It's unclear if they taught this in those high school government courses that everybody slept through. But if somebody asked you what was the most important element in the legislative process, could you fake an answer to get a passing grade? The list of potential answers is far ...

If there is one thing I’ve learned in the past 12 months, it’s that as a general population, we love electricity. On Christmas Eve, December 1940, my family homestead farmhouse experienced the glow of artificial light for the first time. My Great-Uncle John wrote me a Christmas greeting ...

Former President Barack Obama liked to quote the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s line that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Of course, what was an expression of optimism for the moral reformer King was more in the nature of a victory spike of the football for ...

George Bernard Shaw’s quote, used by Robert F. Kennedy in his 1968 campaign, challenges us to dream. The full quote is: “Some men see things as they are and ask why, I dream things that never were and ask why not.” However, our instant focused society is moving so fast we don’t take ...

War is the most horrific series of events upon which any government can engage. It is systematic, industrialized, indiscriminate killing. It kills innocent adults and little girls. It often ruins the post-war lives of the killers. It is young men violently fighting old men's power games. It is ...

Sometimes Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. Back in 2020, during the spasm of violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, vandals in Baltimore, Maryland, tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus. They shattered the figure of the iconic explorer and tossed the pieces ...