COLUMBIA, Mo. – In 2012, Americans sent more than 14 million tons of textile waste to trash dumps around the country, despite many options for consumers to repurpose or recycle textile waste, including donating old clothes to charities and recycling the materials to be remade into other products. Pamela Norum, professor and interim department chair of textile and apparel management …
JOHN M. GLIONNA – Too poor to retire and too young to die
At the wise age of 79, Dolores Westfall knows food shopping on an empty stomach is a fool’s errand. On her way to the grocery store last May, she pulled into the Town & Country Family Restaurant to take the edge off her appetite. After much consideration, she ordered the prime rib special and an iced tea — expensive at …
LUCIANA BOHNE – Barbarism Advances
In October of 1930, Thomas Mann made “An Appeal to Reason” inThe Berliner Taggeblatt: This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervish-like repetition of monotonous catchwords, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a …
Think Homelessness Can’t be Eradicated? These Communities Did It – Alex Pietrowski
The costs of homelessness is rarely discussed. We mostly hear statistics about the number of children living on the streets, the vast number of hungry individuals fed in soup kitchens, and the dangers that homeless families face during severe weather. As communities, we pull together by donating to food banks and participating in homeless outreach programs, even though government regulations …