Word: reviews
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Before it became part of mainstream conservative punditry, the leading proponent of the War on Christmas was a former magazine writer and editor named Peter Brimelow. A virulent anti-immigration crusader whose views were considered extreme by mainstream conservative journals like National Review, Brimelow founded a website called VDare.com that soon was at the forefront of the fight to sanctify Christmas cheer. Beginning in 1999, Brimelow ran a competition to spotlight offenders in the War on Christmas. The inaugural villain was the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which earned the dubious honor for hosting a holiday party dubbed...
...plans to quit anytime soon, Brown seemed to relish the historic significant of the case. "Isn't this what the Federalist Papers were all about? What Madison was after?" Brown told TIME. "These questions go back to the beginning, back to Justice Marshall and the question of judicial review, to Marbury v. Madison. This is a topic of constant constitutional inquiry: What is the role of the court, and what is the role of the people? We have a unique system, and these questions have always been controversial." Oh yes, Brown also told TIME that he is exploring the possibility...
...Lowdown: Burger's replication of Milgram's famous demonstration was watered down somewhat; a review of his findings by University of California-Davis professor Alan Elms terms the study "Obedience Lite." The electric charges were purposefully subtler and the conditions less stressful. But the takeaway is no less disturbing: humanity's threshold for cruelty is, like everything else, situational. We seem wired to follow orders, even when they're harmful to others. In her chilling portrayal of Nazi middle-manager Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt famously excoriated this impulse as "the banality of evil." Evil is way too strong a word...
...Defining Defiance Richard Corliss states in his review of the movie Defiance, "Not all Jews under Hitler's boot were passive victims" [Dec. 8]. Almost all of Hitler's Jewish victims were civilians with families. They had no army, let alone guns, and were often betrayed by their local government. The vast majority had no chance to fight and nothing to fight with and probably thought they would live to see their families again, not knowing what evil awaited them. Calling them or any defenseless people "passive victims" - even to refute such a notion - is ignorant, rude and insulting...
...Iraq Rebuild Effort Flawed A review of the Iraq reconstruction concluded that the five-year, $117 billion project has been largely ineffective. The report, compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, also found that most of the positive work done has simply brought the nation back to preinvasion levels. Poor planning, lack of oversight and a security vacuum--former Secretary of State Colin Powell is quoted as saying that the Defense Department inflated Iraqi security-force numbers--also played major roles...