An Intro to 5 Genres of Hobby Board Games

Anyone interested in proselytizing hobby board games has a stable of "gateway games" that they use to spread the good word to receptive newbies.  Such games need to be fairly simple, attractive, and fun, while presenting the option to go deeper if the fledgling gamer desires.  There are a few standard-bearing gateways - Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Carcassonne (the first two are now available even at Target).  Those are all great games, but in my opinion, overexposure has rendered them somewhat blase.  So I'd like to present five other gateway games that are staples of my collection but not quite so omnipresent in the gaming world.  Each one introduces a genre of hobby gaming that has many more titles to choose from, if the intro game really grabs your attention.  Plus I've thrown in a sixth bonus game that is not a gateway game, but a true classic that should be played by anyone ready for the next step.  All of these games are available on Amazon for decent prices, and provide hours of fun for families and game groups alike.

Acquire.  Hey, looks aren't everything.

Economic Games: Acquire
The 1962 classic from Sid Sackson is still the best intro-level economic game.  Players draw tiles and place them on a board to form hotel chains.  They can then buy shares of stock in those chains, which increase in value as the chain's size grows.  If two chains grow together on the board, the smaller chain is acquired by the larger one, with payouts for shareholders of the smaller chain.  But the biggest rewards come from having lots of shares in the large chains that are left on the board at the end of the game.  The game teaches you ideas of cost/benefit analysis, wise investment decisions, and money management as you must carefully try to receive payouts from mergers during the game (as this is your only source of income), while also being heavily invested in the remaining large hotels.  These basics of running an economic engine can be applied to countless other economic games.  Some of my other favorites are Airlines: Europe, Railways of the World, and Power Grid, my all-time favorite game.

On the Underground

Route-Building Games: On the Underground
Ticket to Ride is most everybody's first route-building game.  It's fine, but I'm going to go with the London Tube instead.  In On the Underground players use their own pieces to build routes along the subway.  They get immediate points for connecting certain spaces on the board, and also score points when the World's Laziest Passenger travels on one of their routes (he will do anything to avoid walking).  Players must carefully balance these two ways of acquiring points, as they are often at odds.  Its advantage over TtR is that you can build anywhere on the board you want, rather than having to collect sets of colored cards first.  That makes it more strategic while keeping the gameplay simple.  Thurn and Taxis is another great entry-level route-building game, while this mechanic also gets wrapped into part of more complex games, like the aforementioned Railways of the World.

Kingsburg

Worker Placement Games: Kingsburg
Worker placement is a very common mechanic in euro-style games.  It basically means "players each have a limited number of dudes to place on a limited number of board spaces to get stuff."  These games can get really complex, and I tend to avoid the heaviest ones where you have to go through about 5 steps before actually scoring points.  Kingsburg, however, greatly simplifies this process and adds the excitement of rolling dice, which are basically your "workers."  Based on what you roll, you place your dice on different "advisor" spaces which gets you things like building materials and soldiers for your army.  Then you get points by building structures and fighting off the baddies that attack the kingdom at the end of every year.  It requires a careful but accessible balance of short-term reactions ("here is what I rolled...crap he took the spot I wanted") and long-term strategic planning ('I want to work towards building the cathedral").  Other worker placement games I've enjoyed include Alien Frontiers (which also uses dice), Stone Age, and Tribune.

Flash Point: Fire Rescue

Cooperative Games: Flash Point: Fire Rescue
Many non-gamers are probably unaware there exists an entire genre of board games that require the players to work together to defeat the game.  Great co-op games instill a great sense of camaraderie and tension as players try to achieve a seemingly impossible goal.  (Good co-ops are also hard, as they would get old quickly if the players always won.)  Pandemic and its simpler cousin Forbidden Island tend to be the poster children for intro co-ops, but I'm going to pick the lesser known Flash Point as my recommendation.  As you might expect, in this game players are a team of firefighters trying to rescue victims from a burning building.  You can do things like chop down walls, drive the truck and ambulance, and fire the deck gun.  It requires a great amount of planning and communication among the players.  Best of all, the rules are incredibly adjustable, which allows for a very easy game that kids can play or a brain-buster that any gamer can get into.  Once you've cut your teeth on these pure cooperative games, you can graduate to Shadows Over Camelot, which adds the possibility of a secret traitor in the players' midst.

Small World

Area Control Games: Small World
What's an area control game?  Just think of Risk.  You score points by having pieces in certain areas of the board, and usually take over new areas by fighting other players' pieces.  Most war games are such.  Small World, though, is what I call a "euro war" game, in that it is heavily influenced by other European board games and features diceless, deterministic combat.  Players pick a race such as Halfings, Orcs, Humans, or Dwarves, which also has some special ability paired with it.  They then use the tokens of that race to take over as many areas of the board as possible, and can defeat other players simply by overwhelming them with more tokens.  Eventually, though, that race will be overextended, and you'll have to put them in decline and start over with a new race (the decision of when to do this is the most important you'll make in the game).  The random pairing of races and special abilities in every game really adds to the replayability, and the simplicity of the combat rules makes it very accessible.  Along with economic games, area control games are my favorite genre, which is why I'm going to highlight one more...

