The Fishwrap: Stories that Made No Splash In March

How To Beat Your Wife

According to the Toronto Sun a new book by Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi details the permissible limits of wife beating and spousal control. The book sold out in Toronto.

“Page 45 contains the rights of the husband, which include his wife’s inability to leave ‘his house without his permission,’ and that his wife must ‘fulfil his desires’ and “not allow herself to be untidy ... but should beautify herself for him ...

“In terms of physical punishment, the book advises that a husband may scold her, ‘beat by hand or stick,’ withhold money from her or ‘pull (her) by the ears,’ but should ‘refrain from beating her excessively.’”

Infanticide Is Ethical

The newest Orwellian term for infanticide is, according to William Saletan of Slate Magazine is “after birth abortion.”

Slate, a left of center publication, begins its vigorous attack on permissible infanticide with a reference to the “crazy religious right.” Slate wants us to know that craziness is not limited to certain unspecified religious orders that object on ethical grounds to partial birth abortion.

“Just when you thought the religious right couldn’t get any crazier, with its personhood amendments and its attacks on contraception, here comes the academic left with an even crazier idea: after-birth abortion.

“No, I didn’t make this up. ‘Partial-birth abortion’ is a term invented by pro-lifers. But ‘after-birth abortion’ is a term invented by two philosophers, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva. In the Journal of Medical Ethics…”

The Good News

Researchers, according to a story in the Telegraph, have “discovered that at least 100 of the ‘super-Earths’ may be on our galactic doorstep, at distances of less than 30 light years, or about 180 trillion miles, from the sun.”

There is no bad news. The planets are uninhabited by Russian dictators, Venezuelan strongmen, nutty as a fruitcake wife-beating Salafists,saintly Cuban presidential terrorists looking for yet another international handout, and American presidents who cannot puttogether a passable budget.

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The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

Powell, the JI, And Economic literacy

Powell, Pesci Substack The Journal Inquirer (JI), one of the last independent newspapers in Connecticut, is now a part of the Hearst Media chain. Hearst has been growing by leaps and bounds in the state during the last decade. At the same time, many newspapers in Connecticut have shrunk in size, the result, some people seem to think, of ad revenue smaller newspapers have lost to internet sites and a declining newspaper reading public. Surviving papers are now seeking to recover the lost revenue by erecting “pay walls.” Like most besieged businesses, newspapers also are attempting to recoup lost revenue through staff reductions, reductions in the size of the product – both candy bars and newspapers are much smaller than they had been in the past – and sell-offs to larger chains that operate according to the social Darwinian principles of monopolistic “red in tooth and claw” giant corporations. The first principle of the successful mega-firm is: Buy out your predator before he swallows

Down The Rabbit Hole, A Book Review

Down the Rabbit Hole How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime by Brent McCall & Michael Liebowitz Available at Amazon Price: $12.95/softcover, 337 pages “ Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime ,” a penological eye-opener, is written by two Connecticut prisoners, Brent McCall and Michael Liebowitz. Their book is an analytical work, not merely a page-turner prison drama, and it provides serious answers to the question: Why is reoffending a more likely outcome than rehabilitation in the wake of a prison sentence? The multiple answers to this central question are not at all obvious. Before picking up the book, the reader would be well advised to shed his preconceptions and also slough off the highly misleading claims of prison officials concerning the efficacy of programs developed by dusty old experts who have never had an honest discussion with a real convict. Some of the experts are more convincing cons than the cons, p

Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

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