politics
LGBTQ happiness booming in … Bhutan?
Reading Time: 4 minutes The tiny, landlocked Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan would hardly seem a likely haven for an LGBTQ revolution. After all, this mountainous Asian country of fewer than a million inhabitants is far more famous for its arch-conservative Buddhist traditionalism and quaint “Gross Nati
Is America on the precipice of Civil War II?
Reading Time: 5 minutes The American Civil War is still far from over. A powerful metaphor for this worry was the violent insurrection Jan. 6, 2021, at the US Capitol, during which a Confederate battle flag was carried triumphantly, by an aggrieved Southerner, through the hallowed confines of Statua
Nancy Pelosi’s swan song implies America is a Christian nation
Reading Time: 3 minutes US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s epoch-ending, gavel-passing speech Thursday on the floor of the House demonstrated—the Founding Fathers’ vision of secular governance notwithstanding—how casually and normatively embedded Christianity remains at the summit of American governmen
Anonymity, privacy, transparency, integrity: Do we even know the future we want?
Reading Time: 8 minutes In the late 2000s, research blossomed around our use of online avatars. Did our videogame icons and social media profiles represent our actual selves, our ideal selves, or something else entirely? And did they have a reciprocal impact, a “Proteus effect” that transformed self
‘Free speech’ must be reformed before it destroys US democracy
Reading Time: 7 minutes The midterm elections are over. But, in a sense, it doesn’t matter—because the virulent, now-years-long epidemic afflicting American politics remains: cynical Republican mendacity, which is to say, purposeful lying and duplicity—spearheaded by former president Donald Trump. A
COP27 Climate Conference: The change we need vs. the change we’ll get
Reading Time: 4 minutes Last November, government ministers at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) agreed to The Glasgow Climate Pact. It was both ambitious, in setting key targets for emissions reductions by 2030, and also heavily criticized, including by the Sc
Vote for character, not shady characters
Reading Time: 3 minutes When you go to the polls to vote in Tuesday’s midterm election, if you didn’t vote early, keep one word in mind: character. The critical importance of that under-emphasized virtue to the health of the republic is eloquently underscored in a wise (as always) essay by David Fre
Do MAGA minions realize they’re voting for more poverty and disrespect?
Reading Time: 6 minutes As the 2022 midterm elections loom large, it appears MAGA devotees have everything bass-ackwards. Do true believers in the overwhelmingly white, Christian, over-65-retiree MAGA base actually believe that Republican leaders, if elected, will give them what they truly want? Mor
Report: At least 318,981 dead Covid anti-vaxxers can thank Trump
Reading Time: 6 minutes White Americans are now more likely than Black Americans to die of COVID. That’s just one more telling artifact littering the landscape of destruction Donald Trump’s one-term presidency inflicted—and continues to inflict—on the United States. In the early days of the pandemic
Trump was never king of Twitter. This guy was (and is)
Reading Time: 3 minutes Among the more depressing news tidbits I recently ran into informed me that Georgia Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has 1.1 million Twitter followers. 1.1 million! It’s true. I checked. By comparison, I have, uh, 170 followers (.00001545% of Greene’s), which m
Survey: How authentic are Christian evangelicals? Not very
Reading Time: 2 minutes “American evangelicals, it turns out, have a Jesus problem.” This quote by self-described evangelical Christian Republican David French came in a September 23 post of his newsletter, “The Third Rail” in The Atlantic. Referencing a report released last week on a biannual surve
The Scientist Rebellion: What will it take to get the world’s attention?
Reading Time: 8 minutes The Scientist Rebellion calls for more people “on the inside” to take up the struggle against government inaction. But where does the movement fit into broader climate change activism, and is its degrowth message enough?