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The Real Jesus Is In Hiding

Posted on May 25, 2012 in Articles

The Article: Hiding the True Jesus by Howard Bess in Consortium News.

The Text: I grew up as a devout, “red letter” Christian who hung on every word from Jesus. My Baptist church had a heavy influence on me and my faith was focused on making certain that I ended up in heaven. I learned that Jesus died for my sins and I was forever indebted to him.

I believed that the stories that Jesus told were earthly stories with heavenly meaning. To me, Jesus was a teacher of spiritual truth and divine wisdom. Then came seminary, where I was exposed to a different kind of study of the Bible.

It was while I was in seminary that I learned that the Bible is like every other book in that every word, every sentence, every paragraph was written by a human being and in a context. So, everything that is reported about Jesus had a context.

Why’s Pot Still Illegal? Ask These Guys

Posted on May 24, 2012 in Articles

The Article: 5 Special Interest Groups That Help Keep Marijuana Illegal by Lee Fang in AlterNet.

The Text: Last year, over 850,000 people in America were arrested for marijuana-related crimes. Despite public opinion, the medical community, and human rights experts all moving in favor of relaxing marijuana prohibition laws, little has changed in terms of policy.

There have been many great books and articles detailing the history of the drug war. Part of America’s fixation with keeping the leafy green plant illegal is rooted in cultural and political clashes from the past.

However, we at Republic Report think it’s worth showing that there are entrenched interest groups that are spending large sums of money to keep our broken drug laws on the books:

Bullying: An In-Context Look

Posted on May 23, 2012 in Articles

The Article: The Bully Project by Addison Engelking in Grantland.

The Text: Part One: Bully As Phenomenon and Film

The audiences around the country who saw Lee Hirsch’s documentary Bully on Friday night probably looked pretty similar. At the 7:30 screening I caught at the Lagoon Cinema in Minneapolis, Minnesota, members of the sizeable-but-not-sold-out crowd included three or four parents who’d brought their kids, a few gay and lesbian couples, some elementary and middle school teachers, some concerned gray-haired men and women, and a balding dude sporting a Goonies T-shirt.

Bully hype has died down a bit now that it’s been recut, granted a PG-13 rating, and given a wider theatrical release. (That ratings controversy between distributor Harvey Weinstein and the MPAA ratings board already feels like a publicity stunt, although given the idiocy of the MPAA, you never know.) After a successful limited release in New York and Los Angeles, Hirsch’s film is now playing at 158 theaters nationwide, including three locations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area; a wider release is forthcoming. The reams of advance press and positive reviews have certainly helped Bully’s box office take, but The Hunger Games, Cabin in the Woods, The Three Stooges, Titanic 3D, and American Reunion all had better per-screen averages on Friday. On the other hand, Bully is not a movie most people would choose to see as a way to kick off their weekend. The crowd at the Lagoon felt somehow determined; they knew what was in store for them, they were ready to have their hearts stomped on, and they were ready to get mad.

What Can We Learn From India? A Lot

Posted on May 21, 2012 in Articles

The Article: India’s Patent Law: A Standard We Should All Follow by Nima Desai in The Speckled Axe.

The Text: Recently, The New York Times featured an eye-opening series of articles about lawsuits filed by Bayer and Novartis in which the Indian Supreme Court has controlled the prices of expensive cancer drugs under the country’s own patent laws as well as new public health laws created by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

While there are nuanced legal issues that frame these decisions, mainstream media outlets do not report on them fully. A possible reason for the lack of coverage may be because the ruling struck a serious financial blow to the pharmaceutical industry—one that will most likely total billions of dollars lost in annual revenue. One of the major issues left unaddressed? Evergreening, a cunning pharmaceutical business tactic that will soon become a huge issue in courts around the world.

The sly tactic focuses on patent owners making superficial changes to a patented drug to extend the life of their exclusive right to manufacture and sell said drug beyond its legal expiration date. For example, some of these changes could be as minor as the color of a capsule, dosage amounts, or the use of the isomer or mirror-image of the molecular structure of the patented drug.

Justice Kennedy: The Man Running The Supreme Court?

Posted on May 21, 2012 in Articles

The Article: Does The Supreme Court Rely On One Man’s Decision? by Benjamin Siegel in The Speckled Axe.

The Text: The fate of President Obama’s crowning achievement of his first term — the passing of the healthcare reform law — seemingly rests on the shoulders of one Supreme Court Justice. After repeated 5-4 rulings decided recent cases, what initially seemed to be mere suspicions of a court neatly divided along party lines has become something of a known fact. Divided between four staunchly conservative and four staunchly liberal justices, Anthony Kennedy has become the one and only swing vote on the Supreme Court.

Dialogue-shifting decisions that have painted a picture of a bench divided along liberal/conservative lines include 2010’s Berghuis v. Thompkins ruling, in which the court essentially ruled to loosen an arrested citizen’s Miranda rights. That same year, the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, where they determined that political spending is protected under the First Amendment. This year brought the decision on Florence v. Burlington County, in which the court ruled that police may strip search anyone arrested for any offense, even if there is no reason to suspect contraband.

In each of the above Supreme Court decisions, Justice Anthony Kennedy was the deciding factor. Siding with the conservative wing of the court (Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John Roberts), Kennedy was able to swing cases with significant impact on how the Constitution is interpreted and enforced.