Limited hospital access, fewer healthcare providers, and financial barriers exacerbate health disparities between rural and urban communities. Over 60 million people in the United States live in rural areas, usually composed of older individuals with worse health conditions who require more medical care. Rural areas have lower hospital access and fewer workers to treat particular conditions. Additionally, individuals in rural communities are less likely to have insurance, making access to healthcare exceedingly difficult. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare services started providing virtual meetings, known as telehealth, to help individuals in rural areas receive care. While telehealth is a promising system to address health disparities in rural communities, overcoming barriers to technology, funding, education, and hesitancy is essential to equitable healthcare access. 

After the pandemic, rural communities were more vulnerable to health and socioeconomic disparities. Over 100 hospitals closed by 2020, exacerbating health risks without access to primary care and mental health services. Since hospital access has become exceedingly difficult in these communities, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) allowed flexibilities within Medicare for individuals to use telehealth and access care during the pandemic. Telehealth provides patients with an alternative form of communication to consult healthcare providers through video, phone, or messaging services. This opportunity is most impactful in rural areas by making it possible for patients to receive medical advice and counseling from their homes.

Even though the CMS increased the availability of telehealth, people in urban areas were more likely to use the service than people in rural areas. Approximately 28% of people in rural communities and 24% of people in tribal lands lack high-speed internet, making it difficult to contact health professionals and impossible to conduct virtual appointments. Struggles with digital literacy make it difficult for older populations to use new technology and access telehealth benefits. 

There are also financial barriers that prevent the widespread use of telehealth services. Telehealth is primarily a fee-for-service program in which healthcare providers are reimbursed for each service provided to patients. This type of program can be expensive for those who require multiple visits since they have to pay for each service they receive. Medicare does not reimburse much in the fee-for-service system; it is dependent on the service provided and the zip code the patient lives. Restrictions on reimbursements increase the cost to patients to receive care. States have different regulations about the services that can be reimbursed by Medicaid and rural communities do not have clear regulations on such reimbursement policies. Individuals who are unable to pay for fee-for-service systems or do not have reimbursement regulations are less likely to use telecommunication services due to the high costs of routine visits. Payment and reimbursement strategies require more financial data to ensure that telemedicine reduces the cost of medical care. 

Cultural factors such as willingness to use the technology and public perception of telehealth services impact peoples’ use of these services. A 2024 study analyzes the disparities in telehealth access, focusing on the willingness of individuals to use its services. The researchers conclude that individuals have problems with audio and video quality and a limited data plan, and thus are less likely to use telehealth services. Low digital literacy in older populations prevents them from using telecommunication services, leading to less care and communication with their healthcare providers. 

Despite these hurdles, efforts are being made to improve telehealth accessibility. The federal government is expanding funding opportunities and technical support for rural communities with populations of less than 20,000 people by providing Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grants between $50,000 to $1 million to state and local governments, federally-recognized tribes, non-profit organizations, incorporated businesses, and other eligible groups. Additionally, the Rural Health Care Program provides healthcare providers, including post-secondary educational institutions, teaching hospitals, community health centers, local health agencies, and other nursing and clinic facilities, with services necessary to administer virtual care. 

Telehealth holds the potential to close the healthcare gap between rural and urban communities across the United States. It provides underserved individuals with an opportunity to access healthcare professionals. During the pandemic, approximately 97.6% of patients were satisfied with their telehealth services. For those who can access telehealth services, it serves as a convenient, efficient, and cost-saving method of receiving care. However, it takes more than the implementation of such technology in these areas. It is up to each person to adopt and willingly use it. Addressing barriers to infrastructure, funding, education, and hesitancy towards telehealth is essential to transform equitable healthcare access. 

Climate change, deforestation, air pollution—when it comes to the ways that people are damaging the global environment, the list goes on and on. Many of those issues are impossible to fix on an individual level. There is one environmental conflict, though, that all can play a role in alleviating: the rapid decline of the honeybee. But what are the facts, and what exactly can be done? How can we promote interspecies harmony?

Though it started long before then, the problem first received major attention in 2006, when the term “Colony Collapse Disorder,” or CCD, was coined. The term CCD is used when a colony still has a live queen but no more living adult bees. Since the turn of the century, both beekeepers and scientists have noticed sudden declines in bee populations (mostly in the US and Europe), largely caused by disease, poor nutrition, habitat loss, and pesticide exposure. Bees exposed to these forces can have disrupted life cycles, disorientation, and compromised immune systems, meaning that they will not pollinate as effectively. They then also become incredibly susceptible to varroosis, a disease caused by the deadly Varroa mite (sometimes affectionately termed the Varroa destructor). CCD is rampant. Decline in pollinator levels is important for humanity because 75 percent of crops depend on pollination; even products like medicines, biofuels, and fibers would be affected by disruption of bees (and other pollinators). So, for the past decade, it has been widely accepted that honey bees are dying and that greater environmental consciousness is necessary to save them. Plenty of action has been taken; the European Union, for example, banned outdoor use of certain pesticides that damaged bees’ immune systems. In California, researchers successfully advocated for safer insecticide practices. Within the general public, some advocate for buying local honey or planting bee-friendly flowers to help the bees pollinate. The world has become very much pro-pollinator.

However, these efforts may be slightly misguided. What many everyday consumers are unaware of is the difference between wild bees and “managed” bees—those that are maintained by beekeepers for commercial purposes. Wild bee populations are affected by environmental issues, but managed bees are part of the agricultural system and are not actually incorporated into local ecosystems. They are the insect equivalent of cows on a commercial farm. However, while domesticated cows present little danger to wild populations, managed honey bees can harm wild species. Research shows that managed bees can negatively affect wild bees via competition, changing the local plant communities, spreading pathogens, or at least by exacerbating ongoing population decline in wild groups. They also tend to both outcompete wild bees and disperse into the surrounding environments in unusually high densities, hurting even non-pollinator species just by virtue of the sheer number of new organisms in the area. Honey bees, as an agrarian tool, are also often moved around to different regions depending on whether crops are in bloom—from California almonds in the spring to Washington apples in the summer—but every geographical rotation introduces the bees as a new species into each environment, jeopardizing biodiversity.

