CRACKER CONUNDRUM

CRACKER CONUNDRUM

Rice crackers. They’re delicious and very popular. No longer a specialty item to be found only in your local Asian food market, you can find them nowadays very easily in pretty much any standard American supermarket. Not surprisingly though, when you look at the packaging you’ll find that the ultra-thin crispy delights are manufactured and produced in Asia. Which raises the question, why does such a simple product have to take such a long trip across the world just to…

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IMMIGRATION BREAKDOWN

IMMIGRATION BREAKDOWN

One thing that Americans on both ends of the political spectrum can agree on is that the immigration system currently in place in this country is broken. No one on either side of the aisle seems to be happy with the way things stand now, and in the 2016 presidential election this issue came to the forefront. To build, or not to build, became the question, with all due apologies to a certain English playwright. Yet for all of the…

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AMERICA: WORLD POLICE

AMERICA: WORLD POLICE

In an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes in September 2014, President Obama called America “the indispensable nation”. “When trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don’t call Beijing, they don’t call Moscow. They call us. That’s the deal”, he added. While it was unnerving to watch Obama state this as if he was relaying some new level of insider knowledge to the interviewer, Steve Kroft, that the president himself had just recently come to understand (we’ll have to discuss…

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MARCH MADNESS?

MARCH MADNESS?

Marches are great. Clever signs, fresh air, everyone feels good. We just had a big one this weekend, actually lots of them, all around the world. Women, and men, really came out for this one. But will anything change at all, politically, because of these marches? Well, not very likely. Attending a march is a great way to make you feel good about yourself, especially a march that is supporting a specific cause or protesting an issue. But just like…

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FINANCIAL CRISIS CAUSES

FINANCIAL CRISIS CAUSES

The 2008 financial crisis occurred at the end of Bush’s presidency, so obviously, he and his policies are to blame, right? Well, um, no, that’s not right. Obama stepped in and guided the recovery, so he gets credit for saving the country (or at least the auto, housing and insurance industries), right? Well, um, no, that’s not right either. First of all, distilling this most complex economic study of what caused the crisis down to a simple he said /she…

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