Last spring, in a three-part series, Allison Rutz assessed the scope of the opioid crisis in America. The series also analyzed the long-term policies in place to combat the failure of America’s health system to provide treatment to addicts. While long-term problems and proposed solutions will be critical to addressing the opioid epidemic, there are […]
United States
What We Talk About When We Talk About Sexual Assault
Disclaimer: This article takes the stance that sexual assault is a predominantly male problem. Yes, women can also assault, but ninety-nine percent of perpetrators are male. Additionally, this article primarily talks about women as the victims of sexual assault. WOMEN ARE NOT THE ONLY GROUP IMPACTED BY SEXUAL ASSAULT. Members of the LGBTQ community, children, […]
Why Culture Cannot Be Our Politics
There has not been a time in recent memory during which the liberal cause was in more desperate need of something new. In an election where the GOP nearly imploded before running Donald Trump as its candidate, the Democrats got swept. As the current iteration of the Democratic party is woefully short of leadership and […]
Mourning the Soul-Sucking of San Francisco
“Get to San Francisco,” Jack Kerouac wrote. “Get to San Francisco in defiance of your geography, your ancestry and the lonely change rattling sad excuses in your pocket.” For him, and for the generations after him, San Francisco was something mythic and untouched. A bohemian haven by the Pacific for artists and creators, a place […]
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 […]
Same Shift, Different Democracy
From Hillary Clinton’s email scandal to allegations of Russia’s hacking the the DNC, the 2016 American presidential election dominated the news cycle for well over a year. Characteristically, more controversy unfolded as the votes were cast. On Tuesday, November 8, Donald Trump won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received […]
Church of Trump
Is Donald Trump a good Christian? Ideologically, as Bill Maher declares, Trump seems to be “his own God.” In terms of methodology, however, Trump’s religious outlook seems to be both the natural consequence of and historically consistent with religious thought in the United States. As in most other areas of his campaign, when it came […]
Civic Awards
On November 20, 2013, President Barack Obama bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on one of our country’s most renowned and respected national heroes. The woman who inspired millions of Americans with expressions such as “you can have it all” and “think like a queen” stood up from her chair and the president himself put […]
The New Left Breaks Ground in New York
As the first state in the nation to reach a deal that will make the tuition of its public colleges free, New York has been hailed as a pioneer of affordable higher education. The only restrictions to the grant program are that students must be residents of New York with a household income of less […]
The Questionable Nature of Carbon Neutrality
The city of Burlington, Vermont, sits along beautiful Lake Champlain in a valley between the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks. It is home to Bernie lovers, University of Vermont students, and dozens of farm-to-table restaurants. Sitting on a bench in downtown Burlington, you can notice the distinctive character of Burlington: hybrids are the preferred car; […]