One of my hesitations about moving to Texas (in addition to the weather) was that I wasn’t crazy about living in a state of the old Confederacy. Although the Civil War was a long time ago the stench of treason in defense of slavery still lingers in places like Texas. Also living in Texas has […]
Today the IPCC came out with “A Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming a 1.5C” Essentially, it outlines how bad things will get as the Earth’s climate increases to 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels but also how much worse things will get if the Earth warms to 2 degrees celsius above […]
The ascension of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is a terrible thing for the country but it is clarifying. America is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. The Republican Party has gone all in on white nationalism (in addition to ensuring the rich pay nothing in taxes and American is continually engaged in […]
International order is in flux. With the U.S. governed by the racist grifter Donald Trump and a complicit in his crimes Republican party American leadership of the liberal international order is in serious question. So what comes next? It’s an interesting time in that there is a space for a more virtuous and left wing […]
Texas, as everyone knows and everyone here likes to state over and over again, is a big state. This is both in terms of population and geography. Because of these two factors Texas also resettles a lot of refugees. I think people from outside the state are still surprised at the ethnic diversity of places […]
In my previous post I highlighted the different rates at which the 50 U.S. states (and Washington D.C.) resettle refugees. On a per capita basis, North Dakota on average resettles more refugees than other states. The next question to ask then is why? Why does North Dakota resettle more refugees than others? The resettlement process […]
Where are refugees in the U.S. resettled? Another way of asking this question is what states resettle the most refugees? The Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services keeps track of the number of refugees resettled in which states. It should be no surprise that the states with the […]
Gene Sharp passed away on January 28th of this year at the age of 90. He was not well know among the broader public or the academic world at large necessarily but was well know to those schooled in the traditions of non-violence. He was one of the best and most important theoreticians of non-violence. […]
The 2018 Winter Olympics are starting next week which is great because I love watching the Olympics. The Winter Olympics are especially fun because they have so many weird ass sports like curling* and luge. The Summers Olympics also have their share of ridiculous sports but I mainly watch them for the wrestling since […]
The one year anniversary of the Trump administrations “travel ban” (first iteration) is approaching. The bugled role out of the executive order caused tremendous chaos at airports and border areas. The inherent racism of the order engendered a tremendous backlash against the policy as seen by the massive number of protests at airports and other […]
