The hue and cry for a police-less society is serious stuff. For some advocates, the term “defund the police” refers simply to making victimless crimes (drug use, etc.) the responsibility of social workers rather than police officers. But to others it means eliminating law enforcement entirely. Is such a condition possible? Can a society function
READ MOREI’ve been feeling discouraged lately. My guess is that many others are in the same boat because of the same thing. Here it is, summertime, and although we’re trying to come out of the lockdowns, we’re still battling COVID-19 and we may be doing so for quite some time given the recent surge of cases,
READ MOREIt is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks. –Tacitus It’s very important for institutions of concentrated power to keep people alone and isolated: that way they’re ineffective, they can’t defend themselves against indoctrination, they can’t even figure out what they think. –Noam Chomsky
READ MOREOn November 5, 1996, Californians headed to the ballot box to weigh in on the California Civil Rights Initiative – aka Proposition 209 – to end government discrimination. The measure, modeled on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, read: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group, on the basis of race,
READ MOREFive thousand, two hundred years ago, long before Stonehenge, long before the Pyramids, farming communities in the Boyne Valley of Ireland built a gigantic passage tomb, called Newgrange. It covers 4,500 square meters, or more than one acre, of ground. The builders heaped alternating layers of stone and earth until it was 12 meters high.
READ MOREI have lived in the East Bronx neighborhood of Morris Park practically my entire life. Predominantly Italian until recently, Morris Park still retains a strong Italian flavor. The Italian language of the neighborhood Nonas fills my ears; the first dishes I cooked without Mom’s help were all Italian (the ingredients purchased at nearby fruit and
READ MOREChicago recently experienced the most violent weekend in its history: 85 people were wounded by gunfire and 25 people were murdered on Memorial Day weekend between 7 pm on Friday, May 29, and 5 am, Monday, June 1. “We’ve never seen anything like it at all,” said Max Kapustin, of the University of Chicago’s Crime
READ MOREIn March, Princess Pope was forced to close her business – Guns and Roses Boutique, located in Dallas – because of the coronavirus. Then things got worse. Shortly after she was allowed to reopen, Pope’s store was vandalized and looted during the protests and riots that erupted following the death of George Floyd. “I can’t believe it,” Pope told
READ MOREDear Mayors and Governors, In his book The Best Words, Robert Hartwell Fiske, once editor and publisher of the online Vocabula Review, defined kakistocracy (kak-i-Stock-rah-see) as “government by the worst, most unscrupulous, or least qualified citizens.” As one of his examples of usage, he offered this excerpt written by James Russell Lowell in 1876: “What fills me
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