their own newspaper and writer. It is a shameful act by Yeshiva that puts the university squarely in the category of intolerant, orthodox institutions — a blow to many faculty and students who have struggled to make Yeshiva something more than a school teaching Jewish values.
Continue reading “Yeshiva University Strips Newspaper Of Funding For Standing Up For Journalistic Principle and Refusing To Retract Article”
Category: Society
My son, Ben, found this videotape on YouTube of an extraordinary car chase and chase by a police officer in Tigard, Oregon where the officer first crashes into another car and then into a home.
Continue reading “Video: Oregon Police Officer Crashes First Into Another Vehicle and Then Into A Home”
There is an interesting defamation ruling out of Oregon where U.S. District Judge Marco Hernández has ruled that blogger is not a journalist for the purposes of defamation rules in a dispute with a lawyer. Crystal L. Cox is a blogger from Eureka, Montana and accused Oregon lawyer Kevin Padrick with criminal and unethical conduct in a bankruptcy case. She relied on a statute offering higher standards to protect journalists from defamation actions and Hernandez rejected the claims. It is the latest in an ongoing debate of how to define a journalist for purposes of constitutional and tort law. Cox now stands subject to a $2.5 million award in favor of Padrick and Obsidian. Cox runs a site entitled Obsidian Finance Sucks (as well as other sites) and insists that she is an investigative blogger/reporter.
The Discovery Channel’s popular show “Mythbusters” has educated many on the realities and science of common myths. I personally enjoy watching the show with my kids. Now, however, I can show it as part of my torts class. This week, the show was doing an episode and sent a wayward cannonball through a house in Dublin, California (near Oakland) and into the window of a van parked outside.
Continue reading “MythBusted or Ultrahazardous Activity? Popular Show Sends Cannonball Through California Home”
As if American politics could not become more “impulse buy” for fringe voters, Newt Gingrich has made a new pitch for ultra-conservative votes by filling one spot on this cabinet before securing the Republican nomination (a win that he recently said was virtually inevitable). Gingrich appeared before the Republican Jewish Coalition and promised to appoint former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to be his Secretary of State. Bolton is viewed internationally as a type of scary clown who repeatedly calls for military action over anything from missile developments in Iran to Canadian fishing trawlers off of Maine. Ok, he hasn’t called for a war against Canada, but he has been busy with demands for military strikes against other targets.
Continue reading “Our Next Secretary of State?”
Is this the face of a sexual harasser? This week, we discussed a seven-year-old who was investigated for sexual harassment for kicking another boy in the groin. Now, a nine-year-old boy in North Carolina who was accused of sexual harassment because a substitute teacher overheard Emanyea above chatting with a friend and calling a teacher “cute.” UPDATE: Jerry Bostic, the principal, has resigned over his decision to suspend the student.
Continue reading “Nine-Year-Old Boy In North Carolina Suspended For Sexual Harassment . . . For Telling Another Student That A Teacher Is “Cute””
I have previously criticized Virginia Tech for its well-documented failures in the massacre of its students and faculty in 2007 while commending the actions of individuals like Professor Liviu Librescu who surpassed the school’s negligence with their own selfless heroism. One of the most outrageous aspects of the aftermath of the massacre was the use of ridiculously low liability caps of $100,000 in Virginia to deny recovery of reasonable damages by the families — and avoid full accountability over the school’s negligent conduct. Now the school is challenging a mere $55,000 fine for its negligence — a pittance in terms of the millions that it avoided through liability caps. While the school motto is Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), it views that in strictly non-monetary terms.
Continue reading “Virginia Tech Challenges $55,000 Fine For Negligence in 2007 Massacre”
Mark Curran is a presumed sexual harasser under investigation in South Boston. Nothing strange there. There are unfortunately a great number of sexual harassers in every city, but Mark Curran is seven. Officials at South Boston elementary school have informed his parents that Mark is the subject of a sexual harassment investigation after he kicked another boy in the crotch.
