Martin Luther King Jr., the “civil saint” portrayed nowadays was, by the end of his life, a social and economic radical, who argued forcefully for the necessity of economic justice in the pursuit of racial equality.
Commentary
Is a Civil War Possible?
Despite the ugly Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, and anti-racism protests of the past few years, some of which included rioting, violent confrontation, and property destruction, America is not likely to descend into civil war in the near future, a scholar argues.
Actually, Y’All, Some of Us Would Prefer Facts with Our Politics
In the first speech of his 2024 presidential campaign, not-so-cunningly disguised as the “State of the State” address, Ron DeSantis declared, We have made Florida the freest state in these United States. He just hopes you don;t look behind the syrup.
The Problematic Novak Djokovic
Djokovic has long been a polarizing figure in tennis. The drama from the past week will inflame his supporters, infuriate his detractors, and prompt even neutral observers to take a stand in respect to his entry to Australia.
Florida Legislators Are Stealing Money from Environmentally-Sensitive Lands Pot, Without Consequences
In 2014, 75 percent of Florida voters approved an amendment to the state Constitution that said the Legislature had to spend a certain amount of money buying environmentally sensitive land. Legislators have been illegally appropriating hundreds of millions of dollars away from the intended purpose of the amendment.
Seditious Conspiracy in Jan. 6 Capitol Attack Faces 1st Amendment Hurdle
The seditious conspiracy charges announced by the Department of Justice against Stewart Rhodes raise the stakes and political temperature of the Jan. 6 investigation, and give rise to serious First Amendment concerns about the rights of others protesting government actions down the road.
Ocean Heat Set New Record High in 2021. Consequences Ahead.
Globally, it was the sixth hottest year on record for surface temperatures, according to data released by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in their annual global climate report on Jan. 13, 2022. But under the surface, ocean temperatures set new heat records in 2021.
How the Vietnam War Pushed MLK to Embrace Global Justice
By 1967, King’s religious vision for nonviolence went beyond nonviolent street protest to include abolishing what he called the “triple evils” crippling American society. King defined the triple evils as racism, poverty and militarism, and he believed these forces were contrary to God’s will for all people.
NPR’s Deft Interview of a Totalitarian Liar
Donald Trump has an iron grip on his cultish party, so it’d be a dereliction of duty to ignore him – and the existential threat he represents. But by indulging him in an interview, does that not give him more oxygen? Steve Inskeep at NPR found a way Monday to thread the needle, argues Dick Polman.
Record Quit Rates in the Job Market? Don’t Be So Sure.
The so-called Great Resignation was one of the top stories of 2021 as “record” numbers of workers reportedly quit their jobs. The problem is the data only goes back a little over two decades, which means it’s certainly possible that the rate could have been higher at several points in the past.
Full Text: Gov. DeSantis State of the State Address
The prepared text of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 2022 State of the State Address before the Florida Legislature as he opened the session. “We have 60 days to work together to build upon our rock of freedom,” he said.
How Social Media Can Crush Your Self-Esteem
Comparing ourselves on social media to people who are worse off than we are makes us feel better. Comparing ourselves to people who are doing better than us, however, makes us feel inferior or inadequate instead. The social media platform we choose also affects our morale, as do crisis situations like the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sidney Poitiers’ Biggest Role: Civil Rights
Before the 1950s, Black movie characters generally reflected racist stereotypes such as lazy servants and beefy mammies. Then came Poitier, the only Black man to consistently win leading roles in major films from the late 1950s through the late 1960s. Like Martin Luther King Jr., Poitier projected ideals of respectability and integrity. He attracted not only the loyalty of African Americans, but also the goodwill of white liberals.
Why We Are Appealing Flagler Court’s Decision Clearing the Way for Development of The Gardens on John Anderson
John Tanner, the lawyer representing Preserve Flagler Beach and Bulow Creek, the organization opposing the 335-home Gardens development on John Anderson Highway, explains why the organization appealed a circuit judge’s decision clearing the way for the development. The appeal is pending at the Fifth District Court of Appeal.
The Paris Agreement is Working, But…
The Paris Agreement agreement alone can’t save us. The global response to climate change is not generating transformation at the pace or scale we need to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
May a Christian Flag Fly at City Hall? Supreme Court Will Decide
On Jan. 18, 2022, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Shurtleff v. Boston. The case addresses whether the city violated the First Amendment by denying a request to temporarily raise the Christian flag on a flagpole outside City Hall, where Boston has temporarily displayed many secular organizations’ flags.
See the Truth, America, Biden Urges as he Blasts Trump’s ‘Dagger at the Throat of Democracy’
Biden’s speech of Jan. 6, 2022, is of interest not only because of the circumstances that led to its being necessary, but also because of the visual language it employed. The speech expressed a powerful faith in the plain truth. It asked Americans to believe their own eyes. That reflects a long philosophical tradition in Western culture equating sight or light with the truth.
