Reading Time: 9 minutes The latest term for this right wing super-majority SCOTUS is shrouded in lost civic confidence. After recent years of emphatically partisan decisions, many of which break with traditional rules on standing and deference, the court has a docket haunted by judicial conflicts of interest, ahead of a presidential election year where emergency requests will shape electoral outcomes.
justice
Posted inCulture
On the death of an Average Joe
Reading Time: 5 minutes This week, amid surging Ukrainian drone strikes against Russia, Europe’s largest wildfire (yet), and the racist massacre of three Black citizens in Florida, a US veteran died of pancreatic cancer. He was 49 years old. Because he had put himself in the political spotlight, and because he had stayed there despite significant holes in his […]
Posted inPsychology
When gods are held accountable
Reading Time: 3 minutes All gods are human-made, and we make them unaccountable for a reason. That includes the human-made god currently in the dock, whose followers can’t get past the very idea of accountability to consider the charges.
Posted inLaw
Along party lines: SCOTUS decisions and US schisms
Reading Time: 10 minutes Another term for the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has closed after a week of controversial rulings, and with the promise of a contentious Second-Amendment issue on the next session’s docket. In a bit of grim humor earlier this week, a social media meme proclaimed that, having mastered submarine engineering, keyboard warriors were currently getting their […]
Posted inFilm/TV
‘Ad Astra per Aspera’: How we escape from hardship into wonder
Reading Time: 11 minutes Last week, I gave the opening episode of Strange New Worlds (SNW) Season Two a bit of a pass: I called it a “mission statement” more than a typical outing from this version of the Enterprise. The plot and script seemed intent on solidifying character gains from the first season, and there were whole sections […]
Posted inPolitics
After the indictment: The deeper political schism behind the spectacle of Trump
Reading Time: 8 minutes After Trump received a 37-count federal criminal indictment, reactions ran the full spectrum, including incitements to armed conflict. But calls to extremist action have been part of Trumpism from the start.
Posted inSatire
Spring arraignment fashions
Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s only April, and already New York high society is preparing for the must-attend event of the year. OnlySky spoke to Bryce Yeoville, fashion coordinator for major functions in New York, about how to dress properly for an arraignment. “It’s hard to believe he used to be president,” he laughs. “It seems like another lifetime!” Usually, […]
Posted inLaw
Adnan Syed released, as evidence of US procedural failings mounts
Reading Time: 3 minutes In 2014, Adnan Syed became an internet sensation through Serial, an investigative journalism podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig and supported by This American Life. Koenig had learned of Syed’s case through Rabia Chaudry, a lawyer and friend of the Syed family, who was fighting his conviction in 2000 for the murder of ex-girlfriend Hae Min […]
Posted inLaw
A 2002 gang rape in India is still revealing worlds of injustice
Reading Time: 8 minutes Christopher Hitchens was once asked to defend atheism from the charge of hopelessness, by a Christian who found comfort in the idea of a god who would remedy all earthly injustice after death. In answer, Hitchens spoke of Elisabeth Fritzl, who spent 24 years as her father’s captive, sexually abused and birthing children also trapped […]
Posted inCulture
Fighting exploitation in the Amazon calls for new alliances…even with missionaries
Reading Time: 5 minutes An ounce of gold is currently worth almost twice as much as an ounce of cocaine. That reality has changed the funding formula for guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Venezuela and Colombia. Where narcotrafficking once brought in the lion’s share of resources for groups like ELN and dissident FARC, two heavily-armed movements that occupy densely […]
