By Michael Scollon ( RFE/RL) – National Clean Air Day was not a cause for celebration this year in Tehran, where many residents were shuttered in their homes for their own safety to avoid exposure to the Iranian capital’s infamous and deadly smog. In the run-up to January 19, the day Iran dedicates to promoting […]
Archives for May 2023
Are the Best Years of My Country Behind Me? Reflections on a Long-Ago Tour of Los Alamos and the Trinity Atomic Test Site
( Tomdispatch.com) – I turn 60 this year. My health is generally good, though I have aches and pains from a form of arthritis. I’m not optimistic enough to believe that the best years of my life are ahead of me, nor so pessimistic as to assume that the best years are behind me. But […]
A Final Burial for the Arab Spring: Arab League Readmits Syria under al-Assad, as Tensions with Iran Subside
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The foreign ministers of the Arab League states, meeting in Cairo on Sunday, approved the end of Syria’s suspension from membership in that body. Syria was suspended in November 2011 as the Syrian Arab Army was deployed to massacre civilian protesters. The decision was a recognition that the Baath government […]
Bernie Sanders unveils push for $17-an-hour federal minimum wage, citing state increases
By Ariana Figueroa ( Florida Phoenix ) WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday announced Democrats’ plans to mark up legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour, pointing to an increase in the cost of living. Outside the U.S. Capitol, Sanders, a Vermont independent and chairman of the Health, […]
Israel is a powder keg waiting to blow
By James Sunderland, University of Oxford | – The death in custody on May 2 of Khader Adnan, the first Palestinian to die of a hunger strike for more than 30 years, sparked mass protests in Gaza and an exchange of fire between Israel and armed Palestinian groups. It was later announced that a ceasefire […]
Iraq Gas Flaring Tied to Cancer Surge
Antonia Juhasz Senior Researcher, Environment and Human Rights @AntoniaJuhasz ( Human Rights Watch) – Ali Hussein Jaloud, an Iraqi man barely in his 20s, died April 21 of leukemia, a disease Ali and his family attributed to the pollution from the oil production and constant gas flares that surround their community in the southern […]
Sir Gawain and the Green King: What can Newly Crowned Charles III do to Combat the Climate Emergency?
Revised Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We can argue about the character of Charles’s philosophy of nature and whether it is conservative or not. I don’t really care about the origins of his concern for the dangers we face from the climate emergency. I’m just glad he takes this stance, unlike so many of his […]
Not the Onion: U.S. Supreme Court Justices take Gifts – Then Raise the Bar for Bribery Prosecutions
By: Marty Schladen – ( Minnesota Reformer) – Justice Clarence Thomas might be the most egregious when it comes to taking gifts and not disclosing them, but he’s not alone. His colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court also haven’t been shy about taking fancy freebies from rich people — many of whom have an interest […]
Not a Flood, not a Surge, not Illegal: Retire This Dehumanizing Language About Immigrants
By By Daniella Prieshoff ( Otherwords.org ) – Last year, my client Susan called me to discuss her immigration case. During our conversation she referenced the news that immigrants were being bused from the southern border to cities in the North, often under false promises, only to be left stranded in an unknown city. In […]
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