Archive
A 2-Pronged Assault on Women
We heard a lot about the "war on women" during the 2012 election cycle — mostly over Republican attacks on abortion rights and birth control. While the phrase has faded in this election year go-round, the war on women has not. The only change is that now we’re...
Inequality Will Get Worse Until There’s a Revolution
Imagine, after a deep sleep, you suffered the fate of Rip Van Winkle and woke in the spring of 2040. What might you find? Among other things, maybe a presidential candidate railing against America's concentration of wealth. Except this time, it's not the 1 percent...
We Live in a Democracy, Not a Theocracy
It wasn't so long ago when one of the most powerful justifications wielded in support of segregation was religious belief. Throughout the American South, state-sanctioned Jim Crow laws legally separated blacks from whites. Schools were segregated. Restaurants were...
The Good Food Movement Needs Science, Too
Perhaps you've heard some organic food advocates say, "We should just roll back the clock and farm the way we used to" — before modern science gave us factory farms and genetically modified ingredients. Others disagree, saying that we'd all starve if we didn't use...
Crime Can Pay if It’s Big Enough
Wow, $5 billion. That's the stunning amount Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay to settle federal criminal charges over its shameful financial scams, which helped wreck America's economy in 2008. That's a lot of gold, even for Goldman. Yet the Wall Street powerhouse says...
Tone Deaf on Trade
In OtherWords: We’ve got some news
Whether you’re new to OtherWords or have been with us for many years, thanks for your support. I’ve got some news to share with you. First, we’re celebrating. Khalil Bendib won the 2015 Grambs Aronson Cartooning with a Conscience Award for his hard-hitting and...
The Death Gap
Rich people live longer than poor people. No big news there — we’ve known that health tracks wealth for quite some time now. But here’s what we haven’t known: The life-expectancy gap between rich and poor in the United States is actually accelerating. Since 2001,...
Trump’s Bad Ideas Aren’t Un-American After All
Readers of The Boston Globe were recently treated to an unusual spectacle — a parody front page and insert filled with mock stories of how a Donald Trump presidency might play out. "Deportations to Begin… Riots Continue," read one headline, riffing on the candidate's...
This Industry is Literally Making a Killing
The 2016 presidential elections are proving historic, and not just because of the surprising success of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, the lively debate among feminists over whether to support Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump’s unorthodox candidacy. The...
