I understand that many politicians are themselves religious, and that, moreover, it is politically prudent to invoke religious belief and speak in religious terms when 80% of the population identifies as Christian. Nevertheless, as a nonreligious individual, it is sometimes hard for me to stomach the religious rhetoric of politicians. The feeling arises due to a variety of factors, but perhaps the weightiest is the way that religion has been co-opted by social conservatives to justify the perpetuation of cruelty and suffering through, for example, denying gay men and women marriage rights, restricting a woman’s reproductive rights, etc.

When I first heard Barack Obama speak on politics and religion in June of 2006, I had a mixed feelings. However, with the perspective of another year, and another speech by Obama on religion and politics just passed, I’ve come to a different conclusion. Practically speaking, I think a frank discussion of religion and religious beliefs that accord with liberal policies is the only way for democrats to go. What puts me at ease is Obama’s particular approach to religion and politics. He wants to navigate the relation between the two in a way that does service to both religious and secular citizens.

In a Chicago Tribune article from three days ago, Obama is quoted as saying:

“One of the things that I’m always interested in when it comes to politics is making sure I can continually translate values that are grounded in my religious faith into universal values that appeal to all people. If I’m in church I might quote some Scripture. If I’m outside a church I might quote FDR. Hopefully, they both lead to the same place.”

While that makes a lot of sense to me, I’m curious to see how it plays with a more devout audience. Obama apparently anticipates the difficulty, saying in the June ‘06 speech “Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the bible, as many Evangelicals do, but in a pluralistic society we have no choice.” It is encouraging, therefore, to see religious leaders reaching out to Obama, as Pastor Rick Warren did by inviting Obama to speak at Saddleback Church for the Global Summit on AIDS and the Church in December of ‘06 (a contentious invitation within the congregation, to be sure).

Some are skeptical that the democrats opening up on religious life will have much of an effect. Michael Gerson writes that Obama’s openness about his religion will not be sufficient to win over Christian voters. His suggestion, for all democrats, is to soften their stances on the typically foundational issues for Christians: abortion and gay rights. However, it seems to me that this would be going to far. What excites me the most about Obama’s willingness to talk religion is that it puts him in a position of credibility, from which he can immanently criticize religious conservatives. For example, ‘You think gay men and women shouldn’t be allowed to marry? Well what about the injunction to love in 1 Corinthians 13? Or the injunction to not judge in John 8:7?’ Furthermore, for democrats to change their position on social issues would be to abandon their traditional base and lose their identity.

Obama, and hopefully a younger generation of Evangelicals, wants to move away from the polemics of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the like. Reverend Joel Hunter, for example, realizes that “our focus on arguments and opponents is not working.” What is encouraging about Obama is that while he may speak in religious terms, he does so while calling for fair mindedness. His goal is to foster discussion between individuals of differing religiosity. His candor is refreshing.

The Boston Globe has an interesting story today about Mayor Tom Menino and his “edict” banning voicemail in Boston city government:

Though some think of it as a mundane and necessary cornerstone of modern communication, Mayor Thomas M. Menino banned it more than 10 years ago after suffering through a lengthy recording when he called a city department. He was so irritated that he issued an edict that he still personally enforces with a special vehemence. Menino has been known to sniff out clandestine voice mail and leave indignant messages.

While his methods may be a bit odd, maybe Menino has a point: it only reinforces the image of government as an expansive, bureaucratic monolith when citizens are continually routed through a maze of robotic voicemail boxes.

For all of the talk we hear about the ways new technology may increase citizen participation in politics - making it easier to give small amounts to candidates running for office, using a MeetUp to find people within your area who are interested in the same issues you are - technology also has the ability to make your interactions with government darn frustrating.

