just a thought

Originally @ Stanford Progressive “It is better to have a passion for beautiful girls than to be gay,” Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi quipped offhand when challenged by a recent sex scandal. Unfortunately, at least for those living in Uganda, his deplorable comment is a quite accurate assessment. The past year has witnessed the evolution of a bill in Uganda aimed at strengthening the criminalization of homosexuality by adding a death penalty for the offense. The bill, which merited and received widespread international and media scrutiny, spurred Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to form a committee to investigate the implications of the new legislation, which ultimately led to a recommendation that the bill be repealed. Even so, it was by no means defeated handily. It did not create large-scale indignation or outrage amongst the people of Uganda. In fact, its renunciation belied the true will of many Ugandans, who view homosexuality as unnatural and criminal by nature....

Originally @ Stanford Progressive Just as people lined up around street corners to wait for their $500+ touchscreen iPads in April, in India they will be lining up in anticipation of a similar soon-to-be-released laptop. The difference? The laptop will cost $35 instead of $500. How much can you fit in a $35 laptop? According to the Indian government, the device features a built-in word processor, video conferencing, a multimedia player, a searchable PDF reader, and best of all, a web browser with Wi-Fi connectivity. Oh, and it is a touchscreen device, just like the iPad. And it can be charged and run on solar power. It seems that the Indian government has developed a sort of golden bullet to the market barriers for poor entrepreneurs and students. <!--more--> Much information regarding the laptop still remains a mystery, such as its RAM, the display resolution, the screen size, and the kind of processor it employs. It requires an external storage device, such as a key dr...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive In tough economic times, people reach for two things: their wallets and their guns. In the case of the Tea Party and the GOP this season, the wallet-reflex has manifested itself in the form of cries for reduced taxes and shrieks of indignation at government spending. The gun-reflex has much more prominently reared its head in the form of unabashed xenophobia. Any American with a minimal attention span for domestic news has by now heard of the Arizona immigration law. He or she has been subjected to campaigns from Wisconsin to Georgia deriding immigrants, legal and illegal, for their “parasitic leeching” of America’s resources. But any sensible rationale for intolerant legislation has been thrown clear out the window in the latest incidence of racist fanaticism regarding the construction of a recreation center in New York. The center, called Park 51 and based on the 92^nd St. Y (a Jewish community center – the Y was short fo...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive Much attention has been granted recently to the just-opened ‘luxury prison’ in Halden, Norway. The facility, which is being touted as the most humane prison in the world, features many amenities for its 252 inmates. And after 10 years of construction and a $22.2 million price tag, government officials say it will be worth every penny. This grand experiment raises the question: would this work in the United States? Unfortunately, the answer is probably ‘no.’ Halden Prison has drawn so much attention for the many different resources and perks it offers its lucky inmates. If you get tired of strolling the facility’s 75 acres, replete with $1.5 million of murals to add to the scenery, you can retire to your own private cell to eat from your personal mini-fridge or watch your own flat-screen TV. Hungry for something more? If you step outside of your suite, with its private bathroom and barless windows (to let in more sunlight), you can walk to the qual...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive The midterm elections are fast approaching, where all Americans get the opportunity to reevaluate what their government stands for and what they value in state and federal policy. This year’s hot topic? Taking comprehensive strides to eliminate heterogeneity from American society. That’s right, racism is back in vogue. By now even most politically apathetic people have been exposed to various opinions and interpretations of the proposed Arizona bill SB 1070. The legislation proposes mandating that state and federal authorities check anyone they deem to be suspicious for proof of American citizenship. Suspicious characteristics, as defined by the bill itself, refer to telltale signs such as shoe brands (certain types of shoes are produced in Mexico but not the United States.) Like so many laws, the bill will operate in practice differently than it is outlined on paper. Chances are, when the Arizona state police are on patrol, they will be paying ...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive A new trend is emerging in the field of poverty and inequality alleviation. The social attitude of firms and philanthropists towards addressing these grandiose problems is, more and more, resembling that of businesses rather than charities. The change in how poor people are being addressed reflects a growing categorization of the poor as consumers rather than as recipients. In his book, <em>The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid</em>, University of Michigan Prof. of Corporate Strategy C. K. Prahalad argues that firms should not view poverty as a problem, but rather should see it as an opportunity. By treating poor people as potential consumers instead of as recipients of aid, dilemmas like poverty and inequality can be addressed in sustainable ways that capitalize on market mechanisms. This attitude has manifested itself in a number of new companies with an exclusive focus on addressing poverty. For these firms, economic profit is no...