Sometime after I told a friend that I had become a vegetarian, I saw a new bumper sticker on his truck. It read: “Vegetarian: Old Indian Word for Poor Hunter.” For years I’ve been preparing the following verbal arrows as…
Author: Nick Gier
George Will confused and misinformed about abortion
George Will is one of our foremost conservative columnists. Except for some overly artful phrasing, he usually writes well-reasoned and evidence-based articles. His most recent piece on abortion—“The Democrats are the Real Abortion Extremists”—is a surprising exception (The Washington…
WSU did the right thing on campus free speech
If you’re openly inciting violence, that’s a problem. But other than that, we can’t start doing this filtering of people’s words and what they say. —Jordan Frost, WSU student body president It is virtually impossible to articulate a standard for…
My journey as a Vietnam War protester
I watched the Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s “The Vietnam War” on Spokane’s Channel 7, primarily because it offered two viewings each evening. At end of each episode, there was a phone number for a Veterans Hotline for those who…
Mahatma Gandhi: Charismatic saint of nonviolence
“It is too early to clothe me in sainthood. I myself do not feel to be a saint in any shape or form.” –M. K. Gandhi “Martin Luther King helps us to see that to be a saint is…
Our sanctuary cities have a sacred history
Our Sanctuary Cities have a Sacred History By Nick Gier Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. —Matthew 25:45 Give me your tired, your poor,…
Moscow pastor agrees with Trump on Charlottesville tragedy
There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. —Douglas Wilson, Pastor of Moscow’s Christ Church I equate Black Lives Matter with the Klan. Hatred and murder…
“Deaths of Despair” Reveals America’s Troubled Soul A “White Death” Takes the Lives of 45-54 Year-Olds
The workman is not in harmony with his social position if he is not convinced that he has his deserts. —Emile Durkheim These people kill themselves slowly with alcohol or drugs, or quickly with a gun. —Anne Case, Princeton economist…
North Korea and the full meaning of ‘I and Thou’
The sealed border was not just at the 38th parallel, but everywhere, in each person’s heart, blocking the past and choking off the future. —Suki Kim, Without You, There is No Us Behind the children of the elite who were…
The myth of a monochrome ‘Western’ civilization
If Western civilization is defined by religion and culture, then Mexico—with its Catholic heritage and historic ties to European monarchies—is unquestionably an outpost of “the West.” But for Trump and his advisers, it too is a threat to the Western…