Tag: West

Commentary: Educational Collapse and the Definition of Truth

Arizona Sun Times Staff
College Students

It’s no secret that America’s students are struggling. The latest Nation’s Report Cards have not been flattering, with average scores in both math and reading declining over recent years.

It’s also no secret that pandemic restrictions have only exacerbated the learning decline in the U.S. However, scores have been falling since before the pandemic, signaling that there are more systemic problems holding back young people. In fact, this educational decline comes from a deeper philosophical brokenness about the notion of truth itself.

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Biden Admin Pledges Millions to International ‘Climate Reparations’ Fund

Arizona Sun Times Staff
Joe Biden UN

The Biden administration has pledged millions of dollars to a de facto international “climate reparations” fund at the United Nations (UN) climate summit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The fund, referred to by its proponents as a “loss and damage fund,” is intended to have developed countries transfer money to the developing world as compensation for the impacts of climate change. The U.S. promised more than $17 million to the fund on Thursday, according to Axios.

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Commentary: A Review of Satirist Juvenal in This Mad, Mad World

Arizona Sun Times Staff

I have often noted here the difficulty our progressive and enlightened age poses for the art of satire. Satire depends on some palpable distance between common reality and the thing satirized. “Ha!,” we say, we feel viscerally, when confronted by effective satire, “that exaggeration, that caricature, that satire dramatizes a dangerous tendency in our culture. Of course, no one really tries to extract cucumbers from sunbeams, as Swift suggests in his great satire Gulliver’s Travels, but the idea that they might shows you how absurd so much academic culture is.”

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Western Governors to Biden on Wildfires: Feds Need to Play to Win

The Center Square
Joe Biden

Governors in wildfire country had a message for President Joe Biden and Congress on Friday: it’s time for the federal government to step in and manage its forests because their state resources are running on empty.

In 2021, 83 large fires have burned more than 1.7 million acres in 13 states, the National Interagency Fire Center reports. Some 547,000 acres have been lost to fires in Oregon, where the state’s Bootleg Fire has swelled to 413,000 acres and has become the nation’s largest fire. While some 22,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel beat back the flames nationwide, states governments are calling on Biden to help them rewrite the nation’s firefighting playbook.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said as much to Biden on Friday at a virtual news briefing. More specifically, Newsom took aim at the U.S. Forest Service response to the Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe that grew to 625 acres before creeping into Nevada over little more than a three-week span this month. 

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Commentary: The West Needs to Treat China as a Serious Threat

Arizona Sun Times Staff
Xi Jinping

There can be little doubt the United States is now in a contest with China over which will be the most important country in the world. In important respects, we are replicating the German challenge to the United Kingdom prior to World War I and the renewed German challenge of the 1930s, or the Soviet challenge for 45 years after World War II. As China grows stronger and bolder, and especially as the United States fumbles its way through periods of great distraction and internal political strife, the Chinese—like Hitler—become more brazen and provoking. 

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