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Caliber Magazine | May 21, 2013

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Politics

The Context of Radical Islam

May 13, 2013 | Islamic radicalism is one of those issues that the American media always completely fails to properly analyze.  Recall back to the aftermath of 9/11 - the airwaves were cluttered with talk about "why do they hate us?" and the "clash of civilizations" and other polarizing, binary rhetoric. I actually Read More

Please, Don’t Frack My Mother!

April 11, 2013 | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfymhAEe-TM “You can do anything that you want to do…just please, don’t frack my mother!” This lyrical ballad written by Sean Lennon and featuring notable celebrities ranging from Joseph Gordon-Levitt to Yoko Ono to Adrian Grenier, has generated a rather hostile Read More

How Debate Destroys Communication: Six Principles of Effective Argumentation

April 11, 2013 | “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” Read More

Rage Against the Japanese

April 7, 2013 | If you keep up with foreign politics like a good Berkeley student does, you may have heard about the China's renewed animosity towards Japan sparked by a territorial dispute over a group of small rocky islands near Taiwan that the Chinese call Diaoyu and the Japanese call Senkaku. The contention Read More

Reflecting on Robert Reich, Part III: Class Struggle

March 30, 2013 | This is Part III of a three-part reflection on an interview with Robert Reich.  You can read the full transcript here, and you can pick up a free copy of Caliber to read the feature article on the interview.      This part contains a discussion of the general politics and social change - specifically, Read More

The High Price of Free Speech

March 24, 2013 | If there were a vote to eliminate the world’s greatest achievements, in first place would be secularism, followed closely by free speech. The latter is commonly used as a staircase to reach and chip away at the former, though attacks on free speech – previously utilized primarily by religious fundamentalists Read More

Rob Portman and the Tipping Point

March 18, 2013 | | One Comment In 2008, the battle for marriage equality came to California. There were demonstrations and speeches, there were cold-calls and sermons, and there were signs on everyone’s lawns. The fight was ugly and it pitted churches against their own members, families against their own children, and an unprovable Read More

Senator Rob Portman’s Changing Stance on Gay Marriage

March 18, 2013 | It only took a confession from his son, 21 year-old Will Portman; several conversations with a diverse group of individuals, including former Vice President Dick Cheney; and a fair amount of soul searching (two years!) for Republican Senator Rob Portman – formerly one of the greatest enemies of homosexuality Read More