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I (Leslie) am a clinician and have been for many years. I’ve been Black for many more years, all my life. More than a decade ago, I started a nonprofit, Right to Health, with the premise that, since racism is a proven correlate to poor healthcare delivery and worse healthcare outcomes, we need to fix this. The catastrophic COVID-19 numbers showing a terrible disproportionate suffering in communities of color are only the latest in a very long list of such hurtful, life-threatening and life-ending phenomena over the entire h...
When I was born 70 years ago there was no Earth Day. That only started 50 years ago. Before Earth Day the U.S. military used to pollute. A local newspaper in Utah reported that several sites in that state, mostly military, including Hill Air Force base, have groundwater that is permanently contaminated with “forever chemicals” that, as the name implies never break down and are health hazards. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported that the Pentagon hustled a stockpile of the PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or forev...
When I was growing up a long time ago there was a presumption of prudential integrity for politicians. Yes, I suppose I was naïve, but as a boy from Minnesota I came to think of politics as a clean game in my formative years. This may explain why I am nonplussed now with the acceptance of such low standards by so many, and frankly, at this time most of them with the lowest standards seem to be aligned with President Trump out on the right. The voters rejected Trump for the most part in our midterms, but this is normal and...
I’m heading to court from my home in Portland, Ore. to Missoula, Mont. Leonard Higgins is going to go on trial in a Montana courtroom for his role in the Oct. 11, 2016 coordinated shutdown of several of the dirtiest tar sands oil pipelines that increasingly and dangerously traverse North America. Higgins simply shut off a valve, turning off the Express pipeline in Montana, an act of supreme nonviolent symbolism because he and everyone involved knew the pipeline company would open the valve quickly and get the filthy tar s...
As ethologist Konrad Lorenz wrote in his classic 1963 book, “On Aggression,” we humans are closer to prey than predator — but that makes us more dangerous in some terrible ways. A “real” carnivore very rarely kills members of its own species. They have instinctive signals that allow for surrender and subservience. The dominant animal will almost never cross that signal to kill another of its species. Prey, however, do not expose their jugular vein to fellow members of their species. And since they do not possess fearsome...
What is the new frame for Republican Senate candidates? In Arizona, John McCain claims that once Hillary Clinton is elected, only he and the Rs can stop her from reckless spending. This is the general “Big Lie” used by Republicans over the years and this should be the election when it evaporates into its plainly empty vapor. In the harsh light of the actual budget day, Republicans are the champions of a war profiteering budget that routinely outspends everybody everywhere. They fund massive weapons programs to bomb acr...
With our daily news running to atrocity after tragedy, Americans are frightened and angry. Some are resonating with hate talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh or quintessentially enraged TV bloviators like Bill O’Reilly. This gets them pushed toward candidates who use the same or similar self-righteous militarized rhetoric. It paints Americans as victims, the system as rigged against us, and the world full of ungrateful evil misfits who unjustly hate and attack us. This strand of candidates sees its exemplar in Donald Trump, o...
