Recently in Free Speech Category

Forgive me if I have done this before, but I am going to present to you an assignment that I assigned when I was an English and Philosophy teacher. I will present to you three prominent works and let the listening (or reading) audience decide for themselves. I'll provide my own answer at the bottom. It may surprise some of you coming from the political wing I come from, but it something I truly believe....

The debate over the chicken or the egg is a common one even if you don't have a chicken or egg handy. It can be spread to just about any discipline you want. Today, it will be used in the field of politics. As an amateur political scientist (with only a Bachelor's Degree) I love to delve into these political questions of the day. As we have noticed, there has been a sudden breakdown in...

If you want to see what stifling free speech really looks like, examine the case of Simon Singh.  I had the honor of seeing him speak at the Museum of Natural Science here in Houston once, so I'll get my own bias in his favor out of the way up front.  He's a real scientist and a brilliant communicator, kinda like Britain's Neil deGrasse Tyson.Singh recently published a book with Edzard Ernst, the first Professor...

Rush Limbaugh's ongoing tantrum over being excluded from a group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams is hilarious to me. Especially this statement yesterday that the NFL is an "outpost of racism and liberalism": <br />Yes, that outpost of racism where 70% of the players are African-American. Where 17 of the top 25 salaries belong to African-American players. Just for our 2 Texas teams, the highest salaries on both the Houston Texans and the...

There is spin on everything these days, so why not political correctness. As I come to find out, political correctness is not really about what we should call certain segments of the population, Political correctness is really about how we discuss politics in certain circles. Those trends change as those circles change. A large part of us moving forward as a nation is being able to move beyond socially accepted norms. One can determine this...

<br />From Huffington Post. ...

It's funny, but sometimes when we think about civility in politcs we often consider our times to be the least civil. I was listening to America Left on XM yesterday and they reminded me of some things I had forgotten. Everyone knows about the famous duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Fewer know about the beating done in South Carolina (yup there they go again. I hate using Wikipedia, but it is a well-known...

Never one to let an opportunity to spew his hatred and play upon the ignorance and bigotry of his listening audience pass by, Republican Party spokesman and race-baiter-in-chief Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program yesterday about the incident on a Belleville, Illinois schoolbus:"It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama's America...

While our Republican friends are collectively losing their marbles, I thought I would conduct a little intellectual exercise that relates to our current political climate. My colleagues have tackled last night's speech and health care quite ably. So, as the education blogger I thought I would take you through an assignment I used to assign when I taught English and Philosophy. Since you are all adults I will let you read both of the works...

Courtesy of MSNBC: The Arlington Independent School District, which passed on airing President Barack Obama's live classroom address, has announced that some students will be bussed off campus to hear a message from former President George W. Bush on Sept. 21. Folks, I don't really know how to comment on this without my head exploding.  I'll just make the following statement:  Bull Shit. ...