News & Features

The world continues to keep a wary eye on Iran’s nuclear program, in nearby Syria the pro-Iranian government of Bashir al-Assad is on the brink of collapse and Tel Aviv accuses Tehran of being behind the fatal suicide bombing of a bus in Bulgaria which carried Israeli tourists. Yet chicken, or lack thereof, makes daily front-page headlines and is the obsessive subject of scores of cartoons that appear in both state-owned and independent media in Iran.

Hansel Tookes, age 30, is an expert at identifying the detritus of injection drug use. As a public health student on hiatus from medical school, he led a group of researchers who walked the streets of Miami for four months, methodically counting discarded syringes in neighborhoods with high rates of drug arrests. As they crisscrossed more than 800 city blocks, the team spotted 328 used syringes, in parks, lots, and along sidewalks.

The summer of 2012 has not been kind to U.S. law enforcement officials. As Occupy Wall Street protests subsided, the momentum shifted away from America’s financial sector and toward the long simmering issue of police-community relations. Spurred on by the Trayvon Martin shooting, many citizens around the nation redirected their protests and rallied against ‘illegal and unwarranted’ stops by the police. The Federal Court in New York City added more public pressure by granting approval of a class-action suit brought against the NYPD for “suspicionless stops and frisks.”

Even a small drop in the percentage and number of black votes in the traditional must-win states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia that Obama won in 2008, could spell potential disaster for him this time around. Romney will take every opportunity to shove the notion down the throats of black voters that Obama’s alleged failures on the economy have directly resulted in mounting economic misery in poor black communities. 

The moment that 12 persons were gunned down and nearly 60 wounded in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre, the buzz hit that the alleged shooter was a possible Tea Party member. The rumor was false. There is no immediate evidence that alleged shooter James Holmes was anything more than a disgruntled, frustrated, fantasy acting-out, near drop-out, college grad student. Tea Party leaders publicly condemned the violence. But that doesn’t change the terrifying fact that Tea Party leaders and members have been the nation’s outspoken cheerleaders for virtually unrestricted gun advocacy. 

For longtime Indochina observers, the developing story is one full of irony and a signal for a major shift in the long if arduous U.S.-Indochina relations. Nearly four decades have passed, but America barely recovered from its psychic wounds. Vietnam, after all, was our “hell in a small place.” It spelled America’s ignominy. The country known for its manifest destiny was soundly defeated by what former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once called a “fourth-rate power.” Still, here we are, at the turn of the millennia, seeking a return. 

In the past few months, a mounting number of small but substantial protests have taken place within the United States. They have emerged in opposition to various legislative and governmental efforts to obtain ex-post facto permissions to engage in expansive domestic spying and employ unfettered authority of detention, search, and extraordinary rendition against U.S. citizens. In particular, political dissidents, activists, whistleblowers, and otherwise “threatening” entities have been the focus of these initiatives, as well as the loudest voices of protest against these punitive forces. 

The Pershing Center in Lincoln, Nebraska gushes with fans.  They have eagerly gathered to support Lincoln’s No Coast Derby Girls – the local flat-track roller derby league.  Parents attempt to control their rowdy children; sallow-skinned teenagers hold hands and kiss beneath fluorescent lights; burly men sip Budweiser from plastic cups, chuckling softly.  Though rapt with curiosity, I am lamentably lost within this subculture and  ashamed that my only exposure to the feminist sport remains “Whip It”—the 2009 indie flick directed by Drew Barrymore, which highlights banked track derby in Austin, Texas.