Leslie Rojas

Gray successfully petitioning the state to officially name a maritime battle which took place in the bay during the war of 1812, “The battle of Bay St. Louis.”

The dogs were left to fend for themselves when a group of rescuers, community members, and law enforcement stepped in to help.

Chona Guzman left her home in the Philippines is search of the American Dream, and becoming a citizen is something she longed for.

Along with the badges, the department also has a patrol unit that breast cancer survivors are signing.

With skateboarding in the 2024 and 2028 Olympics, the hope to provide local skaters with a platform to help them compete in the future. (WLOX) By Leslie Rojas Published: Jan. 21, 2024 at 4:39 AM CET

Krewe Du Canoe is inspired by Walter Anderson's passion for adventure and his wilderness travels by skiff and canoe. (WLOX) By Leslie Rojas Published: Jan. 22, 2024 at 3:02 AM CET

I won’t start with the modern dictionary definition of inclusivity, since the July 26 letter to the editor, “Inclusion, and lack thereof,” has already established that for us. We have

Groups, societies, and governments require organizing principles to function. A quotidian example: sports teams needs to know to which finish line, end zone, goal, basket or home plate they are driving and the members of the team need to be agreed that winning is what they want to do, rather than losing, because playing to win and playing to lose (intentionally) look very different from each other. So too, on election years, members of American society who are of age have the particular opportunity to drive toward a given vision of the future. What are we driving towards? What good things might concretize if we vote for the right candidate? (“Right” is probably not the best word because it is so black-and-white and all-or-nothing; “best” seems more realistic when describing political candidates with complicated pasts.)

To continue my discussion on summum bonum, or “greatest good,” from the NI’s Oct. 11 edition, personally – and I share this in the interest of sparking the conversation, rather than imposing an opinion – the principle I have settled on is that human dignity is our best bet as our political summum bonum. This is the kind of topic that would take more of a book than a newspaper blurb to tease out fully, but in broad strokes. This is my reasoning: Human beings are evidently capable of thinking, creating and acting in ways that no other animal on this planet can. There is some overlap on the edges of what humans and the more intelligent species of animals can do, but we all know that no monkey has ever sent itself into space, no whale has declaimed an aquatic Iliad and no golden retriever has ever founded the canine equivalent of the Missionaries of Charity. No octopus has recorded a theory of evolution and beavers have not built a Panama Canal. I’m still waiting for the wolves to make a plan to circumnavigate the globe and for the African grays to put on some Oxford Union debates. Animals are beautiful and wondrous, but the difference between their capabilities and ours are in the order of many magnitudes. So, in terms of which life form on this planet should get priority, I would say that goes to humans because humans are sufficiently intelligent and self-aware to then extend the scope of care to other living beings on the planet. We are capable of the greatest harm and the greatest good.

As was previously published in an opinion piece in the NI's Oct. 18 edition, I am personally of the opinion that choice is inadequate as the summum bonum because choice is a means to an end, rather than an end goal in itself. Choice is not in itself a great enough principle to then function as a guide to unify and direct a society, it is (merely) an important tool. Human dignity can be what choice is not. If human dignity is the political summum bonum, then respect is automatic. Respect is in-built. If I am respected because I am human, then my life has value in the eyes of the other person and of the law simply because I am human. The sole requirement for receiving respect is one’s humanity. How many decisions do we make on a daily basis in which we ignore the other human being in a given scenario? How do we apply this principle to underpaid employees? How do we apply this to persons caught up in sex trafficking? (For instance, do we consume content that creates a demand for sex trafficking?) How do we respond to immigrants who are in the United States, legally or otherwise? How do we respond to the presence of a human fetus in a medical situation, if the sole requirement for human dignity is human nature?