Perspectives: A Blog

  • Apocalypse now

    Japan has been hit by a triple whammy: a staggering earthquake, a devastating tsunami, and a nuclear catastrophe. Japan is as well prepared to deal with the first two as any place could be —…

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  • Ignorance is bliss

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    Apparently, what you don’t know won’t hurt you. That seems to be the logic of the gun industry. Two recent stories (here and here) in the New York Times help explain why gun policy doesn’t make sense:…

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  • Do you feel lucky today?

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    A few years ago, some friends and I were celebrating a birthday at a bar down on San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, California. As a friend and I left the bar, two men approached us…

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  • Have gun, will lobby

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    This week the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show and Conference (SHOT Show) is meeting in Las Vegas. (See the Washington Post‘s story here.) This massive, glitzy show is sponsored by the National Shooting Sports Foundation,…

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  • Thirteen superfluous words

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    On December 15, 1791, Virginia became the eleventh state to ratify the Bill of Rights; with Virginia’s ratification, the Bill of Rights was adopted. Of the ten amendments that came into force that day, the…

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  • Home-grown terror

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    In 2001, according to the CDC, terrorism killed 2,926 people in America. Since then, the United States has spent $1.138 trillion dollars and thousands more lives prosecuting two bloody and ineffective wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That…

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