HUFFINGTON POST 07/07/15 By Michael Shank With the United States Department of Agriculture announcing meat substitutes in school lunches nationwide, replacing meat with equally protein-rich alternatives, we’re starting to witness a sea change in national dietary guidelines. And it’s about time. Our current approach to diets is unsustainable. Federally appointed […]
Activism
Albany Gets “F” for Failing to Protect Tenants
HUFFINGTON POST 06/17/15 By Michael Shank New York City is infamous for its unaffordable and undignified housing. Not only is the city’s housing a clear and present danger to residents, as I’ve detailed before, but renters in Manhattan pay, on average, over $4,000 a month. This is untenable for the […]
Confronting Homeland Security’s ‘SSSS’ Watch List
HUFFINGTON POST 05/21/15 By Michael Shank It’s official. The Department of Homeland Security has placed me on a travel watch list. Every time I travel abroad, I now have “SSSS”, which stands for Secondary Security Screen Selection, on my boarding documents. That means I get an extra rigorous full-body screening, […]
NYC Housing: A Clear and Present Danger
HUFFINGTON POST 03/28/15 By Michael Shank In the wake of New York City’s devastating gas explosion and fire in the East Village, which destroyed residential buildings and injured dozens of New Yorkers, there couldn’t be a more critical time to take a serious look at New York’s housing situation. In […]
How to Fix Our Police Departments
CNN 03/12/15 By Michael Shank and US Congressman Hank Johnson Editor’s Note: “Hank Johnson represents Georgia’s 4th Congressional District and serves on the House Judiciary and Armed Services committees. Michael Shank, a former congressional staffer, is adjunct faculty at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. The views […]
How to Fix Turkey’s Fall From International Favor
HUFFINGTON POST 03/12/15 By Michael Shank Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent attack on the West for “hate speech” and misattributing terrorism during the Paris attacks is ironic. Erdogan is erroneously doing both already: labeling the Gulen movement a terrorist organization and using hate speech to characterize it. In fact, […]
Community Activists Question Timing Of Grand Jury Announcement
NPR 11/25/14 By Laura Sullivan For weeks, Ferguson police and local leaders met with community groups and activists to work out a plan for the aftermath of the grand jury’s decision whether to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. But any results of that […]
The Apps for Ethical Shopping
OZY 11/22/14 By Laura Secorun “Buying partisan is a dangerous game that will divide America further,” says Michael Shank, associate director for legislative affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington D.C., who thinks gerrymandered districts and partisan cable news are doing enough harm. “We don’t need another […]
Detroit’s Death Knell? Austerity, Structural Racism, Water Wars
HUFFINGTON POST 11/18/14 By Michael Shank and Peter J. Hammer The post-industrial dystopia emerging on the streets of Detroit may be shocking, but it is not surprising. The crisis results from the convergent forces of fiscal austerity and structural racism in a region defined by its extreme segregation of race, […]
Detroit on the Brink
THE HILL 10/29/14 By Michael Shank and Peter Hammer The post-industrial dystopia emerging on the streets of Detroit may be shocking, but it is not surprising. The crisis results from the convergent forces of fiscal austerity and structural racism in a region defined by its extreme segregation of race, wealth […]