Project 2025’s plan to gut checks and balances harms veterans

  Project 2025 is a plan to gut America’s system of checks and balances in order to enact an extreme, far-right agenda that would hurt all Americans. The plan proposes taking power away from everyday people to give politicians, judges, and corporations more control over Americans’ lives. Here are specific ways that Project 2025 harms veterans in America.

As humans, we all want self-respect – and keeping that in mind might be the missing ingredient when you try to change someone’s mind

  Why is persuasion so hard, even when you have facts on your side?

  As a philosopher, I’m especially interested in persuasion – not just how to convince someone, but how to do it ethically, without manipulation. I’ve found that one of the deepest insights comes from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, a focus of my research, who was born 300 years ago: April 22, 1724.

  In his final book on ethics, “The Doctrine of Virtue,” Kant writes that each of us has a certain duty when we try to correct others’ beliefs. If we think they’re mistaken, we shouldn’t dismiss them as “absurdities” or “poor judgment,” he says, but must suppose that their views “contain some truth.”

How Jefferson and Madison’s partnership – a friendship told in letters – shaped America’s separation of church and state

  Few constitutional principles are more familiar to the average American than the separation of church and state.

  According to the Pew Research Center, 73% of adults agree that religion should be kept separate from government policies. To be sure, support varies by political or religious affiliation – with Democrats supporting the principle in much higher numbers – and depending on the specific issue, such as prayer in public schools or displays of the Ten Commandments monuments. Yet only 19% of Americans say the United States should abandon the principle of church-state separation.

  That said, criticism appears to be on the rise, particularly among political and religious conservatives. And such criticism comes from the top.

The complacency of the Alabama Public Service Commission

  Imagine there’s a leak in your bathroom. You can’t figure out the cause, so you call a plumber and give a detailed description of the flooding before you.

  “Yeah, I know what’s causing the problem,” the voice on the other end replies. “It’s clearly the woke agenda.”

  You’d likely call a different plumber.

  Alabama faces something similar with our Public Service Commission.

Loopholes and slippery slopes

  As a former law professor, I know all about loopholes.

  I trained students to find omissions and ambiguities in wording — a perfectly legal way to evade the clear intent of laws and agreements. After all, that’s what lawyers are paid to do. And despite commonly expressed disdain when lawyers do this, that’s precisely what most clients want and expect when they hire a lawyer.

The real ‘Big Bang’ of country music: How Vernon Dalhart’s 1924 breakthrough recordings launched a genre

  Country music’s origin story has been heavily influenced by a romanticized notion of authenticity. Today, celebrations of the genre’s origins tend to focus on one event: recording sessions in late July and early August 1927 in the small Appalachian city of Bristol, located on the Tennessee-Virginia border.

  The musicians were working-class Southerners, and depictions of the sessions often portray a savvy record company producer discovering talented but unknown performers.

Why is free time still so elusive?

  There have been massive gains in productivity over the past century.

  So why are people still working so hard for so long?

  Output per worker increased by almost 300% between 1950 and 2018 in the U.S. The standard American workweek, meanwhile, has remained unchanged, at about 40 hours.

5 unsung films that dramatize America’s rich labor history

  Unions are more popular now than at any time since 1965, and the U.S. is in the midst of a new upsurge of union organizing. Is a Hollywood drama about angry Starbucks baristas or frustrated Amazon warehouse workers far behind?

  Hollywood studios and independent producers have long depicted the collective efforts of working people to improve their lives and gain a voice in their workplaces and the larger society.

It’s your job to enjoy your job

  Labor Day is, first and foremost, a day off from work to do something you enjoy or to catch up on domestic tasks awaiting your attention.

  It’s also an ideal time to think about the role that work plays in your life.

Nutrition Facts labels have a complicated legacy – a historian explains the science and politics of translating food into information

  The Nutrition Facts label, that black and white information box found on nearly every packaged food product in the U.S. since 1994, has recently become an icon for consumer transparency.

  From Apple’s “Privacy Nutrition Labels” that disclose how smartphone apps handle user data, to a “Garment Facts” label that standardizes ethical disclosures on clothing, policy advocates across industries invoke “Nutrition Facts” as a model for empowering consumers and enabling socially responsible markets. They argue that intuitive information fixes could solve a wide range of market-driven social ills.

  Yet this familiar, everyday product label actually has a complicated legacy.