Archive
Marshaling Marooned Tax Dollars
Republican lawmakers have largely greeted President Barack Obama’s new spending plan as dead on arrival. But at least one provision has a chance of becoming law: a plan to tax the profits that large U.S. corporations have parked in offshore tax shelters and use that...
Eating Local in the Wintertime
"Has nobody in this bleeping town heard of a kale salad?" I wanted to scream. That’s the anguish of a Californian convert transplanted to Wisconsin in the dead of winter. As I remind anyone who tries to assure me that Madison is a lovely town and Wisconsin has...
A Corporate Apostate
Business schools preach a strict, anti-social doctrine of corporate management that comes down to this: CEOs must be idiots. By that I mean the original Greek word idiotes, which applied to people who care only about themselves and the prosperity of their immediate...
The Keystone XL Pipe Dream
A Super Bad Deal
How about this year’s Super Bowl, huh? You may know that the final score in this nail-biter was 28 points for the Patriots to 24 for the Seahawks. Let me add: minus 2 million for the city of Glendale. Two million dollars, that is. That's the amount that Mayor Jerry...
In OtherWords: February 4, 2015
This week in OtherWords, Miriam Pemberton identifies who can pull the Pentagon’s purse strings, Medea Benjamin explains why she’s no fan of Henry Kissinger, and Raul Reyes says that some of the Republican Party’s best friends are actually its worst enemies. Do you...
Who’s the Boss?
Here’s a quiz: Your boss gives you a budget. You ignore it and ask for more money than anyone in your position has ever spent. How long would you expect to keep your job? That’s basically the scenario that played out with the Obama administration’s recent budget...
Friends Like These
When I was growing up, my older Mexican-American relatives had an expression: “Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.” It was my family’s way of making me careful about choosing my friends. Even then, I could see they were right. The smart kids...
Coming Out of the Shadows
When I worked as a community organizer in New Mexico, I once overheard several women talking about a 2012 executive action on immigration. Known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the order made young, undocumented adults eligible for work permits and...
Will the Real ‘Low-Life Scum’ Please Stand Up?
As you may have heard, security guards recently tossed me and my fellow activists out of a Senate hearing where former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was about to testify. It became a hot story when Senator John McCain denounced us as "low-life scum." Why was...
