The U.S. is sleep deprived. As a nation, Americans are not getting as much sleep as we need to. According to the National Sleep Foundation, it may be our busy lifestyle that keeps us from napping and getting enough hours. Many of us who work 9 to 5 jobs juggle busy class schedules or take care of our families, only to find ourselves sacrificing sleep in order to make sure things get done before bed.

The National Institutes of Health recommends that school-age children sleep at least 10 hours daily, teens sleep nine to 10 hours and adults sleep seven to eight hours. Data from the National Health Interview Survey reveals nearly 30 percent of adults sleep less than six hours a night. In 2009, only 31 percent of high school students reported getting at least eight hours of sleep on average. In short, only 1 in 3 of us feels rested through the day when living on a monophasic sleep cycle. This cycle is conveniently timed for those who work throughout the day or rely on daylight hours to complete their tasks.

There are alternatives for those needing more sleep. Journal accounts from pre-Industrial Revolution people such as Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island, report a period of wakefulness in the dead of night. Around midnight, communities would wake and enjoy an hour or so of snacking, reading and other social activities. When drowsy again, they would return to bed and later wake with the sun. These journals also reveal a period of naptime in mid-afternoon, after the midday meal, during which people were free to close their shops and catch a few winks.

A siesta sleep pattern is common in certain countries, including those throughout the Mediterranean, Southern Europe, Latin and South Americas. Public buildings such as museums, shops and churches close for a short period during the heat of the day. This tradition is so common that scientists named a biphasic sleep cycle after it. On the siesta sleep pattern, sleepers will retire for five to six hours during the night and then squeeze in a thirty to ninety minute nap somewhere in the first seven hours of their day. The short nap boosts memory and cognitive functions, supports the natural low levels of the body’s circadian rhythm and have shown to improve cardiovascular health and reduce stress.

Polyphasic sleep is common in many other animals and is believed to be the ancestral sleep pattern for all mammals, according to a study by the Evolutionary Anthropology Research Group at Durham University in the UK. A study at the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that during shorter days, commonly in winter, humans will sleep in biphasic patterns much like these animals. Another study indicates that this will happen whenever humans are removed from artificial light and blames monophasic sleep on the industrialization of western countries.

So why the western obsession with one long rest at night? It all ties back into the work schedule of America and many other western countries. If you work a 9 to 5 job that doesn’t allow a long break during the afternoon to power nap, you’ll push through your day. When home, there’s more to be done. Working longer hours certainly doesn’t help, leaving less time to spend with family and friends and complete household tasks. In certain areas, particularly more rural ones, there is little point remaining active at night. No businesses remain open past certain hours and small towns all but die once the sun goes down. The driving factors of our society (work, education and money) all occur seemingly exclusively during the day. Until there is an opportunity to take a breather and adjust, Americans will continue to run ourselves to the ground.

In 2015, CNN posted an article titled “Is Syria America’s Next Vietnam?” written by Sean Kennedy. At the time, election nominees were still being debated and President Donald Trump was not yet the Republican pick. Kennedy comments in his article how many Republican candidates were voicing their willingness to push American influence in the Middle East. Kennedy also calls for both parties to “…ask themselves this: ‘Do I want to inherit a second Vietnam, a geopolitical morass that, like quicksand, only pulls you down deeper the harder you try to pull yourself out?’”

Also in 2015, USA Today posted an article by Gregory Korte titled “16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria.” It goes through then-President Barack Obama’s statements in 2013, including the line, “We’re not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach.” And then on July 2, 2015, Obama said, “There are no current plans to do so.” Most of us believed him. The biggest reluctance against having troops in Syria is dragging the U.S. deeper into the region and potentially making the war even worse.

Recently, Trump approved the use of bombs in Syria. The U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk missiles on the morning of Friday, April 7. These missiles endangered civilian lives and the lives of our allies, but now run the risk of killing Soviet soldiers and sparking nuclear-armed Russian anger in response. Russia and Iran have voiced threats of retaliation in response to the recent bombing, much like how Russia and China supported Vietnamese communists in the past.

All of Trump’s campaign trail statements on conflict in the Middle East point to no boots on the ground. During the third presidential debate on Oct. 19, 2016, Trump said “…if they overthrow Assad, as bad as Assad is, and he’s a bad guy, but you may very well end up with worse than Assad.” Back in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson promised, “We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home…” This sounds like the same message—and look where we ended up last time.

