By Jan S. Gephardt We rarely think to ask a fundamental question: what should police do? What part should they play in a multicultural, representational democracy? The ubiquity of police forces around the world argues that many societies believe police do have a role in civilized life. But what – exactly – should it be? As a novelist whose primary characters are science fictional detectives, I am in an unusual position, both to ask and to answer this question. But…
This post is late, and it will have to be short. Disorders of several sorts have beset close family members in recent days, and as a result a certain level of chaos reigns. When such things happen in our personal lives, we may feel as if we’ve been run over. Photo by Ryan M. Kelly – The Daily Progress/AP But actually being run over is much, much worse. We have glimpsed recent new horror (including synagogue congregants, holed up in fear while Nazis marched outside in American streets) in Charlottesville, VA, where “all…
Wow. It’s over. Are you feeling a little ragged from post-election burnout, today? We are now living in the wake of one of the most divisive, dysfunctional US presidential-election cycles most of us can remember. Psychologists even talked about “election stress disorder,” while the madness continued, and worried about the very real havoc it wreaked on people’s peace of mind. However you feel about the results, the nastiness didn’t just stay at the top of the ticket. Down-ballot races often seemed…
Artdog Image(s) of Interest We often hear that the United States is a great big melting pot, where immigrants come from all over and get assimilated, so that they can become Americans. As you can see from the style of the image above, this idea has been around for a while. This “melting pot” idea assumes the cultural differences will get melted right out, and we’ll all turn into generic Americans. Everybody will share the same cultural references, speak English,…