As we saw in the case of Bernie Madoff, when Harry Markopolos, the man who blew the whistle on the $65-billion Ponzi scheme, admitted to living in fear of his life, whistleblower protections are not enough to ensure that internal reporting continues in order for issues to be resolved efficiently....
Everyone understands that democracy requires access to the truth about how the government acts, in the past as well as the present. US President Joe Biden’s administration was under pressure to release, on October 26, the carefully hidden documents that his predecessor, Donald Trump, decided to...
Americans typically like divided government and, on November 7, then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave them reason for that preference. Preceding a pair of run-off elections in Georgia that would decide whether Democrats would control the Senate in addition to the White House and the House...
A future historian seeking to understand the traumas that beleaguered the population of the United States at the beginning of the 21st century might conclude that the richest resource in the archives for clues turns out to be the monologues of Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Many commentators in...
Religious groups and alternative medicine advocates have always been resistant to vaccines. But in the current COVID-19 anti-vaccination movement, they have mutated into variants of the far right in a violent mush of anti-establishment conspiracies, white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Religion...
Our agriculture system as we know it needs to change. We see an enormous amount of waste in current practices through using too much water, too many pesticides that hurt the neighboring environment, and the waste of produce through imperfection or being pest-ridden. Addressing Climate...
Today’s technology-oriented, media manipulated civilization has succeeded in imposing a degree of hyperreality capable of obscuring whatever remnants of reality still remain within the average person’s field of perception. This requires a permanent effort to deviate attention from hyperreality...
In 2010, I was invited to hold a presentation titled “Will Russia someday close the gas tap?” It was a rookie mistake, early in my career, so I didn’t think about how the presentation would be advertised. I just suggested general topics I wanted to talk about in the broader context of...
The media announced last week what appears to be a major breakthrough in pandemic news. It could be a turning point in the history of a pandemic that will soon celebrate its second birthday. “In the not-too-distant future,” according to MarketWatch, “you may be able to walk into a doctor’s...
Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has been transformed into a paranoid state fanatically motivated by ensuring security at any and all cost. This obsession stems from the desire to maintain the physical security of the Chinese mainland, to safeguard Beijing’s investments abroad...
A 2014 study published by Princeton University sought to determine how political decisions were made in the United States. The study's conclusion called into question the legitimacy of calling the current political system a democracy. It had effectively evolved into a functioning...
