‘Tis the season when we take stock of our lives and wonder if we are better off. In some ways, our lives as Americans are much better now. In other ways, we’re in worse shape.
If you know someone is a Republican or Democrat, then you might assume you know exactly where they stand on whether local jails need to be expanded.
Come on, senators. First you haggle endlessly over a “human infrastructure” bill (Build Back Better Act) that would fund actual needs of real people — too expensive, not enough money for those “Democrats’ wish list” items. Even “Democrat in Name Only” (DINO) Sen. Joe Manchin joined Republicans in that complaint.
A day after yet another tragic school shooting, I had just finished teaching a criminology class about gun violence and how to reduce it in the United States. I found that my students have many misconceptions about the scope and nature of the problem.
The less than ideal outcome of the latest climate talks in Scotland reminds us of an inconvenient truth: as yet there is no human authority on Earth powerful enough to enforce the preservation of the commons. Would any country seriously consider military invasion to stop Brazilian deforestation, up 22 percent from last year, or India’s continuing addiction to coal, or the U.S. auctioning off new leases for oil production in the Gulf of Mexico?
This year marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most spectacular conservation victories in recent history: the defeat of a massive gold mine planned for the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park.
Evonne lives in a fire lookout in Oregon, and since I meet with these graduate students on Zoom, we’ve all seen snippets of her life, including the dizzying moments when she leaps up to scan for fires while holding her tablet.
I live near Middlefield, Ohio, the center of the fourth-largest Amish settlement in America. I regularly see the horse and buggy operations on the road. Who am I to tell these people that I know better about how they should live than they do? Very few Amish people are getting the COVID vaccine and Amish communities have experienced some of the state’s highest rates of infection and deaths, but they are living according to their faith and God’s will.
Although critics of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan to increase funding for United States education, healthcare, and action against climate catastrophe say the U.S. can’t afford it, there are no such qualms about ramping up funding for the U.S. military.
In my college days, I was a conservative Republican. I voted for Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. But I gave up on the party during the presidential election of 2008. I admired John McCain, still do, but Sarah Palin was a bridge too far, and, like many other Republicans in 2008, I voted Democratic for the first time in my life.
