Category: dKo journal

  • “Kill It before It Grows”

    A BBC World Service poll that surveyed 23,518 people in 23 countries finds… –“There is an extraordinary degree of consensus in favor of the UN becoming ‘significantly more powerful in world affairs.’ –“This prospect is seen as ‘mainly positive’ in every country (21 a majority, 2 a plurality) and by an average of 64 percent.…

  • Remember When Conservatives Believed in Free Markets?

    Once upon a time, Conservatives advocated a free market, with “consumer sovereignty,” for healthy Capitalist development. Consumers would have money to spend. Businesses that efficiently offered them things they wanted to buy would get a larger proportion of consumer spending. They would thus be rewarded for their efficiency and desirable selection of offerings. These businesses…

  • A Favorite Paradox

    With thanks to Bertrand Russell… “I thought your boat was larger than it is.” “No, my boat is not larger than it is.”

  • Shamefully Truncated Abstinence Programs

    The Bush administration is now funding a sexual abstinence program as part of its contribution to fighting AIDS in Africa. Abstinence is also a mainstay of its efforts against both youth pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases within the US. So that is consistent. But there are rumors that backsliders in the administration want to restrict…

  • The Sadr City War on Drugs

    A fairly harsh crackdown in the War on Drugs–primarily alcohol–has apparently taken hold in Sadr City and other Iraqi centers where US military power is weak. I personally find this overzealous, hard-line Islamist drug-law enforcement to be both abusive and intolerant–though I don’t doubt they can point to many depredations of alcohol on individuals and…

  • Haitians and Maccabees – A Tribute

    Having so recently told my grandson for the first time the Chanukah story–the defeat of three successive, heavily armored Hellenic colonial armies by agrarian Jewish guerillas in 168 BCE–I read this in the paper today, and the juxtaposition brought me to tears. …an astounding, and forgotten, episode in Western history. Since Haiti alone produced as…