This is a very serious question and deserves a serious answer. It is so serious that the New York Times has asked: Is “police reticence in the face of such protests, some led by groups like Black Lives Matter causing crime to rise in some cities”? The first answers are in. Those honorable folk, “the headsContinue reading “Is “Black Lives Matter” Aiding And Abetting Criminals?”
Category Archives: Politics
Reflections On ‘Imagined Communities’ – I: Children And Humanity
In Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso, New York, 2006, pp. 10-11), Benedict Anderson writes: [R]eligious thought also responds to obscure intimations of immortality, generally by transforming fatality into continuity (karma, original sin, etc.). In this way, it concerns itself with the links between the dead and yet unborn, the mystery ofContinue reading “Reflections On ‘Imagined Communities’ – I: Children And Humanity”
‘A Manual For The Police On How To Conduct Beatings’
Leonard Strickland was beaten to death; in jail, by prison guards. Those who did so, and those who supervised them, were secure in the knowledge that very little would be, and could be, done to bring them to justice. History and the law is on their side. In 1992, in one of Clarence Thomas‘ earliestContinue reading “‘A Manual For The Police On How To Conduct Beatings’”
ISIS, US Policy, And Feeding The Bogeyman
In ‘The Unbearable Lightness of America’s War Against the Islamic State‘ Stephen Walt supplies us the following pull-quote: What is needed is not a single presidential speech, but rather a sustained, all-out effort by top U.S. officials to remind their fellow citizens how safe they actually are. One often hears that fear is inherently irrationalContinue reading “ISIS, US Policy, And Feeding The Bogeyman”
Gideon’s Army: Fighting A Just War
The first time I saw Gideon’s Army, Dawn Porter‘s documentary about three public defenders fighting a lonely battle in the American South, I watched impassively, even as anger and sadness swirled within me. The second time I did so–yesterday, in a classroom with the students in my Philosophy of Law class–I blinked back tears. (MoreContinue reading “Gideon’s Army: Fighting A Just War”
Donald Trump’s Allies: Our Craven Media (And Our Apathy)
Here are some damning statistics (reported by the Washington Post) from “the Tyndall Report, which tracks the airtime that the various flagship news programs on NBC, CBS and ABC dedicate to a variety of stories.” Quick, depressing, highlights: 1. The Republican primary race received more than twice as much coverage as the Democratic contest. (The largerContinue reading “Donald Trump’s Allies: Our Craven Media (And Our Apathy)”
Donald Trump, Sabbatai Zevi, And The Unchastened Devotee
I have made note, here, of a habit of mine intended to prompt writing: Sometimes I scribble little notes to myself…prompted by observations while walking…by a passage read in a book…a scene in a movie. Sometimes they make sense when I return to them…and an expanded thought based on them finds its way into myContinue reading “Donald Trump, Sabbatai Zevi, And The Unchastened Devotee”
San Bernardino, Selective Surveillance, And The Paralyzed Gun ‘Debate’
Here are two related thoughts running around in my head since the San Bernardino massacre. On past occasions, whenever one of these quintessentially American mass shootings would be carried out, I would wonder about what could happen to jolt the gun-control ‘debate’ in this country out of its well-worn grooves. (The scare quotes are necessaryContinue reading “San Bernardino, Selective Surveillance, And The Paralyzed Gun ‘Debate’”
A Vexed Relationship With Food
Recently, I agreed to be interviewed by a graduate student in anthropology for research related to her thesis on food habits. As part of that process–as a subject of a particular demographic of interest, parents–I wrote out answers to questions sent to me as follow-up to our preliminary conversation. Here they are: When asked toContinue reading “A Vexed Relationship With Food”
An ISIS Communique For Our Times
From: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi To: All Jihadi Brothers In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. My warriors, after Paris, much work remains to be done. But we have many new recruits. They are infidels, but they have to come to our aid, they will do our work with us. They willContinue reading “An ISIS Communique For Our Times”
Samir Chopra 