Archive
Don’t Mourn the Planet’s Destruction, Organize!
Should we weep or cheer on Earth Day? Both. The first step toward any recovery is admitting that we have a problem. In fact, beaucoup problems. For example, despite the squawking of profiteering polluters and professional deniers, our very atmosphere — without which...
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This Week in OtherWords: April 17, 2013
This week in OtherWords, Donald Kaul skewers the "progress" Congress is making on gun control, Chris Schillig weighs in on the Boston Marathon attack from a runner's perspective, and Jim Hightower marvels at the Army's green ambitions. Here's a clickable summary of...
Under-Regulating the Regulators
A powerful and well-connected global consulting firm recently announced it had landed another big fish. Mary Schapiro, the former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will become one of its managing directors. When asked about her move from the SEC to...
Let’s Lace Up and Keep Running
I started running about four years ago to lose weight. At first I hated it. My lungs burned and my head hurt and every footstep felt like sledge hammers pounding on my calves. I persisted out of stubbornness. I'd bought a good pair of shoes and I didn't want to waste...
Cutting Your Benefits Isn’t the ‘Middle’ Way
The federal budget is, according to many experts, a "political document." It's how our political leaders convey their priorities to the people they serve. So what's the political lesson of Barack Obama's recent budget plan? He apparently thinks older people could get...
ExxonMobil’s Mayflower Mess
Several weeks after ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline gushed at least 500,000 gallons of tar sands crude and water into the Arkansas community of Mayflower, many of the evacuated families still can't return to their homes. Sierra Club organizer Glen Hooks, who grew up...
No Progress on Gun Control to Report
Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to write any more columns on gun control, largely because the exercise is: Futile. A waste of time. Unproductive. But with Congress taking up the issue again and Washington awash with hypocrisy amid rumors of progress, it is a time...
The Art of Inequality
Thomas Campbell directs the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. He's smiling a great deal these days. Why? Campbell has just received something museum directors only dream about: a donation of paintings, drawings, and sculptures worth over $1 billion. The donor:...
How to Send Less Trash to the Landfill
My new neighbor knocked on my door and introduced herself as the vice president of the local homeowner's association. "How friendly!" I thought. "She's welcoming me to the neighborhood." Then she wrinkled her nose and motioned toward an enclosed bin on my porch,...