Blündergrad

After DOMA, 36 States Will Have Little Choice On Gay Marriage

2013-07-24T12:07:00.000-04:00

After DOMA, 36 States Will Have Little Choice On Gay Marriage.
(this is an article I wrote for PolicyMic.com) Opponents of same-sex marriage are bracing themselves for a veritable tidal wave of new legal challenges to laws in 36 states that do not recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples. Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision striking down key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — a federal law restricting government marriage benefits to heterosexual couples — lawyers for the LGBT community are citing the court’s majority opinion as a legal basis for throwing out similar laws on the state level.
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Civil unions for all couples — gay or straight

2012-09-26T11:16:00.000-04:00

This letter to the editor, written by Blündergrad's Max Segal, appears in today's Washington Post:

Civil unions for all couples — gay or straight

Wednesday, September 26, 10:50 AM

In his Sept. 23 Local Opinions commentary, “Why I oppose gay marriage,” Doug Mainwaring appealed to tradition and history to explain his opposition to Maryland’s new same-sex marriage law: “It’s undeniable that, from age to age, marriage has been humanity’s greatest success and source of prosperity, crossing all cultures and religions. We shouldn’t mess with it.”

While Mr. Mainwaring was right to favor civil unions over government-approved “marriages,” he did not follow his argument to its logical conclusion: Full and equal legal status as members of a civil union should be available to every couple — gay or straight.

The government should be taken out of the marriage business altogether. If two people want to call their union a marriage, that’s up to them. “Marriage” is essentially a religious construct, and it exists in a realm outside of the government’s jurisdiction.

Those advocating for legislation defining “marriage” as between a man and a woman are often concerned that government-approved same-sex marriages will corrupt the traditional or religious institution of marriage. They would do well to remember that the separation of church and state is as much about protecting the state from the church as it is the church from the state and the free citizen from either.

Max Segal, Silver Spring

Eleven Years Later

2012-09-11T13:40:00.000-04:00

Two powerful images from that terrible day:

"After Sept. 11 and two wars, no way for GOP to defend tax cuts" — The Washington Post

2012-09-10T13:45:00.000-04:00

After Sept. 11 and two wars, no way for GOP to defend tax cuts

By Matt Miller, Published: September 10

Among the many ways the United States went berserk after the September 11 attacks, the least remarked upon, but most morally revealing, is what happened to Republican thinking about taxes during wartime.

Since that awful morning eleven years ago, the United States has been continually at war. But never before in our history has a political party made it a national priority to cut taxes for wealthy Americans at a time of war.

The obvious pattern has been the opposite — we’ve raised taxes to fund the extraordinary expenses war requires, as well as to make sure more fortunate Americans shoulder some of the burden as young soldiers, drawn mostly from middle and low income families, do the actual fighting.

But something snapped in the Republican mind after 9/11. We’ve now put a trillion dollars of war on our kids’ credit card, with Republicans leading the charge for tax cuts for the top the entire time.
In a saner era, the big 2001 Bush tax cuts enacted a few months before September 11 would have been immediately revisited, because we were now a nation at war.
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"The defeatism of the left" — Haaretz

2012-09-10T13:34:00.000-04:00

Home

The defeatism of the left

A binational state is not a solution, but rather a flight from reality and a recipe for perpetuating a duel between two nations. Anyone who gives up on a peace agreement between two states is gambling with the fate of the State of Israel.

By Akiva Eldar | Sep.10, 2012 | 4:54 AM | 1

The settlers are right. Had today’s Zionist left been leading the Jewish community here in the 1940s there is a good chance we never would have had a state. Had those who lay proud claim to being “the peace camp,” who explain how “it’s impossible to evict 300,000 settlers,” been running the show in the early ‘50s, the Yishuv − with its population of 600,000 − would never have taken in one million Jews. The word “irreversible” does not exist in the vocabulary of the settlers. They did not say that the Oslo Accords spelled the death knoll of their enterprise. The settlers adhere to their faith all the way to another outpost and another coalition government, and the left cries all the way to nowhere.

While the settlers build house after house and destroy the peace process stage after stage, the honorable members of the Zionist left announce one after another the capitulation to “the will of the people.” In exchange for the idea of partition, they propose, accompanied by heartrending sighs, that we begin to prepare for a binational state. It’s like a marriage counselor who advises a couple that has been making each other miserable for decades to go on living together in order to avoid divvying up their assets. Instead of helping them to separate amicably, co-parent successfully and build independent new lives, the counselor urges them to perpetuate their misery.

