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Columns/Opinion

Population decline isn’t the problem. Hungry kids are

Humanity is about to turn a major population corner, according to a new estimate. A recent article in the Lancet predicts that by 2030, we’ll no longer be reproducing fast enough to replace ourselves.We aren’t about to go extinct, but this is an unexpected trajectory. As recently as 2017, the United Nations predicted human numbers wouldn’t peak until 2100 when we’d reach more than 11 billion people. According to the new estimate, our numbers could rise from the current 8.1 billion to a maximum of just 9.5 billion before declining by the early 2060s.While a catastrophic ...

We are bowling alone

A quarter century has passed since Robert Putnam released “Bowling Alone,” his heralded work on America’s decaying social fabric. The book was sobering at the time. Things are worse now: Not only are we still bowling alone, but now we’re playing an altogether different game.Putnam was fascinated by whether Americans were abandoning those very institutions — family, schools, places of worship, community organizations, even the voting booth — that, historically, have bound us together. Were we pulling back from those civic centers that gave our collective lives meaning, he ...

The Supreme Court’s role in our partisan polarization has been greatly exaggerated

Conventional wisdom suggests that the Supreme Court, like the country, is deeply divided along partisan and ideological lines. But this overlooks the court’s historic recent run of unanimous decisions and the fact that the liberal and conservative justices often don’t vote as blocs. Court critics tend to respond to these inconvenient realities by saying something like, Sure, but on the big cases, the culturally divisive ones, the conservatives form the majority and the liberals the dissenting minority. This is obviously true sometimes. The Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe ...

How the little guys lose under Trump’s tax plan

The late Sen. John McCain didn’t much like Obamacare, but in 2018, the Arizona Republican pulled it out from under then-President Donald Trump’s hatchet. Why? Because McCain saw the “skinny repeal” measure as a sneaky attempt to eviscerate the health coverage of little guys to free up money for tax cuts favoring the wealthy.Hold that thought as you look upon Trump’s vow to extend much of his 2017 tax cuts in a second term. Here are some shocking numbers:Extending the tax cuts would cost $4.6 trillion over 10 years at a time of already high deficits, according to the ...

DIY a special platter for Dad this Father’s Day

Father’s Day is this weekend and I am so excited to shower my husband with love and appreciation. I know in my household, my husband does so much for our family and never expects a thank you in return. So, that is why I love Father’s Day so much. It’s a day or weekend devoted to him.   Now, my family can attest to this — I am not the craftiest person in the world. Most the time my crafts end up looking like one of my children did them. But that’s OK, because I found the cutest craft and I’m going to have my kids help me make it for their ...

Extend outside playtime with fun, easy game

Now that it is summer, I let my kiddos stay up a little later than normal since they don’t have to wake up early for school. It makes me think of how I would spend my summer nights when I was little. I used to love going outside and playing flashlight tag with my cousins and seeing how many fireflies we could catch.  I found a super fun activity to do with the kids in the backyard once the sun goes down, called glow in the dark bowling. Now, technically you could do this inside your house as well and just turn off all the lights, but I thought my kids would have fun doing it ...