This is not to say that the bees are not dying. Beekeepers’ fears are entirely valid—CCD has caused annual managed bee colony losses of up to 30 percent. And when managed bees spread pathogens to wild bees, the wild populations also suffer dramatically. There exists, however, an issue with the way the bee crisis is publicized. When it is portrayed as an environmental issue rather than a commercial-bee-farm issue, news-savvy consumers change their habits to help out as much as they can. But our individual conservation attempts, when uninformed, may end up doing more harm than good. To save the bees—both managed and wild—efforts need to target specific underlying causes, and consumers need to be made aware of the details. Lobbying against pesticide use, for example, would help both bee subgroups. Planting bee-friendly flowers also helps all bees. Going out of one’s way to buy honey from a local beekeeper, though, only helps managed bees. This is no reason to abandon buying honey, certainly, but these purchases are not inherently benefitting pollinator conservation.

If any lesson is to be taken from the bee crisis, let it be this: environmental issues are often more complicated than they may seem, and it is necessary to stay fully informed to help the environment. All actions cannot be assumed to be equally beneficial. If we want to help the bees, we need to help all of the bees.

Rural America faces a crisis in healthcare, leaving thousands without access to basic healthcare services, including a primary care physician. Rural hospital closures across the United States have risen dramatically in the last decade, numbering 87 closed facilities since 2010. While this trend has impacted the U.S. as a whole, the crisis unequally affects southern states, including Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia, the three states with the most rural hospital closures since 2010. Texas, with 15 hospital closures in the last nine years, exemplifies this crisis, as its closures disproportionately affect minority and immigrant communities, creates a shortage of primary care doctors, and demonstrates the effects of limited transportation and financial resources. Georgia, a state with similar characteristics to Texas, faces many of the same challenges.

Seven rural hospitals have closed in Georgia since 2010. Most recently, in July 2018, when Chestatee Regional Hospital in Dahlonega closed, leaving Lumpkin County without a functioning emergency room. While ongoing plans between Northeast Georgia Health System and the University of North Georgia propose a future facility in Dahlonega, for now, residents of Lumpkin County must endure the additional time and cost to travel 45 minutes away to Gainesville, GA, where the nearest emergency room is located.

  Similar circumstances have plagued Richland, a small rural town in Stewart County, GA with a population of just under 2000, when its local hospital closed in 2013. When Stewart Webster Hospital, a 25-bed “critical access” facility closed, Dr. Alluri Raju, a Richland physician, believed that the most devastating effect of the hospital closure was the impact on acute emergencies. Without the facility, for several years, Richland citizens have travelled more than an hour to Columbus to access treatment. Additionally, only two ambulances serve Stewart County, compounding the distance and difficulty in obtaining immediate emergency care. 

Not only are communities dependent on hospitals for care, but many rural hospitals serve as the largest employers in their regions. While it only provided 25 beds, Stewart Webster Hospital was the largest employer in town. In Dahlonega, Chestatee Hospital left over 200 former employees jobless. Again, this story resonates across the state: once the hospital closed, several local businesses were forced to shut their doors for good and those who survived experienced significant losses in business. An interest in health policy and improving health outcomes is not only moral, but imperative to uplifting rural Georgia.

Richland and Dahlonega’s stories are not the exception, but rather the status quo for rural Georgia. Without immediate access to emergency care departments, each extra minute can constitute the difference between life and death. In a state with vast geographic disparities in healthcare access, rural hospital closures have led to worsening circumstances for many rural Georgians.

Hospitals

The effects of these rural hospital closures are staggering, as they often lead to a rise in the cost of emergency medical services, greater transportation time for patients to healthcare services, and job losses for staff previously employed by the hospitals. The ripple effects of hospital closures continues with much broader reach, including outward migration of community members and overall diminished community health due to a lack of preventative care. Additionally, minority groups and other vulnerable populations experience heightened impacts related to transportation challenges and other barriers to healthcare access, including financial and time constraints. 

Minority populations already deal with unique obstacles to effective healthcare, including language barriers, social stigmas, and cultural differences, and these are compounded by the broader healthcare crisis. If a community has a limited number of physicians, the chances of those physicians being culturally competent are slim. The lack of cultural competence among medical professionals constrains the efficacy of care, and adding the pressure of the urgent overall crisis, minority communities are doubly impacted by the costs of both.

Despite the dire statistics, resilient communities have found ways to save their healthcare as a variety of different methods have proved successful in keeping hospital doors open in rural Georgia. These innovative strategies have included specializing in a niche area of healthcare, implementing telehealth technology programs, and merging with larger healthcare systems. 

In Miller County, a small, rural county in South Georgia, a decision to specialize in ventilator care saved the Miller County Hospital, and now, around 60 patients receive care at the Miller County Nursing Home. This development was cost-heavy initially, but after nine months, the hospital saw returns on that investment. In addition to attracting a wider pool of patients through its new ventilator care specialization, Miller County Hospital installed its own pharmacy, which saved money on outsourcing prescriptions, and gave free doctor visits to local businesses in order to appeal to insured clients. The hospital also expanded the services it offered at a rural clinic, which reduced unnecessary visits to the emergency room. These efforts proved fruitful for Miller County Hospital, its 500 employees, and nearly 6,000 Miller County residents.

            In Sumter County, home to former President Jimmy Carter, the recent closure of Plains Medical Center in March 2018 left residents of Plains, GA without access to a doctor’s office, and therefore, a primary care physician. For the next four months, this gap in healthcare presented a major challenge to community health. However, with the help of President Carter, a partnership formed between Mercer Medicine of Mercer University and the small, rural town. Although Mercer Medicine is located approximately 90 miles northeast of Plains in Macon, GA, technological developments have allowed for a new strand of medical care to take root. The concept of telehealth is connected to the greater effort of providing rural Georgia with access to broadband Internet, and it allows patients to meet online with medical professionals across the state. Currently, the Mercer Medicine Plains clinic offers mental health services via telehealth conference, and Mercer Medicine is exploring plans to expand into other healthcare specialties. Thanks to technology and resourceful regional leaders, residents of Plains, GA now have access to basic healthcare, and the added connectivity could lend its benefits in the realm of rural broadband access as well.

The improvements made by Georgia hospitals themselves have been a key factor in keeping facilities functional throughout rural areas, but these strategies are not enough to reverse the effects of the healthcare crisis. Any solution must have a multi-faceted approach, as the healthcare crisis finds its roots in the systematic problems with healthcare policy in America, and part of that solution could be an expansion to Medicaid.

