Author: TheConversation

By Kaitlyn Ugoretz, PhD Candidate, East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University of California Santa Barbara Originally raised as Methodist, Kit Cox is part of a growing trend of Americas who are practicing the Japanese religion known as Shinto. At 35-years-old, Cox works as an electrical engineer and enjoys biking and playing piano. While her interest in Shinto was first sparked by her love for Japanese popular culture and media, Shinto practice is not just a phase or fad for her. For over 15 years, she has venerated Inari Ookami, a Shinto deity or “kami” connected to agriculture, industry,...

By Amy Fried, John M. Nickerson Professor of Political Science, University of Maine; and Douglas B. Harris, Professor of political science, Loyola University Maryland The Republican National Committee has legitimized the January 6, 2021, Capitol attacks. The RNC declared on February 4, 2022, that the insurrection and preceding events were “legitimate political discourse,” an assertion that Senator Mitch McConnell soon after countered, saying that it was a “violent insurrection.” The Justice Department is investigating former President Donald Trump’s involvement on January 6, when several thousand rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. The attacks resulted in the deaths of at least...

By George B. Cunningham, Professor of Sport Management, Texas A&M University Brian Flores, the former Miami Dolphins head coach fired at the end of the 2022 season, filed a lawsuit on February 1 against his former team, the NFL and two other NFL teams, charging widespread discrimination. In the 58-page document filed in a Manhattan federal court, Flores alleges a pattern of racist hiring practices by the league and racial discrimination during the interview process with the Denver Broncos and New York Giants, as well as during his tenure with Miami. In the lawsuit, the firm representing Flores said...

By Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Questrom School of Business, Boston University The so-called Great Resignation was one of the top stories of 2021 as “record” numbers of workers reportedly quit their jobs. The latest figures came out on Jan. 4, 2022, and showed that 4.5 million people voluntarily left their positions in November – an “all-time high,” according to the agency responsible for collecting the data. That’s 3% of the non-farm workforce, which headlines also proclaimed a record level. But is it? The “quit rate” interests me because I wrote my economics doctoral thesis on how people find...

By Ryan Gauthier, Assistant Professor of Law, Thompson Rivers University By December 2021 there was a lot of talk about athletes boycotting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to protest China’s persecution of its Uyghur population. But countries like the United States ultimately decided on a diplomatic boycott instead. The act of boycotting the Olympics is not as simple as it seems. Governments do not send athletes to the Olympics. National Olympic Committees send athletes. They are supposed to operate independently from their country’s government. If the government wanted to boycott the Beijing Olympics, it would have to persuade its...

By Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology In December 1978, the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping introduced economic reforms that dramatically altered China’s economy by strengthening trade and cultural ties with the West. Beginning in the 1990s, these reforms set China on a trajectory to become what it is today: a nation with a dynamic and substantially market-driven economy that is also the world’s second-largest. U.S. residents have enjoyed lower-priced goods exported from China since then, but many communities that produced goods that competed with Chinese manufacturing exports suffered job losses and economic...