Environment

A Choice of Planets, a Choice of Oceans: Congress Goes All Out for Outer Space, Ditches Mother Earth

By |

Does the discrepancy mean that the United States is more interested in finding some sign of life in planetary space than in preserving life on planet Earth? Does it mean that America’s elected representatives have concluded that Earth’s problems are intractable and it is time to move on, letting the rest of the world fend for itself? Or is the explanation simpler: space research and development have a constituency – and a Hollywood-enhanced glamour – which research related to the atmosphere and the oceans’ depths lacks?

Gender and Sexuality

From Apartheid to Trump

By |

So, on Tuesday night, I watched with shock as a man who is undeniably racist—not to mention misogynist and xenophobic—was democratically elected to the highest office in the country. No, he didn’t win the popular vote; and yes, the Electoral College is an obsolete system. Nonetheless, half the country voted for this man. Indeed, we are more divided than we knew.

General News

In Memory of Gwen Ifill

By |

There is so much bad journalism running helter-skelter through the land that when the world loses one of its premier journalists, it is a moment to pause and to grieve. Gwen Ifill, co-anchor of the “PBS Newshour” and host of “Washington Week”, died November 14th from cancer. She was 61-years-old. Many journalists who were her colleagues and friends have spoken and written about her as a person. They have commented on her excellence as a journalist, about her no nonsense approach to the work of giving the public solid information with which to understand the world around us.

General News

Want democratic institutions to hold? Stop pretending there's a "campaign Trump" and prepare to fight an autocrat

By |

The following refrain has been heard repeatedly since the course of American history forever shifted on Tuesday night: Maybe President Trump will be different than candidate Trump.
It’s a refrain which has been uttered by NBA commentators, pundits, politicians, and everyday Americans hoping that Trump’s fascist rhetoric was nothing more than a vote-whipping device. It’s a refrain which has been repeated by those who believe the dignity of office of the presidency, indeed the Oval Office itself, somehow has the power to humble and shape those who hold it. It’s also a refrain which has been spoken by those who never believed Trump could win the presidency in the first place.

General News

The Day After Election Day

By |

Now we know the face of the United States of America: Donald Trump. Trump has been elected to serve as the 45th president of the United States. The president is not only chief executive and commander-in-chief of the military, the president is both the head of government and the head of state. To be the head of state means that this person represents the United States in his or her person. As of this writing, Secretary Hillary Clinton received more votes than Trump, meaning more Americans wanted her to represent the nation to history and to the world, but Trump won the Electoral College math.

General News

Election Day 2016

By |

“It’s really something every two years we get to overthrow the government.” Aaron Sorkin through Amy Gardner, a character on “The West Wing”
Election Day is the day We the People take our power back. (It ought to be a national holiday, but that is another essay.)
It is easy to feel powerless in this world. We watch our Congress engage in unprecedented obstruction, and it seems there is nothing we can do about it. For the better part of a year, the Supreme Court of the United States has functioned with only eight members because Republicans in the senate decided to ignore their constitutional responsibility and refused to give President Obama’s nominee to the high court either a hearing or a vote.

General News

Donald Trump: The Picture of the GOP

By |

In the Oscar Wilde novel – “The Picture of Dorian Gray” – a young handsome man looks upon a portrait of himself and wishes that the picture would grow old instead of himself. Mystery grants his wish, and he never grows old. Not only does his face never reflect the corruption of aging, but the physical effects of his sins show only on the picture. His cruelties, debaucheries, depravities, vulgarities, and even murder turn what once was a representation of youth and beauty into an ugly grotesquery, a witness to his sordid monstrousness. As this much too long presidential campaign comes to an end, I say that Donald Trump, the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, the man elected by Republican voters and half-heartedly supported by the GOP leadership, is not some stranger from a strange land that has kidnapped an innocent political party and turned it into something that it is not.

General News

It's Happening Right Here, Right Now: Review of It Can't Happen Here at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre

By |

Despite the play’s ultimately hopeful conclusion, these images of totalitarian violence within American borders are haunting. It Can’t Happen Here serves as a chilling reminder of what lies just around the corner when fear overcomes a nation, when power is placed in the hands of those with the flashiest campaigns, and when hate speech and misogyny become normal — and accepted — parts of political discourse. All of these things are already happening here, and we are closer than we think to living out the same plot line. And unless we begin to admit this, we might as well be cheering Trump right into the Oval Office.