So, January 25-31 is “National School Choice Week.” Break out the bubbly! The event, put on annually by a coalition of lobbying groups, advertises itself as “an unprecedented opportunity, every January, to shine a positive spotlight on the need for effective education options for all children.” I’m sure most “school choice” advocates firmly and honestly support that goal. Unfortunately, their…

To paraphrase Homer Simpson, Reason is the only magazine with the guts to tell it like it is — that everything is just fine. This time Jim Pagels (“Misleading Inequality Report Is Nothing to Fear,” January 22) reassures us that inequality’s nothing to worry about, despite Oxfam’s “misleading” recent report that the 1% may soon have more…

On Saturday, January 17, the Yellow Stone River, perhaps the most celebrated aquatic system in North America, was heavily contaminated by nearly 1200 barrels of oil. Al Jazeera America reports the leak’s environmental damage stretches from the river to surrounding farmland in Glendive, Montana. Particularly, the report tells the story of Dena Hoff, now experiencing…

As usual, the State of the Union address was a top to bottom massacre of verbiage. Every year the English language struggles to survive an onslaught of what can only be described as total verbal hangover from a year of rhetorical binge drinking. Somehow, some way, one man manages to stand on a platform (while two other…

On January 14 the US Department of Justice announced that the Joint Terrorism Task Force had disrupted the latest “domestic terrorism plot” — this time by “a Cincinnati-area man … to attack the U.S. Capital and kill government officials.” House Speaker  John Boehner immediately cited the disrupted plot as evidence that Congress should think carefully before refusing…

The entire purpose of the language of terrorism is to cloak the sentiments of war in a victim rhetoric. You see, France isn’t “at war,” they’re merely responding to “terror” attacks. Those wretched, vile gunmen are not warriors or soldiers, they’re madmen, lone wolf terrorists. The attack on Charlie Hebdo‘s office on January 7 might otherwise be…

The US Supreme Court’s announcement on January 16 that it will decide the constitutionality of state-level bans on same-sex marriage has elicited the predictable whining about judicial activism. The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins pleads “there is nothing in the Constitution that empowers the courts to silence the people and impose a nationwide redefinition of…

The critically acclaimed film Selma‘s conspicuous absence from Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor for David Oyelowo’s portrayal of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. follows its concerted targeting by flunkies of Lyndon B. Johnson outraged by its portrayal of friction between King and the arch-war criminal president. One leading critic,…

I was first made aware of the horrific attack on Charlie Hebdo employees by my mother. She was watching the rolling news coverage, phone in hand, trying to contact my father who was travelling on the Eurostar at the time. A wave of panic rushed through me; the sense of being far removed from such…

What do you call someone who wants to steal your land and subject you to earthquakes? David Koch, who favors these things, calls himself a libertarian. In an interview with Barbara Walters last month on ABC’s “This Week,” he described himself as “basically a libertarian.” That label, as Koch sees it, means “a conservative on…

On Friday, January 9, US president Barack Obama traveled to Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee. Here, Obama announced plans to make an associate degree as obtainable as a high school diploma. Deemed “America’s College Promise,” the new plan, according to Obama, will bring community college tuition down to zero for students. The plan…

Speaking in Knoxville, Tennessee on January 9 US president Barack Obama unveiled an initiative to provide two years of community college tuition-free, nationwide, to anyone meeting attendance and grade requirements. The idea, inspired by a similar program in Tennessee, aims to make two years of college as universal as high school is now. Obama’s proposal is in…

The deplorable attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, in which terrorists killed 12 and wounded 11, incited several reactions from the public, the sensitized media, and heads of state who hope to extract political gain from the matter. Amidst the generalized panic, Islamophobia has risen once again (due to the religious motivations of the attack) and…

Last November, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) launched a ten-year drive to end “the scourge of statelessness.” In December,  UNHCR Senior Regional Protection Officer on Statelessness Emmanuelle Mitte appealed to journalists (in west Africa and worldwide) to promote the effort, citing the press’s “responsibility to carry out advocacy, and sensitisation on the issue.” But the campaign, starting…

Re-elected New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s inaugural address was built around the purported necessity of big government since “there is no small solution to big problems.” Cuomo’s exemplar of a big government solution success story from New York state history: The Erie Canal. But that megaproject was not just a prototype for the industrial age’s spectacular engineering…

As a veteran of the US Marine Corps (1984-1995, “honorably discharged”), I’ve always found the obligatory “thank you for your service” remarks somewhat grating. It’s difficult to explain why, but a Google News search returning 19.1 million media results in the last 30 days on the dual terms “veterans” and “service” indicates a need for re-examination of the whole…

It’s 2015. Has anyone seen our flying cars? How about the tranquility and economic security that, beyond the cool gadgetry, created the appeal of the 2015 of Back to the Future Part II? Why do they seem as absent as its faxes and laserdiscs? And why, midway through the half-century anniversary of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair,…

Good news, everyone! The police of New York City are on strike. Over the past week, arrests rate have dropped by 66% versus annual expectations, with traffic enforcement down 94%. As a result, New York did not rip itself apart in a wave of disorder. People were not executed on the street. Society did not collapse. This poses a…

Another year is over. The New Year holiday is a natural time of reflection. When the ball drops and fireworks pop in the early January sky 2014 will be gone. A whole new year of human history will begin. A whole new year to continue our beautiful struggle. If there is one fact our collective history…

Partisan combatants have quickly taken up sides in the public debate over US president Barack Obama’s preemption of a wedding planned by two US Army captains at a course at which he wanted to golf. Obama’s defenders stress that the White House was unaware of the planned wedding until after scheduling the president’s game. They…