Author
LGBTQ kids need protection from bullies and violence, not adults targeting and bullying them too
I grew up in a struggling, post-industrial Ohio town in the 1990s where ignorance and intolerance often reigned. I stood up to bullies my whole life, and when put under physical threat, I fought them. No bully can intimidate me, and so even though I was definitely a weird kid, I was also funnier, smarter, […]
Studies show gains against childhood hunger were lost after child tax credit ended
An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October confirmed previous research that food insecurity increased substantially after the expiration of federal monthly advanced child tax credits on Jan. 15, 2022. The study looked at the period between January and July of this year in a series of national surveys, and found […]
America is amusing itself to death and hack politicians are taking advantage
Explicit and implicit validation of election denialism is paving the path toward destruction In 1985, Neil Postman’s crowning achievement, “Amusing Ourselves To Death,” provided the most prescient analysis and forecast of the current lobotimization of American public discourse. Postman’s work drew a distinction between the Orwellian vision of a totalitarian government seizing individual rights and […]
Ohio Republicans’ attempted erasure of a 10-year-old rape victim is incredibly sick and disturbed
The first and most important thing to recognize right now is that a heinous, violent crime was committed on a 10-year-old Ohio child, and thankfully justice has now found the alleged perpetrator. A Columbus man was indicted last Wednesday in a case that made national and international headlines about a 10-year-old girl who had to […]
A Republic, if we can keep it: Now is not the time for despair, but renewed and relentless action
Most of us have heard the tale: As Benjamin Franklin walked out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin is said to have responded, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” This Independence Day, many Americans feel betrayed and […]
We have the tools to build an extraordinary civilization. We ought to use them
Too often sharing the news feels like being a messenger of madness. Every day, foundational democratic institutions suffer sustained assault while a corrupt, extremist right-wing tyranny over Ohio politics and policy reigns. As important as it is to chronicle the “first draft of history” by finding the facts and holding power to account, the American […]
Orwell only wrote one introduction of an Animal Farm foreign translation. It was for Ukraine
Eric Blair, pen name George Orwell, was not perfect as a person, but then, who is? Nevertheless, Orwell got the three major issues of the 20th Century right: He was anti-imperialist, anti-fascist and anti-Communist/anti-Stalinist. Orwell’s military days in Burma taught him the human atrocity of the British Empire: “I had already made up my mind […]
What GOP efforts to dominate the federal courts are really about
Talk from Republican senators about "rules" and "precedent" is nothing but a smokescreen U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has used his leadership position to exercise raw political power in shaping the federal judiciary for many decades to come, and he’s been enormously successful. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has brought McConnell to the zenith of that power.