A story of the megarich run wild, and those who paid the price.
United States
Detroit’s Water Crisis
“If you’re wealthy enough in Detroit, you can have water. If you’re not wealthy enough, you can’t have water.” This is how Dr. Peter Hammer, the director of the Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University, characterizes the latest developments in Detroit’s financial crisis. In what the United Nations has declared a violation of […]
Divestment: Efficacy and Impact
The fossil fuel divestment movement emerged at Swarthmore College in 2012. In three short years, divestment has evolved from a small campaign among student activists into a mainstream movement with commitments from universities to churches to the $860 million Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Currently, over $50 billion has been divested from fossil fuels. The movement urges […]
Ferguson, Dissent, and Containment: Militarized and Racialized Policing in the United States
Following police officer Darren Wilson’s murder of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August of this year, national media attention has been directed toward racial profiling in a supposedly post-racial America, as well as the excessively forceful response of law enforcement to demonstrations following Michael Brown’s killing. The unrest in Ferguson has […]
The Death of Chess
It’s relatively clear that Bobby Fischer, the famously infuriating, enigmatic and opinionated American chess demi-god, recognized the importance of his 1972 World Championship match series against Boris Spassky. Cold War hyper-drama, a life in pursuit of literally one thing—world number one—and a realignment of the entire chess world, it was all there. Yet Fischer, hours […]
The Northeastern SJP Case
In a motion that has incensed free speech advocates across the country, Boston’s Northeastern University has suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) until 2015, after the organization engaged in a leaflet campaign around school dormitories. The university has also pursued disciplinary action, including expulsion proceedings, against two group members. The leaflets […]
Limits of the Obama Doctrine: Counterterrorism, Syria, and Ukraine
Two tendencies define the Obama Administration’s approach to armed conflict: retrenchment from inherited wars and minimal military involvement in new crises. Since taking office, President Obama has tried to readjust American foreign policy to reflect new political and fiscal constraints. Seven years of war under the Bush administration wore down the electorate’s patience for foreign […]
Reforming Maine’s Human Trafficking Laws
Although many are familiar with the devastating affects of the sex trafficking industry, it is easy to disassociate ourselves from the issue, and see it as an international problem on which we can have little impact. Sex trafficking is the international, national, and local trade in humans for the purpose of sexual slavery. The victims […]
Keystone XL: Our Politics Must Catch up to the Science
The Problem On May 4, 2012, TransCanada Corporation sent an application to the State Department for a proposed pipeline that would run from the Canadian border to Nebraska. Keystone XL, if approved, would be the fourth phase of the Keystone Pipeline System (three phases are already in operation). When completed, the pipelines would carry up […]
Fighting the Cure
Health has been praised as the most successful sector of the development field, with its easy measurability, its poignant visibility, its attainable fix in the form of vaccination and, notably, its removed place from the messiness of politics, at least in comparison to economic or education policy. However, as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) […]