After months of protesting the Dakota Access pipeline near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, the Standing Rock Sioux and their supporters have finally broken into mainstream American awareness. Their plight has garnered news coverage in widely read media, from a FAQ in Popular Science to editorials in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and
The times, they are a-changin’. In a stir of the demographic pot just as sudden and unsettling as the party shift that the United States went through in the 1960s, we are now, today, voting in the first Presidential election of what I perceive as a new era in the relationship between the two major
On the eve of the 2016 election, it is time to take stock of our situation and our prospects. First, we must dispense with the notion that either of the monied candidates is on our side. They are not, nor is the plutocratic class that the next president will front. We are on our own
In Part 2, I discussed how a crisis in American manhood, sparked by the loss of jobs and opportunity, is leading not just to hopelessness, addiction, and suicide for men, but also in misogyny, xenophobia, and a vicious Presidential campaign. Where do we go from here? Having a society full of hopeless and jobless men
In Part 1, I mentioned that the current election cycle is bringing the meaning of manhood into the national conversation, and discussed the biological roots of the differences between males and females. This is basic knowledge, but why is it important now? For most of our history, the collective was more important than the individual.
Donald Trump’s media-circus candidacy has been bringing plenty of cultural taboos to the fore for all to see. This being the USA, any contest between a man and woman for the highest office in the land was doomed to draw trolls and patriarchs out of the woodwork, but the Trump vs Clinton contest has been
Today is Hallowe’en, a traditional time to scare each other and scry into the future. And what a perfect time to do so, with a frightening verdict to report, and mischief that is sure to follow! Unless you’ve been stuck in a dungeon for the last several days, you’ve probably heard that Ryan Bundy and
In a surprising intrusion into the 2016 presidential election, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Director, James Comey, issued a letter to Congress on Friday indicating that the Bureau is again investigating emails associated with Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. Whatever the merits of the investigation, its announcement 11 days prior to
There is no doubt that the internet is an incredibly useful invention, arguably one of our greatest innovations as a species. Without it, how could we use Facebook to “check-in” at WalMart, see pictures of the surface of Pluto while we’re waiting for the bus, or reset our home thermostats while on vacation in Hawai’i?
In August 2015, contractors working for the EPA were attempting to clean up the Gold King mine near Silverton, Colorado. Acidic water, laden with harmful metals like lead and arsenic, was backing up inside the abandoned mine. The entrance to the mine had been plugged on the cheap, and the force of the backup of