"Last night, we went with nolly to Pokez, a Mexican restaurant in downtown San Diego. We had to wait about 15 min. to order, and the waitress seemed stressed. It was David's turn to order... he was slow to make up his mind while ordering, and grumpy. Not yelling or anything himself, just cranky. The waitress took this as directed at her, she suddenly snapped. She grabbed his shoulder, shook him, and leaned over and started mocking him, yelling his words back directly in his ear. He asked her to stop, and she grabbed his shoulder and then started screaming in his ear. Screaming that she had had enough and didn't have to work with this. And then she let go, stood up, told the table that she would not serve anyone at the table, and stalked away. He hadn't touched her beforehand... he wasn't even making eye contact, he had been looking at the menu.

apparently, according to the local police, this was not assault

Two Hundred Years Ago Today, the Global Campaign for Human Rights Achieved Its First Victory

Today the cause of universal human rights celebrates an important anniversary. On this day two hundred years ago, the Parliament at Westminster voted an act for the abolition of the slave trade. A few decades later, Parliament also voted the manumission of slaves throughout the British Empire. By that time, in the 1830's, the trafficking in slaves was viewed as a jus cogens crime by legal scholars around the world and the global movement to abolish slavery altogether was well launched.

Charting the origins of the modern human rights movement is an exercise in an uncertain and problematic geography, but if we follow it back along its swiftest channels to its ultimate source, past the American Civil Rights movement, the cause of voting rights for women, the great American abolitionist movement of the first half of the nineteenth century, we inevitably come to William Wilberforce and his sisters and brethren who launched the effort to ban the slave trade. [...]
He was not a social engineer or a man who scorned property. But he had harsh words for religious hypocrites who outwardly manifested their faith while ignoring the mandate to do justice, to support the poor and afflicted. He saved his special contempt for those who used the tropes of religion to justify slavery and the oppression of their fellow man:

"When their conversations get really serious, you will see how little of their Christianity has anything to do with the faith taught by Jesus. Everything becomes subjective. Their conduct is not measured against the standard set by the gospel. They have developed their own philosophies, which they attempt to pawn off as Christianity."

It is impossible for me to read these words today and not think of leaders of America's Religious Right who observed complete silence when reports surfaced from Abu Ghraib, from Bagram, from Guantanamo. Religious leaders who offered apologies and excuses for those in authority even as documents were published that showed that the practice of torture was a matter of formal government policy - of a government they embraced, uncritically. Wilberforce also stood close to politics, and to government. But he never hesitated to raise his voice in condemnation when torture, slave trade, and slavery were an issue. This is the conduct of a man for whom moral principle, not political expedience, was the odestar.

Read all of it here.

Undaunted by an initial mistrial, the Army on Friday refiled charges against 1st. Lt. Ehren Watada, a Fort Lewis officer who faces up to six years in prison for failing to deploy to Iraq and alleged misconduct.

Program Terminations
Program (2006 BA in millions)