Trump’s willingness to drop bombs in Syria, in what he justifies as a response to the chemical attacks by Assad on their own people, is just a small stepping stone. Once we can justify the use of missiles at $1.87 million a pop, the price of troops starts to seem smaller and smaller. How long until politicians and high-ranked military personnel push for ground troops?

I do not mean to trivialize the horrors of the war in Vietnam or to discredit the sacrifices American soldiers made for the sake of our country. I only seek to bring attention to the parallels between the continuous conflict in the Middle East and the Vietnam War. America loves acting as the world’s police, even at the cost of American lives — even, if not especially, when the conflict we seek to resolve is only made worse by our presence. Carpet bombing in Vietnam didn’t dissuade Vietnamese soldiers. It killed half a million civilians and destroyed their homes and their ways of life. Bombs in Syria will do no better. If Trump has flip-flopped on a few foreign conflicts, what’s to keep him from doing so again?

President Donald Trump has unveiled his 2018 fiscal budget, claiming it’s an “America First” budget, to bolster the American economy and increase the security of our nation. Some of the biggest winners include the Defense Department, up by 10 percent ($52 billion); Homeland Security, up 6.8 percent and Veteran Affairs, which will see a 6 percent increase in funding. These increases are no doubt made to fight terrorists both at home and abroad and hopefully help America’s numerous forgotten veterans.

However, Trump also wants Congress to fund the first installment of the border wall he proposed during his campaign, which we now know needs to be around 30 feet high and aesthetically pleasing, as well as extend six feet underground to dissuade tunnelers. Early proposals recorded the cost of the wall anywhere between $10 and $20 billion. More recent estimates suggest an even higher bill. Supposedly, Trump will make Mexico repay the U.S. for the border wall. He will need to use the power of the U.S. government to seize border properties of American citizens and the grand wall might even push some of them to the “wrong side” of the wall. Trump has yet to acknowledge the true cost of a wall fulfilling his requirements, but he cannot deny it will cost an awful lot of taxpayer money.

To fund the wall project, Trump’s 2018 fiscal budget has drastically cut certain programs. The Environmental Protection Agency will see a budget cut of 31 percent as well as the end of many of its climate change programs. The State Department will lose 28 percent. The Department of Agriculture, the Department of Labor and the Department of Justice will all lose 21 percent individually. According to CNN, “the Trump administration will prioritize defense spending over diplomacy and foreign aid.”

However, his proposed cuts give us a good idea of what the next four years will look like — more spending on defense and anti-immigration efforts, less on low-income and vulnerable Americans. Granted, Trump’s budget only covers a small amount of federal spending and showcases only a bare-bones skeleton of the real fiscal plan for 2018. But in his hunt for funding, Trump has cut out vital resources for elderly citizens and after-school programs for young students. Meal on Wheels, the longest running program of the Community Development Block Grant program, which operates under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, will suffer from this new “America First” approach. Fortune reports that Meals on Wheels “served over 219 million meals to 2.4 million homebound senior citizens in 2016.” With Trump’s budget, most of those 2.4 million people will go hungry.

This news comes after Mick Mulvaney, director of Donald Trump’s office of budget management, told reporters that meals in school for young, low-income students “don’t work” in the way they are supposed to. This means the Trump administration does not see any link between feeding hungry students and better academic performance. In our country, 1 in 5 children don’t eat regular meals without in-school food programs. Since when does America needs an incentive to feed hungry children? Will we also require incentive to feed our elderly?

Is it trivial for us to demand that Trump give this more attention? No, it is not. We cannot sit on the knowledge that there were programs once available to keep our neighbors alive and we let them fall away. In light of Trump’s 2018 fiscal budget, we must turn a critical eye to who the budget cuts will affect. We need a president who puts all Americans first, not just some of us.

Ethical consumerism, or “green consumerism” as some call it, is a driving force in today’s market. Many people 18 and older have learned to buy products selectively, not only based on personal taste but also ethical standards, like cruelty-free production, treatment of workers and environmental impact certifications on products. Some consumers divest from entire brands when they learn a company is doing something that doesn’t align with their morals. This isn’t a new millennial trend, but it has grown in power in recent decades through free use of the internet and social media for transparency.  

