The images circulating from Cataluña today are unnervingly reminiscent of another era. Not since the dissolution of Francisco Franco’s fascist state in the 1970s has Spain looked like this. Following orders from the central Spanish government in Madrid, hundreds of members of the Guardia Civil and Policía Nacional, helmeted and dressed in black riot gear, […]
Lead
Whither the War on Drugs?
Note: This is the fifth and final piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the earlier stories here, here, here and here. In December, I wrote that the election of Donald Trump would likely put a hold on many of the criminal justice reforms that President Obama had advocated, many of which once seemed to […]
Does Major League Baseball Need A Salary Cap?
Major League Baseball is the last holdout in a sports landscape dominated by salary caps. The NBA installed one in 1984, and the NFL followed suit a decade later. The NHL was the most recent adopter, instituting a cap in 2005. If history is any guide, there will be an MLB salary cap within our […]
Aging Inmates, Little Release
Note: This is the third piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the introduction here and the second piece here. American prisoners are getting old. Harsh sentencing laws from the 1980s and 1990s mean that more inmates are reaching retirement age behind bars. These aging inmates are forcing some prisons to provide […]
Light Years Behind: All-Star Edition
Welcome to the first installment of Light Years Behind, a (hopefully) weekly look into the National Basketball Association. Editor’s Note: if you come here expecting the in-depth analysis offered elsewhere at the Bowdoin Globalist, then PROCEED NO FURTHER. What follows is an exercise in whimsical nonsense. Which NBA Players Embarrass Themselves the Most? A Completely […]
The Fatal Flaw of Border Security
Maria Ochoa will not forget the day in June 2007 when her party stumbled upon human remains while searching for an undocumented immigrant in the southern Arizona desert. We were looking for a young woman that had stayed behind with her uncle and her husband because her uncle had become ill. She was seven months […]
The Insidious Myth of In-Person Voter Fraud
As American democracy faces its greatest test, its core is rotting. Legislation disguised in the name of electoral integrity is making it worse.
Losing the Game
American professional sports have a tendency to get wrapped up in grand narratives. The N.B.A. star who was homeless in high school but now makes millions on the court. The baseball team that makes an improbable and unprecedented September run. The hat trick. The Cinderella story. The Hail Mary. Professional sports have also created the […]
To Save Our Athens
Can an ancient historian’s masterwork provide the keys to defeating ISIS twenty-four hundred years later?
Why Taiwan’s Millennials Are Challenging Cross-Strait Identity
The youth’s new ideas about who they are may settle a struggle started by their grandparents.