Archive
You Don’t Matter to Drugmakers
If you wonder why Congress critters keep ignoring what the people want them to do — while doing things that people don't want them doing — take a peek at the unique PR campaign now being run by the pharmaceutical industry. The public is dismayed and disgusted by the...
The GOP Experiences Extreme Weather
In OtherWords: February 24, 2016
This week in OtherWords, Olivia Alperstein laments Gloria Steinem's take on why so many young women are feeling the Bern, John Kiriakou draws attention to the shocking state of health care for incarcerated women, and Anastasia Walker weighs in on anti-trans bathroom...
Real Feminists Don’t Tell Women How to Vote
I didn’t look up to Wonder Woman or Lara Croft as a child: I had women like Gloria Steinem. I was the type of girl who cut my dolls’ hair short, insisted girls could do anything boys could, and invented stories where brave female protagonists always outsmarted the bad...
Journalists Should Stand Up for Whistleblowers
The Obama administration’s ongoing crusade against government whistleblowers — which culminated last year in the imprisonment of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling — has reignited a debate over the role journalists should play in defending their profession and the...
Public Hoopla over Private Parts
As the recent attention lavished on figures like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner attests, trans visibility continues to rise in the United States. But that doesn’t mean life is suddenly easy for us transwomen. Take something as simple as obeying nature’s call. Trips to...
The Unelectibility Winning Streak
To use a phrase that doesn't come readily to my lips: “Well I’ll be danged.” New Hampshire, that bastion of sensible conservatism and rectitude, gave us not one unelectable candidate, but two — Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Trumpmentum has only edged up since then...
A Greener Leap Year
What if an extra hour somehow slipped into your day? Aside from most Arizonans and all Hawaiians, Americans get to ponder this question in early November as Daylight Savings Time gets underway. I usually fill this gap with some combination of reading, cooking, and...
America’s Killer Prisons
I get a lot of letters from people who’ve been incarcerated, or are now behind bars. Legally I can’t respond directly, because I’m an ex-con myself: I was locked up after blowing the whistle on the CIA’s illegal and immoral torture program. Direct contact with current...
Walling off Common Sense
“We're going to do the wall," Donald Trump told a cheering crowd of supporters in a victory speech following the South Carolina Republican primary. He was reiterating his fanciful promise to wall off the entire U.S.-Mexico border — and force Mexico to pay for it....
