Patrice de Bergeracpas

TODD MORTEN—Police officers as criminal defendants are simply unique. Police officers do not face the same risks by going to trial that other criminal defendants face due to the nature of the system to which they belong because the law is designed to protect them in a way that none of us others is protected. Imagine shooting your neighbor as he’s watering the grass and then later explaining to the jury that the sprayer he was holding looked a lot like a gun.

DAVE LINDORFF—A Republican can visit the lower stretch of Miami Beach’s Alton Road — the main concourse of the city — at high tide and watch the sea surge up through the storm drains and, even if he or she ends up standing in calf-deep seawater that wasn’t there a few years ago, insist that climate change is a “liberal hoax.” Laughable? Sure, but no more so than some liberal Democrat standing off a mile or so from the Pentagon — the world’s largest office building! — and, while taking in the view of its vast parking lots holding the cars of some of its 23,000 employees, denying that the US military is a bloated monstrosity in need of epic downsizing.

GARY KOHLS—Modern American wars are now being fought by thoroughly indoctrinated, post-adolescent, Call of Duty-type first person shooter gamers who liked the adrenalin high of killing virtual “bad guys” in a videogame. Sadly, unbeknownst to them, they are at high risk of having their emotional and spiritual lives negatively and permanently altered by the physical, mental and spiritual damage that always comes from participating in actual homicidal violence.

ADAM JOHNSON—o bigger myth permeates corporate media’s love affair with McCain than the image of him as a “champion of human rights.” Those pushing this trope routinely ignore the fact that McCain has been among the biggest champions of, among others, human rights–abusing Israel and Saudi Arabia. McCain has repeatedly shielded Israel from criticism, even going to the mat to defend its bloody 2014 bombing of Gaza that left 1,500 civilians dead, including over 500 children, which McCain described as “admirable” in its “restraint.”

SHANE SAYERS—Throughout history animals have been attributed magical qualities and depicted as spiritual messengers, yet within the context of modern Western society our relationship with animals is defined primarily by our dependency on them for meat (Berger 12). Meat has long been considered the most highly prized food in Western culture, serving as the centre of every meal. Meat was once seen as a sign of privilege; however, it has come to be regarded as somewhat of a right for Westerners. The status of meat however is accompanied by ambivalence; ‘animal derived foods have a potential for provoking unease that is not found in vegetable foods’