El Grande

Bonus!  El Grande - The Next Step in Area Control
El Grande is my #2 overall favorite game.  It was the first great Euro-style area control game, and is still arguably the best.  If you want to split hairs, El Grande is technically an "area majority" game, because you score points simply by having the most pieces in an area, rather than kicking other players out.  You try to score as many points as possible by placing pieces in different areas of Spain and trying to have more pieces in each area (you also score points for placing 2nd and 3rd).  There are devious ways to mess with other players' pieces, and a tower you can place hidden pieces in to be distributed on the board later.  Gamesmanship is very high in this one, and the elegance with which is plays out renders it one of the all-time greats.  It's not a gateway game, but if you can play Risk, you can play El Grande.  In my humble opinion, it sits at the pinnacle of board game design.

History Lesson: The Racism of the Southern Strategy

"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”  - Republican strategist Lee Atwater in 1981

"I think that typically when you see the, I don’t even remember the term they use, but the gangs of blacks lately that have been just been going down the downtown streets and breaking windows on cars. We played the Milwaukee state fair a couple years ago and these black mobs were just attacking white folks coming out of the fair. And over and over again I watch the news and here’s a rape and here’s a burglary and here’s a murder in Chicago. 29 shot. 29 blacks shot by 29 blacks. At some point you got to be afraid of black and white dogs if the Dalmatian’s doing the biting." - Ted Nugent in July 2013, right after he insists he is in no way racist.

One of the biggest shams in American politics today arises when conservatives claim that racism no longer exists in America and that if you dare bring up the issue, well, you're the real racist. This has been the standard response since the verdict in the Treyvon Martin case, and was especially repugnant after President Obama dared to give his thoughts on the matter (just try googling "racist in chief"). This perspective is so blind and naive that it is astonishing that it persists in an age with so widely available information (I blame the mainstream media for not calling them on it). From Tea Party favorite Louis Gohmert labeling immigrants drug mules, to Sean Hannity dog whistling about Obama phones, to states like Texas and North Carolina immediately ramping up restrictions that will make it harder for minorities to vote after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, it is clear that racism still infects our politics, and society at large. But conservatives have convinced themselves that racism is done (we have a black President!), to talk about it is racist, and that they were on the right side of history all along - the real civil rights heroes. Bullshit. Let's go into the Wayback Machine to learn the truth.

The Era of Politics by Geography, not Party

Republicans love to claim that Abraham Lincoln was one of them, that most Southern supporters of slavery and segregation were Democrats, and therefore Republicans are the real saviors of black Americans.  Rand Paul put this view on full display when he tried to white-splain African-American history to a bunch of black students at Howard University ("Did you know the founders of the NAACP were Republicans?"  Of course they did!)  Well, I'll grant the first two points.  But to realistically compare the political parties of the 1860s to 2013 is staggeringly naive.  Both parties had "liberal" and "conservative" factions, as anyone who saw the movie Lincoln can attest.  Lincoln himself was fairly pragmatic and sought compromise where he could in order to achieve bigger goals (read Team of Rivals, the book which inspired Lincoln).  Parties were much less tied to ideology in those days, and shifting alliances were common.

On slavery, however, it is of course true that most abolitionists were Republicans.  After the Civil War, the Congressional faction known as the Radical Republicans imposed strict Reconstruction rules on the defeated South, including military occupation.  They went farther than Lincoln would have and even overrode the vetoes of Democratic President Andrew Jackson from Tennessee (the conflict between them lead to Jackson's impeachment).  This treatment ensured that the states of the Confederacy would become the "Solid South," voting Democratic in every election for almost 100 years.  After Reconstruction ended, Jim Crow began, and the short-lived careers of black and civil rights-supporting Republican politicians in the South was over.

Thus for decades the Democratic Party constituted a weird, uneasy coalition of openly racist, very conservative Southerners and more liberal Northerners.  At the same time, there were many notable progressive Republicans, such as Bob La Follette of Wisconsin, Alf Landen of Kansas, and Teddy Roosevelt.  Like I said, party and ideology did not always align.  Perhaps the best personification of this was Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who was essentially a theocratic leftist.  He was a strong Prohibitionist, virulently opposed teaching evolution, and yet took positions on economics and foreign policy that would today label him a peacenik socialist.  It's not so cut-and-dried as conservatives would have us believe.  Even Dwight Eisenhower, another moderate, didn't declare himself a Republican until just before the 1952 election (both sides, understandably, badly wanted him on their ticket).

