Religious Liberty Is For People, Not Corporations

The Article: Religious liberty is for people, not corporations by Elizabeth B. Wydra in CNN.

The Text: Once again, Obamacare has made its way back before the Supreme Court.

The high court decided Tuesday to review two challenges by for-profit corporations and their religious owners over comprehensive contraception coverage required by the Affordable Care Act. And if the justices follow more than 200 years of constitutional law and history on what it means to enjoy the free exercise of religion in America, the court should yet again hand a victory to the act.
It had little choice but to agree to hear the cases this term.

Using unprecedented legal reasoning, three federal circuit courts of appeals have ruled that secular, for-profit business corporations and/or the individuals who own them have a valid claim that the mandate to provide no-cost, FDA-approved contraception in their employer-sponsored health plan violates their asserted right to the free exercise of religion.

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Black Friday Epitomizes American Culture

The Article: Black Friday epitomizes American Culture by Michael Williams in The North Wind.

The Text: Black Friday has become more reflective of American cultural values than Thanksgiving.

The irony of Black Friday is clear, perhaps cliché. If we are celebrating gratitude and contentment on Thanksgiving, then is overconsumption the day following appropriate? Is the concept of Thanksgiving thus disingenuous? What stinks of gratitude and contentment less than incessant dissatisfaction manifesting itself as consumption?

Black Friday weekend of 2012 grossed $60 billion in sales in the United States. That’s 10 times the amount of money spent in the 2012 presidential campaign, which, by the way, was the costliest presidential run in U.S. history. Yes, more money is spent for nondurable goods in this country than for the institution of democracy.

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Inventing Thanksgiving

The Article: Inventing Thanksgiving by Brian Awehali in AlterNet.

The Text: Every year, as Thanksgiving approaches, I am filled with profound ambivalence. Even as a child, the standard Thanksgiving story always seemed too simple, too wholesome, and too peaceful to be true or truly American. Finally, past the faux-historicism of school textbook-styled Pilgrims and Indians, I was able to delve into the actual construction of the story of Thanksgiving. And, in this way, I learned just how fabricated and utterly bizarre this American “holiday” really is.

In 1621, at Plymouth Plantation on Massachusetts Bay, 50 Pilgrim settlers joined with at least 90 Native guests in a three-day feast which is now traditionally cited as the “First Thanksgiving.”

In reality, this seasonal, quasi-secular New England harvest celebration was not repeated in Plymouth and was in fact forgotten until a reference to it was discovered almost 200 years later, in a contemporary book known as “Mourt’s Relation.”

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World’s First Marijuana Retail License Issued In Colorado

The Article: World’s First Marijuana Retail License Issued In Colorado by Jodie Gummow in AlterNet.

The Text: The world’s first-ever marijuana retail license has been issued in Central City, Colorado this week, according to the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).

The recipient of the license, ‘Annie’s’, a dispensary operating as a medical marijuana center, is yet to receive its state license.

Nonetheless, businesses in localities across Colorado are scheduled to begin selling pot to adults beginning January 1, 2014.

MPP’s Mason Tvert, who co-directed the successful campaign, welcomed the historic move:

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Ashton Kutcher Versus Walmart

The Article: Ashton Kutcher vs. Wal-Mart: Epic Twitter clash rages over poverty wages by Josh Eidelson in Salon.

The Text: Celebrity actor/producer Ashton Kutcher and retail giant Wal-Mart had a spirited Twitter debate Tuesday over Wal-Mart workers’ wages.

Kutcher (@aplusk) kicked off the dust-up by tweeting about the news that an Ohio Wal-Mart took up an employee-to-employee food charity collection “so Associates in Need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.” He wrote, “Walmart is your profit margin so important you can’t Pay Your Employees enough to be above the poverty line?”

Fourteen minutes later, the company’s @WalmartNewsroom account, echoing its replies to others on the topic, tweeted back at Kutcher, “It’s unfortunate that an act of human kindness has been taken so out of context. We’re proud of our associates in Canton.” After 10 minutes, Kutcher shot back, “you should be proud of your associates but I’m not sure if they should be proud of you.”

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