Consumers have the power to decide what they’re buying and the power to investigate before spending their money. While many of us won’t go looking for a reason to change our consumer habits, when news pops up with something obstructing our moral integrity, few people hesitate to keep their money and find an alternative. In the face of this fickle market, companies rely on their public relations teams to keep them afloat and control any disasters that threaten sales.

Recently, General Mills started a campaign to save declining honey bee numbers, which are essential for their famous Cheerios cereal. Consumers jumped at the chance of receiving free wildflower seeds in the mail and planting them in their yards. It was a good PR move that consumers got behind without hesitation. Unfortunately, many of us, myself included, did not think to investigate before believing. In truth, not only are some of the seeds in the free packets invasive species in different areas around the U.S. but General Mills has used and still uses Monsanto weed killer in their products — the number one insect killer used in food production.

According to The Huffington Post, Monsanto residues were found in General Mills products in higher quantities than the other top two brands, Kashi and Ritz, combined. Quite simply, General Mills can help us plant as many wild seeds as they want, but they’re still actively killing our vital pollinators.

On the other end of the transparency spectrum, we have Nestle and its bottled water. Nestle has not ceased its water extractions from the San Bernardino National Forest in California, despite the historic state-wide drought. On its website, Nestle claims that continuing to pump the water will provide thirsty Californians with the water they so desperately seek. Looking deeper, however, shows that those same Californians were ordered to cut their water use for the sole purpose of lessening the strain on natural reservoirs.

Meanwhile, Nestle pumped out 36 billion gallons of water in 2016 from California alone and turned around to sell it to the very residents it stole from. The kicker? Nestle’s water permits for the area have been expired since 1988, according to The Desert Sun, a Californian newspaper.

The rise of ethical consumerism has not brought an end to companies attempting to play nice in the light and swindle in the shadows. PR campaigns often exist solely to cover up mistakes, rather than learn from public demand and change the broader ethics of the company. Companies are eager to slap a green certification on their products to profit from green consumers, but few want to commit their production to green standards. And many of us blindly buy anything that appears to align with our morals on these issues.

With more and more green, cruelty-free, free-range, grass-fed, recycled plastic and biodegradable labels, we have become easily blindsided on a larger scale. Do your research and be fickle with your money. Make companies earn it through their actions.

In many European countries, such as the Netherlands, Sweden and France, learning English as a secondary language is a requirement for young students. There are 25 countries in Europe which boast English learning in secondary schools above 90 percent, with four more quick to follow with rates around 50 percent. The top countries are deeply involved in international relations and the global market, often sending their students to English dominant countries to study by immersion. The English language is regarded as the language of the business world. 

In this way, Americans and citizens of the UK are spoilt. Doris Clark at Forbes Magazine says, “English will maintain and grow its dominance, moving from ‘marker of the elite’ in years past to ‘a basic skill needed for the entire workforce.’” Native-English speakers are catered to in the business world. People excuse our monolingualism by claiming we have no bar to meet, or native language is all we need to build our economy and further younger generations.

This ignores all the other benefits related to learning a second language. First and foremost, bilingualism steps you up personally against your competition in the workplace. According to Minnesota State Careerwise Education, “Research by Rosetta Stone found that people who speak at least one foreign language have an average annual household income that’s $10,000 higher than the household income of those who only speak English. And about 17 percent of those who speak at least one foreign language earn more than $100,000 a year.”

Even while English is considered the business language of the world, the U.S. does plenty of business where a second language would be useful. China, Mexico and Japan are our top trading partners, all of whom do not speak English as the national language. Business leaders in these three countries speak English because they want to extend a mutually beneficial hand — why would we not do the same? Speaking their languages would open up more opportunities.

Beyond this, bilingualism has cognitive benefits as well. “Speaking a foreign language improves the functionality of your brain by challenging it to recognise, negotiate meaning, and communicate in different language systems. This skill boosts your ability to negotiate meaning in other problem-solving tasks as well,” reports the Telegraph. Along with this, bilingualism can boost multitasking skills, memory, perception and fight off dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

If none of this convinces you to pick up a college class or dedicate a bit of your free time to language helpers such as Rosetta Stone or Duolingo, consider also the cultural significance of speaking a second language. Data released by the Center for Immigration Studies from a 2013 American Community Survey states that, “1 in 5 U.S. residents speaks a foreign language at home” and the number hit a record 61.8 million in 2013, increasing by 2.2 million in the three previous years. Spanish and Chinese were at the top of the foreign language popularity list.

