Some 4,000-year-old dogmas, like the Bible’s “eye for an eye,” never die. State-sponsored killings have morphed over millennia (from stonings, beheadings, burning at stakes, firing squads, gas chambers, lynchings, and electric chairs to lethal injections) but continue apace. In the United States, the federal government and the 27 states that still impose the death penalty […]

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It’s high time to declare nuclear weapons obsolete. The U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—entering into force January 22, 2021—underscores the most perilous environmental threat to humankind, a threat that cannot be ignored by the Biden administration. Eighty-six nations, not including the United States and other nuclear weapons states, have signed the treaty […]

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You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. When people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails call their parents (say, on Mother’s or Father’s Day), they pay through the nose. A 15-minute in-state call can cost $7.50 from a jail in New York and up to $18 in other states. This is especially bizarre […]

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Raising children is expensive. A typical middle-class, two-child family spends $13,000 annually on each child, or nearly a quarter-million dollars per child in total through age 17. This tally includes neither college costs nor the cost to a family of putting money aside to help the children attend college, which itself can easily run another […]

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Reflections on the path forward, from Severine von Tscharner Fleming, a farmer, activist, and organizer who runs Smithereen Farm, an organic wild blueberry, seaweed, and orchard operation at the edge of Cobscook Bay, Maine, that’s certified by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and hosts summer camps, camping, and educational workshops.  A bit about […]

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