Reading Time: 5 minutes Turns out Barack Obama was right about guns and religion. During his successful 2008 presidential campaign, he alluded to white, blue-collar manufacturing workers in America who were terribly incensed that their well-paying jobs and comfortable lives had vaporized in globalization during the previous quarter century: “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling […]
Violence
Posted inViolence
The terrible ‘blast effect’ of AR-15s
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s about time. Finally, a major news outlet—The Washington Post—had the temerity to show, in 3D, the obscene damage inflicted by high-velocity, needle-nosed bullets from AR-15-type long guns as they blast into and tumble through bodies, leaving “gaping holes” where they exit. In a special report Tuesday, unflinchingly titled “The Blast Effect: This is how […]
Posted inViolence
‘Guns don’t kill…transgender terrorists do’—the latest in culture war opportunism
Reading Time: 5 minutes The news has sent waves across America: A former pupil returned to their Nashville elementary school to gun down three children and three adults. What happened was horrific. As we discuss the terrible ordeal, no discussion should take away from this reality. What the shooter did was disgusting, and when we seek understanding of what […]
Posted inViolence
When is killing justified?
Reading Time: 5 minutes I watched uncomfortably as a municipal employee expertly slit the terrified little goat’s throat in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. It was 1985. The tiny, skittish beast made not a sound during the quick execution, except for the hyper-nervous skittering of its hoofs slip-sliding on the concrete floor as it was dragged into the blood-smeared killing room. […]
Posted inViolence
After UVA shooting, a difference in student and faculty response
Reading Time: 4 minutes One of the emerging stories in the aftermath of a mass shooting at the University of Virginia is the stark difference in response between faculty and students. While students have asked for time and support in dealing with the shock and horror of the event, many faculty attempted to return to the planned schedule of […]
Posted inCritical thinking
Paul Pelosi’s attacker and Gamergate: Old conspiracy theories never die
Reading Time: 8 minutes On Friday morning, 42-year-old David DePape attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul at their home in San Francisco. Internet sleuths quickly found that his extensive internet footprint began with one of the dumbest conspiracy theories to sprout in decades: Gamergate. No matter how many years separate us from Gamergate, it never seems to go away. There’s […]
Posted inRacial justice
The capitalist roots of anti-Asian hate
Reading Time: 9 minutes More policing is not the solution to anti-Asian hate crimes, says political scientist Susan Kang. There is a flawed system in play.
Posted inViolence
Blaming the victims: Revisiting one of the lowest moments of Francis’s papacy
Reading Time: 4 minutes One of the greatest failures of Western journalism has been the refusal by major news outlets to hold religious leaders accountable for their harmful actions. The men who claim to speak for the divine are too often taken at their word, and too rarely challenged when their word contradicts reality. This bias has not served […]
Posted inViolence
The one unbeatable trait of the aspiring mass killer
Reading Time: 9 minutes CN: Sexual assault, homicide I had a passion for serial killers in college. The topic, not the people. Armed with an investigative mind and a passion for the intersection of psychology and crime, I was seriously pondering a career in forensic psychology as a way to marry my knowledge of violent criminals with my desire […]
Posted inFree Expression
The word and the knife
Reading Time: 4 minutes The attack on Salman Rushdie is the latest clash in the battle of the ages: peaceful speech versus those who want to control everyone’s thoughts with violence.