The boomer versus millennial grudge match is silly
At a recent family dinner, various younger relatives were talking about music streaming services and began to wonder aloud whether Pandora was still around. They, of course, use Spotify.
Broad immigration deal may be unlikely, but can’t all agree to protect DACA youth?
The complexity of immigration issues is hard to exaggerate. On one hand, Donald Trump promises to immediately deport tens of thousands of people a week without anything akin to due process if he returns to the White House.
Financial literacy is good for Americans, and for the country
As this year’s presidential election gathers steam, there’s going to be a lot of emphasis on getting young people to vote. Since 2020, about 16 million young people have come of voting age, so you can bet that the presidential candidates will make their pitches to motivate these young Americans. And organizations like Rock the Vote will try to engage young voters as well.
Struggling to get help with college through the FAFSA? Here’s why you shouldn’t give up
Applying to college and navigating the financial aid process is never easy, especially for first-generation students. But this year has been unusually challenging because of problems with the rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.
How can the world make immigration work? Ask Canada
Canada’s population surpassed 40 million last year, recording its highest growth rate since 1957. The vast majority of this growth — 97.6% — was from international migration, both permanent (almost 500,000 people) and temporary (just more than 800,000). As a cosmopolitan and classical liberal, I applaud this kind of openness. Yet it also worries me.
Running gag: Gag order is opportunity to show Trump consequences
After Donald Trump used the occasion of Acting Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s gag order in the hush money criminal case to smear the judge’s own daughter, Merchan expanded it to include the families of himself, DA Alvin Bragg, prosecutors, witnesses and court staff.
When crime comes for Congress, it funds the police
Congress can’t solve the nation’s problems, but its members know what to do when the “defund the police” movement endangers their own personal safety.
House Republicans can’t even do the right thing during a disaster
It’s as if Republican lawmakers can’t help themselves when it comes to anything requiring bipartisanship — even in the face of disaster. How else to explain their churlish response to the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore?
As I See It: Seven Seas
Can you name the Seven Seas? Well, there are 4 oceans you can probably name and lately the part south of 56 degrees has been called the Southern Ocean. That’s the part where the wind blows uninterrupted all the way around the world. That makes 5 what about the other 2? The phrase is something we could call ancient wisdom, but it’s really an obsolete factoid.
The real AI nightmare: What if it serves humans too well?
The age of artificial intelligence has begun, and it brings plenty of new anxieties. A lot of effort and money are being devoted to ensuring that AI will do only what humans want. But what we should be more afraid of is AI that will do what humans want. The real danger is us.
Why would anyone want a paleo diet? We’re desperate for half-truths about human origins
Can anyone offer a compelling, accurate story that explains the nature of humanity from its earliest origins? Scientist-intellectuals have tried to do so at least since the sci-fi author H.G. Wells struck gold in 1919 with “The Outline of History,” his influential attempt at telling “the whole story of man.” This effort endures as a trend. Jared Diamond, E.O. Wilson, Yuval Noah Harari, and David Graeber and David Wengrow are just some of the more recent authors to attempt grand accounts that veer from their professional training — and presume to explain human nature itself.
Nuclear families aren’t the ‘traditional’ ones. The Bible is full of blended and chosen families
In this election season, our newsfeeds will be flooded with stories about the culture wars. In the 1980s, when I was growing up, these issues were shaped by what was then a new force in politics, leaders of the religious right. As a kid in this era, I was strangely fascinated with the radio show “Focus on the Family,” a precursor to the booming right-wing media landscape that exists today.
Bring buttons and dials back to new cars. Touch screens distract drivers
As cars go electric and get more technologically advanced, their interiors are increasingly being built around prominent dashboard touch screens.
Westside Stories: Letter to the mainland
Aloha Dave and Mary,
Letters to the editor for Thursday, April 4, 2024
Kim: Big mahalo to the Benioffs for aid
Democrats could hit fail safe button to keep Trump from taking office
Desperate Democrats have a last ditch fail safe button in their back pocket in case Donald Trump wins the election – invoking the Constitution’s insurrection clause in Congress to block him from taking the Oval Office.
Changing America’s political tone starts in our classrooms
With a presidential election just months away, many Americans are enduring 2024 with a sense of dread.
California judge right to disbar Trump lawyer John Eastman
A California State Bar judge has recommended the disbarment of former Donald Trump adviser John Eastman, a onetime fringe academic — among his longtime obsessions partly overturning the 14th Amendment to kill birthright citizenship — who came to occupy a central role in the former president’s efforts to undo the 2020 election.
Letters to the editor for Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Longer council
American happiness just hit a new low. Don’t blame your parents
Lately I’ve been looking forward to turning 60 and celebrating with a slug of strong black coffee, the way I once aspired to turn 21 with a rum and Coke. Why? Because I’m retiring? I wish.