[META] 2005's Most Popular Posts, Month by Month

[rfmcdonald]

As measured by the number of comments. December's might change, but it strikes me as unlikely at this late date.

• January : On the 23rd, "[BRIEF NOTE] Why not universal human rights?" received 23 comments. My inquiry as to why a global ethics of human rights should be recognized (and, I argued implicitly, enforced) prompted interesting debates on the nature of tyranny, foreign interventions in the post-9/11 period.


• February : On the 26th, "[BRIEF NOTE] On Criminalizing HIV Transmission" got 40 comments. Suffice it to say that I remain unconvinced that people who lie to their partners about their serostatus and go on to transmit the violence shouldn't be prosecuted (but by a properly defined law). Some people need to be stopped, and punished. I've met a couple.


• March :On the 8th, "[BRIEF NOTE] On Communities and Consent" with 23 replies. If we assume that the same standard of human rights should be applied universally, how is it not immoral to let anyone to define community membership as defined by law in such a way as to include matters of individual conscience? Bigots shouldn't have power.


• April : Again on the 8th, "[URBAN NOTE] The TTC Is On Strike" with 25 comments. Fortunately the strike was averted.


• May : On the 23rd, "[BRIEF NOTE] Why I Have Issues With Allende" with 31 comments.The Pinochet coup of 1973 and the subsequent 15 years of military dictatorship demonstrates how little interest in freedom Pinochet and his supporters had; Allende's willingness to make Chile a radical socialist state against the will of most Chileans shows, at least, his political bad sense.


• June : On the 11th, "[BRIEF NOTE] Towards A Typology of Apartheid" with 23 comments. Apartheid seems to require not only potentially compromisable control of a state, but a real sense of threat on the part of the state's controllers.


• July : On the 23rd, "[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] The Wider Problem with Muslim Homophobia" with 41 comments. The central issue about gay rights is whether it is in fact a universal issue, whether I've as much right to life in light of my sexual orientation as (say) Jonathan Edelstein does in light of his Jewishness.


• August : On the 20th, "[BRIEF NOTE] Peretz and Diaspora Nationalism" with 54 comments. At last, the Israel/Palestinian issue reached full fruition. Myself, all I have to say is that Israel and Palestine remind me of The Simpsons' Itchy and Scratchy: "They fight/they fight/they fight/they fight/they fight/fight, fight, fight/fight, fight, fight."


• September : On the 20th, "[BRIEF NOTE] I'm so proud of Queen's" with 20 comments. I, other Queen's alumni and students, and others, react to this year's repellent Homecoming Day riots in Kingston.


• October : On the 4th, "[BRIEF NOTE] Why do so many people on the left support foreign tyrannies?" with 22 comments. The general consensus appeared to be that it's romantic, and a fulfillment of lost youthful ideals.


• November : Tied for first place with 17 comments each, the light-hearted [META] Where are you all?" asking my readers to place themselves on a Frappr map (this one) and on the 8th "BLOG-LIKE POSTING: Johnstone, Chomsky, and l'affaire Brockes", my intervention into the debate on Chomsky and his relationship to Srebrenica.


• December : Another tie, again at 17 comments: On the 9th, "BLOG-LIKE POSTING: The Problem with Narnia", and on the 14th "[BRIEF NOTE] There's freedom of speech, and there's good taste" about the questionable taste of Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat Sagdiyev.

Two conclusions.

1. I might once have been able to be surprised when heraclitus called me a Burkean conservative. I have no right to pretend that any more.

2. I think I need to lighten up, just a bit. Popular postings which don't involve questions of human rights, touch upon genocide, or deal with violence would be relaxing.