Dissent Is the Health of the Democratic State - "We live in big, complex societies, which means we are thoroughly interdependent on each other, and that we will naturally have different ideas about how our life in common should go, and will have divergent interests. This means that politics we shall always have with us. It also means that political problems are largely ones about designing and reforming the institutions which shape how we interact with each other..." (via) [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Mar 6, 2013 - 9 comments

Biomaterial charges against N.Y. art professor dismissed. A judge has thrown out the charges against Steve Kurtz. Finally. Kurtz's case was previously discussed here and here. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Apr 21, 2008 - 29 comments

Risking all: the Burmese jokers who laugh in the face of danger. In Burma (Myanmar), comedians are targets in the junta's war on words. [Via BB.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Oct 17, 2007 - 23 comments

A cowardly webhost censors a critic of American foreign policy. On August 10, the web hosting company Hosting Matters deleted the website of MetaFilter's own Hossein Derakhshan, itinerant Iranian blogger based in Toronto and a consistent critic of the Bush regime's foreign policy as it regards Iran. Hosting Matters completely erased his website, including his blogging software, his web directories, and his database. According to Derakhshan, Hosting Matters then went a step further and threatened to sue him if he mentioned what they had done. He claims it was done as a result of his criticism of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's fellow Mehdi Khalaji. hoder's criticism of Khalaji available via Google Cache (Part 1, Part 2)
posted by chlorus on Aug 10, 2007 - 60 comments

Burmese artist Htein Lin was imprisoned by his country's military government from 1998 to 2004 on charges of planning opposition protests. In prison he was forced to improvise to continue painting, using paints smuggled in by guards and white cotton prison uniforms as canvases. In place of brushes he used his fingers, cigarette lighters, syringes, pieces of netting, dinner plates, and blocks of soap. Burma Inside Out (PDF), an exhibition of some of his prison work, will be on display at the Asia House Gallery in London from July 27 to October 13.
posted by homunculus on Jul 26, 2007 - 10 comments

Newsfilter: Rumsfeld squirms (via).
posted by bardic on May 4, 2006 - 104 comments

"In the Name of Politics" (NYT) Rev. John C. Danforth, the outgoing US ambassador to the UN, Republican Senator for 18 years, native Missouran and Episcopal minister worries that the Republican Party is turning very literally theocratic. In this short editorial he states "the only explanation ... is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law."
(Just as a side note, we're taking applications.)
posted by blacklite on Apr 10, 2005 - 52 comments