Why Omicron Transmission in Triple-Vaxxed Should Not Alarm You
On the surface, it appeared that the vaccines were not working. But this depends on how vaccine protection is defined. So far, the vaccines have proven to be very good at preventing severe disease. This protection is just as important, if not more so, as they keep the vast majority of infected people out of hospital and from dying.
Not All Polarization Is Bad, But the US Could Be in Trouble
For the first time, the United States has been classified as a “backsliding democracy” in a global assessment of democratic societies by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental research group. One key reason the report cites is the continuing popularity among Republicans of false allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Sore Loser Effect: Rejecting Election Results Drives Terrorism and Hobbles Democracy
Acceptance of electoral defeat, something political scientists call “loser’s consent,” is essential for stability and order in democracies. It’s fragile. When it is broken–when losing politicians in democracies refuse to accept election results–citizens begin to see terrorism as more acceptable and domestic terrorism increases.
Could Omicron Be the Last Variant of Concern?
Omicron may not be the final variant, but it may be the final variant of concern. If we are lucky, and the course of this pandemic is hard to predict, Covid will probably become an endemic virus that slowly mutates over time. The disease might very likely be mild as some past exposure creates immunity that reduces the likelihood of hospitalisation and death.
Americanisms: Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street and Babbitt
Today we read the Sinclair Lewis of “Main Street,” “Babbitt,” “Elmer Gantry” and “It Can’t Happen Here” not for literary value but the way Margaret Mead studied the Balinese character–for ethnographic insights. Lewis’s novels are a window into an America not nearly as dated as his reputation.
A Disastrous 2021: Half the Country Is Too Dry, Half Is Too Wet
In the U.S. alone, damage from the biggest climate and weather disasters is expected to total well over US$100 billion in 2021. Many of these extreme weather events have been linked to human-caused climate change, and they offer a glimpse of what to expect in a rapidly warming world.
Eulogy for Nature: Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire
Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire,” published in January 1968, worthy of any top-100 list of the best books of the last hundred years and an essential read–and re-read-today, is a meditation, a polemic, a manifesto, a provocation, a valentine and an elegy to the red desert and to American wilderness.
Time to Treat Environmental Crime as a Crime Against Humanity
Environmental crime is still regarded a “white collar crime,” subject mostly to civil charges and accompanied by fines, when the reality on the state of the planet mandates that environmental destruction be conceptualized as a crime against humanity.
How to Make Dry January a Success
Whether this is your first attempt at a Dry January or you are a seasoned participant, there are ways you can maximise your likelihood of getting to the end of January without drinking alcohol. Behavioral science offers some insights.
God’s Plagues: Philip Roth’s Nemesis
Philip Roth’s “Nemesis” is the story of an unsuspecting Everyman who becomes a polio superspreader and turns on his fiancee, God and life. Written in 2010, the novel can be read in the age of the coronavirus as a study in grief and loss and the limits of personal, or divine, responsibility.
Adieu, 2021: Sadness, Anger and Gratitude in a Year of Miscarriages
“I am awash with emotions today–everything from sadness to anger to gratitude at this year end,” writes Chris Goodfellow as he bids farewell to 2021. “We have learned nothing in terms of our choices, behaviors and most critically our capacity for unity in face of a threat.”
Ghislaine Maxwell Guilty in Epstein Sex Trafficking Trial: What the Case Revealed About Female Sex Offenders
The majority of sex offenders are believed to be male. Charges lodged against women may include sexual abuse of children but often involve grooming or trafficking girls without engaging in the act of sexually abusing the child.
Trump Troll Chronicles: Bob Woodward’s Peril
Bob Woodward’s and Robert Costa’s “Peril,” third in the trilogy of Woodward’s books on the Trump administration, isn’t history. It’s most revealing in what it does not say. It’s tragicomedy. It’s a chronicle of trash foretold. And it’s prediction. The worst is ahead.
Crusaders: Bob Woodward’s Bush at War
Even by Woodward’s standards, this is much less a journalist’s book than a White House manifesto, a managed reconstruction of recent events not for the sake of telling the story of those events, but as a projection of events to come. What B-52s do to soften up enemy ground ahead of a military invasion, Bush At War is doing to soften up Bush’s coming war on Iraq and possibly more.
It’s After Christmas. Here’s Why It Sucks.
The holiday season is usually a joyous occasion, but many people feel “blah” soon after the celebrations. What is it about Christmas that makes people feel this way? Here are a few answers.
Call DCF: Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s The Discomfort of Evening
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, who now goes by the pronouns they/them, won the International Booker Prize for “The Discomfort of Evening,” an autobiographical novel about a 10-year-old girl who thinks she willed the death of her brother, and who watches her family and her bearings collapse after his death. The book caused a controversy due to themes of adolescent sexuality and animal torture.
Desmond Tutu, Father of South Africa’s ‘Rainbow Nation’
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu has died at the age of 90. He earned the respect and love of millions of South Africans and the world. He carved out a permanent place in their hearts and minds, becoming known affectionately as “The Arch.”
