No time to be normalizing the abnormal

July 10, 2019

The U.S. women’s soccer team won the World Cup final on Sunday with a splendid shutout against the Netherlands. President Trump said last week that he will fete the team in the White House, despite his annoyance with Megan Rapinoe, a star player who said in graphic and emphatic terms that she would not accept Trump’s invitation. I hope the whole team will decline, as well. This probably sounds like spite. But a congratulatory visit to the White House would merely reinforce the idea that everything in our republic is fine. It’s not. And every American citizen should ...

Fixing food system starts with the waste

July 10, 2019

Our food system is in crisis. In Maryland alone, one in every nine people is food insecure. In Baltimore, approximately a quarter of the population lives in food deserts, meaning they do not have easy access to healthy fruits and vegetables in grocery stores. When you expand this globally, billions of people are either hungry or eating too much of the least nutritious kinds of food. Yet, food waste is rampant. In the U.S., we waste between 30% to 40% of our food supply. That is equivalent to tossing out 133 billion pounds of food and pouring $161 billion down the drain annually. ...

Globalization without the U.S.

July 10, 2019

There is a new global phenomenon that the U.S. media largely have ignored, but that may have a big impact in the future: Call it “globalization of the rest of the world,” or “globalization without the United States.” While President Trump has withdrawn from some of the world’s biggest agreements — such as the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal and the 195-country Paris climate accord — and has announced tariffs on European, Canadian and Mexican goods, the rest of the world is signing major agreements that bypass the United States: On June 28, the ...

Alas, Mad is pulled down by its humor

July 10, 2019

What? Mad magazine will disappear from newsstands after August? Well, as Dorothy Parker is said to have said after hearing of President Calvin Coolidge’s death, “How can they tell?” After 67 years of publishing elegantly illustrated goofiness, Mad’s “Usual Gang of Idiots” is calling it quits — although not quite totally. DC Entertainment, the division of Warner Bros. that publishes the magazine, says Mad will still be available in comic shops and through mail to subscribers. But after its fall issue in August, it will just reprint golden oldies from its 550 ...

Climate change has minor winners and big losers

July 10, 2019

A terrible thought, but suppose the planet were to heat up by 2 degrees Celsius — the level past which environmental damage would be catastrophic. It would also be wildly expensive. That much warming could cost the global economy $69 trillion by 2100, according to a study by Moody’s Analytics. The consulting firm breaks down the pain country by country. Saudi Arabia would be the hardest hit. Among the larger economies, India would suffer greatly, as well as Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. But a handful would actually see their economies grow as result. Canada is most ...

Lazy people don’t immigrate to America

July 9, 2019

Earlier this year I was at my local gas station at 6 a.m. stocking up on caffeine for the commute. I joked with the young Ethiopian attendant about how haggard he looked and how happy he must be to get some rest after a graveyard shift. He smiled at me, pointing out that he still had one more job before going home. He told me that he has three jobs in total and sleeps for a few hours in the afternoon. “America!” he said, knowing that, as an immigrant from Egypt, I would understand what he meant: When you are lucky enough to come to America, you work as hard as you can to ...