You may find this shocking, but a little over a decade ago I spent a weekend learning how to shoot a handgun — under the auspices of the NRA. I wound up earning myself an NRA “personal protection in the home” certificate.

For years I have pondered writing about this weekend, but never found quite the right context for doing so. But the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen — declaring that the possession of pistols in public is a constitutional right — has pulled that weekend up from my memory (as well as from the pages of the journal entry I made afterwards, on May 2, 2011).

The ruling, as Karrie Jacobs has written, intensifies the danger we all face simply by being out in public, noting that in its wake “our sense of security in crowded places may be more permanently damaged than it was by the pandemic.

She adds: “It advances a perception of the United States as a dystopian nation where day-to-day survival depends on being armed.”

As people around the world take to the streets to protest against human rights violations such as police brutality and restrictions on reproductive rights, they’re frequently met with violent crackdowns by law enforcement firing tear gas and other crowd-control weapons.  

Deceptively known as “less-lethal,” these weapons can cause severe injuries and even death when used with excessive force. PHR has conducted numerous investigations into governments’ disproportionate and indiscriminate use of CCWs and other forms of excessive force in many countries, including in the United States during nationwide protests for racial justice after the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd.  

Crowd-control weapons can cause serious injury, disability, and even death. That’s why it’s so critical that you and your family, loved ones, and community members know what to prepare for, what precautions to take, and how to treat tear gas and other chemical irritants (e.g., pepper spray) before participating in any rally or demonstration.  

The collapse of the short-lived Israeli government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid validates the argument that the political crisis in Israel was not entirely instigated and sustained by former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Even if a purportedly centrist or even leftist prime minister finds himself at the helm of the government, outcomes will not change when the Knesset—in fact, most of the country—is governed by a militaristic, chauvinistic, and colonial mindset.

Bennett's coalition government consisted of eight parties, welding together arguably one of the oddest coalitions in the tumultuous history of Israeli politics. The mishmash cabinet included far right and right groups like Yamina, Yisrael Beiteinu and New Hope, along with centrist Yesh Atid and Blue and White, leftist Meretz and even an Arab party, the United Arab List (Ra'am). The coalition also had representatives from the Labor Party, once the dominant Israeli political camp, now almost completely irrelevant.

As I continue my search for Columbus’ history and identity, I regularly rediscover the City’s and the city’s willful lack of the foundational elements for a modern city. I return to its absence of typical city reforms toward representative city government in the second half of the nineteenth century and its missing Progressive Era of the early 20th century: that’s capital P, unlike our present-day search for a 21st century progressivism. These are historical anomalies, unlike other cities of its age and size in Ohio and across the nation.

A central element in Columbus’ absent core is the combined extent of mismanagement and lack of management, and both real and likely corruption. As Ohio increasingly takes center stage nationally for corruption permeating its state government, 21st century Columbus takes center stage as its corruption capital.

As he begins to campaign for the White House, Gov. Gavin Newsom is toying with extending operations at two of the world’s most dangerous atomic reactors, sited at the aptly named Diablo Canyon, nine miles west of San Luis Obispo.

The coastal nukes are surrounded by a dozen earthquake faults, just 45 miles from the San Andreas, whose eruption could send an apocalyptic radioactive cloud into Los Angeles County, just 180 miles downwind. Potential human casualties could far exceed ten millon. The economic and ecological devastation would be incalculable.

Newsom’s emergence as a potential atomic triggerman has been tortured and tragic. Long marketed as an environmentalist, Newsom has fiercely criticized the state’s largest utility, for good reason.

Since 2000, Pacific Gas & Electric has twice fled to bankruptcy.

In 2010, PG&E’S under maintained gas lines caused a San Bruno explosion that killed eight people while burning 19 homes. Its grid mismanagement ignited huge fires that devastated northern California forests while killing more than 80 people, incinerating the entire town of Paradise (which Trump famously mis-labelled “Pleasure”).