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"Islamists took over years ago" — Egypt Independent

2012-09-09T13:27:00.000-04:00

Islamists took over years ago

Author: Paul Sedra

Twenty years ago, the French academic Olivier Roy published the book for which he is best known, “L’échec de l’Islam politique”, translated into English as The Failure of Political Islam. The title may sound comical today in the midst of the political upheaval we are witnessing, but, at the time of publication, one could make a considerable case to the effect that the Islamist project had failed. After all, back in 1992, Hosni Mubarak had managed to stave off the potential Islamist takeover of the state that had generated so much fear when Khaled al-Islambouli assassinated former President Anwar Sadat on behalf of Islamic Jihad.
The idea which animated Roy’s work was a fairly straightforward one — that Islamism as a political doctrine, as set forth in the works of such ideologues as Sayyid Qutb, had failed. That is, Islamists had failed to realize their objective of an Islamic state — a state that defied the nation-state order developed in the wake of the First World War. In short, as Roy famously noted at the time, “Political Islam does not pass the test of power.” While Islamist ideologues dreamt of a state that could reach beyond national boundaries and attract the loyalty of Muslims irrespective of their citizenship, Islamist activists, having failed to seize a nation-state apparatus anywhere but Iran, were reduced to seeking bans on alcohol and the spread of the hijab.
For Roy, the failure of this explicitly political, ideologically-driven Islamism meant that the movement as a whole had failed. The shift in focus away from the explicitly political realm, to the realm of the social and cultural — the realm of drink and dress — was emblematic of this failure.

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"Delegate spars with Ravens linebacker over same-sex marriage" — The Daily Record

2012-08-30T13:22:00.000-04:00

Delegate spars with Ravens linebacker over same-sex marriage

by Alexander Pyles

Published: August 30th, 2012

A Baltimore County lawmaker wants a Baltimore Ravens linebacker to sack his public support for gay marriage.

Ravens linebacker and special teams ace Brendon Ayanbadejo is offering up two tickets to the teams’ season opener to someone who donates to a group supporting Maryland’s same-sex marriage law. The law was petitioned to referendum by opponents, and voters will decide same-sex marriage’s fate on Nov. 6.

Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr., D-Baltimore County, has a problem with Ayanbadejo’s involvement with the campaign.

In a letter to Ravens owners Steve Bisciotti, Burns wrote it was “inconceivable” that a Ravens player would “publicly endorse same-sex marriage.” Burns said many of his constituents are “appalled and aghast that a member of the Ravens football team would step into this controversial divide and try to sway public opinion one way or the other.”

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August 22, 2012

2012-08-22T13:01:00.000-04:00

What we're reading

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August 21, 2012

2012-08-21T10:44:00.001-04:00

What we're reading

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Blündergrad Creator Spotted at Goodman League Roundball Classic, with Wale, Chris Brown, Gilbert Arenas, Others

2012-08-20T23:33:00.000-04:00

Blündergrad co-creator and founding editor Max Segal was on hand to watch former Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas, R&B singer Chris Brown, and other D.M.V. notables go hard in the paint, at Dr. Henry A. Wise Senior High-School Gymnasium in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

Performing at halftime was D.M.V. rapper Wale (pronounced wall-ay).

R&B artist Chris Brown (a.k.a. Breezy) was the game's M.V.P.

U.S. Asks Israel To Freeze All Settlement Activity. So, What Else Is New?

2012-07-16T15:35:00.000-04:00

In his July 14 article, “Where Obama failed on forging peace in the Middle East,” Washington Post reporter Scott Wilson tries to answer the question of why the “new approach” Obama took upon arriving in office—getting tough with Israel, publicly and privately, with the specific objective of securing a settlement freeze, that would “restore the United States’ reputation as a credible mediator”, capable of changing Israeli behavior on the ground—had the opposite of its intended results. In so doing, he overlooks the far more important question of why the Administration allowed its demands for a settlement freeze to be seen as an unprecedented departure from prior American policy, when in truth Obama’s approach was not “new” in the slightest.

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New Movie Trailer for "That's My Password"

2011-11-17T18:19:00.000-05:00

New movie trailer for That’s My Password, a documentary short I made recently, about personal passwords and the untold stories they conceal and preserve. Check it out.

American Juggalo, New Documentary Short from Sean Dunne

2011-10-01T12:57:00.004-04:00

American Juggalo takes a closer look at one of the more perplexing subcultures in recent history. The incredible variety of backgrounds and personalities encountered at an annual “Gathering of the Juggalos” reinforces the themes of non-discrimination, open-mindedness and friendship that ultimately define the movement. A fascinating look at the human need for identification and commonality. You can stream American Juggalo (in HD) from the Vimeo link below.

http://vimeo.com/29589320

Why America Is The Crème De La Crème And The French Are Les Misérables

2011-09-08T18:02:00.003-04:00

The AP brings us this troubling news:

A Paris court has convicted former Christian Dior designer John Galliano for making anti-Semitic insults and gave him a suspended sentence of €6,000 ($8,400) in fines.