Great article by Bob Herbert on modern day slavery. I do a lot of work for the <a href=”http://www.polarisproject.org target=”_blank”>Polaris Project, which is a great NGO working on this issue. It is run by two Brown graduates who are very dedicated to this issue. To clear up the most common (and annoying) mistake about Trafficking:

In the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, sex trafficking is defined as: “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.” Also defined in the TVPA, the legal definition of “severe forms of trafficking in persons” is:

• sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or
• the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

It is important to note that nowhere in the TVPA requires that victims be from other countries or cross borders. Hence, trafficked persons can be from other countries as well as from the same country where they are trafficked. Domestic sex trafficking (or internal trafficking) definitively involves the actions, means, and purposes that meet both the definition for sex trafficking and “severe forms of trafficking in persons,” including elements of recruiting, transporting, and obtaining; elements of force, fraud, and coercion, as elaborated below; and the inducement of commercial sex acts.

If you don’t know about Human Trafficking or how big a problem it is, I implore you to read Herbert’s column (if you have TimesSelect) and to go through the Polaris Project website.

We’ve been looking since the dawn of time for a way to stop the perpetual motion machine of socioeconomic stratification.

Is the secret dispersal?

If so, should we force it?

So it turns out democracy is not as thorough as we might have hoped. Ask yourself, though: How many of the five first amendment freedoms could you name?

To start out the first post in a week (ahem, dropping the ball much?), I want to mention that tonight marks the end of an era. Today’s NYT reviews the series finale of Arrested Development, tonight at 8pm, on FOX. Like Aaron Sorkin’s Sportsnight before it, A.D. is an underappreciated cult favorite, a witty show unmatched on television today, but sadly cancelled before its time.

Until the show gets picked up on Showtime, or some other premium channel, i’ll have to entertain myself with the Bob Loblaw Law Blog (a reference from the show… say it aloud).

Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has a tremendous amount of power in addition to too many ‘l’s in his name. The linked Slate article follows on the heels of a NY Times piece, neither of which (surprise surprise, given the sources), is what you’d call complimentary.

You won’t call me that, either. Personally, I’m used to conservatives being “strict original intent” kinda guys for the purposes of interpreting the Constitution. Certainly “strict adherence to and respect for the law” types, at any rate. And here’s Phill Kline, conceivably the most conservative man in a conservative state, fiddling with the rule of law to please himself. For those who haven’t read the article, this is the man who subpoenad 90 women’s abortion records, and is trying to outlaw teen sex, both in an attempt to weed out child abuse in the state of Kansas. Slate’s analysis is masterly, and I won’t repeat it here, but it’s pretty clear that he’s going after abortion clinics.

One wonders about the separation of powers when Presidents avow “signing statements” and state AGs interpret the law however they damn well please in order to stamp out their pet moral peeve.

I haven’t heard about any outcry in Kansas, and I know that the kids who might be thrown in jail (or juvee) as a result don’t have a vote, and therefore won’t be attentively courted by public officials in the upcoming election. My instinct here is to say that Phill Kline is everything wrong with our nation’s understanding of the rule of law, and that he should be fired.

But I’m just one man, I live hundreds of miles away, and I’m not the people of Kansas. Who knows–maybe they really do think it’s for the best.

The situation with Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the incredibly popular Blackberry wireless e-mail devices, just seems utterly ludacris. Today the USSC deciede not to issue a writ to Blackberrry who appealed to the highest court in the land in their patient infringement case. As the Wall Street Journal said

RIM asked a federal trial judge to not issue a ban on BlackBerry devices in the U.S. after NTP filed for $126 million in damages, royalty payments and a permanent injunction against RIM. NTP’s injunction request would cover sales and services of BlackBerry devices in the U.S., where the company generates 70% of its revenue.

Why does NTP not give RIM the oppurtunity to continue selling blackberry, while collecting a portion of the profits that RIM gets from selling blackberrys. Everyone I know who has a blackberry is extremely addicted to the device. Over the lifetime of RIM, i am sure that NTP could get more then $126 million dollars, and in doing so would get their money and keep people happy.

One of my great discoveries over break was that fifty-three Frontline reports are online.