Learning a second language could connect us to our community and help us embrace cultures other than our own. This sort of inclusion is exactly what our country needs right now.

There has been a rise of anti-Semitism in our country. Anti-Semitism has also been on the rise in Europe, but in the U.S., it has taken a different form — Trump supporters.

The Anti-Defamation League, when conducting a report on Twitter of anti-Semitic threats to Jewish reporters, found that 2.6 million anti-Semitic messages were posted on Twitter from August 2015 to July 2016. Of those, 19,253 were directed at journalists.

Of those 2.6 million threats, the words appearing most frequently in the Twitter profiles of the attackers were “Trump,” “nationalist,” “conservative” and “white.” The New York Times states that the report was “careful not to suggest that the Trump campaign ‘supported or endorsed’ the anti-Semitic attacks, but noted that many had been sent by his supporters.”

This online rhetoric is reflected in real life anti-Semitism, with real life consequences. Azi Paybarah at Politico writes, “There were 56 hate crimes reported in New York City as of Sunday, Feb. 12, up from just 31 incidents over the same time period last year, according to figures released today by the New York Police Department. The increase was led by a rise in anti-Semitic crimes, which jumped from 13 to 28. No other category of hate crime was in double digits.”

New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, has been outspoken on the cause of the uptick, claiming, “You can’t have a candidate for president single out groups of Americans, negatively, and not have some ramifications for that…obviously connected to the election.” His argument holds some weight to it. According to NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce, there has been a 115 percent increase in hate crimes reported in New York City since election day.

Whether or not President Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric is the cause of the rise in hate crimes against religious minorities, he has continuously floundered when given the opportunity to denounce this type of behaviour. When asked by Jake Turx, a conservative Jewish journalist for Ami Magazine, what he and his administration would do to protect the Jewish communities from the rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric and vandalism, Trump said, “I’m the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”

Many Jews thought Trump would be a staunch supporter of their faith, with his daughter Ivanka, son-in-law and grandchildren in the faith. They fear Trump missed the point of the question completely. Trump told Turx to sit down and berated him for not asking a simple question, claiming he lied. When asked about the incident later, Turx seemed disappointed he had not received a straight answer for what he felt was an important question for all American Jews.

Many Jews, Trump supporters or not, are scared for their safety and the safety of their families. During January of this year, 48 Jewish Community Centers (JCC) in 26 states and one Canadian province received nearly 60 bomb threats. In a statement, the FBI said the bureau and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division are “investigating possible civil rights violations in connections with threats to Jewish Community Centers across the country.” Many parents are pulling their children out of programs and classrooms in wake of the threats. For each phone call made, more Jewish children must flee their once-safe community spaces and leave a key part of their faith.

In one bomb threat, recorded by the JCC to which it was placed, the terrorist stated “in a short time, a large number of Jews are going to be slaughtered.” According to the FBI hate crime database, anti-Semitic hate crimes account for two times the crimes against the second biggest group, anti-Muslim hate crimes and more than all of the other religious hate crimes combined last year. Some Jewish leaders claim crimes are getting worse.

These bomb threats are only the latest in a long line of violence against Jewish communities and an accompanying silence from news outlets. Many claim the president, despite all his talk, doesn’t care enough to commit to any sort of condemnation of anti-Semitism specifically.

Protests are only supposed to be peaceful until your football team loses, then violence is free game. Protests are only allowed to be violent and chaotic until people of color have something to protest. Marginalized groups are given far less leeway for protests than their white neighbors.

Only a minor part of institutionalized racism influences every aspect of black and brown life. In other words, it’s not just the criminal justice system and prisons, where the effects are most obvious, but in the media, education, economy and political system. It’s the invisible elephant in every room across the country.

To put guns into the hands of peaceful Dakota Pipeline protesters would raise the risk of police intervention from rubber bullets to real ones. Peaceful protesters already face dogs, pepper spray and tear gas. People in their ranks have been shot, bitten and abused enough. To insinuate that peaceful protest is the pinnacle of social change reveals the privilege you have been afforded and which they have not.