Liberal Flagellant: George Packer’s Last Best Hope
George Packer’s “The Last best Hope,” published in June, attempts to explain how the United States devolved into the furies of Donald Trump’s last year–the pandemic, the BLM marches, the Jan. 6 insurrection–by diagnosing four separate Americas that no longer communicate. It’s a dour, guilt-ridden book by a liberal looking for penance in all the wrong places.
Why E.O. Wilson Was One of the Greatest Minds of the Last 100 Years
Each of Edward O. Wilson’s seminal contributions fundamentally changed the way scientists approached these disciplines, and explained why E.O. – as he was fondly known – was an academic god for many young scientists. This astonishing record of achievement may have been due to his phenomenal ability to piece together new ideas using information garnered from disparate fields of study.
A Bit Less Normal: Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You
The young, argumentative and Irish Sally Rooney is among the rising lights of English-language literature. She’s giving the novel of ideas a boost. The impulse her works command reminds me of the old E.F. Hutton commercials: “When EF Hutton talks, people listen.” Her third novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” is her most ambitious and least accomplished.
A Few Magnificent Things That Happened in 2021
It would be easy to survey the end of 2021 and see another year in wreckage. There’s the pandemic that won’t end. Rising inflation. Climate disasters. A democracy that looks creakier by the day. But there’s unusual comfort out there.
Gov. DeSantis Seems Hellbent on Taking Us Back to the ’60s — the 1860s
Gov. Ron DeSantis likes to call this the “Free State of Florida.” If he hasn’t yet wrapped himself in the Tenth Amendment or threatened secession, it’s only because he’s been too busy playing soldiers, organizing his private battalion, rewriting the past, and trying to destroy democracy.
What Kwanzaa Means for Black Americans
Millions throughout the world’s African community start weeklong celebrations of Kwanzaa today, Dec. 27. For the African-American community, Kwanzaa is not just any “Black holiday.” It is a recognition that knowledge of Black history is worthwhile.
Our Thirty Years’ War: Schlesinger’s The Disuniting of America
What historian Arthur Schlesinger had detected in 1992 in a few trends is now orthodoxy–from both sides, neither for the better. The “ethnic rage” of diversity-preaching liberals and the fundamentalist, doctrinaire “monoculturalism” of conservatives has the country in a state of paralysis. Schlesinger wanted a renewed melting pot. But that’s not the solution.
Hubble 2.0: What You need to Know About the James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched into space on Dec. 25, 2021, and with it, astronomers hope to find the first galaxies to form in the universe, will search for Earthlike atmospheres around other planets and accomplish many other scientific goals.
The Loneliness of a Dictator: Garcia-Marquez’s Autumn of the Patriarch
Autumn of the Patriarch is a study in power unbound, unscrupulous, re-imagined rather than invented. History gave Garcia-Marquez too much material to need invention. Approaching 50 years since the novel published, it has recently come to feel more contemporary again.
How Charles Dickens Redeemed the Spirit of Christmas
Initially intending to voice his concerns about the poor as a pamphleteer, Dickens instead crafted a story about the redemption of an old miser, believing that it would garner more public attention and support. Today that story remains perhaps Dickens’ most celebrated work, A Christmas Carol.
Patriotism Recovered: Richard Rorty’s Achieving Our Country
“Achieving Our Country” is an energizing manifesto, a reminder that we are not as good as we think we are, and, atrocious as we can be, not nearly as bad, either. We are merely unachieved. With a little less despair, a little more affection, even–heaven forbid–a bit of patriotism, however defined but equally respected we can achieve more.
Is War With Russia Ahead?
A hot war with Russia is the last thing the Biden administration wants right now. Nor is an actual détente with Moscow on the horizon. But could Putin’s aggressive move raise the profile of U.S.-Russian relations in such a way as to lay the foundation for a cold peace?
What to Do About All This Holiday Stress on Your Relationship
You might already know stress can affect your own health, but what you may not realize is that your stress – and how you manage it – is catching. Your stress can spread around, particularly to your loved ones. Christmas is an especially contagious time, not just for the Omicron variant.
Louis C.K.: Sexual Misconduct, Cancel Culture and the Pursuit of Justice
Cancel culture, as a type of internet vigilantism appears fundamentally incompatible with the actualization of restorative justice because it is oriented to punishment and exclusion, leaving no space for dialogue or personal change.
Manchin Killed Build Back Better Over Inflation Fears. He’s Wrong.
What really matters is how much the bill would spend in excess of any taxes raised to pay for the program. The higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations that the House version of the bill calls for would reduce economic activity – by taking money out of the economy – offsetting some of the impact of the spending that would stimulate it.
What’s the Point of Holiday Gifts?
Shouldn’t the holiday season simply be about family, friends and food? And wouldn’t everyone just be better off spending their own money on things they know they want? Gift exchanges may seem wasteful and impractical. But as social scientific research reveals, the costs and benefits of gift-giving aren’t what they seem.