[�]In many different contexts, people have continued to identify the Other by reference to phenotypical features (especially skin colour) which therefore serve as indicative of a significant difference. Moreover, they have continued to use the idea of �race� to label that difference. As a result, certain sorts of social relations are defined as “race relations,” as social relations between people of different “races.” Indeed, states legislate to regulate “race relations,”

“Afghans may have danced in the street and ripped off their burkhas when the war on terror liberated them from the Taliban. But judging from the latest survey by Human Rights Watch, the world might have been better off had the Taliban liberated Washington, D.C., instead. We exaggerate only slightly.” — the opening lines from “The Human Rights Fraud,” today’s WSJ Opinion Journal feature article. The gist: Human rights are

From the “Screw your thirst, Image is Everything” file… In the February issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Cullen Murphy’s column “Lifosuction” illuminates the contemporary cultural cachet of higher education in the U.S.: Thomas M. Menino, the mayor of Boston, is not a flashy fellow. He gets tongue-tied easily, as many of us do, and he lacks the aura of a Willie Brown or a Rudolph Giuliani. But he is a

“A student forced out of OU in September after the president of the Pakistan Student Association accused him of a hate crime is back on campus,” a story in the Oklahoma Daily Online reports. Shipman

“The three British al-Qaeda suspects being held at Camp X-Ray in Cuba have ‘no complaints’ about their treatment, according to British officials who have seen them,” the BBC reports. “The three are in ‘good physical health’ and are being treated well, they reported.” The long-awaited assessment of conditions at the base comes amid fierce criticism of the US’s treatment of the prisoners, who are held in small cells open to

“U.S. diplomats were preparing for a significant diplomatic spat with Beijing yesterday after the discovery of more than 25 listening devices on the new American-built aircraft of the Chinese President,” The Times of London reports. “The bugs were found throughout Jiang Zemin

Just in time for MLK’s Birthday, new Blogger Jeremy Freedman looks at race in America — all these years after Dr. King’s famous “dream” of a coming American meritocracy. He concludes with this sentiment: We can all get together and do better on race. I don’t think we have to scrap every last vestige of affirmative action, but that would be preferable to the current rant and rave until you