Medicaid Expansion

Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), several states employed Medicaid expansion to boost economic growth across their states while improving overall access to health care. Medicaid programs are state-run, but Medicaid expansion allows the federal government to provide extra funds to raise income eligibility levels for the program. Once a state expands, for the first three years, the federal government will pay 100 percent of costs for newly-enrolled individuals, and over time the federal share would decrease to 90 percent of the cost.

While several red, blue, and purple states expanded Medicaid through the ACA, former Governor Nathan Deal was a strong opponent of the policy, afraid that the financial cost of the program would place Georgia in debt if the federal support for the program ended. While the financial risk of the program may seem valid, with increases in health insurance coverage, the economic impact of the program would bring billions of dollars to Georgia. To many, Governor Deal’s failure to support the legislation stems from partisanship and an inability to look past the negative stereotypes associated with programs designed to help poorer communities, predominantly communities of color.

With Governor Deal term-limited, many believed the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race provided a unique opening for a candidate to champion Medicaid expansion. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams became a staunch champion of Medicare expansion, believing it to be the quickest and most efficient way to recommit to rural Georgia.

While Abrams was a strong proponent for Medicaid expansion, Republican candidate Brian Kemp, now Governor Kemp, believed that Medicaid expansion would lead to further financial woes for Georgians. When pressured to provide tangible policies to improve the status quo for health care, Kemp campaigned on reducing health care premiums for average, working-class Georgians on the private insurance market. He also supported an income tax credit program to support rural hospital organizations (RHOs) in the state. While these policies are well-accepted, many health care advocates believed they fell short at incentivizing health care providers to return to rural Georgia.

Medicaid Waivers

Since the November elections, Republicans have shifted their views on health care in Georgia, especially  Medicaid. While initially a forceful opponent of Medicaid, in his State of the State Address, Kemp promised to appropriate $1 million in funds to the Georgia Department of Community Health to explore flexibility options for state Medicaid through Section 1115 waivers.

While an enticing buzzword, “flexibility” regarding state Medicaid can be a double-edged sword. 1115 waivers provide states avenues to explore alternative systems of coverage that do not meet federal program rules. By allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to waive certain provisions of major health and welfare programs, such as Medicaid, states can use federal Medicaid funds in innovative ways beyond the prescribed method. Medicaid waivers provide flexibility by allowing states to waive certain rules to accomplish certain goals, including reducing costs, expanding coverage, or improving care for communities. 

Many states have used waivers for purposes, including expanding Medicaid coverage to larger populations, changing health care delivery models, and altering cost-sharing payment structures. Since the implementation of the ACA, several states have used 1115 waivers to expand Medicaid, provide additional services not traditionally covered by Medicaid, and to reduce costs while simultaneously increasing efficiency and quality of care.

In Arizona, 1115 waivers were used to create a statewide, managed care delivery system for Medicaid recipients. This allowed state’s Medicaid program to better integrate physical and behavioral health, cover adult dental benefits, and provide incentive payments to providers for increasing physical and behavioral health integration and coordination for enrollees with behavioral health needs. While innovation within Medicaid could potentially improve health care access and affordability, many states have sought waivers to create Medicaid work requirements, failing to improve health outcomes.

Medicaid work requirements encourage “able-bodied individuals” go back to work to maintain Medicaid benefits. Pregnant women and children on Medicaid may not have to meet Medicaid work requirements, but waivers coupled with work requirements can hurt many Medicaid beneficiaries. Work requirement advocates believe that if individuals are employed, many will be able to obtain insurance from their employers, rather than depend on Medicaid. However, this is based on the assumption that most Medicaid recipients are unemployed – a false claim.

Arkansas is one of eight states that has coupled Medicaid expansion with work requirements. Affecting all non-elderly enrollees, unless exempt, enrollees must engage in 80 hours of work to qualify for Medicaid benefits. Following implementation, out of 105,000 enrollees over 18,000 were disenrolled from Medicaid, failing to comply with the work requirement. Out of the 18,000 dropped from Medicaid due to work requirements, only 1,452 reapplied for Medicaid. According to HHS Secretary Alex Azar, this is an indication that “the individuals who left the program were doing so because they got a job [in] this booming economy.” However, there is no data to suggest this. In fact, according to Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, the data suggests that less than 1% of the 18,000 dropped are newly reporting work. The idea that a work requirement would push people out of poverty is short-sighted, and has little effect in increasing work or cutting poverty.

As in Arkansas, work requirements may inadvertently lead to many Georgians becoming uninsured and unable to depend on Medicaid and other public safety-net programs. Restrictions on Medicaid eligibility impede the goals of reducing uninsured rate and reducing uncompensated hospital care costs. 76% of Georgia’s non-elderly Medicaid recipients are in families with at least one worker; many of these people would lose their Medicaid eligibility under a work requirement, putting further strain on their health outcomes. Additionally, the state’s budget would be strained from the added administrative costs to monitor employment statuses and help people find work.

While innovation within Medicaid can be successful when carefully considered and analyzed, Section 1115 waivers coupled with work requirements are not the solution to Georgia’s health crisis. The largely race-based discourse regarding Medicaid and other “government handouts” perpetuates policies that have disparate impacts on Black and Latinx communities. Georgia is in the middle of a rural hospital crisis, and policymakers should seek policies that strengthen our public institutions and ensure quality health care is an option to all Georgians. From telehealth to Medicaid innovation, effective solutions exist to ensure that access to quality and affordable health care is an option to all, including rural Georgia.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published in the Spring 2019 Magazine

Every year, the World Health Organization releases a list of the top ten threats to global health. This year’s list features “vaccine hesitancy,” which is the “refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines.” Others threats on the list include HIV, Dengue, and Ebola. The group dubbed “anti-vaxxers” hasve begun a campaign that is fraught with factual inaccuracies and emotional propaganda, including unsubstantiated claims about vaccines causing autism. Their disregard for science threatens not only their own lives, but the lives of everyone around them.

One prominent anti-vaxx group, Vaccine Liberation, hopes to “reveal the myth that vaccines are safe, necessary, and effective.” Their poorly designed website features propaganda-like slogans and images and supposedly educational articles that link mainly to their own website.

