Pietro

The one thing that will make American football continue to have relevance is when all players, on both teams, led by their quarterbacks, take the knee during the singing of our National Anthem. Taking the knee, a practice of soldiers honoring their fallen comrades, is an act of respect. Taking the knee during the Anthem

One of the challenges of a fragmented, partisan, hostile political landscape is to get reliable insight into conversations you disagree with. Recently, we have discovered that Russian agencies are seeking to amplify social division in the U.S. However it is unfair to (only) blame the Russian government: they are amplifying something that is already here.

This is a weird post. But it needs to be said, publicly: Republican leaders need to challenge President Trump, and if necessary, impeach him and remove him from office. Why? In order to restore some credibility for the Republican party for future generations. The Unites States needs at least two credible political parties to struggle

The candidacy of Bernie Sanders in 2016 and the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 have demonstrated that Americans are reconsidering Socialism carefully, and that Socialist candidates can get elected. The problem for Americans is that Socialism is an ambiguous term. It can mean political economies ranging from Denmark and Sweden to the USSR and

Note: this Amendment was drafted by some friends of mine. I like it, and believe it deserves wide consideration. I will comment on it below the text. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT XXVIII: “Rights of the People” Section 1 The Federal Government shall mandate and provide free, universal, “single payer” healthcare to any and all US citizens, or permanent residents,

For security reasons I do not specify the dates and times of my travel to and from Afghanistan. However at this point my official duties to the Afghan government are over, and I am back in California for the long term. This is an important time for both places: both struggling with housing crises. Both

Captain Shults has just exemplified a Third-Wave feminist principle in the most extraordinary way. The basic tenet of feminism is that women should enjoy equal treatment under the law, and in public social practices. Since Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), there have been multiple waves of feminism as a philosophy, a political

During the fall of 2017 I noted some online disagreements about the quality of the most recent Star Trek franchise, Discovery, and the overtly campy alternative, the Orville. I have not watched Discovery as of this writing, so I will not comment on it nor compare the Orville to it. But since I have been

Oprah Winfrey as President; Kamala Harris or Anita Hill as Attorney General (the other as Vice President); Bernie Sanders as Secretary of Labor; Tammy Duckworth as Secretary of Defense; Elizabeth Warren as Secretary of Treasury; Sherman Alexie, Secretary of Interior; Michael Pollan, Secretary of Agriculture; Bill McKibben, Secretary of Energy; Michelle Obama as Secretary of

Left-leaning journalism in the U.S. has settled into a consistent hostility towards the U.S. president. This blog posting was provoked by a Fresh Air interview of Evan Osnos, who astutely tracks the way that Xi Jinping of China is quietly taking over a geopolitical leadership role from Donald Trump. I don’t disagree with the details—I