Stories by Art Hobson

OPINION | ART HOBSON: Was Hiroshima bombing just the beginning of the end? On Aug. 6, 1945, a single B-29 dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, a city of 400,000. Moments later the entire city, three miles across, lay in ruins. On Aug. 9, the United States dropped another bo... July 27, 2021

OPINION | ART HOBSON: Through the bottleneck Now more than ever, and for better or worse, the world is in rapid transition. As the great scientist and naturalist Edward O. Wilson noted in his book "The Future of Life," humanity is currently in a... July 6, 2021

ART HOBSON: Freedom in the modern age A key claim of those on the political right is that over-regulation, bloated government and taxation have robbed us of our freedom -- our ability to pursue life, liberty and happiness as promised by t... June 15, 2021

ART HOBSON: Stop at two If you are, like me, a newspaper addict who wants to keep a finger on the American pulse, you should follow the daily letters to the editor. Reg Edwards of Compton, Arkansas, recently wrote about one ... May 25, 2021

ART HOBSON: Pondering the universe Humans have long gazed at the starry sky, wondering how it works, what it means. We've probably pondered such matters since at least the evolution of the genus Homo, with its enlarged frontal cortex, ... May 4, 2021

ART HOBSON: U.S. can't run the world Like an interminable re-enactment of the Vietnam War, the Afghan war drags on as we continue propping up yet another unsustainable government. Al-Qaeda's 2001 attack was so infuriating that even a ne... April 13, 2021

ART HOBSON: America's wild streak America's weaknesses were sorely exposed during the riot on our U.S. Capitol building. Who are these people? With nods to Pogo, on Jan. 6 we met the enemy and he is us. We're an odd country, full of ... March 23, 2021

ART HOBSON: Hopes, temps rise on Earth The political atmosphere since Jan. 20 has been like a breath of fresh air. A rational fact-based national administration has replaced four years of brainless, emotional rants. The change was urgent ... February 9, 2021

ART HOBSON: Biden must renew Iran deal Tomorrow's inauguration of Joe Biden as President brings partial relief from President Trump's foreign policy confusion. My previous column argued that the Iran nuclear agreement was beneficial to the... January 19, 2021

ART HOBSON: A return to the Iran nuclear deal In July 2015, the Obama Administration signed an agreement limiting Iran's nuclear weapons and ensuring enhanced monitoring in exchange for Iran's relief from sanctions. This followed six years of car... December 29, 2020

ART HOBSON: A push for "Big History" During the past century, science has revealed enormous new realms of history: the universe's 13.8 billion years, Earth's 4.5 billion years, not to mention 5 million years of early human precursors fol... December 8, 2020

ART HOBSON: Black hole knowledge expands Cultural historian Jacques Barzun once described science as "the glorious entertainment." There could be no better example than black holes. In 1916, Albert Einstein published his theory that gravity... November 17, 2020

ART HOBSON: What's up, America? The United States accounts for 4 percent of world population but 25 percent of covid-19 deaths. Although individual Americans pay twice what individual Europeans pay for health care, covid-19 kills us... August 25, 2020

ART HOBSON: Slavery, a partial history It's said that people who don't understand their history are condemned to repeat it. In this spirit, the Black Lives Matter movement prompts me to review the early history of American slavery. It beg... June 23, 2020

ART HOBSON: Covid-19 in perspective In considering the human dimensions of wars, floods, airplanes demolishing tall buildings, plagues and other mass tragedies, one needs benchmarks for perspective. My standard benchmark has long been U... June 2, 2020

ART HOBSON: What happened to the Mideast? The first sentence of Kim Ghattis' book Black Wave, a tragically beautiful post-1979 history of the Middle East, asks "What happened to us?" This haunting question, and the book's sub-title "Saudi Ara... May 12, 2020

ART HOBSON: The greatest show on Earth It's an ironic commentary on the real condition of our supposedly "advanced" nation that fully 38 percent of Americans are "young-Earth creationists" who, even in the face of today's overwhelming coun... April 21, 2020

ART HOBSON: A welcome connection Covid-19 is a perfect example of an oft-noted environmental principal: Everything is connected. All life is related through biological evolution. The planet shapes life through geological change while... March 31, 2020

ART HOBSON: The wrong way forward With congested highways, crumbling pavement, sluggish public transit, lengthy airport queues, a mere 22,000 miles of slow (under 125 mph) passenger rail and no fast trains, U.S. transportation is stuc... March 10, 2020

ART HOBSON: Understanding the new coronavirus The new coronavirus is an environmental issue arising from human disruption of our planet's wildlife. We thoughtlessly proliferate our numbers; blast highways through jungles; eat wild animals; clear ... February 18, 2020

ART HOBSON: Blundering into a new forever war Last June, following the announcement of still more crippling sanctions on Iran, President Trump added fuel to the fire with a few tweets: "Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with gre... January 28, 2020

ART HOBSON: Exploring the starry sky The 2019 Nobel Prize in physics honored humankind's fascination with the starry sky and our progress in understanding the nature of the universe. Except for sex, the stars might be our longest-standin... January 7, 2020

ART HOBSON: The fate of the Earth A year ago I wrote a column based on Steven Pinker's book "Enlightenment Now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress." It's an eye-opening analysis of modern times. The book paints an op... December 17, 2019

ART HOBSON: Scientists discover exoplanets Twenty-four years ago, astronomers Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz started something big. They made science's first discovery of a planet orbiting a typical star outside our solar system. Their search... November 5, 2019

ART HOBSON: These Truths recommended to people of all ideologies Award-winning historian Jill Lepore has written a large political and cultural history of our nation, from Columbus through the early months of Donald Trump's presidency. These Truths: A History of th... October 15, 2019

