In a world where advanced healthcare has not only been plausible, but widely available for decades, one would think that with time, healthcare would become better, easier to access, and if not free, very close to free.  Certainly, one would think this to be true of all resources that we need to survive.  Life should be getting easier with time, not harder.

We all know, however, that this is fundamentally not what has happened.  Instead, the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, has proven itself unable to provide its citizens dignified livelihoods, even when it comes to the most basic necessities. 

This has become abundantly clear with the country’s healthcare system.

The statistics speak for themselves:

It’s late December, and I’m standing at the Dick’s Den bar with my brother Charlie a little after six o’clock. We’re here to play the Phil Ochs Tribute Show, along with a couple of other bands and solo musicians. But we’re really just watching the audience. 

The thirty odd souls that have come out on a cold Thursday night to pay tribute to the last protest singer. Forty-three years since Phil was last alive. Not much of a crowd, really, but this isn’t early sixties Greenwich Village. This is Columbus, collared shirts and half smiles nursing their bourbon and Black Labels, vodka and tonics. An all-ages crowd that are going to stay for the full two and a half hours.

The performers are nervous, as nervous as I’ve ever seen. The guitars sound a little out of tune – nerves make you press too hard on the strings. The songs are tight somehow – “I Ain’t a Marchin’ Anymore,” “Christmas in Kentucky,” “When I’m Gone.” 

You may not know what solarpunk is, but the ideas it is based on may be the best chance our society has for surviving climate change. Solarpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction; it isn’t punk rock. However, like the best punk rock, it is based on challenging society’s status quos and speaking truth to power.   

Solarpunk challenges our conceptions of what the future can be. Solarpunk, and the closely related genre of hopepunk, challenge the popular view that the future will be horrible. Take a second to process that…the future might not be horrible. It’s kind of a remarkable idea! Solarpunk combines the concept of a hopeful future with the fact that climate change is happening.

A sign at the Columbus’ December 17 Impeach and Remove rally joked: “Impeachment: It’s not just for blow jobs any more.” As funny as this saying is, the reality of what prompted the current impeachment process and society’s response is an atrocious state of affairs.

Even though Christianity Today (CT) came out for impeachment before Christmas, Trump’s die-hard MAGA fanatical white evangelical Christian base still seems to support him. ‘Tis the season for hypocrisy.

Perhaps they believed Trump when he promised during his campaign: "I’m going to be the greatest president God ever created.”

In 1998 CT, a leading voice in the evangelical movement had called for the removal of President Bill Clinton from office. CT argued that Clinton had to go because “unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.”