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Columns

November 5, 2020

Once we recognize the interdependence of the world, we can shape a better future

If there is one lesson that the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing global economic recession have taught us, it is that we live in a world that is so interconnected and inextricably interdependent that it has effectively become a single organism. This is a reality that no amount of denial will change. On the contrary, such denial will only cause us to suffer more intensely. We will be better off if we fully recognize and embrace this reality.

October 29, 2020

Trump’s broken promises to factory workers

Back in 2016, while campaigning for president, Donald Trump discovered a useful tactic for drawing the votes of disgruntled blue-collar workers: denouncing the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs and promising to restore them.

October 8, 2020

Coronavirus spurs RV sales and rentals

Interestingly, while restaurants and airlines continue to be clobbered by the coronavirus, recreational vehicle (RV) sales and rentals are taking off. People have switched their travel preferences to minimize their COVID-19 exposure.

October 1, 2020

How to stop fake news from faking you out

The term “fake news” gained traction during the 2016 U.S. presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and it has since become a familiar phrase in the American political vernacular.

September 24, 2020

COVID-19 compounds recycling calamity

What happens in China, doesn’t always stay in China. We learned that a couple of years ago when the Chinese stopped buying massive volumes of the world’s used paper, plastics and textiles; and, again last March when the novel coronavirus COVID-19 escaped Wuhan and spread across the planet.

September 17, 2020

Voter suppression takes on new guise in 2020

When the 19th Amendment, ratified on August 18, 1920, finally allowed women to vote, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) founder Crystal Eastman, an ardent suffragist, was not interested in a victory celebration. She wanted women to use their newly minted political power to promote true freedom and equality, regardless of sex. “Now We Can Begin,” she urged, in a still-renowned speech.

September 10, 2020

Time to revisit forest management

Not only is the world in the grasp of the COVID-19 pandemic, but America’s western wildlands are burning up as well.

September 3, 2020

U.S. Postal Service was never a business; stop treating it like one

When the Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin as the first Postmaster General, our nation had not yet been founded. The Bill of Rights would not be drafted for another 16 years. Yet nearly two and a half centuries later, the United States Postal Service’s ability to provide every person in America with a private, affordable and reliable means to exchange information transformed it from a mail delivery service into a baseline for the exercise of American constitutional rights.