Archive
Why I’m Singing the Inauguration Blues
President Barack Obama's second inauguration definitely had its high points: his uncharacteristically liberal speech, weather that broke 30 degrees, and a tour-de-force from inaugural poet Richard Blanco. This was my first barely-up-close-and-not-so-personal...
This Week in OtherWords: January 23, 2013
This week in OtherWords, Ron Carver puts today's gun control debate into a personal and historical context, drawing on his experience on the front lines of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and research into what prompted the Founders to enshrine the right to...
Second Amendment Vigilantes
I don't hunt, but I have nothing against hunters or owners of rifles, bows and arrows, or boomerangs. However, I am against vigilantes and those, like the NRA leaders, who encourage them. I had my own run-in with vigilantes when I joined the movement to end...
Border Fears Riddled with Holes
Senator John Cornyn recently discussed immigration reform at a meeting of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. "I think there have to be some conditions satisfied. One is that people know we've done everything we can to secure the border," the Republican said at the...
Making Caregiving Count in France
Even before the ink dries on the messy budget deal that staved off the "fiscal cliff," the next fight — over raising the debt ceiling — is shaping up. Republicans say they won't vote to pay the nation's bills unless offsetting cuts are made, and Social Security is...
A Chance to Invest in TV News
If you live in a swing state you might be wondering, what happened to all the money television stations got for airing the nonstop spew of political ads right up until Election Day? You'd think television stations, whose news departments at least try to lay claim to...
Forget Fake Girlfriends, Republicans Have an Imaginary President
The bizarre story of Manti Te'o, the Notre Dame football player, and his dying girlfriend gives new meaning to the term "fantasy football." Te'o very nearly rode the heart-rending story of his tragic online romance into a Heisman Trophy (college football's highest...
The Capital of Inequality
Politicians inside the Beltway that circles Washington, D.C., most of us would agree, don't understand the challenges of daily life that average Americans face outside the Beltway. But these days, if you really want to understand everyday life in our deeply unequal...
Coke Still Needs to Get Real
Does Coca-Cola think we’re all really stupid? For the first time, the company is using its slick commercials to address obesity. Obesity became a high-profile issue in the 1990s, when the government started to classify more than half of Americans as overweight or...
Duck and Cover 2.0
Last year, Sheriff Tommy Gage of Montgomery County, Texas, was eager to show off his new surveillance toy. Having obtained a $300,000 Homeland Security grant from the federal government, his office had become the first police agency in the nation to have its very own...
