Monthly Archives: October 2018

The logic of not voting. And of voting.

For as long as I can remember, a theme of civic life has been the scandalously low voter turnout in national elections. On average 40% of eligible voters don’t vote in presidential elections, about 60% in off-years. A curious phenomenon, this failure to vote–to exercise the most basic right in what we think of as […]

The shark crisis: speciesism vs. ecological altruism

In response to the shark fatality crisis, Wellfleet’s selectboard scheduled what was called by some a Shark Town Meeting. It filled the elementary school gym to overflowing, maybe half again the number of attendees as at the Special Town Meeting earlier the same week. After preliminary statements from town officials and shark experts, the meeting […]