Vivian Rothstein: We seem to be taking the humans out of a system that I thought was organized to make life better for actual people. As the cynics say, human services would be so much easier if it weren’t for the humans.
Julie Gutman: On Labor Day, Let’s Celebrate L.A.’s Status as a Bastion of Human, Immigrant and Workers’ Rights
Steve Hochstadt: Whether cities and states are ruled by Democrats or Republicans, self-identified as “pro-life” or not, too much human life is lost across America, in birthing rooms and in the years of childhood.
Steve Hochstadt: My whole gardening effort is unnatural. Without constant human intervention to develop these artificial arrangements of plants, very different processes would take over.
Sherwood Ross: As humanity pushes the planet toward destruction, it is incredible that half of all the taxes collected from the American people — who are principal players in this rush — are used for warfare rather than to rebuild and rejuvenate the planet they are ravaging.
The first two decades of human spaceflight were a spectacular success. But it has been downhill since then, writes historian Jonathan Coopersmith. As we mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first manned spaceflight, we need a revival of serious government support for the space program.
Ron Wolff: Species typically become extinct as a result of failure to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Homo sapiens may be the first species not only to have caused its own destruction but to have had the power to see it coming — and failed to heed the warning signs.
Emily Spence: Why, why have human population numbers been exploding during my lifetime without the attention of every expert on the planet being focused upon this question?
Adam Eran: Vedantam suggests education, rather than confrontation, is what gets us beyond prejudice. The Obama presidential run ignored the obviously bigotry coming from his opponent’s proxies, and suggested, without recrimination, that we give Obama a chance. That tactic, not Reverend Wright’s understandable anger, was what worked.
Norman Solomon: While the escalating disaster of war in Afghanistan keeps setting deadly blazes, the few anti-war voices on Capitol Hill usually sound like people whispering “Fire!”