These I watched over break and suggest: The Persuaders

ANNOUNCER: It’s everywhere you look. BOB GARFIELD, Columnist, Advertising Age: You cannot walk down the street without being bombarded. ANNOUNCER: They call it a “clutter crisis.” NAOMI KLEIN, Author, No Logo: Consumers are like roaches. You spray them and spray them, and after a while, it doesn’t work anymore. We develop immunities. ANNOUNCER: And the multi-billion-dollar advertising industry is in a desperate struggle to break through. JOHN HAYES, Chief Marketing Officer, American Express: We don’t just come forward with what we want to sell, we engage you with things that you want. ANNOUNCER: Advertisers have blurred the line between programming and product. SCOTT DONATON, Editor-in-Chief, Advertising Age: It’s advertising that people not only will tolerate but will actually go in search of. ACTRESS: ["Sex and the City"] The way God and Madison Avenue intended. ANNOUNCER: But how is advertising affecting our lives and the world around us? MARK CRISPIN MILLER, New York University: Once a culture becomes entirely advertising-friendly, it ceases to be a culture at all. ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE– DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, FRONTLINE Correspondent: –ask me this all the time. What about the environment? ANNOUNCER: Correspondent Douglas Rushkoff takes you inside the changing world of The Persuaders.

Is Walmart Good for America?

ANNOUNCER: There’s never been a company like it. Prof. GARY GEREFFI, Duke University: Wal-Mart is probably the broadest and most powerful company in U.S. business history. ANNOUNCER: Its everyday low prices benefit millions of Americans. BRUCE BARTLETT, National Center for Policy Analysis: Wal-Mart has really given an increase in income to every American. ANNOUNCER: But some say it’s a bad bargain. STEVE RATCLIFF: It’s putting people out of work, that’s what it’s doing. ANNOUNCER: Tonight, correspondent Hedrick Smith investigates how Wal-Mart is changing the American economy– HEDRICK SMITH, FRONTLINE Correspondent: The Chinese guys bought the big machine? ANNOUNCER: –following the trail of low prices in America to low-cost production in China– DONALD HAY, Entrepreneur: I said, “Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. The next one’s China. I got to get here.” ANNOUNCER: –tracking the nation’s growing trade deficit– YVONNE SMITH, Port of Long Beach: Wal-Mart’s our number one customer. HEDRICK SMITH: Wal-Mart’s your number one customer? YVONNE SMITH: Number one customer. ANNOUNCER: –and examining the growing controversy over the Wal-Mart way. ALAN TONELSON, U.S. Business & Industry Council: The lowest prices have to lead to the lowest wages and to job loss and to lower living standards. ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE, Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

Secret History of the Credit Card

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE: The average American family has eight. JIM MUELLER: “Zero percent for life on transfer balances”— ANNOUNCER: Credit cards, plastic money, have become both a necessity and a ticket to a better life. [television commercial] ACTOR AND ACTRESS: Hawaii! BEN STEIN, Actor/Author: A credit card is an extraordinary, unbelievably great convenience for the consumer. ANNOUNCER: But the credit card industry plays by its own rules. Prof. ELIZABETH WARREN, Harvard Law School: I don’t know any merchant in America who can change the price after you’ve bought the item, except a credit card company. ANNOUNCER: Credit card banks earn record profits. LOWELL BERGMAN, FRONTLINE Correspondent: MBNA’s profits last year— one-and-a-half times that of McDonald’s. EDWARD YINGLING, American Bankers Association: Well, McDonald’s didn’t do too well last year. ANNOUNCER: But the profits come at a price. ANDREW GUILE, Consumer: Now they’ve raised my rate to 19.98, and I have not been late ever. PAT WALLACE, Bay Area Better Business Bureau: There are irritated, unhappy, dissatisfied customers in this industry. Prof. ELIZABETH WARREN: They are the new loan sharks in America. DUNCAN MacDONALD, Fmr. Citibank General Counsel: I certainly didn’t imagine that someday we might have ended up creating a Frankenstein. LOWELL BERGMAN: Frankenstein? What do you mean, Frankenstein? ANNOUNCER: Tonight, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman and The New York Times investigate the secrets of your credit card .

