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POPSHe Never Played The Fear Card "Underscoring the power of fighting fearmongers without resorting to fearmongering, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche issued this warning with which I close. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. In reminding his fellow Americans that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, President Roosevelt sought to make us less vulnerable to our enemies, not more like them."
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POPSA quiet voice for gay marriage Many of these former spouses -- from those who still feel raw resentment toward their exes to those who have reached a mutual understanding -- see the legalization of same-sex marriage as a step toward protecting not only homosexuals but also heterosexuals. If homosexuality was more accepted, they say, they might have been spared doomed marriages followed by years of self-doubt. "It's like you hit a brick wall when they come out," Brooks said. "You think everything is fine and then, boom!" Carolyn Sega Lowengart calls it "retroactive humiliation." It's that embarrassment that washes over her when she looks back at photographs or is struck by a memory and wonders what, if anything, from that time was real. Did he ever love her?
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POPSKing And Nonviolence Yes it's true that September 11th changed a lot of things and reminded us how vulnerable we are. It made us realize we face a dangerous and diabolically clever enemy. It strengthened our resolve and triggered important steps to prevent future attacks, actions that made us more secure as a nation. But 9/11 did not and could not change the basic ground rules: War or incitement to violence is justified only when it's in response to a deliberate attack and only when it's undertaken as a last resort. And even during wartime, nations must observe the highest moral standards. It's so easy to incite violence. And it's so wrong.
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POPSIt's Never Easy {{iamonetoo}} told me once that she didn't understand why it had to be so hard to be herself. She could have taken the easy way. But she didn't and I admire her. Social change is hard, long and difficult work. It will often spawn hatred by other's who are just ignorant of human differences. That's ok; the struggle of civil rights for everyone is always worth it :)
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POPSShould We Trust The Experts? "None of this suggests the public should abandon a healthy skepticism toward even well-credentialed authorities. Pharmaceutical companies, with colossal missteps like the dangerous medication Vioxx, have earned suspicions about their motivations. Vaccinations foregone put not only those individual children at risk but clear the path for infectious disease to spread more easily. That's not a great outcome, whether we're collectively battling the measles or this season's H1N1 flu. "You can't minimize your individual risk," Wallace writes, "unless your herd, your friends and neighbors, also buy in." Our children most certainly deserve safe vaccines; that's a given. I don't blame people for not trusting special interest groups. I just thought this article brought out some interesting points regarding social media.
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POPSNonviolence As Their Weapon "It was 2001. Khatib watched in horror as Israeli soldiers shot an unarmed friend at a checkpoint. Two weeks later, the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade made a revenge attack on the checkpoint, killing seven soldiers. "My first reaction was 'Good for Al Aqsa!' " Khatib said. Then he realized the dead soldiers belonged to a different unit, not the one on duty when his friend was shot. "It made me wonder: This cycle of death, of violent action and reaction, how we can break it?"
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POPSRepublicans In Congress Understanding complex issues in Washington is a big challenge and I'm incredibly excited about this new technology.
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POPSA Southern Mirrored Window "Ms. Stockett, 40, herself a native of Jackson, said the idea for the novel came to her in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when she was living in New York. Ms. Stockett, who had another novel in her drawer that a writing coach had told her was “just awful,” said she felt homesick and “tried to comfort myself by writing in the voices of the people I missed.”
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POPSRussia Reconsiders "There's no question that Stalin is undergoing a sort of renaissance in Russia. Despite the many millions killed or sent to labor camps during his reign, many now view his rule with a sort of hazy nostalgia. "The cynical position of the Stalinphobes is that only innocent people were kept in the gulag," he said. "Criminals who violated the law were kept in the gulag. And let the Western reader ask himself, should criminals be kept in spas or resort hotels?" Meanwhile, Stalin's image and name, systematically bleached out as the waning Soviet empire began to grapple with its bloody past, are creeping back into Russian life. His name was restored this fall to a Moscow metro station. His unmistakable mustached face beams from the wall of Soviet Meatpies, a kitschy diner downtown."
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POPSWhat We Can't Accept "A corpse is a stark reminder that human beings are inescapably embodied creatures, and that a life is the sum of what has been performed and spoken by the body — a mixture of promises made and broken, deeds done and undone, joys evoked and pain inflicted. When we lift the heavy weight of the coffin and carry the dead over the tile floor of the crematory or across the muddy cemetery to the open grave, we bear public witness that this was a person with a whole and embodied life, one that, even in its ambiguity and brokenness, mattered and had substance. To carry the dead all the way to the place of farewell also acknowledges the reality that they are leaving us now, that they eventually will depart even from our frail communal memory as they travel on to whatever lies beyond. People who have learned how to care tenderly for the bodies of the dead are almost surely people who also know how to show mercy to the bodies of the living."
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POPSEmerging As Equals :While more men over all suffer from the disorder because they are a majority of those deployed, Dr. Resick added, “people underestimate what these women have been through.”
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POPSWe Don't Trust Your Country I'd be interested in those who do not live here in the US commenting how our country is viewed by other nations. It really concerns me.
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POPSPot Paradise "Jacqueline Patterson, 31, uses marijuana to treat her cerebral palsy and a severe stutter. She fears she would be booted from the program if she tried to grow dope at home or buy it from street dealers. The upshot, critics say, is that a law crafted to help sick people has morphed into a lucrative trade, one in which rural farms are supplying urban dispensaries that cater to mostly recreational users armed with doctors' recommendation"
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POPSWhy Do Some Straights Fear Gays? Of course, this article is written in 2007, but I feel it addresses the fear I still see perpetuated about the recent Hate Crimes legislation that was signed by our President. We still have a long way to go as a society and I want to thank every person on CM who speaks out against hate.
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POPSChanging The World "It can start with just a few small steps. Mrs. Parks helped transform a nation by refusing to budge from her seat. Maybe you want to speak up publicly about an important issue, or host a house party, or perhaps arrange a meeting of soon-to-be dismissed employees, or parents at a troubled school. It’s a risk, sure. But the need is great, and that’s how you change the world."
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POPSOur Neighbor Rocks "I'm not sure what he thought was cool, that a rock star lived in the suburbs next to neighbors who looked like us, or that the rock star would deign to speak to the old folks, let alone invite them to a concert?"
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