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Sexual assault awareness

With the widely publicized actions of Dean Saxton, sexual assault awareness is trending up.

Saxton’s sign and message were horrible. So repulsive, in fact, that coverage of it got picked up by various sites, including BuzzFeed and Huffington Post. But while Saxton was marching around attempting to spread his ignorance, he did exactly the opposite.

The sign elicited some kind of negative reaction from almost everyone who saw it, and if that’s the case, it served to remind people that no one deserves rape.

Widening wealth gap

According to a new study from the Urban Institute, a data and research center that investigates social and economic issues in the United States, the wealth gap between minorities and white Americans has widened during the economic recession.

Wealth is accumulated over time and includes financial assets and non-financial assets, such as real estate, businesses and vehicles, according to the study. The consequences are wide-ranging.

Black high school students, for example, are less likely to receive money from their parents to attend college than Caucasian high school students. Minorities are overrepresented in prisons, they are more likely to live in impoverished neighborhoods, and they are underrepresented in high-level political offices and top management positions.

It’s a perpetuating cycle that experts say is getting worse, not better with the economic recovery. Someone’s going to have to intervene.

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The national gun debate

A bipartisan attempt to expand universal background checks to online and gun show sales was unable to get the necessary 60 votes in the Senate to move forward.

The bill only mustered the support of four Republicans, the same number of Democrats who voted against the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid changed his vote to “no” to reserve his right to reintroduce gun control measures at a later time, but the national focus has shifted to immigration reform and entitlements.

The next inevitable tragedy will likely bring heated arguments from both sides of the debate, but until then, the voices of 90 percent of Americans who supported the bill has been silenced.

Crisis in Korea

After a series of what have turned out to be nothing more than empty threats, North Korea has failed to displace tragedies in Boston and West Texas for front-page news.

South Korea has said it will pull all of its workers from the industrial zone in the north, but even that hasn’t captured the attention of most Americans.

Any earlier fears were never really justified anyway, but it’s definitely time to move on from this one. Our time and resources are better spent worrying about concrete threats, not a young leader eager to prove himself to his own military.