When I ran for mayor of Buffalo, New York, last year, my past-due parking tickets became a major reason for reduced favorability among voters. When Stacy Abrams ran for governor of Georgia in 2018, there was a lot of talk in the mainstream media about how much debt she was in. I share these examples because in general, the working poor do not willfully withhold payment for debts. We are faced with the very real decision between paying often illegitimate debts (like parking tickets and student loans) and feeding our children or paying for life-saving medical treatment for our loved ones.

The latest stab at reviving nuke power is mocked by the actual reactors.

Today 93 are allegedly operable in the US, more than 400 worldwide….including the 15 in Putin’s Ukraine crosshairs, plus four lethal corpses at Chernobyl.

Every atomic reactor is an apocalypse in progress, set to explode at any time from error, terror, age, nature.

Every nuke spews heat, radiation, carbon, gases. They all kill birds, fish, people, eco-systems, the planet. They all create unmanageable wastes, untamable fire, unconscionable inequity, uninsurable danger.

All US reactors are more than 25 years old. They can’t get private insurance. Nobody can guarantee their individual safety.

A dozen-plus earthquake faults could shatter California’s Diablo Canyon, says former NRC site inspector Michael Peck. So could the San Andreas.

Diablo is embrittled, cracked, decayed, under-maintained. Its radiation, heat and chemicals fry the planet and the seascape. Its owner killed eight people in San Bruno with an avoidable gas explosion, then eighty more torching northern California.

 The horrific scenario, however, awaits countries in the Global South which, unlike Germany, will not be able to eventually substitute Russian raw material from elsewhere.

This past Saturday morning, as a cool rain fell in the Near East of Columbus, a small group of get-out-the-vote canvassers huddled under a tree waiting for US Senate candidate Morgan Harper to show and give a pep talk.

Ohio’s most consequential statewide primary vote in recent memory was three days away, and her campaign workers had planted several fluorescent pink signs with “Morgan Harper” framed by the outline of Ohio.

Not far from here in an aging red-brick apartment building – that was once affordable – a window squeaked open. From inside someone shouted, “Who’s running?”

The group of canvassers and campaign workers sighed. If there’s one primary candidate that’s going to truly represent the Near East with meaningful policies, it’s Morgan Harper. But once again it appears the monster that is APATHY has risen to marginalize who is arguably the best candidate in both the Democrat and Republican primaries.