Their organization, like many others, was likely created in response to a 1998 paper that falsely correlated the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine with autism. The paper was later retracted based on its poor study design, its unsubstantiated claims, and criticism from the scientific community. It was also revealed to have been funded by lawyers representing parents who were suing vaccine companies, but the doubts about vaccine safety have remained.

Numerous studies have been published that demonstrate how crucial vaccines are to global health. They not only build immunity in the recipient of the shot, but also protect those who cannot be vaccinated because of medical conditions, like immunodeficiency. However, anti-vaxxer campaigns continue to deny scientific evidence and perpetuate belief in misconceptions. For instance, they call attention to the major improvement in personal hygiene during the Industrial Revolution, saying that this contributed to better human health, not vaccines. While better hygiene has improved overall health, vaccinations have had a much more significant impact. 

They also claim that many of the diseases that today’s vaccinations are for do not exist anymore; however, many of these diseases still exist outside of the U.S., such as measles. A travellertraveler, or other vector, could bring that disease to the United States,.S. causing people who are not vaccinated to contract and spread the disease. 

Additionally, today’s vaccines are very safe and any side effects are typically short term, such as a fever or sore arm. Vaccines also can not manifest or enable the symptoms of the virus give the virus they protect against. Doctors point out that vaccines are usually given at the beginning of that disease’s “season,” when people are most at risk to become ill. Furthermore, multiple vaccines at the same time have been scientifically proven to not to overload a child’s immune system, while the supposedly deadly chemicals they contain are either naturally produced in the body nor exit the system within several days. 

Use of non-medical vaccine exemptions has recently increased in 12 out of 18 states where they are allowed, thanks to the anti-vaxxer movement. These “hot spots” are often the sites of outbreaks, such as the recent wave of measles in Washington state.

 Much of the spread of this movement can be attributed to social media platforms. In response, many have joined the backlash against the anti-vaccination movement. Pinterest has blocked searches for vaccine content and YouTube has banned the use of ads to monetize anti-vaxx videos. Facebook, which is home to countless groups that promote disinformation about vaccines, has been called on to stop the spread of misinformation on their site. These groups, such as Vitamin C Against Vaccine Damage and Stop Mandatory Vaccination, provide an environment where people can play into each other’s fears of disease. The leaders of these groups often profit from the uncertainty they create, as well. One CEO advertises Vitamin C as a cure-all, then sells it in bulk.

Some unvaccinated teenagers are taking matters into their own hands. As they come of age, teens are navigating the healthcare system to get themselves vaccinated. One teen, who had himself vaccinated in December 2018, Ethan Lindenberger, has become well-known for his Reddit comments and pursuit of vaccination despite his mother’s wishes. “God knows how I’m alive,” he says. 

The bottom line is that anti-vaxxers are endangering the lives of themselves, their children, and the world population at large. Time and time again, science has shown the safety and success of vaccination and how it can save lives. Vaccination has even led to the eradication of several diseases, including smallpox. Whether it is banning unvaccinated persons from public institutions or limiting “philosophical” exemptions through legal action, something must be done to combat this misguided faction’s actions. The anti-vaccination movement is no longer a fringe group that mainstream society can scoff at. It has grown to be a valid campaign to many people and a real threat to global health.

The word science comes from the Latin verb scire, meaning “to know.” Throughout all the iterations of science – from ancient mythologies to current astrophysics, from the Enlightenment to postmodernism, from Copernicus to Rachel Carson – the discipline of science has aimed to answer varying specificities of the question Why? in an effort to understand something more, to know something more about the world we live in.

Through the experience of answering questions of this nature, we have developed the scientific method, which, when used correctly, works! In its essence, the scientific method standardizes the way in which we go about acquiring new knowledge in disciplines ranging from international affairs to biological engineering. So why – if we have been practicing science for so long, have benefitted astronomically from scientific discoveries, have created methodologies largely agreed upon to produce correct conclusions – does science seem to constantly be at odds with society? A typical response alludes to the battle between science and public opinion for legitimacy, such as Galileo’s infamous trial by the Catholic Church or today’s rejection of scientific findings about climate change, citing the lack of scientific literacy of the public.

While this is certainly true, focusing on that side of science – the communication of scientific discovery to society at large – lets science off the hook for some of its more serious internal and critical issues.

First, science is internally facing a struggle with the reliance upon p-values that is shaping what research goes public. This reliance on significance tests then shapes what research gets done, and ultimately what conclusions are communicated to the scientific community (and furthermore, the public). When setting up scientific research, one of the most common methods is to construct a null hypothesis, in which the population parameter is equal to a certain value, and then your alternative hypothesis, that the population parameter is either greater than, less than, or simply not equal to that value in the null hypothesis. To summarize a central statistical maxim, a p-value indicates the probability of getting the result in your study assuming that the null hypothesis is true. P-values can be used to reject null hypotheses, but do not necessarily indicate that an alternative hypothesis is true. P-values are what provides the word significant to the phrase “statistically significant” seen all over science journal articles, reports of scientific studies, and undergraduate research papers. The issue with p-values does not come with concept itself, but how it has taken over the world of scientific research.

Vox recently reported that a meta-study investigating the prevalence of p-values in medical journals found that a total of “96% [of articles] reported at least 1 P value of .05 or lower”. This exceedingly high number suggests a couple of things. First, journals are prioritizing the publication of research that has at least one statistically significant result, forgetting that null results are important too. Null results tell us that our preconceived ideas are not true, that this hypothesis tested in this way could not explain what is happening. Second, researchers are likely participating in “p-hacking, in which researchers test their data against many hypotheses and only report those that have statistically significant results.” This is a disservice to the scientific community, because it challenges the validity of the research that has been conducted.

However, it is likely that this type of manipulation is not coming from a malicious place – instead, the world of academia is structured such that researchers can only succeed if they are published. Graduate students and professors vying for tenure track positions are facing intense pressure to publish in the best journals as much as possible, in the hope that it may give them some sort of job security in the unforgiving environment of higher education. Indeed, those who end up staying in academia as adjunct professors face alarmingly low wages – about thirty-three percent of adjuncts live under the federal poverty line.

