ArcaMax

The Achaemenid Persian Empire. Byzantium. The Ottomans. Ancient Rome. All these regimes wielded immense power relative to their contemporaries. They dominated militarily, economically, culturally and globally in ways comparable to the United States' current superpower status. All collapsed or were destroyed.

We Americans often forget that ...Read more

When visiting San Antonio with my family, I came prepared. If we were going to take our son to see the Alamo, I wanted to make sure he learned the whole history. I did not want him believing a caricature of U.S. history that only served to enshrine so-called white heroes. Especially since my husband is Tejano. Our son is a complicated mix of ...Read more

The last time I ordered a $12 coffee, the nice woman behind the coffee bar made me show her the money first.

"Yeah?" I said. "Then why don't you get those gay pride colored biscotti outta here, and the churros?"

Not that I go out for coffee all that much. I make coffee at home, is what I do.

After the coffee, I went on down to Sam's House ...Read more

Bribery, inflation, plagues, crumbling trade links, stalled innovation -- all these negatives helped bring down the once-mighty Roman Empire. But Rome needed centuries of bad leadership to collapse.

Donald Trump seems to be undoing American greatness at warp speed. Sure, the United States possesses strengths that will maintain an aura of ...Read more

He did it again. Consider the pattern. On Dec. 8, President Donald Trump went after Rachel Scott, who happens to be a woman of color, for asking him whether the administration would release the controversial video of the strike on the Venezuelan boat.

Scott: "Are you committed to releasing the full video?"

Trump: (reportedly growing ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- I often amuse myself by asking which member of the Trump administration is most insane and dangerous.

Dear reader, share your thoughts.

The White House is turning the lights out on democracy. Take deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, seen as a sinister Svengali for his ruthless immigration policy. Masked federal agents are ...Read more

What a mess.

I mean America's corporatized, bureaucratic, profiteering medical system. It's as though the Marx Brothers and Franz Kafka conspired to create it.

Yet, in the midst of that mess, there is one saving grace -- namely the everyday workforce of dedicated nurses, therapists, hygienists and other skilled, hands-on professionals who ...Read more

If you were looking for a great choice for a terrible Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth was always your man. It was entirely unsurprising that President Donald Trump picked him. No rational person could want Hegseth anywhere near America's chain of command, and it's unclear that any rational person ever has.

For starters, there was highly ...Read more

It seems half the country's political figures have been instructed to grin like a theme-park greeter. Supposedly, that makes them seem friendly, approachable, relatable.

When I want humanoid patter, I turn to chatbots. They're more convincing.

Why this epidemic of wax museum smiles? One reason, certainly, is social media, where every sour ...Read more

Searching for an apartment online, applying for a loan, going through airport security or looking up a question on a search engine -- you might not think anything of these exchanges other than that they are mundane things you do, but, in many of these instances, you're actually interacting with artificial intelligence.

Avoiding AI in our ...Read more

In a major overhaul of immigration enforcement leadership, the Trump administration is replacing nearly half of top leaders at ICE offices across the country with current or retired Border Patrol officers.

For months, masked immigration agents have brought terror to communities across the U.S., arresting parents in carpool lines, dragging ...Read more

Gary Tyler, 67, spent more than four decades in one of the most notorious prisons in the country for a crime he didn't commit.

In 1974, Tyler was one of a group of Black students bused into a formerly all-white Louisiana high school under court-ordered desegregation. When a white mob attacked their bus on Oct. 7, a white boy was killed. Tyler...Read more

The First Amendment is a cornerstone of American democracy. It allows us to express our views, challenge authority and engage in public debate. In recent years, however, these freedoms have come under intense scrutiny, from debates over protests on college campuses to concerns about government retaliation against journalists and activists. ...Read more

Ladies and gentleman, here is your United States Senate, then and now:

Sen. Daniel Webster on March 7, 1850: “It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States (with) a just sense of its own dignity, and its own high responsibilities, and a body to which the country looks with confidence for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing ...Read more