Commentary
What’s behind the attack on Black history? Fear, of course.
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. It’s tough to decide what’s more odious: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ racist, authoritarian, and nakedly political power play rejecting an Advanced Placement course on African American studies, or the College Board’s cowardly decision to revise the course in the face of this thuggish criticism. The board’s decision […]
Oversight will never fix what’s wrong with policing
Memphis has a police oversight board. This might seem surprising, since after local officers barbarically beat Tyre Nichols to death last month no police department in the country seems more in need of oversight. But the Memphis Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board has been in existence for almost 30 years. What’s not surprising is that […]
A democracy can’t easily penalize lies by politicians like George Santos
This commentary originally appeared in The Conversation. George Santos is not the first politician to have lied, but the fables he told to get elected to Congress may be in a class by themselves. Historian Sean Wilentz remarked that while embellishments happen, Santos’ lies are different — “there is no example like it” in American […]
Can new batteries help Aspen and Vail climate goals?
Holy Cross Energy aims to distribute 100% emission-free electricity to its 55,000 members in the Aspen, Rifle and Vail areas by 2030. How will it do that? Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Colorado’s second largest utility, has a different but related problem. It wants to best-use infrastructure associated with its coal-burning operations at Craig after the […]
Colorado should kick lawns to the curb
Over the course of the next seven years, an average 35,000 housing units will be built each year in Colorado. If past trends persist, around 70% of those housing units will be single-family homes. From Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, it’s likely that Coloradans will see more single-family suburban developments popping up — and with […]
Colorado Republicans in crisis
We learned this week that a group of El Paso County Republicans have made extraordinary allegations against their own county party chairwoman, Vickie Tonkins. The most disturbing charges involve physical intimidation. “Most recently, at the special central committee meeting, we were told we should be put in front of a firing squad and shot,” they […]
No, guns do kill people. And the solution is glaringly obvious.
This commentary originally appeared in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. My Nhan, 65, immigrated to the United States from Vietnam in the 1980s, and made her home in California’s San Gabriel Valley, in a community called Rosemead. Her niece, Fonda Quan, said she was ready “to start the year fresh,” and celebrate with her friends, according to the CBC. […]
LGBTQ kids need protection from bullies and violence, not adults targeting and bullying them too
This commentary originally appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal. I grew up in a struggling, post-industrial Ohio town in the 1990s where ignorance and intolerance often reigned. I stood up to bullies my whole life, and when put under physical threat, I fought them. No bully can intimidate me, and so even though I was […]
Why victims of revenge porn stay silent and how to help
“Revenge porn” exists not only on the fringes of society. It is disturbingly commonplace. Just last week it was reported that a Colorado lawyer had pleaded guilty to “posting a private image for harassment.” Yet, despite its prevalence, victims often live in the shadows, silenced by a host of factors. And despite the strides many […]
Fifty years later, our lives still at risk
Fifty years ago, a very different U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. Radical right-wing extremists control the Supreme Court and serve in elective office. We have fewer freedoms than we did a generation ago. We suffer, and women die because of it. When the Supreme Court ruled last June to strip away our rights […]
A speech that put NIMBYs on notice
Roughly a third of the way into the annual State of the State address delivered by Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday before the Colorado General Assembly, he said, referring to the state’s housing crisis, “We need more flexible zoning.” And with those words, along with the larger position Polis staked out on housing, he put […]
Animals should be treated with care, not cruelty
This commentary originally appeared in the Nevada Current. In recent years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been under fire for its wasteful, unproductive, and cruel experiments on dogs. Most recently, we exposed that for 75 years, the NIH has spent tens of millions of tax dollars to fund a dog colony that breeds […]