As I begin this essay, the Senate is on the verge of passing historic legislation to tackle the climate crisis, reduce prescription-drug prices, raise taxes on big corporations, and extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, among other things. (Update: the legislation […]
While what happens on Twitter–the memes, the controversies–may not resonate with or represent the experiences of the general electorate, many of the trends are illustrative of, and often exacerbate, fundamental challenges to our democracy. Consider so-called Hot Takes, which are […]
Of all the literal and figurative poisons floating around our world–the carbon emissions heating up the planet, mercury, microplastics; bigotry and hate; war and authoritarianism–the most dangerous is despair. For as soon as we succumb to hopelessness, we lose sight […]
Thursday, July 14, 2022, is a day that will live infamy. I was with my parents, enjoying an evening during which they got to watch our three-year-old son take a swim lesson, when I received the news alert I had […]
I found a cricket in my kitchen, wounded, on its back,
little legs flailing as if it could walk upside down. I heard..
no chirps, no yelps of pain, no cries for help;
I lacked the heart to crush him. Gently, I carried him
Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v Wade and left it to the states to decide whether a woman has autonomy over her body, it’s worth taking a peek under the hood of the “pro-life” viewpoint.
I’ve written that everything is an everything story, by which I mean that, in a global economy that is hyper-connected–physically, via supply chains, and digitally, via the Internet–it is difficult to separate one issue from another. For instance, climate change […]
For most of us, when faced with a law or policy we don’t like, our options are to comply with it, or, failing to do so, risk fines, imprisonment, job-loss, and ostracism. But for the powerful, it’s very different: they can comply, sure, but they can also lobby to change the rules, bend them, or simply ignore them–and rarely face consequences.
We are all mourners now, our clothes
funeral shrouds we tear off our backs
when the time comes (and it will come);
in one pocket we carry brushes for tidying
the graves we stumble on in schools, churches,
nightclubs, concerts, grocery stores, streetcorners…
The other afternoon I was driving to pick up my three-year-old son from preschool, as I do every week day, when something funny happened. Now, I should note that I drive a black, 2016 Tesla Model S that has never […]