Speaking of which, here is the 1956 presidential election map:

In the landslide reelection of a popular President and war hero, Eisenhower still couldn't carry the Solid South.  Now let's go down the road to just eight years later - 1964, the year after which today's Republicans tend to stop talking about their civil rights record.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation across the country (most notably the South, of course).  It passed Congress on a bipartisan vote - opposition was much more based on geography.  Here are the vote totals by region and party: 

The original House version:

• Southern Democrats: 7–87   (7–93%)
• Southern Republicans: 0–10   (0–100%)

• Northern Democrats: 145–9   (94–6%)
• Northern Republicans: 138–24   (85–15%)

The Senate version:

• Southern Democrats: 1–20   (5–95%)
• Southern Republicans: 0–1   (0–100%)
• Northern Democrats: 45–1   (98–2%)
• Northern Republicans: 27–5   (84–16%)

Southerners such as then-Democrat Strom Thurmond led the opposition, including an epic filibuster.  However, the Act was signed into law by a Southern Democratic President - Lyndon Johnson of Texas.  American electoral politics was about to undergo a massive shift.  How did the Southern populace react to one of their own endorsing civil rights for blacks?  Here is the 1964 electoral map:



Nearly the exact opposite of '56 (Barry Goldwater was from Arizona).  With the exception of Southerners Carter and Clinton being able to pick off a few states, the endorsement of civil rights has cost the Democratic Party most of the South for over 50 years.

Enter the Southern Strategy

The Republican Party's attempt to lock down disaffected Southern whites didn't begin officially until Nixon's 1968 campaign.  Nixon campaigned on issues such as "states' rights" and "law and order" that were thinly veiled dog whistles to racist whites, in the vein of the Lee Atwater quote above.  The tactic has continued more or less unabated since - here is a good summary from Salon.  Campaigning in 1980, Ronald Reagan chose the town in Mississippi where three civil rights workers had been abducted and killed in the '60s to talk how he believes in "states' rights," the glorious euphemism of the racist South.  After stealing the South from native son Carter in 1980, he would later talk about "young bucks" and "welfare queens" in Cadillacs as reasons to cut welfare.  Ads against Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988 implied that as governor of Massachusetts he let dangerous black criminals roam free (sound familiar?).

With the rise of right-wing media and the campaign and success of the first black President, the Southern Strategy might be even more calcified to the heart of Old Dixie, but it is no less prevalent or effective on its targets.  The phony fracas that is birtherism implies that Obama is an "other," not a real American, and not to be trusted - and this would most assuredly not happen if he were white.  (Case in point - some Tea Partiers want Senator Ted Cruz to run for President, even though he was born in Canada to American parents - the exact same situation that would be true of Obama, if he weren't born in Hawaii.  Can't wait to hear them justify that.)  Complaints about Obama having "the accent" when talking to black audiences also serve to portray him as "not one of us."  When media figures like Hannity and Limbaugh lambast the "Obama phone" program - which actually started under Bush - and use a black woman as its poster child, they are following in the "welfare queen" stereotype, implying that blacks are nothing more than moochers who live off the backs of real, hard-working whites.  Think I'm being too harsh?  Dare to peruse the comment sections of any race- or Obama-related story on major conservative news websites such as Breitbart.com or WorldNetDaily.  The unabashed racism displayed by "good conservatives" just might surprise you.  It's real, it's out there, and to deny it is insane.  How many other Presidents have been labeled a Kenyan Fascist Nazi Communist Muslim Atheist Socialist Marxist Antichrist by so many of the loyal opposition?

Consider these simple facts:

• Unless you're in the top 2%, federal income taxes are exactly the same as they were under Bush.  Yet 2 months after a black man enters the White House, a entire "grassroots" movement of people who are Taxed Enough Already - but were perfectly happy with the same rates under Bush! - takes over the Republican Party.
• Federal gun regulations are the same as they were under Bush, and show no sign of changing in any meaningful way.  And yet now that there are Scary Black Men in the White House and DOJ, the government is coming for all your guns, buying up all the bullets, and prepping for the coming race war.

These are not fringe opinions.  You can find them plastered all over the 'Net, and are held by major media figures and some Congressmen.  These people influence hearts and minds.  And then those influenced vote.

A brief aside - some argue that the switch of the South to the Republican Party came as a result of Southern whites voting with their economic interests.  As the South became more suburban and affluent after World War II, so the theory goes, Southerners realized they had been hating on their tax-cutting heroes all along.  I call baloney.  As I've blogged about before, pretty much every economic indicator shows the South as the poorest region in the country, as well as leading recipients of government programs that Republicans often oppose - and this includes many Southern whites.  Rather, as argued in What's the Matter with Kansas?, social and cultural issues - race, religion, and guns - have come to dominate the electoral minds of the GOP rank-and-file, to the benefit of the rich who are the real beneficiaries of their economic policies.