Karl Rove– The Architect

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE: Karl Rove had a master plan. MIKE ALLEN, The Washington Post: He was the architect. His hand was in all of it. ANNOUNCER: It took 40 years, but he changed the political landscape. POLITICAL OBSERVER: Karl Rove came to town with one goal, and that was this massive Republican realignment. ANNOUNCER: How did he do it? And what does it mean for America? POLITICAL OBSERVER: Karl Rove wants a permanent Republican majority. POLITICAL OBSERVER: He’s the God inside the machine. ANNOUNCER: Tonight, FRONTLINE and The Washington Post examine Karl Rove: The Architect.

The Torture Question

ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: There was a lot of soldiers that had digital cameras at Abu Ghraib, and they would take pictures of literally everything that they would do. ANNOUNCER: Tonight on FRONTLINE, the story about what really happened in cell block 1A. Spc. ANTHONY LAGOURANIS, Interrogator, US Army, 2001-’05: Part of it is, they were trying to get information, but part of it is also just pure sadism. ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: They felt righteous in doing it, and that’s what made it really dangerous and diabolical. ANNOUNCER: With exclusive interviews— ANONYMOUS INTERVIEWEE: And this escalated all the way to make them fear that rape could be performed on prisoners. ANNOUNCER: —and never before seen footage. GI: [home video] We’re all mad! We’re all mad! ANNOUNCER: How high did it reach? Gen. JANIS KARPINSKI, Cmdr., 800th MP Brigade, 2003-’04: General Sanchez put his finger in Colonel Pappas’s chest and told him he wanted the information. ANNOUNCER: And what does it reveal? Gen. RICHARD MYERS, Joint Chiefs Chairman: We’ve dealt with that. If it was only the night shift at Abu Ghraib, it’s a pretty good clue that it wasn’t a more widespread problem. Sen. JOHN McCAIN (R), Arizona: This isn’t about who they are, this is about who we are. ANNOUNCER: Where else did it spread? Spc. ANTHONY LAGOURANIS: It’s not at Abu Ghraib, it’s all over Iraq. The infantry units are torturing people in their homes. ANNOUNCER: FRONTLINE exposes the dark secrets behind “The Torture Question.”

Comments have often lent life to the blogsphere. Blogs like DailyKos and TPMCafe allow everyone not just to comment, but to keep personal journals. Here at TwoDems, we currently do not have enough users perhaps to be greatly concerned about this, but there are often great debates whether to allow or disallow comments. Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy (a group law blog) is one of the larger blogs I know with no comments section. He summarizes his rationale for no comments as follow as follows:

1. The first is esthetic, which sounds frivolous, but esthetics of a certain sort matters a lot to writers and editors. I feel that The Conspiracy is a coherent product that I help put together. I intentionally lack complete control over it, because of the participation of my cobloggers; and I find this esthetically pleasing (as well as functionally useful in various ways), since it lets me enjoy the pleasant surprise of interesting things being posted that I couldn’t have even thought of posting. But that’s so because I have a very high opinion of my cobloggers, and have tried to select them based on their quality. It would annoy me a lot if this coherent product also included some postings that I very much dislike, from people whom I never explicitly invited. Even if people didn’t think less of me for those postings, it would still bother me. Maybe this isn’t entirely rational; many esthetic preferences aren’t rational. But it is pretty strongly felt, as are many writers’ and editors’ views about “their babies.” 2. The second is reputational. Rightly or wrongly, consciously or not, some people’s perception of the blog and its bloggers will be molded by what the commenters post as well as by what the bloggers post. Some people will infer (not implausibly) that because (A) some dreck is posted, (B) I have the power to delete it, and (C) I don’t delete it, therefore (D) I must agree with it or at least not entirely disagree with it. 3. And this brings us to the third, eminently practical reason. I’m swamped as it is, and I don’t have the time to deal with all this. “What time?,” people ask. “Just enable them and leave them be.” Yeah, right. Someone is going to start spamming the comments with ads for penis enhancement. Someone else is going to start a flamewar. Some jerk is going to decide that he violently disagrees with me — or, worse yet, that he agrees with me — and chooses to express himself in terms that are hard to just ignore. As I mentioned in the second point, the reputation of the blog will indeed be on the line. The consequence will be that I’ll have to monitor the comments in some measure, which means a good deal of hassle — not just time-consuming work, since that’s often fun, but time-consuming hassle and obligation. That seems like something I’d much rather avoid right now.

