The last time there was a serious discussion about poverty in America was during the presidential campaign of 2008 when former United States Senator John Edwards (D-NC) announced his intention to run for the office from the back yard of a home in New Orleans. The city was still reeling from the impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005–the natural disaster that made poverty in America visible again.  Edwards had been identified as a champion for the poor throughout his legal career during which we successfully represented plaintiffs in seemingly unwinnable cases as they fought large corporations, physicians and others, winning multimillion dollar settlements for his clients.  He was also the director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Law.  During his political career Edwards had proposed that the government should place poor people in middle class neighborhoods through the use of one million housing vouchers.  The idea went nowhere, and once again, poverty fell off America’s agenda.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Millions of people staged the world's biggest
water fight celebrating a week-long holiday which ended on April 17,
during which traffic accidents killed 442 people and the military
regime warned females wearing wet shirts not to expose themselves in
Thailand's sweltering streets.
   Bangkok "turned into City of Aquatic Mayhem," U.S. Ambassador to
Thailand, Glyn T. Davies, posted on his official Twitter account
@GlynTDavies during the April 11-17 Songkran New Year holiday.
   "Happy Songkran all -- long life, happiness, blessings & fun," the
envoy wrote, celebrating Thailand's traditional new year and several
days of public water splashing during the hottest weather of the year.
   Ambassador Davies also posted a photograph of himself and his wife,
both grinning and wearing sunglasses while gently squirting each other
with plastic sprayers alongside revelers in a busy Bangkok street.
   At least 442 people died in nationwide traffic accidents during
April 11-17 -- annually dubbed the "Seven Days of Death" -- and 3,656

The final year for using medical marijuana illegally on 420 could be 2016 as two groups are seeking to put a medical marijuana amendment on this November’s ballot. Parallel to these 420 activists are Ohio lawmakers who introduced a medical marijuana bill a week before April 20th.

State lawmakers plan on fast-tracking the bill (House Bill 523) to Gov. John Kasich before any November ballot, and they said if it passes this summer, Ohioans could be using medical marijuana by 2018.

The two groups seeking a citizen vote on medical marijuana – Ohioans for Medical Marijuana and Grassroots Ohio – will most likely stay the course, as they have said they don’t have confidence in the Republican-dominated Ohio Legislature passing an effective law. Thus Ohio could have competing medical marijuana measures on this fall’s ballot.

“Conflict happens in isolation.”

Wow, that’s it. A sense of awareness ignited as I listened to Kristin Famula, president of the National Peace Academy, make this seldom-acknowledged observation. When we feel wronged, violated, disrespected, suddenly we’re alone with our careening emotions.

Indeed, this is what makes it a “conflict”: the fact that we can’t see beyond the rage, the sense of injury, the wrongness of what has happened. It may last only a moment or two, after which we put the situation in perspective or, at the very least, shrug it off and move on. But perhaps the situation is ongoing, or the wrong was inexcusably offensive — and we can’t let go of it.