A reminder of the 2012 election map, to show how little has changed:



A look at this map - as well as the 2008 map - actually shows that the Southern Strategy may be beginning to backfire for Republicans.  The South still largely goes red - excepting Florida and Virginia (and really, just northern VA and southern FL are blue) - but the tactics and policy of the GOP are starting to dissuade voters in other areas of the country.  Romney received 118 votes from the Confederacy, and only 88 outside of it.  Only 70 of his electoral votes came from non-slave states.  Republicans will likely continue to dominate the South for some time, but those 118 electoral votes (out of 538 total) are not enough to win elections.  Moreover, demographic trends point to Texas being a true battleground by the 2020s - earlier if Hillary Clinton runs in 2016.  If the Republicans lose Texas (38 EVs) and fail to abandon the Southern Strategy - especially with regard to the rise of the Hispanic voter - they are done as a national party.  But here's the rub for them - trying to win new voters by supporting immigration reform or being more gay-friendly alienates the Southern conservative base that they desperately need to have any chance of winning a national election.  Meanwhile, Obama has shown that a Democrat can win the Presidency without the South.  A Republican can't win without it, but might not be able to win with it either.  The racism of the Southern Strategy has come home to roost, and today's Republicans are paying the price.

(P.S. I'm gonna assume Nugent, in his quote, is talking about the Wisconsin State Fair, which is just outside Milwaukee proper.  I've been there.  It was a pleasant time, and this whitey certainly wasn't attacked by black thugs as I left.  Go there and have a good time.  Try a cream puff.)

Remembering Ryan Davis: Mourning Someone We Never Met

In memory of this guy.

This past Monday the video gaming community was rocked by the tragic news of the sudden death of games journalist Ryan Davis.  As an editor at GameSpot, he was a key figure in the evolution of games coverage on the Internet, pioneering podcasting and video shows.  In 2008 he co-founded the site Giant Bomb with GameSpot alum Jeff Gerstmann, and it was at this time that I came to know Ryan through the weekly Giant Bombcast.  Giant Bomb continued to push forward in games coverage, developing a site that is based as much on the charisma of its editorial staff as games themselves - and the Bombcast is the most important component of the site's image.  Each week's 2-3 hour show, hosted by Ryan, is a mix of informative video game discussion and witty banter about everything from short-wave numbers stations to who would win in a knife-vs-bat fight.  Ryan also featured prominently in video features such as QuickLooks - gameplay with commentary of various (sometimes hilariously bad) games and "This Ain't No Game" reviews of movies inspired by or based on video games (Ryan and I share a love for the classic Cold War thriller WarGames).  Ryan's omnipresence, sheer likeability, and obvious passion and talent for his craft made him a beloved figure among the close-knit Giant Bomb community and the gaming industry at large.  His untimely passing thus came as a tragic gut-punch to everyone who enjoyed his online antics, rendered all the more horrible by the fact that his death came just days after his wedding.  He was 34.

When the news broke, the Internet - or at least gaming's corner of it - erupted in an outpouring of grief.  Thousands of people who had never met Ryan felt like they had lost a good friend, and felt the need to express their sorrow and condolences.  Journalists shared their favorite memories.  Ryan's dad took to Twitter, using an account that hadn't been active for months, to thank everyone for their support and share pictures of his son.  And random fans like me just wanted to find a reason for our sense of loss for someone we never knew.  For a time "Ryan" was the 3rd highest trending topic on Twitter.  On last check the post on Giant Bomb announcing his passing had around 7,000 comments.  Ryan's colleague Brad Shoemaker noted that his girlfriend - an oncology nurse - was truly impressed by such a great outpouring of positivity.  Given how cruel the Internet as a medium generally is, it was a nice sight to behold in the midst of tragedy.

But what of us fans?  What is our grief next to the unspeakable misery of Ryan's friends, family, and widow?  Why did we take it so hard?  He was probably the highest profile star in the young gaming industry to be taken before his time - and definitely the biggest since the rise of social media.  Personally, Ryan's death meant more to me than any "celebrity" who's ever died in my lifetime.  I certainly don't begrudge those who mourn celebrity deaths, but I've never felt any real connection to them.  For thousands of gamers, Ryan was different, and the technology of the Internet enabled this difference.  Thanks to the Bombcast and videos, Ryan was a regular fixture in our lives.  He was likable and easily relatable.  He was just one of the guys, talking about games and other stupid stuff.  We grew to knew him and even knew a fair amount about his personal life.

The Internet, and in particular Internet communities and fandom, are weird this way.  The technology enables the development of relationships - even one-way - with people you'll probably never meet.  We share their interests, laugh at their jokes, cheer their successes, and feel for their losses.  Is this unhealthy?  I suppose it could be, if such online relationships replace or damage our in-person ones.  As an unrelated tweet I saw last week noted, "I have relatives I haven't called in years, and I'm arguing with a 13-year-old on Twitter."  Taken in moderation, however, the Internet offers the unprecedented ability to connect with people we'd never meet, perhaps with common interests that none of our in-person acquaintances share.  The increased audio and video capabilities of today's Internet have made such relationships more real and legitimate - no longer just text in a chat room.  Of course, they can also be deceiving and abusive, just like in-person relationships - as anyone who's seen MTV's Catfish can attest.  But they can also have true meaning.  Many fans, while expressing their condolences, noted that the entertainment and camaraderie provided by Ryan and the Giant Bomb crew really helped them through some tough times.  Is it any wonder that these fans felt they had lost a good friend?

