Archive
In OtherWords: March 21, 2018
This week marked the 15th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In OtherWords, Brown University expert Stephanie Savell runs the numbers on the human and economic costs of that decision, and they're simply stunning. Every American, she writes, has basically...
15 Years After the Iraq Invasion, What Are the Costs?
This March marked the 15th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In 2003, President George W. Bush and his advisers based their case for war on the idea that Saddam Hussein, then dictator of Iraq, possessed weapons of mass destruction — weapons that have never...
Don’t Make the Border a Wasteland
Some Americans think of the U.S.-Mexico border as a wasteland. In fact, the mountains and deserts of our borderlands are teeming with wildlife. Here you'll find large cats like the jaguar, the subject of my research. Jaguar sightings have been reported in New Mexico...
Billionaires Won’t Save the World — Just Look at Elon Musk
Will Mars save humanity? Or will our savior be billionaire Elon Musk? Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, humbly believes we don’t have to choose. Mars will save us, he promises, and Musk himself will engineer this Mars miracle. In 2019, Musk claims, SpaceX will start...
Nurses Are Calling #TimesUp on Domestic Abuse
Few people think of nurses like me as being on the frontlines of domestic violence prevention, but we are. Among the thousands of patients I’ve treated, I’ve seen countless women who were abused. When my decades of experience and instincts as an ER nurse prompt me to...
To Believe In Science, You Have to Understand How It’s Done
I met a climate crisis denier today. It came out of nowhere. I was getting my camera repaired, and I was chatting with the repairman afterward. Just before I left, he dropped into our conversation that he didn't believe in manmade climate change. After all, the earth...
What’s the Point of Satire Anymore?
Some might call the Trump administration a murderous mob. Specifically, they've been serial killers of the English language. The word "fact" was their first victim, assassinated last year by one of Trump’s mobsters who poisoned it with a toxic substance named:...
The ‘Other Shoe’ Just Keeps Dropping on the White House
In OtherWords: March 14, 2018
This week, thousands of students are walking out of classrooms all over the country to advocate for stronger gun control measures. In case you missed it, we've covered this issue a lot lately: Mitchell Zimmerman says that putting armed guards in schools is no...
Teachers Deserve a Raise. Here’s How to Fund It.
Teachers are ready to revolt. That’s the message we should take away from West Virginia, where educators in every county went on strike recently. The teachers secured a major victory, including a 5 percent raise for state employees. The win couldn't be more...