The funding crisis plays into this anxiety as well. Since conducting research costs money, researchers must apply for funding from various sources (including industry) every time they conduct a study, usually through a competitive grant process. Thus, research questions are shaped around the goals of these industries and the topics most relevant or of economic importance. Instead of researchers directly dictating their research questions and feeling free to explore the areas in which interest them the most, some feel conflicted by the pressures of attaining funding for current and future research. Thus, they acquiesce to questions or research designs they believe are more likely to result in statistical significance or answers that support industry interests. A perfect example of this is a recent study that uncovered the intentional actions of the Sugar Research Foundation to influence research conducted by Harvard professors to find and emphasize a relationship between fats and Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), while also devaluing research showing that sugar intake was also an element in the rise of CHD. As seen in this example, science, especially medical science, has a direct effect on public policy choices, which may have led people to eating unhealthy levels of sugar, not believing it to be bad for their health.

Although these are only a few of the problems that the institution of science needs to discuss and solve within itself, they show how not every issue of science versus the public can be explained away by a lack of scientific literacy. While certainly the U.S. public could gain immensely from having a more sophisticated way of reading and understanding science, the internal battles science is facing now cannot be disregarded. For science to truly maintain its status as a deliverer of knowledge, it needs to examine each of these problems in turn and provide solutions for them.

By Swapnil Agrawal

Georgia is going green – at your power bill’s expense. In late July, the Public Service Commission, Georgia’s regulatory tribunal for utilities, approved Georgia Power’s plan to generate 1,600 megawatts of renewable energy by 2021. According to EIA data, that’s enough to power 264,000 homes and satisfy over 10 percent of the state’s energy. That’s an ambitious goal, given that solar, biomass and hydroelectric sources make up very little of the state’s electricity generation today. The plan was hailed as a big step forward by conservationists like the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Georgia Climate Change Coalition. However, organizations on the right, such as Americans for Prosperity and Georgia Public Policy Foundation, have fought hard against the Commission’s decision. They claim that the regulatory agency is betraying its true mission of protecting the public interest by promoting policies that will raise energy costs for consumers.

The motives of these conservative groups have been called into question by watchdog organizations. A report by the Energy and Policy Institute reveals that some of the groups are funded by a combination of utility interests, oil and gas companies, and the Koch brothers, casting doubt over the accuracy of their research. However, there is conclusive evidence from independent researchers that reveals there are, in fact, hidden costs of renewable energy policies. New installations for large-scale renewable power require massive amounts of capital and often carry external costs such as grid and systems upgrades. Utility companies often pay higher costs for solar and wind energy due to high transmission costs and disruptions from localized weather events.

There’s data to back this up: states that have implemented mandatory renewable requirements have seen rates increase by an average of 54.2 percent, and rising electricity costs in European countries have been tied to development of large renewable projects. Unfortunately, high costs will be a barrier that discourages further renewable development. Rising electricity prices has led to backlash against renewable energy in states such as Oklahoma, Ohio and Kansas. Given that low electricity prices are incredibly important for economic growth across a variety of industries, support for green energy will be determined by the government’s ability to mitigate the costs households and business will face.

Absent policy changes, Georgia’s turn to renewables is unlikely to last. The state’s current regulatory scheme to promote renewable energy is severely inadequate. Georgia Power has been soliciting bids for solar power plants since 2013 at a variety of rates, but no projects have been completed yet. The state’s rooftop solar program was a failure. Despite fielding over 10,000 inquiries, only five customers have signed up. Georgia Power also has a voluntary program in which consumers can buy “blocks” of energy generated from biomass or solar panels. Consumers who want to participate pay a higher price for electricity to get 100kWh of green energy for a 12-month period. However, the higher electricity bills often deter otherwise environmentally friendly consumers from participating in the program.

Other governments have had great success with policy mechanisms that promote renewable sources while keeping electricity prices low. In California, consumers who install solar panels can sell their excess energy generation during the day back to the utility companies as part of a ‘net-metering’ policy, resulting in low utility costs. Georgia’s lack of a net-metering policy could be the reason its rooftop solar program was unsuccessful. Some European countries have taken this concept even further by introducing feed-in tariffs. These policies break the monopoly utility companies hold by paying consumers a premium rate for generating their own energy, resulting in decreased wholesale electricity prices. Carefully tailored government subsidies targeted at increasing purchases of solar panels or developing large renewable plants can also be successful at lowering investment costs.

Despite historical resistance against green energy in red states, there is a unique political coalition forming that might make policies such as feed-in tariffs and renewable energy incentives possible in states like Georgia. The environmental movement is joining hands with unlikely allies in the Tea Party to promote solar power in Georgia. The Democrats like these policies because they help reduce the impact of climate change, and Tea Partiers support them to promote free markets over big government in the energy sector. Prominent activists such as Debbie Dooley, co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party, are taking on Americans for Prosperity to refute claims that decentralized generation will raise prices. Increased renewable energy generation is inevitable as the nation pushes to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The state must determine whether it wants to get ahead of the curve with common sense legislation to promote long term green growth, or suffer the costs of high energy prices and diminished economic growth.

Physicists say time travel is possible and in fact has already happened. But before we examine how to travel through time, let’s discuss some background information about what time means in our universe. In fact, when you look up at the sky at night, you’re actually looking into the past.

Light is our communication device with the cosmos. Our eyes are built to be light receivers, and anything we see in outer space is due to some source emitting light (Galfard, 2016, p.64).

Light is the fastest traveling entity in the universe. That’s a law. Nothing travels faster than light. Although 186,282.397 miles per second (m/s) is pretty fast, it is not instantaneous. It still takes time to get from one place to another (Galfard, 2016, p.67).

Here’s an example. Suppose you write a letter from Athens to a friend that lives in Alaska. You put it in an envelope, stamp it, and send it off. When you send your letter, will your friend receive it at that moment? Or even that day? Doubtful. By the time your friend receives your letter, you could have fallen out of a Jeep during an African safari and died for all they know. Point being, it took time for your letter to get to your friend, and, during that time, things happen.

Now let’s take this concept and apply it to the cosmos. Consider a star far away from Earth. Here, the star is the letter-writer, light is the letter, and the Earth is the receiver. When a star shines, it is emitting light that sends an image of itself to us on Earth. But because light does not travel instantaneously (only 186,000 m/s), it takes time for the image to reach Earth, just like it takes time for your friend to receive your letter. The further the object, the longer it takes.