ART HOBSON: Will Iran get the bomb? The tragic paradox of nuclear weapons is that nations obtain them out of fear of other nations' nuclear weapons. Ironically, this was even true of the world's first nuclear power. The U.S. Manhattan P... September 24, 2019

ART HOBSON: The bomb and how it works The consequences of nuclear weapons are horrendous, but the science is fascinating. To prevent the horror, citizens must learn some of the related science. Our familiar world is made of atoms. There a... September 3, 2019

ART HOBSON: Will we use nukes in Iran? War tensions build daily in the Persian Gulf. President Trump's historic and disastrous decision to violate the Obama-era nuclear deal negotiated by Iran, European Union, China, France, Russia, UK, Ge... August 13, 2019

ART HOBSON: Will N. Korea, Iran renounce nukes? Between Iran and North Korea, nuclear weapons have been in the news these past few weeks. Civilization faces at least two existential threats, nuclear war and climate disruption. Climate disruption is... July 23, 2019

ART HOBSON: Another U.S. war? It's hard to believe we're back again at the brink of disaster. Weren't Vietnam, Iraq, Libya and Syria (just to mention a few) sufficient to teach us a lesson? The Trump administration, egged on by su... July 2, 2019

ART HOBSON: No war with Iran America is on the verge of another big military mistake. We should have learned better from our disastrous attacks on Vietnam, Iraq and Libya. Why must American foreign policy be all muscle and no bra... June 11, 2019

ART HOBSON: A return to a darker age? Those who value women's rights had best pay attention to recent state and national developments. The anti-choice movement is engaged in a dangerous campaign to overthrow the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision... May 21, 2019

ART HOBSON: Detecting a black hole On April 11, this newspaper published a photo of an object never before seen by humans: a black hole. The black disk at the center of that photo is the black hole at the center of galaxy M87. A "galax... April 30, 2019

ART HOBSON: In praise of SoNA We're privileged to live amid the magnificent Ozark Mountains while enjoying the best in sophisticated arts and entertainment. I've always loved music, and proudly earned a music degree in 1955. My he... April 9, 2019

ART HOBSON: Climate disruption spells disaster My last two columns argued that ice is melting everywhere, especially at the poles, due to global warming. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet may break up soon, raising sea levels eight feet this century an... March 19, 2019

ART HOBSON: A disrupted climate in the north Three weeks ago I suggested the West Antarctic ice sheet will probably melt soon, as it did during the previous interglacial period 125,000 years ago, raising ocean levels by at least 25 feet. Today, ... February 26, 2019

ART HOBSON: The end of ice For perspective, let's begin with some recent geological history. Due to changes in Earth's orbital behavior around the sun, there have been many glacial periods during the Pleistocene Epoch of the pa... February 5, 2019

ART HOBSON: More harm than good I'm no fan of President Trump, but it's irrational to automatically oppose everything he does. Many will disagree, but he recently did two things right by announcing a U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria... January 15, 2019

ART HOBSON: Surprising optimism in these difficult times Steven Pinker's new book "Enlightenment Now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress" paints an optimistic picture of global improvement since the 18th century Age of Enlightenment that r... December 25, 2018

ART HOBSON: Refundable carbon tax needed Why do Canadians seem to resolve difficult issues more rationally and peacefully than Americans? Perhaps it's an outgrowth of our origin in violent revolution versus Canada's history of peaceful coope... November 13, 2018

ART HOBSON: Will we attack Iran? In 2015, the New York Times published an op-ed urging President Obama to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities and provide "vigoroU.S. American support for ... regime change in Tehran." President Trump recen... October 23, 2018

ART HOBSON: Crime against the planet By early August, 85 large fires burned in California and northern California was declared a national disaster. Exacerbated by years of western drought, they caused more than a dozen deaths, thousands ... October 2, 2018

ART HOBSON: Are Kim's missiles a threat to U.S.? How about that? After Chairman Kim Jong Un agreed with President Trump to "work toward denuclearization," and Trump's tweet expressing "confidence that Kim ... will honor the contract we signed ... to... September 11, 2018

ART HOBSON: Getting to know U Whether one considers the Iran nuclear deal, North Korea's H-bomb, Russia's arsenal or America's military establishment, it's clear we all need to know something about nuclear weapons technology. Nort... August 21, 2018

ART HOBSON: Region needs mass transit Northwest Arkansas needs mass transit ORT, Razorback blend is a good idea Every city in this extremely rich nation should be able to offer all its citizens a high quality of life. An essential ingredi... July 31, 2018

ART HOBSON: Resisting religious extremism Humankind received stunning good news on May 28 when Ireland voted to repeal its constitutional ban on abortion. The vote had been expected to be close, but the margin turned out to be an overwhelming... June 19, 2018

ART HOBSON: Trump makes a disastrous choice It would be hard to top the recklessness of George W. Bush's 2003 attack on Iraq, but President Trump has managed it by withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear agreement. The consequences will be worse t... May 29, 2018

ART HOBSON: TESS searches for signs of life NASA's latest planet-hunter, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS, rocketed into space on April 18. It will be two months before the refrigerator-sized satellite maneuvers into its unusua... May 8, 2018

ART HOBSON: Bicycling benefits region As readers probably know, I'm an academic type who does a lot of complaining about developments that seem to me to be unhealthy for the planet and its inhabitants. But despite the grumbling, I feel ex... April 17, 2018

ART HOBSON: In God We Trust? A March 4 headline read "'In God We Trust' signs going up in schools." New Arkansas legislation requires public schools to display such posters whenever someone donates them. The American Legion of Be... March 27, 2018