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive Determining one’s political, social, and economic beliefs, if done right, is a difficult affair, and one that many Stanford students undoubtedly grapple with. In my own pursuit for developing the best outlook on life, I came across the peculiar philosophy of an author named Ayn Rand as a sophomore in high school. Her ideas, entitled “Objectivism,” have enjoyed a recent intellectual resurgence on Stanford’s campus. This movement brings to mind my own trajectory as an objectivist, which began with scholarly infatuation but ended with bitterly realistic rejection. Rand’s principles are, like so many doctrines, attractive on paper but inapplicable to the real, modern world. Objectivism strives to provide a comprehensive answer to questions of metaphysics, politics, morality, and epistemology. This article is not an effort to unravel the rationale behind the philosophy. Instead, it is a comprehensive look at what the objectivist viewpoint means in ever...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive Cloud computing is a relatively new data storage and processing concept that has all the top tech companies competing for cloud domination. Imagine the ability to access your files from any computer at any place on earth, coupled with the fastest processing speed available regardless of your operating system. This is the promise of cloud computing: an internet-based solution to the traditional problems of variable storage, accessibility, and speed of computers. The core idea of cloud computing is that information is stored in the ‘cloud,’ which is a metaphor for the internet based on its depiction as a cloud in flow diagrams. People can access applications like Word or Excel online, then create files and store them ‘in the cloud’ as well, so that they can be accessed from any computer with Internet access on earth. The software and data are stored on centralized servers, all located in a facility owned by the cloud provider – say, Google or Yahoo!...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive In the wake of the Obama Administration’s efforts at compiling a cogent healthcare plan, the Republican Party has been fighting every element proposed by the President and Democrats in Congress. The outlook adopted by the Obama Administration is that the healthcare system in the US necessitates three major reforms: better coverage and quality of care at lower cost, scientific and technological advancements, and an emphasis on preventative care. House and Senate Republicans responded to the President’s idea of reform with their own healthcare proposals. On June 17 th , House Minority Leader John Boehner introduced the GOP alternative to Obama’s healthcare solution. Instead of overhauling the system in the manner advised by five congressional committees working on different strategies, Republicans have thrown out a simpler plan. The four-page proposal outlines three main goals: making healthcare more affordable, making it more available and accessi...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive Two principal tenets of democratic government in the modern era are the justification and the consistency of official policy. In the realm of international relations, these ideals are paramount in maintaining the appearance of legitimacy when policy regarding foreign states is formulated. The juxtaposition of the South Ossetian War with the Kosovo War, however, exposes the willingness of governments to forego these democratic principles. It showcases the hypocrisy of Russian and American foreign policy towards new nation-states proclaiming independence. Both governments have firmly established self-contradictory positions between the two situations that hint at underlying self-interested political motives. In August 2008, tensions boiled over between Georgia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two northern regions of Georgia bordering Russia. The two provinces, which both declared their independence in 1991 and then recognized each other as independen...

Originally @ Stanford Progressive (offline) For many of the 3 billion poor in the world, poverty does not just mean a limited access to financial resources; extreme poverty implies malnutrition and starvation, exposure to disease, an impediment to education, a reduction of rights and privileges, and possibly death. However, microlending can ease the extent of poverty. It is estimated that microlending organizations have helped over 67.6 million poor people. This level of success is what has excited so many to advocate microfinance as a means of reducing poverty: today, it is estimated that over 7,000 unique microfinance institutions exist. Even so, critics of microfinance are very vocal in their attacks on its efficacy and success. Globalisation Institute economist Tom Clougherty writes, “There are a number of criticisms leveled at microfinance and chief among them is that microfinance is just a ‘band-aid’, that it simply covers up the real problems without actually addressing them....