VOICES

VOICES - With an ugly, abject lack of empathy constituting what now feels like another deadly epidemic  - of not illness but ill will -

HEALTH CARE - Fifty-six years ago Congress enacted Medicare to provide health insurance for people ages 65 and older and the disabled regardless of income or medical history.

NEW GEOGRAPHY-These are times, to paraphrase Thomas Paine, that try the souls of American optimists.

RACIAL RECKONINGS - Republican efforts to ban the teaching of the history of racism in public schools picked up steam when the corporate "bill mill" the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) hosted a workshop on December 3, 2020 called "Against Critical Theory's Onslaught."

COMMENTARY - Sexual predators don’t deserve to be on the Supreme Court. No way, no how. And now that we have two, we need to remove them, starting with the low-hanging fruit. 

COMMON DREAMS-New Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data out Wednesday shows that life expectancy in the U.S. fell by one and a half years in 2020, a decline fueled in large part by the deadly coronavirus pandemic. 

EASTSIDER - When you think about it, the reality is that homelessness has only been an inconvenience for most Angelenos since they have been under the radar except when our politicians wanted to pass taxes to “help them.” Then came Echo Park Lake and most recently, Venice Beach. 

Over the July 4th weekend, I interviewed two-time presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich about his latest book, The Division of Light and Power.

VOTING RIGHTS-This week marked the one-year anniversary of the death of the civil rights icon, conscience of Congress and king of Good Trouble John Lewis, who over 50 years fought, bled and almost died for what he deemed "the soul and heart of the democratic process" - the right to vote.

MISINFORMATION INFECTION — The article that appeared online on Feb. 9 began with a seemingly innocuous question about the legal definition of vaccines. 

SPACE TRAVEL-Just minutes after touching down following his successful and brief suborbital flight on Tuesday, billionaire Jeff Bezos expressed hope that humankind will ultimately develop the capacity to move the industries that have heavily polluted and warmed the Earth into space—a vision that one critic slammed as "delusional, toxic nonsense."

PEACE VOICE-Fundamentalists and Republicans who dominate Mississippi put “In God We Trust” on car license plates, forcing all drivers to promote religion.