Reading Time: 7 minutes Many myths carry the modern world, and high on that list is the myth of international relationships. One country cannot “be” friends or enemies with another country, but its representatives can play out an illusion of fraternity or animosity for economic or ideological ends. Alternately, when the game no longer serves, world representatives can take […]
News Brief
Posted inNews
Sticking the landing: India’s moon shot, Prigozhin’s plane, Xi’s absence, and Africa’s entrance
Reading Time: 5 minutes One lucky lander escaped the world’s nonsense this week, when on August 23 India celebrated being the first country to successfully set down near the moon’s south pole. Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander holds a rover equipped for 14 days of exploration, to improve our understanding of lunar geology. The successful landing came days after Russia’s own […]
Posted inReproductive rights
Victory in Ohio: Issue 1 goes down in flames
Reading Time: 3 minutes Issue 1, a cynical attempt to persuade Ohioans to vote away their own power, goes down to resounding defeat. The way is cleared for reproductive autonomy to become a protected right in the Buckeye State.
Posted inEducation
Landmark High Court win for UK humanism
Reading Time: 4 minutes A recent High Court judgment recently found in favor of a humanist, and Kent County Council will not appeal the decision. This has been seen as a landmark ruling. The event might ignite discussions of whether or not humanism should be designated a religion. When looking at the definition for humanism as per the Humanists […]
Posted inPolitics
Beyond warring narratives: The struggle for US democracy
Reading Time: 7 minutes US news has found two incompatible ways to talk about threats to democracy. Is the US is on the verge of losing its democracy if Trump takes office in 2025? Or is he the savior of that democracy, rescuing it from liberals run amok? Missing from the conversation is a deeper way of returning to normal civic discourse.
Posted inWar and Peace
Was it right for the US to give Ukraine cluster bombs?
Reading Time: 9 minutes Munitions of every kind have horrific outcomes. The hope in Ukraine is bringing this war to the best conclusion in the quickest timeframe.
Posted inWar and Peace
So this is NATO: Sweden, Finland, and Ukraine’s year in bids
Reading Time: 6 minutes On Monday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan promised to advance Sweden’s bid for membership to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Hungary, the only other hold-out for Swedish inclusion in the military alliance of 29 European and 2 North American states, agreed to follow suit if Turkey’s legislature ratified entry. Hours later, the US approved the […]
Posted inClimate Crisis
Broken heat records—and the promise of more
Reading Time: 4 minutes Another set of broken heat records has devastating implications—not only for human thriving in the coming years, but also the inability of consequences from past failings to stir global action to some better end.
Posted inWar and Peace
The ethical quagmire of Jenin, for all of us
Reading Time: 6 minutes As I noted in a four-part series on Israel and the West, writing on Middle Eastern conflict is plagued by the immediate search for bias, with which to dismiss any competing intel from “the other side”. Al Jazeera will always report with certain priorities. The Times of Israel will report with others. And as situations […]
Posted inLaw
Along party lines: SCOTUS decisions and US schisms
Reading Time: 10 minutes Another term for the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has closed after a week of controversial rulings, and with the promise of a contentious Second-Amendment issue on the next session’s docket. In a bit of grim humor earlier this week, a social media meme proclaimed that, having mastered submarine engineering, keyboard warriors were currently getting their […]