I just spent the last four months traveling and readjusting to life in China. But the blog floundered. What brooding thoughts prevented me from writing? What even is this blog anyway?

Doug Jones won Alabama’s Senate Seat by a 1.5% margin. It’s a victory for the country at large — but one that we shouldn’t be too comfortable with. Only 30% of White voters cast their vote for the winning candidate. That should be a clarion call for white progressives. 

MuniciPals is back after a brief break to discuss the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico. Brit recently returned from working in San Juan, and shares some perspective on the ongoing natural and unnatural disasters, as well as some thoughts on the local urban form.

Our Baby Boomer and Gen X parents told us that America always found a way. Today, we have come of age into the world they built — and we are furious. What do we replace it with?

The resurgence in white nationalism and a reckoning with the darker aspects of our national character have left many asking if America is worth saving. In fact, what is America, anyway? In one of the most complex nations on earth, this reckoning is inevitable. But it need not be a defeatist death knell.

Learning Mandarin Chinese is notoriously difficult for native English speakers. As I’ve recently come to realize, however, its not just difficult because of its differences with English. The logistical, financial and emotional obstacles are also high.

Every Thanksgiving, it seems, someone on the left reminds us that Thanksgiving’s origins are less than pure. There are arguments to abandon the holiday altogether. In this time of cultural revolution, Thanksgiving is a good case study when asking the question: If we want to drastically change the culture, what do we want to remain?

The FCC is considering changing the rules regulating the internet, giving telecommunications companies the power to reward or punish companies that compete with them, and silence any views contrary to their interests. It’s only one other way that Free Speech is being threatened by the digital age.

The national conversation around sexual assault, gender inequality and power imbalances has catalyzed a lot of soul-searching. Every man is, to varying degrees, complicit in structures that oppress women. What should we, those men, do about that?

In the midst of the ongoing deluge of sexual assault accusations, something fundamental seems to be changing in America. Not all at once, and certainly  not universally, but the modern conception of consent is radically reshaping our social contract in a way that is more in-line with America’s aspirational creeds.