Life goes on for the Giant Bomb community.  Almost unbelievably, the crew recorded a 2-hour podcast this week, when no one would have blamed them for taking a week off.  It was a touching tribute to their fallen comrade.  Giant Bomb and the Bombcast will live on, and it's obvious Ryan would've wanted it that way.  And us fans will always remember the positive impact he had on our lives.  Thanks Ryan, for making the work week, my commute, or chores around the house a lot more bearable.

RIP duder.

Let's Reduce the Demand for Abortions

Of all the social issues facing America, probably none provokes more of an emotional response - one way or the other - than the legality of abortion.  It's so heated the two sides don't even agree what to call each other.  This hypersensitivity has made me wary of writing about it extensively to this point.  Moreover, as a dude I feel woefully underqualified to authoritatively discuss something that I"ll never personally have to face.  However, that certainly doesn't stop millions of other men from pontificating about it, and some recent events have now steered me towards the subject.  In short, I agree with former President Clinton that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare."  I do not support legislative efforts to ban abortion because they violate the basic rights of women and are ultimately ineffectual.  Rather, that wasted energy should be directed to implementing policies and practices that will hopefully reduce the demand for abortion in the future.

Misguided Anti-Abortion Legislation

There has certainly been an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationally in 1973, in the forty years since.  That ultimate goal is basically impossible, as it would take a Court reversal or constitutional amendment - neither of which is very likely to occur.  The easiest way would be for a committed anti-abortion President to have a committed anti-abortion Senate (for Justice confirmations) and several Court vacancies to fill.  If that didn't happen during Bush's 8 years, it's not likely to happen anytime soon.  And even if it did, it would be reversed as soon as the Court makeup changed again.

And so abortion opponents have turned to crafting laws at the national and state level that chip away at abortion rights either directly or indirectly.  If they can't outlaw abortion outright, they will make it as hard as possible for women to get them, through such tactics as defunding Planned Parenthood or by imposing onerous restrictions on abortion clinics that force them to close (suddenly, conservatives love government regulations!).  Making abortions nearly impossible to obtain in a certain state is extremely biased against poor women - for as long as abortion remains legal somewhere in the US, women of means will be able to get them.  And even if it were illegal nationwide, there would be a way.  Instead such laws end up punishing the women who need Planned Parenthood's services the most (more on this later).

However, the dirty little secret that many abortion foes either don't realize or don't want to admit is that many establishment Republicans don't care about outlawing abortion.  In the 1980s and '90s, they were more than happy to give lip service to the cause in order to win the votes of the large Christian conservative voting bloc.  However, once in government they cared more about tax cuts and deregulation than abortion - "but hey, we'll do a partial-birth abortion ban, lots of people can get behind that.  But otherwise, please, please stop saying stupid stuff about women, rape, and abortion" (remember Todd Akin?).

That trend changed in 2010 when the Tea Party bucked the establishment and seized control of several state governments and the national House of Representatives.  Now, their presence could no longer be ignored - they either could pass what laws they wanted outright, or hold House Speaker John Boehner's job hostage if he didn't throw them some red meat.  And thus we have witnessed a wave of anti-abortion legislation in the past few years, much of it becoming law at the state level.  Let's look at two examples.

Mike Ellis (R-Blowing Gasket)

First, I turn to my former residence of Wisconsin, where I had been genuinely impressed by the openness of its governance and pride in its heritage as a "laboratory of democracy."  That all went south when Tea Party darling Scott Walker was elected Governor and Republicans captured both legislative chambers in 2010.  Suddenly draconian rules restricting peaceful protests at the Capitol and observance of legislative proceedings were put into place (including a dress code, because by God we can't have people in T-shirts in the galleries!).  It was in this environment that a bill requiring women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound beforehand was introduced.  These laws, implemented in some other states, are supposedly about "giving full information" to a patient, but are really about guilting them into not having an abortion.  They are not medically necessary, and moreover, because most abortions are performed early in pregnancy, an invasive transvaginal ultrasound would be required to get the clear image that the bill requires.  The law rapidly moved through the state legislature, featuring the arrest of some protestors in the galleries and an epic gavel-breaking meltdown by Senate President Mike Ellis as Democratic legislators attempted to prolong debate.  The bill passed both houses, and Walker has indicated his enthusiastic support.  A Democratic amendment that would have prohibited women from being physically forced to have an ultrasound was, unfathomably, defeated.  So, I'm not saying it will happen, but it will soon be technically legal in Wisconsin to physically force a woman to have an invasive medical procedure that she doesn't want or need.  Such is the "freedom" of Tea Party governance.

