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Trump is Not the Carnival — The Whole Election Is
By Russ Baker
Is Donald Trump simply a buffoon, or is the entire way we elect presidents buffoonish? This ran in 2011, after Trump aborted his last presidential campaign, but has never been more apt. The Donald Trumps, the Sarah Palins, and their ilk are not a sideshow to the real, substantive campaign. They are a comic distraction so that, by comparison, the rest can seem to offer us something. When in fact, they do not.
WHO
Iran Deal Could Reboot America’s Big Enchilada Policy in the Mideast
America’s Middle East strategy is best explained by comparing it to a “Big Enchilada,” according to noted military historian Andrew J. Bacevich. As such, Obama’s Iran deal gambit is a Nixonian attempt to put that enchilada on the proverbial back-burner in favor of a lower-profile, multilateral policy that—if successful—could turn the problems of the Middle East over to the people actually living in the Middle East.
Seinfeld Was Right About Campus Comedy
The conservative magazine Commentary writes about the controversy surrounding political correctness on college campuses. A growing roster of professional comedians now refuse to play the college circuit. Bill Maher bemoans college kids’ broken funny bones and he interviewed Caitlin Flanagan last Friday about a new story she wrote forThe Atlantic detailing America’s reactionary, humorless campus culture. Flanagan says the war is over. Campuses are now a post-funny world.
The Tragic Legacy of Junior Seau
Junior Seau—the tenacious, popular and charismatic All-Pro linebacker who took his own life—was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame over the weekend. His celebrated career warranted his posthumous induction, but his troubled life raises questions about the sport and the NFL’s failed policy toward traumatic brain injuries. Even worse, the NFL would not allow his daughter to speak on his behalf at the induction.
WHAT
Our Taste for ‘Aquatic Bushmeat’ Is Killing the Sea
Newsweek examines the stark decline in the world’s fisheries and how it not only intersects with climate change and pollution, but is primarily due to human beings and their growing appetite for just about everything in the ocean. As of 2014, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that 90%–yes, 90%–of the world’s fisheries are in crisis. Time and fish are running out.
WHY
How Spiritual Beliefs Relate to Cancer Patients’ Physical, Mental, and Social Well-Being
New research indicates that religion and spirituality had “significant associations” to the relative health of 44,000 surveyed cancer patients. According to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, there is a demonstrable link between the strength of a person’s religiosity and spirituality and “better physical health, greater ability to perform their usual daily tasks, and fewer physical symptoms of cancer and treatment.”
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