(I've never heard of a "suspended sentence"—apparently it means that Galliano will not actually be punished for his "crime"; he does not have to pay the fine and will serve no time in prison). But the sentence, or lack thereof, is not at issue here, nor is the conviction itself. Galliano was undoubtedly guilty of the alleged crime—making "public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity":

Earlier this year, a video posted on the website of British daily The Sun showed Galliano arguing with a couple at La Perle. It was unclear when the video was recorded, but in it, he was dressed differently than on Thursday. At one point in the video, starting in mid-conversation, a woman's voice asks Galliano, "Are you blond, with blue eyes?" Galliano, speaking in slurred speech, replied: "No, but I love Hitler, and people like you would be dead today. Your mothers, your forefathers, would be ... gassed and ... dead."

Former Dior designer John Galliano

The problem here is French law. When a government tries to eradicate “wrong” ideas from a society through strict regulation of speech, it ultimately does more bad than good.

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Book Club

2011-08-30T01:38:00.000-04:00

You think you know someone, maybe even love them. Then, quite suddenly, you are abashed to discover that you don’t really know them at all. You spend a good deal of time figuring them out. Then you leave the cap off the toothpaste.

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The Allure of the Abandoned

2011-08-27T18:47:00.013-04:00

The Allure of the Abandoned:
Bannerman’s Castle in Music

photo by meadows

Peter Bussigel’s “Bannerman’s Castle”

Bannerman’s Castle, a now-abandoned military surplus warehouse on the eastern shore of the Hudson River, is situated on the fittingly enigmatic Pollepel Island. Following the death of its owner, businessman Francis Bannerman VI in 1918, the castle was struck by a series of disasters that left the building in a state of half-destruction. The island, named after the freighter and passenger barge that exploded and crashed into it during a devastating storm, has long maintained its reputation as a site of spectral presence and activity. In Native American lore, the island is said to host unfriendly and unwelcoming spirits; early Dutch settlers, too, sensed a menacing presence on Pollepel, what they referred to as the “Heer of Dunderberg”—a mean-spirited fiend who, to quote Wikipedia, “inhabits the Highlands and doesn't like visitors.”

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Mattingly’s Masterpiece

2011-08-26T21:01:00.002-04:00

(This piece originally appeared on the website of The American Interest magazine, as a contribution to the StratBlog of Bard's course in Grand Strategy)

When I told my Uncle that I was reading Garrett Mattingly’s The Armada, he said, “Do you know what the biggest mistake of the Spanish Armada was? They left port!” He meant it as a joke, but the assertion that the Armada was doomed before it even set sail is more accurate than not. King Philip of Spain, in the impatience that characterized his nature for many months following the death of Mary Stuart, dispatched a fleet whose ships, guns, and crew simply could not match up with those of its opponent, which enjoyed a crucial advantage in fighting so close to its own shores. Although Mattingly briefly mentions the failure of the Armada to cut off the Ark Royal along the coast of Torbay as one mistake that could conceivably have swung the war in Spain’s favor, he largely shares the opinion that whatever blame is to be assigned for the Spanish defeat should not be placed on Medina Sidonia, the Armada’s commander. With the hastily put together, ill-equipped and under-trained fleet he was given, Sidonia did the best he could. If the general is not to blame, then who is? All the evidence points to King Philip.

Philip could not claim ignorance regarding the state of his fleet; his generals begged him for more time and supplies before and during the war. Compounding the lack of material preparation was a failure to fully think through many critical stages of the conflict, which was equally detrimental to the Spanish mission. For starters, Philip’s insistence on the full mobilization of his fleet during the winter months while it was waiting to reach its full capacity led to the serious deterioration of the ships and crews that were ready. Additionally, the plan to protect Parma’s flotilla as it made its way across the English Channel was critically flawed. The Spanish ships drew deeper than those of its enemy along the Dutch coastline – so much deeper, in fact, that they would be unable to provide any protection for the barges until they were several leagues off the coast. That unguarded interval would prove too dangerous to close, and as a result, Parma’s ships could never have reached the Armada. Here too, however, the King was fully aware of these difficulties, and yet, far from providing any instructions on the matter to his Captain General, he failed even to mention this weakness. When seemingly insurmountable difficulties arose in the campaign, Philip’s message to his generals appears to have been, “I don’t care how you do it, just do it.” What made the King so sure that they could?

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Welcome!

2011-08-26T16:24:00.004-04:00

Blündergrad is coming soon