No more hate-speech laws
Opinions Columnist
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Opinions Columnist
In 2014, Hope Landline and Irma Corral of East Carolina University recommended “[u]sing wealth . . . household income, education, and household size . . . in studies of racial-ethnic health disparities, [to] improve” the overall quality of a health study.
In the summer of 2013, my brother and I traveled to Europe; he went to Italy, I went to Spain. The view in Madrid, Spain was either that the Catalans were not serious in their push for independence or that they were only interested in economic and political gain. While I’m sure Catalonia too has politicians who simply blow with the prevailing wind, politics and economics are not the end-all and be-all of human interactions. The commonplace always seems to be taken for granted.
Please don’t vote third party. At least don’t vote third party expecting to win. Third parties can determine who the victor will be in an election, but they do not win. Ask Ralph Nader.
“I like to define public opinion as what people think other people think,” said EMU alumnus Joseph Sobran.
Othello -- the Moorish-descended lead from Shakespeare's play by the same name -- being portrayed by a white man is not quite the same thing as Othello being portrayed as a white man. To invoke examples of first -- erstwhile convulsing with moral paroxysms of indignation -- in order to criticize examples of the second is to confuse two very different phenomena.
I remember when computers had black backgrounds and orange blocky font. Movie trailers used to say “Coming soon to video!” Now they say “Coming soon to BluRay and One Demand!” I suspect “Now with WiFi” will soon read like “Now in Technicolor!”
In the wake of revelations about Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise’s 2002 speech to the “European-American Unity and Rights Organization,” LA Times contributor Michael McGough tackled not the organization of obvious ill repute, but the theory behind ethnic and racial groups. Unfortunately, many of McGough’s criticisms threw the baby out with the bathwater.
One ought to talk about race like one talks about their mother's age: very rarely and very discreetly. Given the Census Bureau’s outdated categories, I say it’s time for one of those rare and discreet conversations.
Almost as surprising as seeing “Eastern Michigan University” trending on Facebook was seeing “Ann Arbor” trending too. But of the two digital skirmishes, the one that interested me the most was not the one between the Wolverines and Eagles but the one between the Daily and the Review. I’m still happy for the Eagles, but I found reading the verbal volleys exchanged between the Daily and the Review far more exhilarating than I could have found watching ten guys dribble a ball.
Ypsilanti-born journalist Joseph Sobran, who received his B.A. in English from Eastern Michigan University, went on to become a specialist in Shakespearean studies. In 1997, Sobran wrote his best-known work “Alias Shakespeare” in which he argued that the man known as Shakespeare was not the actual Shakespeare. Of the just-passed Sir John Gielgud, Shakespearian actor extraordinaire, Sobran wrote: “In their later years, Gielgud and Laurence Olivier reached the conclusion that the real author of Shakespeare's plays was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford - a view shared by Sir Derek Jacobi, now the finest surviving Shakespearean actor.”
If one was unsure whether fall or winter was the more beautiful season or whether Chopin or Mozart was the more masterful composer, the disagreement which would ensue would be purely academic. From it, no practical reverberation would echo. But if one was unsure of whether God existed, the debate would have very real consequences, as the matter at hand would not be music or aesthetics but the foundation on which the lives of billions rest. But in my own thoroughly secular civilization, it is the other way around; religious agnosticism is one of the last acceptable forms of agnosticism.
Under Michigan’s 1964 Constitution, no person was allowed to serve more than three consecutive terms in the House of Representatives or more than two consecutive terms in the Senate, the equivalent of six and twelve years respectively.
I would think it untoward of an Ohioan, Indianan, or Wisconsinite to move to Michigan and instantly call themselves a Michigander, but I would think it infringing of an Ohioan, an Indian, or a Wisconsinite to come to Michigan simply to interfere an election. Why? Because that’s Michigan's business.
An argumentum ad passiones ad nauseam (an “appeal to emotion to the point of nausea”) was the debate between Gov. Rick Snyder and former Rep. Mark Schauer. In it, every question was a great question, every issue was a critical issue, and everyone was an inspiration to everyone else. I was reminded of why I became an independent in the first place.
A year has passed since John H. Fund of the American Spectator argued that Detroit should be sold to private investors or to Canada. While I am hesitant over Mr. Fund’s proposal, such an overhaul should not be taken off the table. I would rather Detroit sell what is in Detroit (such as the contents of the Detroit Institute of Arts) rather than Detroit itself being sold.
In 1989, when Teresa Pecovic was five, she was brought to the U.S. by her parents from Montenegro, which was Yugoslavia at the time. She grew up with her family in Detroit where she attended Catholic high school. In 2007, both of Teresa’s brothers were deported back to Montenegro, but were later allowed back into the country because they were married and had children. Early this year, Pecovic was detained by immigration officials. This month, Pecovic was deported to Montenegro. The likelihood of her returning looks less likely than her brothers’. Of all the individuals to fail to report to immigration authorities, was Pecovic really such an immediate threat in need of deportation?
Imagine if you saw a Lamborghini parked in the driveway of a glorious Art Deco mansion. What would you think? Maybe the owner is a gentleman recently retired, and the car was a 65th birthday present he gave to himself. Maybe there were less than a hundred of its kind ever made, and the car carries historical and sentimental value.
In December of last year, Eastern Michigan University approved giving in-state tuition to non-citizens as long as they had attended at least three years of high school in Michigan. The university also approved in-state tuition to honorably discharged veterans who had served at least one-year active duty. While I have no complaints at all with the university’s decision to afford veterans the privilege, I do take issue with affording the same privilege to non-citizens, and for one reason: Eastern Michigan University is a public university.
Michigan is the best candidate to accept Iraqi and Syrian refugees, not because of its railroads and factories, forests and rivers, or even because of its system of government, but because of Michiganders themselves. Of the many chapters of the American immigration success story, two of its finest – Polish immigration in the early 20th Century and Lebanese immigration half a century later – were written in Michigan. Michigan may yet write a third.