Let Sports Be Political

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Last Friday night at a rally in Alabama, President Donald Trump called for those NFL players who knelt during the national anthem at games to be fired. He was referring to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who started kneeling during the anthem last year in protest of police brutality against black men. Others have recently kneeled in protest and in solidarity with their fellow football player Kaepernick, also starting the twitter hashtag #ImWithKap.

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A Moveable Feast

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Ernest Hemingway’s book A Moveable Feast was published posthumously in 1964. It is composed of poignant sketches looking back on Hemingway’s time in France with his first wife and their baby Jack, known as Bumby. It is set after World War I, when Hemingway was an unknown, struggling American writer living in poverty above a sawmill, writing in the cafes and roaming the streets of Paris. 

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Recontextualizing our Nation's History

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On an early morning this July in Demopolis, Alabama, a black police officer who fell asleep on patrol crashed his car into the town’s Confederate monument and toppled it over. It was purely accidental, but the damage was irreparable. Demopolis had to make a decision about the fate of the stone Confederate soldier, now broken at the shins. After deliberations among the mayor and a special committee, the town council voted to replace the statue with an obelisk honoring all fallen soldiers. They gave the Confederate statue a new home in the Marengo County History and Archives Museum.

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Is a Nuclear North Korea Inevitable?

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In a meeting with President Trump last November, President Obama described North Korea as our country’s biggest national security threat. Given that Kim Jong Un has threatened to carry out a nuclear strike on our nation for years and has failed to follow through, Obama’s concern seems overblown. However, the “hermit kingdom” has recently upgraded its weapons system and is becoming the imminent danger many fear. Unfortunately, we may now be powerless. It is probably too late to take decisive action without accepting an enormous death toll, even though passivity will bind us to an intolerable future.

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Men’s Rights Activists

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Following her appointment as Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos made headlines by meeting with organizations affected by Title IX, groups that included the self-declared “Men’s Rights Activists.” Her actions prompted a swift backlash from feminist groups, many of whom declared it a “slap in the face” to rape victims.

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Why Secretary Tillerson Should Resign

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After his appointment in January, many American diplomats were optimistic about the new Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. They hoped he would use his extensive managerial experience as CEO of ExxonMobil to bring much-needed reform to the State Department. Instead, he has done long-lasting damage to the department and continues to tear apart the values and goals of American diplomacy.

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