Archive
The Values Divide
There's a lot of talk about how polarized the country is today. Sometimes that polarization is more than about partisan politics — it's about real differences in values. Take the House Republicans' recent votes to deny food and health care to millions of Americans....
Too High a Price for Courage
Berta Cáceres, an internationally respected leader of the movement for indigenous rights, is now living as a fugitive. The Honduran government ordered this soft-spoken dynamo imprisoned on September 20. From her undisclosed location, she emailed me and a few others....
It’s All Their Fault
Everyone pretty much agrees that what's going on in Washington right now ranks up there with the dumbest, most destructive episodes in our history. We are a great and powerful country, on the cusp of achieving that "Shining City upon a Hill" status that Puritan leader...
When Citizens Shocked Plutocrats
A hundred years ago, on October 3, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the first modern federal tax on income. John Buenker has been writing about the events that led to that signing for a good bit of the last 50 years. His 1985 book, The Income Tax and the...
Why Are We Eating in the Dark?
Have you ever eaten a genetically engineered food? If you're like most Americans, you have no idea. Genetic engineering is a controversial technology in which genes from one species (say, bacteria) are inserted into the DNA of a different species (for example, corn)....
The Farm Bill’s Wasteful Welfare Program
Some aspects of American agriculture are quite odd. For example, to meet a farmer these days, you don't need to venture out to the hinterland. Thousands of our farmers are city slickers. And they're really slick, for many of them neither plant nor harvest wheat,...
The Fine Art of Milking Government
Our tax money As it stands, Oft ends up In private hands. These economically challenging times haven't ended the golden deals every level of government offers business. State and federal statutes remain loaded with these giveaways. They include grants, subsidized...
Shutting the Whole Thing Down
Socking it to the Shareholders
Someone should make a movie about JPMorgan and title it: "Bankers Gone Wild." Not long ago, America's biggest Wall Street Empire was hailed as a paragon of financial integrity. Not now. JPMorgan has been assessed record fines of nearly a billion bucks for management...
This Week in OtherWords: September 25, 2013
This week in OtherWords, Marge Baker sizes up the next big campaign-finance case before the Supreme Court, Chuck Collins explains why you should see Inequality for All, and Jason Salzman predicts that Colorado isn't going to be split into two states. On our blog, Jim...