Not to be outdone, my home state of Kansas now requires abortion providers to tell women about the supposed link between abortion and breast cancer, even though no major studies have ever found any evidence of such a link.  Requiring doctors to lie to patients - now enshrined in Kansas law.

Moving to the national level, this week the GOP-controlled House passed a law outlawing abortions at 20 weeks or later.  Such a law is, of course, unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court has ruled that abortions before 24 weeks cannot be outlawed.  Focused like a laser on creating jobs and improving the economy, that GOP House is, right?  Actually, it's just as pointless as the chamber's 37 attempts to repeal Obamacare.  It won't pass the Senate and President Obama would never sign it.  It's yet another waste of taxpayer money and Congressional time by those "fiscally conservative" Republicans - a purely symbolic act to please the Tea Party base while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

The bill's 20-week cutoff is based on the highly debated notion that fetuses can feel pain at this point in gestation.  Major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists dispute the idea of fetal pain at 20 weeks.  The only defenses supporters of the bill could mount once again made them look downright silly, such as the bizarre implication, from an OB/GYN Republican Congressman, that male fetuses at 15 weeks masturbate, and since they can feel pleasure, they can also feel pain.  (If you really want to know, turns out there have been a few documented instances of fetuses making "masturbatory motions," but all much later than 15 weeks.)  In reality, 20 weeks is an arbitrary deadline, based on flimsy evidence at best, that really serves to move the goalpost forward towards the end goal of outlawing all abortion.  Fetal pain today, fetal heartbeat tomorrow, conception next Thursday.  And if you think I'm exaggerating, such measures are already moving forward in the states - North Dakota now bans abortions when a heartbeat is detectable.

Here's what gets me - how are these measures being accomplished?  The free market?  Charitable organizations?  Business entrepreneurship?  No!  It's big government!  I'm tired of these conservatives telling us government is not the answer, government takes away our freedom, government can't do anything right.  Any laws aimed at curbing gun violence are pointless and unconstitutional, you might as well ban rocks and hammers, etc. etc.  But when it comes to abortion - a legal practice for 40 years - they can't get enough government.  More restrictions on clinics!  More requirements on patients and doctors!  Screw freedom!  So, I'm only asking conservative abortion opponents to acknowledge what they supposedly believe in their hearts - government can't eliminate the problem.  You can't legislate abortion out of existence, exactly how you can't erase gun homicide.  So let's look at the situation a different way and actually do something productive.

Focus on the Demand, Not the Supply

Conservatives tackle abortion like they do economics - they're supply-siders.  They focus on legally limiting the supply of abortion while in many cases they actively oppose measures that could reduce the demand for them.  Well, if the general failure of such policies as the war on drugs has taught us anything, it's that you can't legislatively eliminate the supply of a good or service that's fairly easily available and in demand.  It'll just move to the black market, which would be a bad situation for everyone involved.

So, instead, let's focus on lowering the demand for abortion.  This should really be an area where both abortion rights supporters and people personally opposed to abortion could work together.  No one thinks abortion is great.  No one wants to see its numbers on the rise.  Imagine what good could be done if everyone could accept the status quo legality of abortion and direct all the money, time, and attention used to constantly fight both sides of the battle to real action to lower abortion rates instead.  Is this a pipe dream?  Most likely - as it is, politicians have way too much to gain from keeping this divisive issue alive.  But one can dream.

I envision a three-pronged approach to reducing abortion rates by lowering demand for them - comprehensive sex education, universal access to birth control, and better support services for poor parents facing an unplanned pregnancy.  I understand these policies might not be popular with a lot of abortion foes, but if you're genuinely interested in doing something substantive about abortion, I urge you to hear me out.

(I'm well aware that my suggestions also include government action.  However, these ideas are proactive measures that people can actively contribute to and work together on, rather than restrictive legislation that limits the rights of women to make decisions about their health.)

Comprehensive sex education is vital to teenagers understanding their reproductive health and the consequences of their sexual actions.  It is very naive to believe that abstinence-only sex ed properly educates youth about their bodies and is actually effective in getting them to put off sex until marriage.  Even 80% of unmarried evangelical Christians self-report as sexually active.  Abstinence programs may shame teens who have sex, which is only going to exacerbate the problem if they find themselves in a tough situation.  Moreover, studies show that many young people - as much as 60% - are grossly misinformed about the effectiveness of contraception.  A 2008 study found that comprehensive sex ed reduced the likelihood of getting pregnant, or getting someone pregnant, by 60%; compared to no statistically significant results for abstinence-only programs.  Three states with the highest teen pregnancy rates do not require any form of sex ed whatsoever.  The statistics speak loudly on this one.  Comprehensive sex education teaches adolescents to be aware of their sexual health, it reduces the likelihood of teen pregnancy, and thus lowers the potential demand for abortions.  It should be mandated nationwide.

