Our global security system, based in who has the most and the most modern weapons to enforce deterrence, is gradually becoming irrelevant, undermined by the ever-intensifying climate emergency. If any given nation is experiencing droughts, floods, and unbearable, even life-threatening heat, what difference does it make if its government possesses more nuclear weapons than its adversaries?
Browsing: Opinions
Racism is not merely prejudice or bias; it is a systemic serial killer that stalks Black lives across generations. It weaponizes institutions, social policies, and cultural norms to inflict harm, shorten lifespans, and deny dignity. Unlike a lone assailant acting in the shadows, racism is a coordinated structure—visible, persistent, and lethal.
The last time my beloved alma mater, Johnson C. Smith University won a CIAA Football Championship was 1969. That’s a long time ago by any barometer that you use. I live in another time zone, yet my clock is always on JCSU time.
The awkward canonization of Dick Cheney
The world of our screens has many of us dreading Thanksgiving. The things old friends and family members post on social media convince us in an instant that they’ve lost any semblance of sanity. But time in person quickly reminds us that we actually love them and still have far more in common than we don’t.
Democrats lost two presidential elections to a charlatan and the party’s approval rating is abysmal. A Wall Street Journal poll conducted in July showed their favorability at only 33%. They should understand why they lost voter confidence and recognize how it happened.
The US has forged a peace proposal with Russia that, as the French are putting it, amounts to Ukraine’s capitulation. For President Volodymyr Zelensky, the worst possible world stares him in the face—a world in which Ukraine must sacrifice territory and self-defense to gain something resembling peace, and Russia must sacrifice nothing yet gain everything it has asked for and more. It is a dangerous moment for Ukraine in more ways than one. An investigation into corruption in Ukraine has found that allies of the president have enriched themselves during the war.
My interest in conflict and war goes back decades. In 1961, the film Failsafe starring Henry Fonda as the U.S. president presented a dire warning about the nuclear arms race taking off. It revealed our vulnerability: human error, miscommunication, and technological failure. The tragic ending was shocking. Film director Kathryn Bigelow’s new A House of Dynamite is equally gripping, demonstrating to viewers the reality of our modern world, our closeness to global destruction. Failsafe was alarming. House of Dynamite is foreshadowing.
When we think of power, the word itself commands that we carve the concept into something isolated and wieldable: a sword, a gun, a scepter. Power means power over. There is no basic concept of power – no word for power in the English language – that also means collaboration, collective participation: people working together, individually empowered at the same time that they are part of a larger whole.
The first “massage” was only the beginning. In the years after, Lisa’s relationship with Epstein grew into something far more intricate than a predator and prey. She visited his Manhattan mansion. She went to his office. Some sessions were professional, other times not. Sometimes they talked for hours. Other times, she knew it would end in abuse. But the environment never felt entirely hostile: he maintained the guise of mentorship.