Now, we measure how far away an object is in space using light years. A light year is how far light travels in one year. So if light travels 186,000 miles per second, then in one year… well, that’s pretty far.

The furthest star that can be seen with the naked eye is V762 Cas, which is 16,308 light years away. You can try looking for it at night by yourself, but typically you need to know where to look since it is hard to see. That means when V762 (the letter sender) emits an image of itself using light (the letter), it takes light 16,308 years to reach our eyes (receivers). So, when you look at V762 at night, you are really looking it as it was 16,308 years in the past.

In 2014, scientists witnessed a star explode in a faraway galaxy using a telescope. As far as those scientists are concerned, that star died in January of 2014. But if you were right next to the star at the time of its death, you would have been 12,000,000 years older as of January 2014 (Galfard, 2016, p.68). In other words, that star was 12,000,000 light years away, so by the time we received the light that depicted the explosion, 12,000,000 years had passed, and the star was long gone.

Take the Sun. If the Sun stopped shining this instant, we wouldn’t realize it until eight minutes after the fact because it takes light eight minutes to travel the 93,000,000 miles from the Sun to Earth. We never see the Sun as it is, but rather as it was eight minutes ago. In fact, we do not even see the Sun where it is at any point; during the eight minutes it takes the Sun’s light to reach Earth, the Sun moves approximately 73,000 miles along its orbit. When we see the Sun we see it not only eight minutes in the past but also 73,000 miles off from its current location (Galfard, 2016, p.68).

So when we look into the sky or use instruments to look at objects in our universe, we are essentially receiving “letters” (light images) from everywhere, all sent at different times in the past from different locations in the universe. When we patch together all these letters what we get is a slice of the history of our universe as it is visible from Earth (Galfard, 2016, p.69).

Now that we have some knowledge on space and time, let’s examine how you can take advantage of light to travel through time.

To travel to the future, the first thing you need to do is find a way to travel at or near the speed of light in space. That’s 186,000 miles per second; good luck.

Remember that light is the fastest entity in the universe by law. So, if you move at near the speed of light, time will be moving slowly compared to you.

For example, let’s say you are a twenty-one-year old kid, and you leave home to travel to space for a year at the speed of light. You say goodbye to your mom and promise to return in a year. Off you go at 186,000 miles per second. You return to Earth at the age of twenty-two to discover that your mother died… 1,000,000 years ago.

“But I was only gone for a year,” you may think. Let’s examine what happened. At the speed of light, your time moves slowly relative to those on Earth. So when you return to Earth, you are only one year older while Earth aged by 1,000,000 years. This process is termed time dilation

How does this happen? The basic principle is that the universe is made of two components: space and time. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity says as one component (such as motion through space) increases, the other (such as the temporal component) decreases. Thus, if you are moving at high speed and have greater motion through space, by law your time will slow down. So one year at the speed of light could be up to a million years on slower Earth, depending on how close to the speed of light you are traveling.

Time travel doesn’t happen only at high speeds, but rather at any speed. For example, astronaut Sergei Krikalev spent 803 days in space. His ship travelled at 7.33 km/s, and, due to this high speed, he returned to Earth 0.02 seconds in the future. So, traveling at the speed of light isn’t the only way to travel to the future, but the closer you get to the speed of light, the more significant the time difference will be.

We know that time travel is possible. It’s been done already. The difficult part is finding a way to execute the idea. One of the major obstacles is obtaining the amount of energy required to travel at such a high speed. In addition, even if we somehow managed to concentrate all that energy, the force on the human body would likely prove fatal.

What’s more is that we have no way of traveling back in time. As speed is our mechanism for traveling to the future, there is no such mechanism for traveling to the past. Moving at a negative speed is not possible. So if you plan on traveling to the year 4050, be ready to say goodbye to 2017 for good.

If the cosmos intrigues you, a great book to read is “The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, And Beyond” by Christophe Galfard. Galfard doesn’t just explain the universe to you; he shows you the universe. No science background is needed; the book is tailored towards the layman. What we’ve discussed here is only a snippet of information contained in the book about our inexplicable universe. If you read Galfard’s novel, you will find concepts that can be difficult to fathom. While the book will make you feel highly insignificant here on tiny Earth, it will open your eyes to the wonders of the universe in which we live.

Galfard, Christophe. The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey through Space, Time, and beyond. New York: Flatiron, 2016. Print.

The Obama administration has used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) ten times more than any other administration. The exponential increase in the use of these mobile weapons has reinforced much of the public’s preexisting notion about drones. The public would prefer the use of these remotely-controlled machines instead of any boots on the ground strategy. That line of logic is so convincing – what rational American wouldn’t want to save a soldier’s life over a foreign enemy?

Ideally, drones are meant to eliminate specific targets that are deemed a threat to a country’s national security. Drone attacks occur throughout the world but a majority of them target high level terrorist organizations like AQAP and ISIS in the Middle East. Although drones are much easier and “safer” to use against terrorists, they are not nearly as accurate as people perceive them to be. Many would argue that the killing of a terrorist is worth the costs, but a new study from the Intercept found that 90 percent of people killed in drone strikes “were not the intended targets,” but were civilians instead. Other statistical models point to a 50:1 ratio of civilians to militants killed in drone strikes. This level of inaccuracy is absurdly high when it comes to unintended lives lost. Inhabitants where drone strikes occur should not be punished just for residing in an area of instability and violence.

The number of civilians killed via drone strikes is not concrete because the government keeps a majority of this intelligence classified. In addition, the evidence the government does release may be inaccurate. The Obama administration recently released certain civilian casualty numbers this July. The release claimed that drones under the Obama administration have only killed 64 civilians, but this report fails to share information such as where and when these strikes took place, likely to hide the intelligence from public scrutiny. Other groups such as the Long War Journal have put the civilian casualty rate at 200 under the Obama administration, while the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has put the number at 325.

The number of civilian deaths may also be deflated because of how the government defines civilians. For example, if you are a young man standing near a suspected terrorist, you are considered a legitimate target and thus not considered in the civilian casualty report.

Morally questionable practices with drones continue on a regular basis. Such was the case with the Wech Baghtu wedding party airstrike which killed 67 Afghan civilians in 2008, the wedding attack in Yemen which killed twelve in 2013, and the Deh Bala wedding party airstrike which killed 47 Afghans. The list goes on and on.