Tyler Cowen experimened back in September with opening comments on various posts on Marginal Revolution. He learned 1, that comments increase page views and visits but not terribly usefully, 2, that keeping comments open too regularly dilutes them of value, and 3, that people are more helpful on questions like good chinese restaurants or continuity in Buffy the Vampire Slayer than the merits of evolution and intelligent design.

This all came out of a NYTimes <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/business/media/23carr.html” target=”_blank>article today reflecting on Deborah Howell’s mistake in her Sunday column. The WaPo had to turn off comments on their site after hundreds of angry readers posted.

My opinions on this are very mixed. I find comments on medium sized blogs to be extremely useful as they can often add rather than ditract fromt he discouse. Legal (non-political) blogs are often the best at this. Comments can go on and on, but they are usually long, substantive and develop new points. This is likely due to the very nature of legal acedemia; your business is words and staking out an opinion, if no other reason than to argue. The best example of this, in my mind, can be found at The Faculty Blog of the University of Chicago Law School. I find that the community-type blogs like the ones above have the most useless comments whereas blog such (such as Crooked Timber, <a href=http://www.matthewyglesias.com”>Matthew Yglesias, Daniel Drezner, etc. have smaller comments sections that prove useful.

Mostly I think it is related to size and blog goal. For now, and I imagine until we have more than 10,000 hits a day, I forsee our comments section being quite secure.

As I had flu over December, I have been very busy taking my finals from last semester. The coming weeks are going to continue to be rough, with finals, five new classes to do reading in, fellowship and internship applications. However, we’re trying to make this site more viable in the long run. I am slowly, but perhaps steadily, recruiting guest bloggers that are hopefully going to represent much of the blog in the long run. Currently, we have Jon, who has been posting before and our newest addition Catherine. She is going to be blogging on environmental issues mostly, but also general things from time to time.

To follow up on Gary’s rare move into the world of culture I wanted to share an <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/magazine/22wwln_lead.html target=”_blank”>article from tomorrow’s NYTimes magazine on the lexicography of the text message. I am mostly extremely annoyed by this phenomenon, especially within the context of AIM conversations, where laziness rather than necessity lends to the brevity. Having said that I find many of the messages noted in the article to be difficult to decipher (my roommate and I took some time at it) and unlike the Chinese I would prefer someone just leave me a voice message. Nevertheless, what they say is true:.

This may be the universal attraction of text-messaging, in fact: it’s a kind of avoidance mechanism that preserves the feeling of communication - the immediacy - without, for the most part, the burden of actual intimacy or substance. The great majority of text messages are of the “Hey, how are you, whassup?” variety, and they’re sent sometimes when messenger and recipient are within speaking distance of each other - across classrooms, say, or from one row of a stadium to another. They’re little electronic waves and nods that, just like real waves and nods, aren’t meant to do much more than establish a connection - or disconnection, as the case may be - without getting into specifics.

Recently articles have been appearing about school administrators and potential employers checking Facebook profiles. In the case of school administrators such viewing has often been followed by judicial sanction. The debate over privacy aside, here at TwoDems, we want you to protect yourself.

Is it a total shame that people are doing this? Absolutely, but you publish the material, so no one is invading your privacy really. What you can do for yourself is set your privacy settings in Facebook. When you are logged in you can click on the left-hand side a link called “My Privacy”. Once in there you can select custom, and click on “Advanced Settings.” There you can fully customize your privacy settings. I have mine set to only allow my friends to see my profile, which means even if you go to my school, you can’t see my profile unless I allow you to. Why not take an extra step to cover yourself up?