Following naturally on sex ed is universal access to effective birth control.  Now, you might be personally opposed to using contraception.  That's fine, and no one is going to force you to use it.  However, opponents have to realize that in 2013 this is a very minority position to have, and that there is no right to restrict access to birth control based on religious or other beliefs.  There are signs that even some elements of the evangelical community are becoming open to responsible birth control use.  And the stats don't lie here either - birth control works.  Teen pregnancies are declining sharply, and increased birth control use is the reason why.  I'm not saying birth control has to be free for everyone (socialism!) but it should be universally and cheaply accessible.  It should be covered in health insurance plans without exception.  Recently some Christian employers have refused to cover birth control on insurance plans due to their religious beliefs.  They have no such right.  They ignore their employees' freedom of religion.  Insurance benefits are a form of compensation, and an employer has no right to tell their employee how to spend such compensation.  A Jewish employer can't tell their workers not to burn their paycheck on bacon.

As it turns out - not evil.

Conservatives love to demonize Planned Parenthood.  In their vision, it's nothing more than an abortion mill.  They constantly seek to defund it and put it out of business, ignoring the majority of services it provides - even to the detriment of many other citizens.  Texas even refused federal Medicaid funding just to kick PP out of Medicaid.  The state's own health department estimates that this defunding will cause 24,000 additional unplanned births in 2014 and 2015, which could cost taxpayers over $200 million in Medicaid and other expenses.  How is that supposed to reduce abortion rates?  How is that "fiscally conservative?"  Planned Parenthood provides essential family planning and sexual health services for low-income women and men. of which abortion is only a small part - 3%.  71% of PP clients are there for preventive measures.  The organization also provides hundreds of thousands of breast exams and millions of STD tests every year.  It is a vital component of public health and deserves to be supported rather than denigrated.

Last, the best sex ed and birth control access in the world still won't prevent all unplanned pregnancies.  So, we need to provide better support services for poor prospective parents facing the dilemma of an unplanned child.  Conservatives who claim to be "pro-life" often seem to ignore this side of the equation - they care deeply about the unborn, but once that child - that they said you must have because abortion is wrong - enters the world, you're on your own.  This gets into the tired "moochers" business that I'm not going to go through yet again, but I think you get the idea.  They want to cut welfare.  They are hesitant to support family and medical leave from work.  They oppose universal preschool.  Just today the House GOP voted to cut food stamp aid from its already meager levels, except for the portion of Tea Partiers who voted against it because it didn't cut enough.  Now, this doesn't all have to be government assistance - think of what all those funds used to fight the abortion battle could do to help these families in need. Instead, it's wasted on endless legal battles and either pointless or unconstitutional legislation.  If parents knew that there would be a safety net for them to support their child, abortion might be a less desirable solution to an unplanned pregnancy.

Abortion will likely remain the single most divisive issue in politics for years to come.  Due to the emotional real-life impact it has on millions of lives, it shouldn't be that way.  If abortion opponents could accept the legality of the practice - which is not going to change - I think there would be great potential for all Americans to work together toward the common goal of making it as safe and rare as possible.

The Future of Farming: Monsanto Patents and GM Crops

Who Can Plant A Patented Seed? 

Farming is a complex job, but the basis of agriculture is fairly simple: plant appropriate crops for your climate; use tools and techniques that will hopefully produce a high crop yield; harvest the crop, selling most of it for your revenue and keeping some of the seed for use next year.  For most of human history, that's how it worked - and still does in many places.

Enter Monsanto, an agribusiness company that is consistently regarded as one of the most evil corporations on the planet (video gamers who like to fling that label at Electronic Arts really need to get out more).  Monsanto is able to patent the seed that it sells to farmers, which is often genetically modified - such as to be resistant to the Roundup pesticide that Monsanto also manufactures.  Farmers are prohibited, by long-upheld patent law, from using the seed produced from the Monsanto crop the following year.  Thus they have to buy new seed from Monsanto every year, enriching the company and breaking farming methods that date back thousands of years.  Monsanto has targeted hundreds of farmers for using next-gen seed, and it has always won in court.

However, this is a fairly new change - it was only in 2001 that the Supreme Court ruled that patent law applied to living organisms (here, seeds).  Many farmers have had to completely restructure how they run their business, becoming more and more dependent on the seed industry.  This trend is spreading worldwide, even to poor or subsistence farmers in developing countries.

A little bit on the broad economic principles behind patents:  Supporters say that inventors should have the exclusive rights to license and earn profits from an invention for a certain number of years - a patent.  Otherwise, what would drive people to innovate, if they can't make money?  Opponents, however, worry that in certain cases patents can actually go too far - they restrict the competition of the free market - which also harms innovation - and consolidate power in a few companies that hold all the patents.  This is indeed what we are now witnessing in the seed industry - two companies control 60% of the market for corn and soybeans.  They use their market influence to impose strict restrictions on how their seed can and can't be used.

