The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Brian K. Noe

Conflating Bigotry and Blasphemy

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In an email interview to Vidya Venkat of The Hindu, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, author of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, explained the difference between critiquing a religion and ridiculing it, and why it is one thing to oppose censorship and quite another thing to reprint Charlie Hebdo cartoons in solidarity.

“The problem with the ongoing discussion of Charlie Hebdo is that it tends to confuse bigotry with blasphemy. I am personally more favorable to blasphemy, but have no time for bigots or bigotry.”

Read the interview: ‘Charlie Hebdo cartoons are bigoted’ – The Hindu.

AnalyzeGreece!

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The current class struggles in Greece may presage what is to come elsewhere. With elections happening on January 25th, and so much at stake, I’ve been looking for good sources of information.

Cutting through the clichés and the caricatures, AnalyzeGreece! reports to English-language readers from the frontline of the crisis.

Learn more: About Us | AnalyzeGreece! News and Left Politics.

The Year in Killer Drones

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Charles Pierson reports.

“2014 was a good year for US killer drones. In October, the US celebrated (if that is the word) its 400th drone strike on Pakistan. Unable to attend the festivities were the 2,379 Pakistanis killed by US drones since 2004. Of these, only 12% of the victims who have been identified have been linked to militant organizations, this according to a report from the British-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism.”

Read the full article: The Year in Drones » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

FBI Expands Domestic Spy Role

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In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The New York Times, the Justice Department has partially declassified a report about the F.B.I.’s involvement in administering the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the FISA Amendments Act. When the report was completed in September 2012, it was entirely classified and the department announced only that it existed.

Read the report here: Justice Department Declassifies 2012 Inspector General Report on FBI Activities Under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 – NYTimes.com.

You can also read the Times’ story concerning the report here: F.B.I. is Broadening Surveillance Role, Report Shows – NYTimes.com.

A Muslim Reflects on Charlie

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Food Blogger Sadia Jabeen writes about what it is like to be Muslim in the wake of the Paris attack.

“When I first heard the news about the events in Paris this week I felt a real sadness at the loss of life. Nobody should expect to be gunned down in their place of work. Again I felt that sense of dread and worry. Who was going to be made to pay for the crimes of the people they had never met or had anything to do with? Were we going to see a further rise of racism and Islamophobia? Where will it end? Unfortunately I wasn’t wrong…”

Read the full essay: I have been very quiet online since the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices and here’s why | Make Tea & Cake, Not War.

No Time For Austerity

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A nasty strain of austerity capitalism has taken over Europe, leaving broken lives in its wake. Researchers Servaas Storm and C.W.M. Naastepad, senior lecturers in economics at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, consider how things got so bad, what role economists and misguided policy-makers have played, and how to change course. According to them, most everybody is getting the story about Europe dead wrong.

via How Parasitic Capitalism and Flawed Economics Turned Europe into the Hunger Games | Alternet.

From Posh to Poverty in SoMa

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Sylvia takes a walk South of Market in San Francisco.

“Under the freeway was a line of shopping carts ballooning with black plastic garbage bags. And on a dirt embankment across the street I saw shapes of people hanging out, talking and smoking in what seemed like a convivial atmosphere, much like a street fair. A few blocks north, the scene completely changed as new million-dollar condos popped up, and their denizens and designer pets strolled the glittery streets.”

Read the full essay: Berkeley Blog: Air-to-Earth Bnb: From Posh to Poverty in SF’s SoMa.