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Guns and Gun ControlJune 10, 2022
Shon Miller: Portrait of a Mass Killer as a Human Being
The sterile, but endless, debate over the role of mental illness in mass shootings rarely acknowledges how much our system fails those on both sides of the gun.
Billy Sothern
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Death PenaltyMay 5, 2008
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
As executions resume in the wake of a Supreme Court decision, we are reminded that a life cannot be willfully ended without violence.
Billy Sothern
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CitiesDecember 13, 2007
Waiting for Godot in a Wasteland
The most devastated neighborhood in America makes an ideal backdrop for a morally ambiguous play about abandonment.
Billy Sothern
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PoliticsOctober 30, 2007
Bobby Jindal: Not Much to Celebrate
Some herald the election of an Indian-American Republican governor as a milestone, but the poor and black citizens of Louisiana aren’t among them.
Billy Sothern
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CitiesAugust 29, 2007
New Orleans Is Us
If the American people continue to avert their eyes from the slow death of an abandoned city, their communities may soon be the next to fail.
Billy Sothern
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ActivismAugust 10, 2007
Goodbye, St. Thomas
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’s ruling class is demolishing public housing to make way for private businesses and expensive condos.
Billy Sothern
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CitiesJune 6, 2007
Jefferson Should Go
The people of New Orleans suffered another blow with the indictment of Representative William Jefferson. They deserve better.
Billy Sothern
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CitiesMay 22, 2007
On the Porch in the Seventh Ward
As the New Orleans Jazz Fest unfolded, a down-home celebration, bright with beads, sequins and feathers, took place in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
Billy Sothern
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Death PenaltyApril 25, 2007
A Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Billy Sothern, member of the legal team that represented Patrick Kennedy, convicted of child rape, in a landmark Supreme Court death penalty decision this week, explained the issues at stake in this 2007 essay.
Billy Sothern
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CitiesMarch 27, 2007
A Question of Blood
History repeats itself for the white residents of St. Bernard Parish, who tried and failed to restrict rentals in their devastated streets to blood relatives, barring blacks and Hispanics.
Billy Sothern