In the end, Monsanto and other seed companies do deserve a fair return on their investment.  However, there should be a compromise that maintains profitability, encourages competition, and preserves the right of farmers to grow crops as they wish.  Possible ideas include establishing "seed use registries" at the state level, forming organic seed co-ops, and amending the federal Plant Variety Protection Act to establish a better "fair use" system of intellectual property rights for seeds.  However, so long the Supreme Court and major politicians of both parties seemingly remain square in Monsanto's corner, the national system is unlikely to change.  It may take state and local efforts fueled by grassroots movements to bring about true reform.

Genetically-Modified Crops

Now to the broader, and bigger, issue of foods that have had their genes modified in some way, a practice that dates back to 1994 and is currently limited to plants on the commercial market.  Monsanto is, of course, a leading producer.  The rise of GM crops is hailed by many as a huge step forward in agriculture, as they are bred to be pest-resistant, potentially increasing crop yields by orders of magnitude and alleviating hunger in developing countries.  While there is general scientific consensus that GM foods are perfectly safe to eat, that hasn't stopped many issues from cropping up around them (pun intended).  There's no way I can possibly go into all of them here; Wikipedia is a good place to start if you want to know more.  Here is a very brief summary of several of the most contentious issues:

Biodiversity: Some are concerned that the widespread use of GM crops will cut down on the natural biodiversity of both those crops and other organisms that may interact with them.  Also, as many GM crops are resistant to agrochemicals such as pesticides, such chemicals may be used more and more, thus harming both biodiversity and the environment in general.

Secondary and resistant pests: New pests emerge to harass GM crops that are resistant to "primary" pests.  Also, there is concern that pests will evolve to be resistant to the GM crops.

Gene flow: It's possible for the genes of modified organisms to pass to non-modified organisms through pollination.  Potential outcomes include the unintentional breeding of "superweeds" resistant to herbicides, interfering with the genes of organic crops, or generally messing up the local ecosystem.  A method to stop this would be to produce so-called "terminator" crops with sterile seeds; however, some fear this technique could be used by outfits like Monsanto to limit the viable seed supply (bringing us back to the above patent issue).  In the US there is no law governing the adjacency of GM and organic crops, meaning that if organic farmers suffer economic losses because their crops are contaminated with GM genes, they're basically out of luck.

Escape of GM crops: Relatedly, strains of GM crops have been known to show up in unexpected places.  It might be part of a shipment exported to a country where that strain hasn't been approved for import - wasting the shipment and a bunch of money.  In the early 2000s a strain of GM corn that hadn't been approved for human consumption due to possible allergenic concerns was found in various corn products, including shells at Taco Bell.  In May of this year a strain of GM wheat was discovered growing as a "volunteer" (i.e. weed) in a field in Oregon.  Monsanto had developed the strain and field-tested it before deciding to halt production out of fears importing countries would avoid it.  Monsanto claims it destroyed all material of the strain in 2004 and is "mystified" by how it showed up in the Oregon field.  Such discoveries could damage the US $8 billion in wheat exports if countries refuse to accept shipments with these strains.  (For this action, Monsanto only faces penalties of up to $1 million for violating the Plant Protection Act, which I'm sure can be found in the couch cushions of the executive restroom.)

Economics and Population Growth: Some claim that the economic benefits of GM crops to farmers, especially in developing countries, are mixed at best, with the bulk of the profits going to companies like Monsanto.  Additionally, while some scientists advocate for a new GM agricultural revolution to feed the world's hungry, others claim that the first agricultural revolution gave us the population explosion that got us here in the first place; another would only make the problem worse.  Rather, the problems lie with food distribution and politics.

Labeling: Many critics of GM foods insist that they should be labeled, and such is required in the European Union, China, India, Australia, and some other countries - not the US.  Both the American Medical Association and American Association for the Advancement of Science oppose mandatory labeling, pointing to the lack of scientific evidence that approved GM crops harm humans and claiming that even voluntary labeling would only serve to confuse people without significant consumer education efforts.  Experience with countries that require labeling finds that it actually tends to limit consumer choice, as businesses stop stocking GM foods, and increases prices.  Proponents of labeling counter by noting that consumers have the right to know what's in their food and that a majority of Americans want the labels.

These brief descriptions only begin to scratch the surface of this complicated issue.  I'm by no means an expert, and this surface-level research is honestly the most exposure I've had to it.  I came away with mixed feelings - there could definitely be some benefits to GM crops, but I do believe that regulators, especially in the US, need to get a better handle on them and stop siding with Monsanto in a seemingly knee-jerk fashion.  The good news - this is an issue that is rooted in science, meaning that there is a ton of good data and research to sort through if you want to become fully informed.  I understand the emotional reaction that GM foods and hatred of Monsanto can inspire in a lot of people, but I would advise a bit of caution before following those impulses down into the realm of conspiracy theories about controlling the world's food supply.  Use the available resources, learn all you can, make an informed decision, and advocate for your position.