contexploration

There is a need for defining the “level of subjectivity” of web-based sources, and making an effort to present news material in its proper context: “This means incorporating into what is communicated some of the material you might need to judge its reliability: 'showing your workings', distinguishing more sharply between report and comment, allowing some ways of evaluating reported reactions to something (is this from a person or body who represents anything serious? Is this comment there simply because it is obligatory to have at least one really hostile voice, never mind its credibility?).” In my view, this is an essential mission for web developers and Internet journalists alike.

IRAQ: Read Mohammed Fadhil’s account of the situation in Baghdad after the attack on the Samarra shrine. The radical Shia clerics use the attack as a pretext for advancing their own agendas. Fadhil writes: “So those radical parties were looking for a justification for a planned crisis to bring back to attention the centuries-long suffering of the Shia and they wanted to gain more support for what they consider legitimate political demands from giving the impression that they are the only targets for terrorism.”

MULTICULTURALISM: In an article by Amartya Sen in The New Republic he writes: "The vocal defense of multiculturalism that we frequently hear these days is very often nothing more than a plea for plural monoculturalism. If a young girl in a conservative immigrant family wants to go out on a date with an English boy, that would certainly be a multicultural initiative. In contrast, the attempt by her guardians to stop her from doing this (a common enough occurrence) is hardly a multicultural move, since it seeks to keep the cultures separate. And yet it is the parents' prohibition, which contributes to plural monoculturalism, that seems to garner the loudest and most vocal defense from alleged multiculturalists, on the ground of the importance of honoring traditional cultures - as if the cultural freedom of the young woman were of no relevance whatever, and as if the distinct cultures must somehow remain in secluded boxes."

IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION IN AMERICAN LAW: Last week U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defended his weird, Originalist views on constitutional interpretation in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute (conservative). The speech is available from C-SPAN in both audio- and video-files. If you use Internet Explorer as your browser, you can open the Real Player clip directly by clicking this link. Today, the judiciary’s obsession with common law has been replaced with a metaphysical obsession with human rights, Scalia said. Scalia is a Catholic, and recently, in an "Original" twist, he also applied his own methodology to the Church itself. In a speech in January at a conference on religion and the death penalty, he argued that the "framers" of the Catholic Church (St. Paul) endorsed capital punishment. ( Pope Benedict XVI strongly opposes it.) Dahlia Lithwick at Slate.com commented: "Arguing that the founders of the church completely supported the death penalty, Scalia effectively charged the pope with doing to church dogma what his intellectual enemies have done to the Constitution: loading it up with contemporary values and mores at the expense of the original intent."

MULTI-RELIGIOUS BRAZIL: Janer Cristaldo writes about Article 19 of the Brazilian Federal Constitution that forbids subordination relations between the State and religious institutions. Judge Roberto Arriada Lorea of Porto Alegre recently urged the removal of crucifixes from court rooms in the forums and in the Rio Grande do Sul's Supreme Court: "The presence of religious symbols - basically crucifixes - puts the forums and the court under suspicion," explained the judge. Cristaldo writes: "To this day, I haven't been able to understand the success of the cross as a logotype. More than a death instrument, it is a torture instrument. If to the Romans it was a utensil for executing sentences, to Christians it became a slaughter-heralding banner as soon as they took over power."

SOCIALISM: The PBS-series “Heaven on Earth” is well produced and good entertainment, but it is biased. You can order the DVD here. The European social democratic movements that combine competitive market economies with social justice is left out of the equation. That’s conveniant in order to pronounce the ”death” of Socialism, but the idea of a social capitalism is very much alive in today’s Europe, especially in Scandinavian countries. Joshua Muravchik at the American Enterprise Institute represses democratic socialism. The remarkable background interviews available on the PSB web site with Sheri Berman, Christopher Hitchens and Tony Wright rarely feature in the documentary series itself, which is a shame.