I have been demonstrating against war in Iraq and Afghanistan for years and am horrified at the prospect of widening war.

Every freedom-loving American must stand against racism and homophobia. How can we enjoy The Walt Disney Company's family-friendly movies, TV shows, and theme parks knowing the same company is encouraging and profiting from the blatant racism and homophobia of "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson? Disney needs to take a moral stand by canceling Duck Dynasty immediately.

Unlike uranium, thorium burns almost entirely, with little residue that decays relatively quickly. We need safe grid support besides solar and wind in order to break our addiction to fossil fuels. America began this journey 40 years ago, and now it's time to finish the job.

The Volcano School of Arts and Sciences (VSAS) is a 188 student, decade old, tuition free, state financed, State of Hawaii Charter Public School, opens to all. The VSAS receives about ½ the annual State funding per student as do surrounding ‘regular’ public schools. Yet the students at VSAS consistently academically score higher than those students in surrounding public schools. VSAS students learn in rotting tents and WWII Quonset huts reached by a rutted dirt and cinder road. The school auditorium is a sheet of Vinyl on large hoops, open to the rainforest weather on both ends. The playground is a former plantation equipment dump. Shards of metal continually work their way up underfoot where the children exercise and play at recess. The school is on leased land with high, annually increasing rent. The school’s burgeoning lease rent is the second highest line item in the school budget. As the rent increases, the school is forced to decrease enrollment to make ends meet. Almost a century ago citizens of Volcano gave another plot of land, designated as for school use, to the state (via the Territory). The state now leases that land back to the VSAS. The VSAS community has cobbled up enough money (in addition to paying their taxes to support State public schools) to pay for a new school plan done by an AIA registered architect, and to generate the required environmental assessment, archeological study, road traffic analysis, zoning and land use documents, flora and fauna analysis, flood insurance zone map and studies of available water, telephone electricity and sewage disposal resources for the new school. All are required by either the county or state. Thousands of hours of citizen volunteer efforts have been expended. Meanwhile, the kids trudge the dirt road to their rotting tents to leaking Quonset huts. With constant pleading by volcano citizens, the elected State Legislature has twice appropriated $618,000 of State construction and improvement funds specifically directed to the VSAS. The Governor of the State Hawaii, exercising virtual line item veto, has for two years, arbitrarily withheld these funds. Repeated pleas for their release have been ignored. Meanwhile, in August of this year the governor ‘released’ $1.8 million in construction funds almost exclusively directed for ‘regular’ public school athletic facilities, including a new ‘press booth’ for school athletic events. More ‘administrative’ offices and salaries and fringe benefits for more state employees were also added. The Hawaii County Fire Marshal has warned that the present VSAS facilities are unsafe for use by Volcano’s children. We are struggling to educate our children in one of the fastest growing areas in the state. We have given to the state land on which to build a decent new school. Our present ‘Third World’ school is already producing better educated children than nearby public schools. We have cobbled up $156,000 to contribute to our ‘bootstrap’ building effort. We have been successful in having our legislature re appropriate funds for a decent, safe school only to have the effort arbitrarily strangled by our Governor.

The Mormon Church has taken an active role in denying same sex couples equality. No rational reason. It is simple as that. Opposition is based only on fear.

We should be given the right to choose how to watch "Walking With Dinosaurs 3-D" without having to subject ourselves with childish humor

The Southside of Chicago has no or inadequate Trauma units within community hospitals. The South side needs a complete medical district..

In many states the unemployed fall into the so called "gap" of not making enough income to qualify for a subsidy under the Affordable Care Act, yet not qualifying for Medicaid. There should not be a bottom income threshold when Medicaid expansion was left up to individual states. We are one country and we should all have the same opportunities to afford medical care no matter what state we live in.

Tougher laws are needed!

Roseanne's show may have been groundbreaking, but today, Roseanne is transphobic and seemingly woman- (and feminist-)hating. She shouldn't be spewing advice in the pages of a self-proclaimed feminist magazine (or anywhere, really, but we'll settle for not in Bust). As an xoJane commenter wrote, "[Roseanne] is a prime example of how you can ~*be a woman*~ and ~*do some ground-breaking sh_t*~ and ~*carve out a big place for yourself in women's history*~ AND THEN F_CKING RUIN IT by BEING AN A__HOLE and apparently also not having any reading comprehension skills." (http://www.xojane.com/issues/lindy-west-roseanne-twitter-rape-jokes#comment-920034251) In the words of black feminist blogger Trudy Hamilton, "Roseanne's White & class privileged, ignore class intersections in the 99%, transphobic, cis gender 'feminism' = BOO." (https://twitter.com/thetrudz/status/261860715059609600) Need some examples? On 12/23/13, Roseanne tweeted (and then deleted) "susan rice is a man w big swinging ape balls" (https://twitter.com/TheRealRoseanne/status/415172464386138114) June 2013: Attacking feminist blogger/comedian Lindy West & mischaracterizing her comments as advocating censorship: http://jezebel.com/why-is-roseanne-calling-jezebel-a-misogynistic-woman-h-511345557 October 2012: Discriminating against pre-op trans women: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/73083271.html No, Bust, we CAN'T "all just get along." (http://www.bust.com/roseanne-barr-and-lindy-west-cant-we-all-just-get-along.html) Grow up and hire an intersectional feminist advice columnist.

I have created a petition to demand the removal of fluoride from our water supply. I am personally affected by this issue because I, like everyone else in the world, require water to survive and should not be consuming or bathing in water containing fluoride as it is a highly toxic chemical. By adding this neurotoxin to the water supply, it devastates the health of all living things as well as our environment.

In the fight for a commonsense immigration process, we’re up against a patchwork of broken policies and Congress that’s stalling. In the meantime, this holiday season and every day, families need relief. No matter their status, families should be together during the holidays. Every day, about 1,000 families are separated by deportations, often under questionable law enforcement practices. Dads who have a broken taillight are getting pulled over and deported, forced to abandon their children. Mothers walking on the streets in their states are racially profiled and sent to countries they haven’t lived in for decades, worried they may never see their children again. And even U.S. citizens are being deported. This week, the Department of Homeland Security welcomed Jeh Johnson as its new secretary. Secretary Johnson could stop the deportation policy the Obama administration has been practicing, giving real hope to new American families. DHS is tearing families apart because it’s following the Obama administration's self-imposed and arbitrary deportation quotas. Those quotas are keeping families apart for the holidays and turning DHS’s attention away from keeping us safe from real threats.