In spring 2017, billionaire businessman Warren Buffett called the American healthcare system “the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness.” In other developed countries, healthcare is not an impediment to the business model—businesses don’t have to pay for it for their employees. In the United States, the opposite is true. Employers often pay big money to provide … Read more
For many millennials, voting is a civil right not often exercised. While previous generations fought and bled for the right to vote, not all millennials take civic engagement seriously. Some members of older generations may blame this apathy toward voting on millennial passivity and disrespect for civic values. However, this view forgets that older generations … Read more
Irma, Harvey, Matthew, Sandy, Irene—the increased number of natural disasters in recent years has made storm names eerily familiar. Things will only get worse in the future. A model from the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory indicates that warming by the end of the 21st century will likely increase tropical cyclone intensity by 2 to … Read more
Five years ago, a single-payer or ‘Medicare for all’ healthcare model in the United States was considered a pipe dream by all but the most progressive voters. Today, half of all Americans, almost two-thirds of Democrats, 15 U.S. Senators, and the majority of Democratic representatives support the plan. Although the idea is young, it has … Read more
After President Donald Trump’s election, environmental activists across the country feared the worst. He had promised to cancel the Paris agreement, shrink the EPA, rescind the Clean Power Plan, revive the coal mining industry, scrap wetland protection rules, and tweeted in 2012 that global warming was a Chinese hoax. As partisanship over energy and … Read more
“Innocent until proven guilty” is a principle of justice that we claim to hold dear. We demand proof of guilt through due process of law before punishing an individual—either informally, through public condemnation, or formally, by legal means. The crimes of sexual harassment and assault pose a unique challenge to this principle. The rash of … Read more
Karthik Chandramouli has always been an active citizen. Growing up in Kentucky as the only son of two Indian immigrant professionals, Chandramouli recalls his third-grade classmates in 1979 being unable to tell him apart from the Iranian refugee in their class. The experience sparked his interest in the politics of racial justice and civil … Read more
On a quiet Mississippi road, one evening in June 1964, a gang of Ku Klux Klansmen attacked three workers canvassing with the Congress of Racial Equality. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, all under 25, had volunteered their summers to register African Americans throughout Mississippi to vote after decades of suppression by Jim … Read more
= Four American F-15 pilots in Alaska. For Gina Ortiz Jones, the military was more than just a career: it was a path to the American Dream. “I know what it’s like to be on free and reduced lunch. I know what it’s like to live in subsidized housing,” Ortiz Jones said in an interview with the … Read more
In the 1970s, the most coveted consumer goods in China included a radio, bicycle, sewing machine, and wristwatch—the “four big items.” These were replaced in the 1980’s with color TVs, refrigerators, cameras, electric fans, washing machines, and tape recorders—“six big items.” Today, many urban households are more concerned with private apartments, private cars, computers, and … Read more