ArcaMax

What's wrong with Sriracha? And, by the way, what is Sriracha? Sriracha is a hot sauce of Thai origin made from chili peppers, vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt. The rap against it centers on its high levels of sugar and sodium. But Sriracha is normally used in tiny amounts, so where's the problem? The other complaint, that it's "too hot,...Read more

As we reach the quarter-century mark, the 21st century has turned out a tragic disappointment. Hopes were high, leaving the world wars and Holocaust of the 20th century behind. Once, even globalization sounded good.

If the 21st century were a Broadway show, it would be a flop, closed by now.

The prelude was the Supreme Court giving George W....Read more

I made a few New Year's resolutions this week -- not for me, but as self-improvement ideas for some of the people running our country. No need for them to thank me -- happy to help.

I drafted one for the GOP's whole ultra-rightist gaggle of lawmakers who keep blocking passage of health coverage for poor people. "Resolved: We will forgo the ...Read more

There is widespread concern today about the use of generative AI and deepfakes to create fake videos that can manipulate and deceive people. Many are asking, is there any way that technology can confidently establish whether an image or video has been altered? A number of techniques have been proposed. They include -- most prominently -- a ...Read more

Sports stadiums around the country have begun using face recognition to identify ticket holders, threatening to normalize a uniquely powerful surveillance technology that has already been used for abusive purposes. Worse, companies involved are already planning big expansions, raising the specter of a world where our faces become not just our ...Read more

President-elect Donald Trump has said that he intends to issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship for millions of children. Trump's campaign website states that, to qualify as a citizen, any baby born after his executive order would need to have at least one parent who is a citizen or lawful permanent resident. Scholars across ...Read more

From a young age, I enjoyed playing around with gender roles, but it wasn't until later in my adolescence that I started to have more complex thoughts about my gender identity. What I discovered, both in my childhood and later in my development, was that a lot of trans folks have similarly nonlinear approaches, or nonlinear journeys, to their ...Read more

The opioid epidemic has gripped communities for more than 20 years. From 1999 to 2022, nearly 727,000 people died from an overdose involving prescription or illicit opioids.

Litigation has dramatically changed the substance-use disorder policy landscape, and today, more than $50 billion in opioid settlements from pharmaceutical companies, ...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

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Pennsylvania’s three-week-old budget impasse is the ultimate, binge-worthy summer drama.

There are great storylines, with real-world implications with fascinating characters in leading roles. And, like any addictive warm-weather series, the chances are pretty good that politics-watchers ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- "The king can do no wrong." That is the ancient legal maxim used to explain why a sovereign should not be held to account for misdeeds. President Trump and his lawyers are now making arguments that make this legal doctrine look wimpy. Their vision boils down to: The king can do whatever wrong he damn pleases, and there's nothing ...Read more