Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here is an interesting editorial opinion by the Wall Street Journal. American politics is a pendulum. Twelve years of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush gave us eight years of Bill Clinton, which gave us eight years of George W. Bush, which gave us eight years of Barack Obama, which is about to give us four to eight years of Donald Trump. Obama's weakness, divisiveness, and lawlessness are directly responsible for the rise of Trump, and he's too stupid or vain (or both) to grasp it.

Here.

Here.

7 Wishes (1985).

Rod Dreher is getting right with Donald.

This afternoon, at a Shell station in Arlington, Texas, I paid $1.899 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. With my Kroger card, it came to $1.799. What're y'all payin' in your neck o' the woods?

Mutual assured destruction works only if both parties are rational.

To the Editor:

Re “Raise the Legal Age for Cigarette Sales” (editorial, March 6):

Big Tobacco and its proxies often say, “If someone is old enough to fight in the United States military, he or she is old enough to smoke.” But maximizing individual freedom means the opposite. Nicotine enslaves smokers in their addiction, leaving most of them unable to quit despite numerous attempts. That’s why most current smokers advocate a minimum legal sales age of 21 for tobacco products.

Moreover, recent neuroscience research indicates that nicotine acts as a gateway drug by rewiring the adolescent brain to make heroin, cocaine and other opioids more addictive.

The leaders of more than 100 cities and towns in Massachusetts have formally voted to adopt a minimum legal sales age of 21 (MLSA 21). Adults should be free to choose, but Big Tobacco should not be free to entice our children into a lethal addiction through cigarettes, nor through e-cigarettes and other new tobacco products that are cheap, sweet and far too accessible.

KEN FARBSTEIN

Needham, Mass.

The writer was the grass-roots campaign coordinator for Tobacco Free Mass through December 2015.

I made this handout for my Ethics students. We're studying the Golden Rule, which is one of 13 normative ethical theories covered in the course. Here is the formal statement of the theory:

For all acts x, x is right if and only if the agent, in performing x, treats others as he or she wants to be treated.

I have a question for you: Can the Golden Rule be extended to nonhuman animals? If so, how; if not, why not?

This is a view of the straits of Mackinac from Castle Rock. The towers of the Mackinac Bridge are visible above the trees just to the right of the water tower. Click to enlarge.