Archive for September 2024

We often joke about awkwardness; it’s a staple of contemporary comedy. The exclamation ‘Awkward!’ functions as a light-hearted deflection, defusing social tension. The reality is heavier. Awkwardness can be funny, but it can also be serious – it inhibits our ability to act even when we know we should, and it can shut down or pre-empt conversations about important topics like menstruation, money, menopause, mortality. The desire to avoid awkwardness acts as a powerful social inhibition, preventing people from speaking up, and motivating compliance with problematic social and moral norms. So, which is it, then?

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” While the quote’s original context is complicated, its message is timeless.

President Joe Biden on Friday appointed Janie Hipp (Chickasaw) to be a member of the Community Development Advisory Board within the U.S. Department of Treasury…. Hipp holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in social work from the University of Oklahoma, a J.D. from Oklahoma City University’s School of Law and a LLM in agricultural law from the University of Arkansas School of Law.

In the last-half century, productivity has outpaced the growth of real compensation for the median worker by more than 40 percent. This means that if workers’ pay had kept pace with productivity, as it did in the three decades after World War II, it would be roughly 40 percent higher than it is today.

Twenty years ago, during a particularly soggy late-summer hurricane season along North America’s eastern seaboard, a 62-year-old Hofstra University professor named Silvia Federici published one of the most influential feminist texts of the 21st century.