Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing related to the nation’s use of military forces. The hearing included testimonies about the law of armed conflict as well as the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. The war authorization was passed after 9/11 and allows the President to put military forces anywhere. As you can imagine, this power outraged many policy makers, especially those committed to bringing all troops back home. 

One thing I love about my job is that no two days are the same.  “Policy and advocacy” means lots of things: listening, persuading, recommending a course of action and—perhaps most importantly—giving a voice to people who haven’t been given the opportunity to speak up for themselves. Advocacy happens when someone engages in dialogue about an issue they care about—and I care about making water and sanitation a reality for people in every corner of the globe.

Earlier this week, President Obama nominated Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx to become Secretary of the Department of Transportation. As the President solidifies his second-term cabinet, transportation policy comes to the forefront.

In a 2007 national survey, 40% of children adopted by Americans, both domestically and internationally, were of a different race than their adoptive parents (source). Transracial adoptions are very common.  But who adopts who?  If you ask Google Images, white families adopt non-white children. Six of the images below appear to feature white parents with children of color:

Senator Joel Anderson’s new bill hopes to revitalize the death penalty in California. One of the most controversial aspects of the bill is the proposal for gas chambers to be included in their death penalty system. This will allow California to be the only place globally to use suffocation as a form of criminal punishment.

Step One: Call It Out

Education has been labeled the “civil rights issue of our time.” Dropout factories––high schools where no more than 60% of the students that start as freshmen make it to their senior year––has become a common-day term. These low-performing public schools tend to be in the poorest zip codes across our country. The negative impacts of poverty on the health and education of students is well documented, mostly affecting kids of color who tend to live in lower-income communities.

On Wednesday, progress for gun control in America was challenged by the defeat of a bipartisan bill. The bill between Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) sought to expand the national background check system for gun ownership. Despite the support from Republican and Democrat lawmakers and the impact of gun-related tragedies, politics held precedence over American people. Experts provide perspectives on the defeat of the gun control legislation.

One of our Pinterest boards collects images that reveal that men are the “neutral” sex in contemporary Western cultures. This means that (1)  the image that pops up in our minds when we say “person” or “human” or “worker” is usually implicitly male, (2) non-sexed representations of people are usually assumed to be male (e.g., cartoon animals appear female to us unless we slap on eyelashes and lipstick), (3) items for sale often get marketed as either “item” or “women’s item” (e.g., “deodorant” and “women’s deodorant”), and (4) men and male bodies get to stand in for humanity (e.g., in scientific research).