MORALITY. As delineated in Wikipedia, morality has several fundamental components:
1. Descriptively, morality refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct, or social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in human society. This usage is expressed in a system of beliefs.
2. Normatively, morality refers directly to what is right or wrong, regardless of what people think. This usage is expessed as separate and distinct from the beliefs of a given time or place, superceding those beliefs with the conduct of an ideal moral person in a given situation.
3. Situationally, morality refers to the philosophical examination of particular issues in private or public life that are matters of moral judgment. This usage is expressed in the application of moral or ethical codes to the real world.
4. Psychologically, morality refers to how moral capacity or moral agency develops, and what its nature is, which verges into meta-ethics, the philosophical discussion of what defines the concept of good or bad.
All of which is prologue to an article by Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith), titled "Toward A Science Of Morality. The article is noteworthy in that it removes the definition of morality from control by any political or religious group, and posits that morality can (and must) be arrived at through rational examination and testing. It is a provocative read.
IMMIGRATION. With regard to Arizona's notorious "Show Me Your Papers" immigration law, in previous posts I've pointed out both the inherent racism and the inherent abrogation of federal powers by the state. There is another, equally insidious consideration. Greg Palast points out that Arizona Republicans are terrified that growing numbers of Latino registered voters may threaten their stranglehold on state politics -- and thus are resorting to their own form of state-sponsored terrorism by making life so miserable for Latinos (both legal residents and illegal immigrants) that they hope to stimulate a Latino exodus from the state. There is evidence that their rotten tactic is working, at least superficially. News reports document that many neighborhoods once occupied by immigrant Latino families are seeing more and more "For Sale" signs popping up, as those families seek a more tolerant cultural climate in neighboring states. One hopes that most Latinos will stick it out, and stick it to the Republicans in future elections for such heinous behavior, even more amoral and insulting to the electorate than the practice of gerrymandering.
FOX NEWS. Finally, delightfully, here is a video clip of Detroit Mayor Virg Bernero ripping into a Fox News anchor over the network's complicity in its selective "reporting" (aka commentary) on conservative issues in Washington and on Wall Street. It's far past time that more people grew a pair, and started challenging the irrational, reactionary and inflammatory editorializing that is the hallmark of the Fox organization. Oh look, the emporer is wearing no clothes !! Tell it like it is, Virg.
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, and just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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