What do we owe the future? Our urgent moral responsibility to safeguard generations to come
What do we owe future generations? The question of what humanity owes to people in the future is no longer a matter of theoretical debate. It is a pressing, unavoidable moral imperative. As the modern world faces existential threats ranging from climate change to...
The flawed modern obsession with naming “voices of a generation” when they do not speak for everyone
By Helen Kingstone, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Royal Holloway University of London Sally Rooney, author of Normal People and now Intermezzo, keeps being called “the voice of a generation.” And she is just the latest in a sequence of authors to get this...
How institutional decline under Trump has forced America into an accelerated “Failed State” era
The United States continues to project an image of exceptional strength, democratic stability, and global leadership, but mounting evidence shows a country struggling with deep institutional decay. Under Donald Trump and a Republican Party aligned around his...
How Frank Herbert’s cautionary tale in “Dune” echoes charismatic politics that cast Trump as a messiah
The warning Frank Herbert embedded in his book “Dune” was never subtle, but its relevance sharpened dramatically in 2025 as the United States navigated the political force of Donald Trump’s return to power. Herbert wrote a story about a society that...
Why Trump’s immigration agenda is consistent with ethnic cleansing through fear and forced removal
Ethnic cleansing in the modern era does not require mass executions or military occupation. It can unfold through policy decisions that remove people from a society by force, block their return, or prevent their presence altogether. During both of Donald Trump’s...
How the Christian Right began as a political effort to preserve White-only schools and resist Civil Rights
The modern Christian Right is often presented in American political discourse as a faith-driven grassroots movement focused on traditional values, personal morality, and the sanctity of life. For decades, politicians, commentators, and national media have treated it...
Social media presents monetization as a rescue plan for journalism even as it constrains newsrooms
Social media platforms like Facebook continue to portray monetization tools as new lifelines for struggling newsrooms. But for many small publishers, the financial reality does not match the marketing promise. As the economics of journalism collapse across the...
The Internet of Things: How random connected devices generate data that can affect personal privacy
By David Sella-Villa, Assistant Professor of Law, University of South Carolina Some unusual witnesses helped convict Alex Murdaugh of the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul. The first was Bubba, Maggie’s yellow Labrador retriever. Prosecutors used a recording...
Supercomputers drive scientific discoveries but the U.S. risks falling behind other global powers
By Jack Dongarra, Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, University of Tennessee High-performance computing, or HPC for short, might sound like something only scientists use in secret labs, but it is actually one of the most important technologies in the world today....
Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by 2030 would ignite an economic shockwave across Milwaukee industries
In 2030, the question surrounding Taiwan is less about if a confrontation with China could occur than how quickly a cascade might begin once the first event breaks loose. The next decade does not look like a linear countdown to war. It resembles a widening network of...
Global sand shortage raises questions if Milwaukee’s inland deposits are protected from exploitation
Milwaukee rarely appears in conversations about global resource scarcity, but the city sits on a natural asset that is becoming increasingly valuable: sand. The shortages disrupting infrastructure projects from Southeast Asia to the Middle East are now rippling into...
Being a global citizen in Milwaukee means navigating a local culture often disconnected from the world
On most days, my work has involved scanning headlines from war zones, refugee camps, and international summits before heading out to cover a ribbon-cutting in Milwaukee. The distance between those two realities is more than miles. It’s a gulf in perspective. Being a...
