Archive
Don’t Give Up the Fight
My social circle was shaken a few days into the new year with an upsetting blog post. A friend I will call Mary is seriously ill. The blogger requested loving messages to her to be sewn into a quilt. This bombshell began a flood of phone calls, emails, and Facebook...
Inequality Is Costing Us Big-Time
Have you ever wondered what inequality costs the average American family? That is, what price do we pay — in actual dollars and cents — for tolerating an economy fixated on pumping our treasure to the top? That question has no simple answer. How much, for instance,...
Remembering the Greatest ‘Babe’ in Sports
I recently addressed a rather odd topic for an audience of political progressives: "Who was your sports hero growing up?" Of course, sports today is very political — from billionaire team owners demanding that taxpayers build sports palaces for them, to the recent...
When Bootstraps Won’t Work
You’ve Got Food
Armed with hefty grants from the Pentagon, squads of food technologists are on a mission to supplant nature with a great leap forward into the Brave New World of synthetic foodstuffs. Not satisfied merely to tinker with the genetic makeup of nature's products, these...
In OtherWords: January 14, 2015
This week in OtherWords, Khalil Bendib shares his perspective on the Charlie Hebdo massacre and I explain why the Keystone XL pipeline is a waste of money. Do you want to make sure you don’t miss the latest from OtherWords? Please subscribe to our free weekly...
Building a More Inclusive World
While the rest of America was preparing to bid farewell to the least productive Congress in history, people with disabilities and their loved ones celebrated a rare victory when Congress passed the Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act. The ABLE Act, which...
Scrubbing the Air of Smog
I can only imagine the fear that must grip a parent when his or her child suffers an asthma attack. And I can scarcely fathom how much time and energy they spend doing everything they can to avoid triggers for these potentially deadly attacks. A major asthma trigger...
Pipeline to Nowhere
When Maria van der Hoeven summed up the 20-year outlook for global energy investment in London last year, she identified a couple of daunting challenges. The amount of money required by 2035 is a staggering $48 trillion, the International Energy Agency chief and...
The War on Hen-Pecking
Chickens had plenty to celebrate on New Year’s Day. Supposedly. After a long wait, California’s 2008 ballot measure to improve conditions for laying hens finally went into effect. Instead of living in cramped cages that give each bird less room than a sheet of paper,...