The United States government also conducts drone strikes using immoral targeting techniques, like “double-tap droning.” The drone bombs a target, waits for some time, and then bombs the scene again when the first responders come to help the victims. Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer, revealed, “in the past it used to be a one-off, every now and then. Now almost every other attack is a double tap. There is no justification for it.” This method has also proven to be very ineffective as the civilian casualty rate is exceedingly high. Only 2 percent of these types of attacks actually kill terrorist militants.

Not only is our current drone policy morally corrupt because of the innocent lives it takes on a global level, but it is also counterproductive as it results in more instability and terrorism in the region. Four U.S. Air Force members wrote a letter to Obama warning him that drones are used as propaganda and recruiting methods for major terrorist groups like ISIS.

The resentment evoked by American drone strikes is underestimated by the general public. Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism for the U.S. State Department explains,

“[Y]ou cause enemies for the United States that will last for generations. All of these innocent people that you kill have brothers and sisters and tribe—tribal relations. Many of them were not opposed to the United States prior to some one of their friends or relatives being killed. And then, sometimes, they cross over, not only to being opposed to the United States, but by being willing to pick up arms and become a terrorist against the United States. So you may actually be creating terrorists, rather than eliminating them.”

If America harms innocent families’ loved ones, the aggrieved may join extremist organizations to avenge the deaths of those lost – that’s human nature.

Drones also have a history of destroying the local economy in the place of attack, which often fuels ISIS recruitment propaganda. Terrorist groups will often help the local individuals by distributing food, water, and other basic necessities, which reinforces the perception that they will aid the devastated community. This is especially seen with AQAP in Yemen. These groups simply demand that you join their organization to benefit their cause, and as a result they will provide the locals with jobs, homes, and a future in return. This quid pro quo relationship is often the reason that terrorist recruitment is most successful in poorer areas because of the desperation these people face. Drone strikes are just another factor which helps individuals to act rashly and join terrorist organizations.

The people of the United States continue to approve drone strikes. 58 percent of the public is in support of the use of drones, while only 35 percent disapproves. The number increases to 74 percent approval throughout the Republican Party. The reason for this varies, but it may be caused because of a lack of media representation. For example, a strike in North Waziristan killed 10 people and another strike in South Waziristan killed four people, but the only news network that showed footage of these events was an English language Iranian governmental news channel. Furthermore, the United States conducts airstrikes in Yemen several times a month, but the U.S. Central Command announces these attacks weeks after they happen. Popular networks have the information on drone strikes but rarely care to report on it. The lack of mainstream coverage of frequent U.S. military drone strikes has left the general public ignorant about this serious issue.

Although drones don’t require boots on the ground, they pose a greater threat to American interests in the long term because of the provocation of anti-American sentiment. As Americans, we first need to acknowledge the issue and then ask ourselves if we want to be known as the country that slaughters hundreds of uninvolved civilians or a country that can resolve its national security issues without endangering thousands of peace-loving citizens.

Whether you are riding with DJ Khaled through the journey of more success on Snapchat or reading the latest Humans Of New York post, there is no question that social media has become deeply embedded into our daily lives. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, which were all founded between 2004 and 2011, have experienced astonishing rates of growth. These tech startups have mushroomed into multibillion dollar corporations virtually overnight, with Facebook leading the pack, boasting a market cap of $318.27 billion as of March 21, and Snapchat bringing up the rear, with a Fidelity market valuation of $12 billion.

The driving force behind these impressive figures is this: social media, which started as a forum for individuals to share their lives with friends and family has evolved into a powerful and lucrative platform that has had a far-reaching and significant impact on various sectors of the economy. In this article, we’ll focus specifically on two sectors, advertising and news media.

Let’s first examine the impact on advertising. The rise of social media has revolutionized the way companies market their products to consumers. Although television ad sales still account for 38.4 percent of the $503 billion global ad market, the New York Times reports that digital ad spending may soon overtake it. In 2015 alone, social network ad spending hit $23.68 billion, with Snapchat charging companies a staggering $750,000 per day for sponsorships, which ranged from ads that play during live stories (location specific Snapchat stories) to filters that promote a company product. The photo sharing start-up is able to demand such high prices because of its large user base. On average, Snapchat has nearly 100 million daily active users, and the company is even rivaling Facebook on daily video viewership. The effect of this user base can be seen clearly in ad viewership statistics. Fashion magazine Cosmopolitan averages 3 million Snapchat views daily, and music mogul DJ Khaled posts Snapchat stories that each earn well over 2 million views. With such high visibility, social media like Snapchat have been able to claim more of the market share by offering prime advertising real estate to companies at a lofty price.

Another reason companies are so eager to promote their product on social media is because they are revolutionizing how advertisements reach the consumer by more effectively pinpointing and reaching target audiences. Despite the recent entry of targeted TV ads that take a more granular approach in determining viewership demographics than before, these ads still cannot compare to the specificity of ads that appear on social networks because social media employ large amounts of user information in order to fine-tune an advertisement’s audience. In particular, Facebook has access to a log of websites you’ve visited in the past 90 days as long as those websites have a Facebook plug-in, such as a “Like” or “Share” button. More specifically, when you visit a website with one of these social plug-ins your browser automatically sends a cookie, which contains your user ID as well as the website URL, date, and time back to Facebook. The company claims that they record this information in order “to help show you a personalized experience on that site and to improve our [Facebook’s] products.” In this way, web data in conjunction with self-reported interests and activities allows Facebook as well as other social media platforms to distribute personalized ads to target audiences.

Now examining the impact on news media, one can see that social media’s vast user base has not only had a significant impact on the propagation and public perception of news but has also changed the way journalists interact with the public. A 2015 study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Twitter and Facebook users consumed news on these social media platforms. The proportion of users who use these social networks as news sources has increased substantially from 2013, when only 52 percent Twitter users and 47 percent of Facebook users got their news from these respective outlets.

The study also found that there were differences between the types of media consumed on each site. In particular, Twitter users were twice as likely to report that they used the site for breaking news than their Facebook counterparts. This most likely arises from Twitter’s design, which promotes the use of short and concise messages. Following the trend of providing concise media coverage, Facebook debuted its “Trending” sidebar in mid-2015, which allows users to more easily find popular articles on politics, science and technology, sports, or entertainment. As a result, Facebook and Twitter now play a major role in deciding which topics are presented to the public, which ultimately has an effect on what issues are being discussed in Washington.