White people can take up arms with no fear of being assaulted unfairly by the police, unlike the peaceful people protesting the North Dakota Pipeline, or protesters in Flint or any people of color all around the country. Taking up guns would do nothing for these people except give the police an excuse to shoot first, ask questions later. The police can barely handle one black man without bullets flying. There would be outright war on communities of color involved.

Respect shouldn’t take a war to begin with. Native Americans should not have to die for clean water. Flint residents should not need to use firearms just for the nation to remember them. You cannot simultaneously demand peaceful protests and then applaud white men who take over government buildings for tax issues, toting guns all the while, like the Bundy brothers did in 2016.

Any time marginalized communities use violence, people complain about their chaos and disrespect. They claim Martin Luther King, Jr. would be ashamed and that this isn’t how you earn respect or make people listen. There’s no way to win this argument. Colin Kaepernick kneels during an anthem — he’s considered disrespectful. Protesters light car fires in Flint — they’re considered disrespectful. Native Americans form a line to protect their sacred lands — they should just get out of the way. Women march on the capital and suddenly it’s simultaneously a war on manhood but also the least effective route they could have taken. How long will it take for people to tell the truth? You don’t care what a protest looks like. You just don’t want to hear certain voices.

Those who complain about violent protests and shake their heads at anyone who isn’t perfectly nice and sweet in protesting injustice don’t realize the privilege they have now was largely done through violence. Civil rights for women, people of color, LGBTQ people and others were and are earned by making themselves heard. By lighting fires and destroying property. Only then will people listen. We don’t need guns. We don’t need death. We need to address the voices of the marginalized before it comes to violence. Change isn’t made by being nice and asking “please” — and it never will be.

It’s a popular article title recently. You can find it as a hashtag on Twitter and a subject of interest on Facebook in the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration and first week of office. Barron Trump, Trump’s youngest child at age 10, appears easy prey for people who not only disagree with his father’s policies but need no more excuse to attack anything with a Trump name on it. In his defense, the White House released a formal caution to journalists to leave Barron out of political reporting. “It is a longstanding tradition that the children of Presidents are afforded the opportunity to grow up outside of the political spotlight.

This is only fair. Barron is a little boy. He has no control over what his father says and does, unlike Trump’s older children who might have more influence. His father’s personality, language and actions will not be changed by people cyberbullying him, calling him names, claiming he has a neurological disorders or otherwise challenging his mental state. Saturday Night Live writer Katie Rich even went as far to say Barron would be America’s “first homeschool shooter” on Twitter. Her statement was met with heavy backlash and she was suspended from her job.

Barron is not the first White House kid to feel the sting of the White House publicity. Elizabeth Lauten, spokeswoman for Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, criticized Malia and Sasha Obama in Nov. 2014, ages 16 and 13 at the time, for looking bored while attending a public event with their father. In the post, Lauten wrote, “Try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play… Then again, your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter. So I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the ‘good role model’ department… Nevertheless, stretch yourself. Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you.”

She then added a final twist to the knife: “Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar.” Lauten later stepped down from her Tennessee GOP position, but the fact remains: people like Lauten target Malia and Sasha merely as a proxy for their father and his policies, just as people used to target Barbara and Jenna Bush during their father’s presidency.

Barbara and Jenna Bush recently wrote Sasha and Malia a letter, published by Time Magazine, as a display of support for the sisters as they leave the White House with their father. The last paragraph reads, “You have lived through the unbelievable pressure of the White House. You have listened to harsh criticism of your parents by people who had never even met them. You stood by as your precious parents were reduced to headlines. Your parents, who put you first and who not only showed you but gave you the world. As always, they will be rooting for you as you begin your next chapter. And so will we.”

It appears all children living in the White House struggle with harsh criticism simply for their family relations, on top of seeing their parents criticized as well. One can only wonder how children, as they grow into their own identities, cope with such public scrutiny.

Barron Trump is his own person. He is an individual. He is not an extension of his father, his mother or any of his older brothers and sisters. He can’t help who his father is. No matter your political standing, if you target a 10-year-old with intentions of harming his family by extension, your words should not be tolerated. If you hated how people chose to attack Sasha and Malia Obama during their father’s terms, or wanted justice for Chelsea Clinton after Rush Limbaugh called her the White House dog when she was only 13 years old, then you have no business turning your back on Barron.