Continue reading “School Investigates Seven-Year-Old Boy For Sexual Harassment After Kicking Another Boy In The Groin”
We have been watching the national and international campaign by leaders against atheists, who appear to be fair game for hateful, ill-informed rhetoric. Even Newt Gingrich (who has been criticized for violating two oaths to God in having affairs while married) has campaigned on the need for any candidate to be faithful. Recent polls show these statements are playing to the majority bias against non-believers. Now, researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Oregon have released the results of a study that shows that religious people would just as soon trust a rapist as they would an atheist or non-believer.
Continue reading “Poll: Atheists Trusted As Much As . . . Rapists”
For fans of Breaking Bad, Professor Irina Kristy, 74, would seem to walk right out of central casting. The math professor from Boston was arrested with her son and accused of dealing methamphetamine from her home.
Continue reading “Meth Math: Massachusetts Professor Arrested For Allegedly Dealing Drugs From Home”
NewsMax succeeded against all odds this month in finding a way to actually lower the standard of American politics even further with an invitation to Donald Trump (reality television star and professional uber-egotist) to moderate the next presidential debate. Not surprisingly, only two candidates immediately declined on the grounds that the presidential office demands a modicum of dignity: Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman. These two men continue to try to bring some level of principle to the debate and have been rewarded by being continually marginalized by the media. Newt Gingrich just accepted the invitation.
Continue reading “The Presidential Apprentice: NewsMax Selects Donald Trump To Moderate Next Presidential Debate”
The Senate of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has passed a new law that will impose 14-year sentences on citizens found to be homosexuals. In addition, anyone who aids or “abets” same-sex unions will face 10 years in prison. The latter provision seems directed at human rights groups that work to help gays and lesbians who often face violence and discrimination in the country.
Continue reading “Nigerian Legislators Pass New Law Imposing 14-Year Sentences For Homosexuality”
In Nanuet, New York, parents are irate after a second-grade teacher reportedly told her 7-year-old students that there is no Santa and that their parents leave the presents under the tree. In Chicago, the FOX Chicago news anchor Robin Robinson decided to make the case to a bigger audience and proclaimed on the news show that Santa was not real and parents should tell their kids that the presents come from them.
Continue reading “Santa Slips: Teacher and Reporter Under Fire Over Santa Comments”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
I have watched the Occupy Wall Street marches and protests and the recent protests in Wisconsin and Ohio with great interest. In my opinion, these protestors are on the front line in the battle to protect our First Amendment rights. As we have seen, some of them have paid a heavy price when they have been beaten and gassed and eventually arrested. Some States and cities are now attempting to raise the cost of defending your First Amendment rights by charging protestors for the cost of police “protection” and the use of city services! In Wisconsin, the embattled Governor, Scott Walker, has issued new rules that may actually take this trend of restricting our First Amendment rights to a new low. Continue reading “What Price Would You Pay For Your First Amendment Rights?”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The National Review was founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley, Jr. It defined its’ purpose in a statement of intentions:
“Middle-of-the-Road, qua Middle of the Road, is politically, intellectually, and morally repugnant. We shall recommend policies for the simple reason that we consider them right (rather than “non-controversial”); and we consider them right because they are based on principles we deem right (rather than on popularity polls)…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Review
Bill Buckley, the son of an oil baron, was born to wealth and privilege. He was a lieutenant in the Army from 1943 until 1945 when he entered Yale and became a member of Skull and Bones, along with future President George H.W. Bush. In 1953 Buckley became prominent for his book “God and Man at Yale”. So when he founded the National Review he was already prominent in Conservative circles. Oh yes, it should be mentioned he was a CIA field agent under E. Howard Hunt, from 1951 through 1953.
“George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement, believed that Buckley was “arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century… For an entire generation, he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure.”[6] Buckley’s primary contribution to politics was a fusion of traditional American political conservatism with laissez-faire economic theory and anti-communism, laying groundwork for the new American conservatism of U.S. presidential candidates Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan“. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley,_Jr.
Whether you like the National Review or not, you must admit that it is the single most important magazine of the Conservative movement in America and has been so since its’ founding. As you can see from their mission statement above they claim to eschew popularity and polls, serving higher priciples. I was therefore interested to come across a story this week that calls into question their true dedication to higher principles, or perhaps one of their principles is merely naked greed. Continue reading “Et Tu National Review?”