Pacific Standard March-April 2013 Cover

Gay Men, Straight Women: What’s the Attraction?

February 18, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
Chris Colfer as Kurt and Lea Michele as Rachel in 'Glee'

From the title characters of Will and Grace to Kurt and Rachel on Glee, television comedies have picked up on an apparently widespread phenomenon: intense friendships between gay men and straight women. But in real life, what cements this often-close bond? Newly published research provides a plausible, albeit partial, answer: their unique ability to provide clear-headed counsel regarding romantic relationships. “Our results suggest that straight women and gay men perceive mating advice provided by each other to be more trustworthy than similar advice offered by other individuals,” a ... Read More

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Find a New Immigration Perspective

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

Conspicuously absent from both 2008 presidential campaigns was a fair, honest and decisive proposal to solve the immigration problem in the U.S., especially with respect to our southern border. Instead, we are told, the "solution" is (1) to grant amnesty of one sort or another to all who are already here illegally, (2) to develop and establish "comprehensive immigration reform" and (3) to offer a "guest worker program." "Comprehensive immigration reform" is merely a sociopolitical euphemism for amnesty, and its principle tenet is the "need for a guest worker program." In point of fact, the ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2009, Politics, Unsolicited Advice
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Close the Turkey Farm

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

In 2003, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was combined, with more than 20 other agencies, into the new Department of Homeland Security. The inclusion of FEMA in DHS was controversial, for at least two reasons. First, there was nothing about the Sept. 11 attacks that suggested a need to move FEMA. FEMA's mission was, in the 1990s, to support state and local government in their responses to a range of disasters, and most of these efforts were successful. Second, it was clear before the Department of Homeland Security was formed that President Bush would appoint political allies, not ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2009, Politics, Unsolicited Advice
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Pay More Attention to Our Own Backyard

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

A clear lesson of the last eight years is that the world is now too large and complex to be dominated by a single power. Nations that try to exercise unilateral economic and military power will only undermine their moral and material position in the world and contribute to their own decline. A better strategy is for great powers to focus their energies on their own regional spheres of influence, while working with other nations multilaterally to achieve peace, stability and prosperity elsewhere. For the United States, this means ending reckless unilateral interventions in places like Iraq, ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2009, MAGAZINES, Politics, Unsolicited Advice
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Re-establish Respect for the Constitutional Separation of Powers

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

Despite repeated assertions by both Barack Obama and John McCain that their policies would differ significantly from those of the previous administration, virtually no attention was paid during the campaign to the worst feature of the Bush presidency: the determined undermining of America's constitutional framework. In fact, the issue was missing from congressional races as well, even though many of the members of Congress who were seeking re-election had acquiesced in the unconstitutional amassing of executive power. If this is to truly be a new beginning — a chance to address the ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2009, Politics, Unsolicited Advice
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Grant All Americans Their Day in Court

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

Dear President Obama, One issue I believe your administration ought to address is that of access to justice by ordinary citizens. As you are no doubt aware by virtue of your legal training, the American legal system has been radically reshaped during the Republican years under so-called tort reform. The consequence of this is that ordinary Americans are often being denied their day in court because new statutes governing torts make it economically infeasible to pursue litigation. The Republicans have implemented this legislation in an obvious effort to insulate their corporate allies from ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2009, Legal Affairs, Unsolicited Advice
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Return Balance to the Federal Judiciary

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

Dear President Obama, You will have the opportunity to nominate many federal judges and no doubt one or more individuals to the U.S. Supreme Court in the next four years. Please restore balance to our federal judiciary. By balance, I do not refer to partisanship or ideology but to life experience and public stature. In their efforts to predict how nominees will behave on the bench, recent presidents have increasingly appointed individuals to the Supreme Court with narrow legal, academic or appellate judicial backgrounds. All nine current justices were educated at elite law schools and ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2009, Legal Affairs, Unsolicited Advice
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P. People O.

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

Dear Mr. President, Piss people off. Piss off the right-wing Cuban Americans in Florida by normalizing relations with Cuba. (If we can work with the commies in Vietnam or China, then we can work with the Cubans.) Piss off the agribusiness industry by ending subsidies for farms not owned and worked by individual families. Piss off the cattle ranchers, loggers and miners by ending lease terms for exploiting federally owned land that were created to help 19th-century homesteaders. Piss off the automobile industry by investing in more trains. Piss off AARP by making Social Security ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2009, Politics, Unsolicited Advice
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Eliminate the Electoral College

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

I was at a business dinner in Asia shortly after the 2000 election. Jokes were being made about still not knowing who will be the next U.S. president: "Isn't it typical of Americans to bring in the lawyers?" And so on. I defended the U.S. by noting there aren't riots and burning cars, as in some Asian countries. One man responded, "The son of a former president wins office with disputed votes in a state run by his brother. What makes you any different than Indonesia?" That gave me pause, and in the pause another said, "And the person with the most votes loses. How is that?" I tried to ... Read More

More like this: January-February 2009, Politics, Unsolicited Advice
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Make Real Racial Progress

December 22, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

There are few places where the United States is further away from achieving "post-raciality" than in our prisons and courtrooms. For instance, though blacks make up roughly 12 percent of the population (and roughly 13 percent of casual drug users) they made up 35 percent of all drug-related arrests in the United States, 55 percent of all drug-related convictions and 74 percent of all drug-related prison sentences as of 1995. Similarly disturbing statistics abound in the areas of racial profiling, death penalty convictions, state executions and nearly every other arena of criminal justice. It ... Read More

More like this: Culture, Culture & Society, January-February 2009, Unsolicited Advice
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