The increase in users obtaining their news from social media platforms has prompted journalists to be more active on these social networks. However, this has some unforeseen consequences. A 2014 ING survey reports that the majority of journalists believe that social media is not only necessary to the performance of their daily activities, but that social media also provides better quality reach than traditional media. However, 60 percent of journalists report that they are “less bound by journalistic rules” on social media than in traditional media. Journalists’ tendency to do less fact checking on social networks, compounded with the fact that the nature of social platforms rewards those who are able to post their article first, has created a “publish first, correct if necessary” culture in the media.

Social networking has also produced a setting in which journalists can easily interact with their audience through methods like conducting straw polls or posing questions that shed light on public opinions. As a result, half of the reporters in the ING study use social platforms as their main source of information, and 50 percent of journalists believe that consumer opinion is more reliable than statements issued by organizations. This in turn raises concerns about the reliability of news pieces that are based on consumer opinions because 32 percent of journalists regard posts on social media as unreliable, and authors do not always check whether the opinions used in their articles are based on facts.

There’s no question that applications like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat have had a significant impact on how we live our daily lives. On the surface, social networking has transformed the way we communicate, interact, and share information with one another. However, it’s also worthwhile to dig a little deeper and examine some of social media’s less well known impacts. By doing so, we can reveal both beneficial and detrimental changes in different economic sectors like marketing and news media and ultimately gain a better understanding of how social media is shaping our world.

In early March of 1965, state troopers attacked a group of peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. One woman, a civil rights leader named Amelia Boynton, was left unconscious on the side of the road. From several yards away, a news camera zoomed in on Boynton just in time to capture a billy club crashing into her limp body. The event was broadcasted on evening news.

The next day the protest’s leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., announced, “We will no longer let them use their clubs on us in the dark corners. We’re going to make them do it in the glaring light of television.” From then on, the revolution was televised. People sitting at home could see the firehoses spraying, the clubs swinging, the leveling of lock-armed vigils. Evening family time around the television became a lot less comfortable.

Each subsequent revolution was televised as well. As the quality of television technology increased, the desire to protest grew. Television proved to be a relatively successful mobilizer of social movement participation. An inevitable percentage of social movement participation was influenced by images seen on TV, as it was (and remains) the primary news source for Americans. Television informs the public about an atrocity, the protests inspired by the atrocity are then broadcasted, and the broadcasts of the protests inspire greater participation. Combat footage from the jungles of Vietnam sparked some of the largest anti-war marches in American history. Images of the nuclear power plants on Three Mile Island billowing not-quite-right smoke led to the Anti-Nuclear Protests of the 80s.

“Today, the only barrier between a story and its audience is the audience’s willingness to click on a link.”

If any factor limited the participation resulting from television, it was the limits of television itself. Broadcasts of the civil rights movement are notorious for their focus on a select few “desirable” black activists and exclusive coverage of the loss of white life. A participant in the UK Poll Tax Riots in the 1990s recalls returning home to TV reports of “laughably small” estimates of participation and no mentions of police provocation. A news piece is cut for time, tailored for the agenda of the media organization, and then beamed through the tube several hours later. These broadcasts of protests go one way, straight to the viewer, leaving no room for compromise. One may question the content, but it can not be changed by the consumer.

Today, the only barrier between a story and its audience is the audience’s willingness to click on a link. Footage of injustice can be blasted into cyberspace with nothing but a combination of right-place-at-the-right-time and Internet access. There are no barriers to membership on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, and no restrictions on the scale of mobilization other than the size of your sphere of followers and friends.

With the elimination of the traditional restraints of 20th century social movements, one might expect to see an explosion of successful movements — and at first we did. The Arab Spring protests in 2011 were largely credited to Facebook. Social media was called “absolutely crucial” to the movement that toppled dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. But while the primary goal of the movement was achieved, the final results aren’t looking too positive; countries involved in the uprising remain unstable. In the immediate wake of the Arab Spring came the Occupy Wall Street movement. Mobilization was swift, Internet-propelled, and brief. Until 2014, the social media-social movement relationship could be described as fast to start and quick to fizzle.

“Mass participation is one of those hurdles – and no social movement of the Internet Age has incited mass participation as effectively as the Black Lives Matter movement.”

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Any challenge to the status quo comes with something to prove. There are hurdles of legitimacy to clear before policy or minds can be changed. Mass participation is one of those hurdles – and no social movement of the Internet Age has incited mass participation as effectively as the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Black Lives Matter movement started as a hashtag following the loss of a life. When a trial jury acquitted George Zimmerman of the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2013, Alicia Garza responded to a Facebook threat by coining the hashtag. For the past two years, “#BlackLivesMatter” has punctuated common sense analogies and statistics explaining racial issues and videos of police brutality against black Americans. These videos are just as visceral and brutal as they are necessary to the advancement of the Black Lives Matter movement’s influence.

A crucial aspect of Internet activism and the Black Lives Matter movement is that one doesn’t even have to be a self-proclaimed “activist” to produce mobilizing footage. Intention is meaningless when a piece of media can be replicated and analyzed thousands of times in a few hours. The shooting death of Walter Scott and the strangulation of Eric Garner were recorded by a friend and a bystander, respectively. Ramsey Orta ended up capturing a defining moment in a year of exposed police brutality by doing something he already did dozens of times a day. “I was already on my phone,” said Orta, the friend who recorded the death of Walter Scott. “I always seen them cops doing something to somebody else, so I figured I’d just record it.”

This footage has become the moral currency upon which the Black Lives Matter movement is built. The online distribution of these horrific images and videos is the ideal catalyst for participation. Convincing people to join a social movement is difficult due to the costs in time, money, and safety. In a base that voted for “change” in 2008 and has been “feeling the Bern” for a few months, social mobilization should not be that hard. Unfortunately, it takes people losing their lives on camera in order for people to start caring. It’s a technique that Dr. King learned on a bridge in Alabama. In that same speech in Selma, Dr. King asked the crowd “to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it.” Black Americans have quickly learned that they can take the camera and their fate into their own hands.