https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/biden-campaigns-win-trump-maneuvers-hold-power-n1240965

“Given that Trump is pre-emptively crying ‘fraud’ and refusing to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power should he lose, this is the chronicle of an election debacle foretold,” said Kimberly Theidon, a professor of international humanitarian studies at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Theidon drew a parallel between Trump and former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, whose 2000 election she monitored. Fujimori won in a vote that the international community treated as illegitimate, and ultimately gave up power months later.

“Watching him control the media, the judiciary and having staged an early ‘auto-coup’ forms the backdrop for my deep concerns — what changed the outcome of his fraudulent win was domestic outrage and international monitoring,” Theidon said. “In light of Trump’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies, we can learn from similar electoral machinations elsewhere. There needs to be electoral monitoring by an international organization — the U.N. and the Organization of American States are two entities that come to mind.”

Everyday I take my canine familiars on walks throughout my neighborhood and local parks.  At some point I decided to begin picking up trash along the way, certain that others would also prefer a landscape of plants rather than plastic.  These small plastic liquor bottles? I collect dozens of these diminutive, infernal, single-use, single-dose bottles.  As more and more states ban plastic bags — some good news in an otherwise bleak news era — why are these allowed? Go Green, Plastic is Obscene!

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/11/03/entire-harvard-men-soccer-team-suspended-over-lewd-scouting-report/x4ZrXKMTCWW6YlhId10w8H/story.html?event=event25

“We cannot be a great College unless we are a good community.” Indeed. It is time to investigate the professors who sexually harass students, who engage in quid pro quo sexual transactions for letters of recommendation, for writing prologues to forthcoming books, and for placing phone calls to members of search committees looking to hire a tenure track professor. I refuse to remain silent,  and I encourage my colleagues to speak out. Even if you were silent in the past about the professorial misconduct you witnessed, you can still step forward now. It is not too late to do the right thing. Stand shoulder to shoulder with students, and take a stand to make certain this sort of behavior stops. Stand up.  If there is something to be learned from this interminable and infernal presidential campaign, it is the strength of numbers.  Each time a sexual assault or harassment  survivor comes forward, she or he emboldens others to do the same.  And let me be clear: the narrative burden for sexual violence must not rest upon the shoulders of survivors.  We all have a responsibility to speak out and demand change.