Archive
Staving Off Traffic Jams Along the Information Super-Highway
There was no vacation for the Internet this summer. While many Americans slipped away to the beach, Internet users were busy defending the openness of a network that has become this era's engine for free expression, ingenuity and just about everything else. The threat...
Against the Wind
Shortly before Congress left for its long summer vacation, Senator Barbara Mikulski tried to block a 150-megawatt wind farm. The Maryland Democrat's move would delay Pioneer Green Energy's construction of the project in her own state until an independent study from...
Playing Toxic Whack-a-Mole
Popular activities like hiking, camping, and backpacking come with all kinds of risks. You can get heat stroke or hypothermia, run out of water, fall off a cliff, and bump into cougars or grizzly bears. If you get close enough to an infected ground squirrel for one of...
Do You Want Some Hogwash with That Burger?
Burger King bills itself as "home of the Whopper," a name intended to convey to burger eaters that this one is a whale of a deal. But "whopper" also means a prevarication, a crock, a tall tale — hogwash. Both meanings apply to Burger King's current effort to take over...
Taming Modern Monopolies
Analysts at the OECD, the Paris-based research agency, have just shared a grim prediction: If current trends "prevail," all developed nations will show by 2060 "the same level of inequality as currently experienced by the United States." If we let those current trends...
The King of Tax Dodging
Mission Never-Ending
Ready or not, here we go again. The Pentagon is barreling back into the chaos of Iraq. Apparently, "Mission Accomplished" is "Mission Never-ending." The government says that, for now, America will only provide jet fighters, drones, weaponry, humanitarian airdrops,...
In OtherWords: August 27, 2014
This week in OtherWords, Marjorie E. Wood explains how the Affordable Care Act has quietly begun to rein in runaway CEO pay and Jim Hightower says you shouldn't be tricked into thinking that Rick Perry's indictment is no big deal. Do you want to make sure you don’t...
Let’s Give Workers Something to Cheer About
Labor Day is supposed to be a celebration of workers, but it's been a long time since workers have been celebrated — or for that matter, have had a reason to celebrate. That's because the union movement that gave us this holiday is, at least numerically, a shadow of...
How to Save the Life of the Next Michael Brown
Michael Brown. Jordan Davis. Sean Bell. Trayvon Martin. The list of African-American boys and men gunned down at the hands of police officers and vigilantes just gets longer and longer. It makes me numb. I don't want to feel the full weight of grief and turmoil from...
