Two weeks after his 2014 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama sat down and signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10 from $7.25. A month later he signed another executive order expanding overtime pay. The orders were small steps, but they back up the underlying message […]
During President Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008, he advocated for immigration reform on pivotal issues such as tightening borders, cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants, and establishing an “effective way to recognize and legalize undocumented workers who are here.”[1]The 2008 Democratic platform on immigration included plans for allowing illegals to “get right with […]
Perhaps the most appropriate way to begin this article is by stating a disclaimer: the name attached to this article is a pseudonym, and I have chosen to write this under a false name for a number of reasons that do not need to be elaborated upon. However, this was an article I felt […]
Honeybees and human beings are in a long-term relationship. Humans have been seeking the honeybees’ product since as far back as 2400 BCE, when the first beekeepers were building hives in Egypt. Besides being captivated by the honey that bees produce for themselves as food, people all over the world are fascinated by the […]
Much of Argentina’s charm comes from its emphasis on food and café culture — its love of a mid-afternoon snack or mate with a croissant (medialuna). But this tranqui way of life may have led to a certain level of acceptance and complacency that the government has taken advantage of. While there have been […]
It is hard to argue against the sentiment that Boston is a college city. According to data from the United States Census Bureau, there are approximately 250,000 college students attending school within the Boston area at 85 different institutions of higher learning.[1] Boston leads the nation in per capita student enrollment, and The Bureau […]
A place that many consider a “post-conflict” society, Northern Ireland, is a Gordian knot of ideology further entangled through the problematic limbo customary of the road to peace. Never has the pathway to peace been a linear one—not in Bosnia, not in Rwanda, and not in Northern Ireland. Following a period characterized by ethno-nationalistic violence, […]
In 1968, Robert Kennedy made history with the bold statement that: “[the Gross Domestic Product] measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.” Over 40 years later, Kennedy’s words fall on still-deaf ears, as the GDP […]
“Please drink responsibly.” These words are etched into every bottle of booze and embedded into the fine print of television advertisements, reminding consumers that the producers and distributors of beer, wine, and spirits have the public’s best interests in mind. However, as public policy expert Mark Kleiman notes: “responsible drinkers don’t build breweries.”[1] The […]
In response to over a decade of brutal violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Intel announced in January that it will produce the world’s first “conflict free” processors.[1] Though there have been attempts to publicize the atrocities occurring over the control of the mineral rich land in the DRC, this is the […]
