In February, President Trump claimed that reinforcing the border wall would prevent the virus from entering the U.S., but COVID-19 was already beginning to spread in the states. “I don’t think the virus checks on borders.” Tim Steller, The Arizona Daily Star Before the novel coronavirus claimed its...
During the 1960-70’s, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) developed into the preeminent public health agency in the United States and the world. Whenever a state health department or a foreign health ministry had an infectious disease problem on which they wanted assistance, they called on CDC. Inherent in the...
Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1933 as part of the New Deal in response to the Great Depression. The PWA spent over $7 billion between 1933 and 1939 administering the construction of 34,000 projects, including dams, airports, bridges, new schools, and hospitals that provided meaningful...
The COVID-19 pandemic is playing out as a tragedy around the world, and acutely in the United States. This catastrophic scenario predictably stimulates the finer instincts of many people—the reaching out to help others, to share what little they may have with communities that are being severely stressed by the...
My name is Gary Paul Nabhan and I am an Ecumenical Franciscan Brother who has lived and worked on the U.S./Mexico border as a seasonal park ranger, farmer, conservational biologist and facilitator of interfaith and intertribal gatherings since 1978. I live now live in Patagonia, Arizona 18 miles from the...