Archive
Casino Crops
Thanks to decades of deregulated agriculture, markets for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and other farm commodities have become high-stakes casinos. If family farmers are to be stewards of the land and safe, nutritious local supplies of food are what we want, then we must implement tried and true policies of supply management and conservation.
Justice Department Gives Torturers a Pass
The Romans had an expression for it: “Nulla poena sine lege,” no punishment without a law. But people sometimes forget that the opposite is also true: Without punishment for offenders, a law itself can die.
Sleazy Corporate Holiday
My father, long dead, spent his working years in tool and die shops in Detroit, an experience from which he crafted a political, economic, and social philosophy of life. “They’re all in it together,” he would say. That was the very core of the philosophy.
Massey Energy’s Man-Made Hell Hole
West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch coal mine was a disaster even before it exploded into an underground inferno last year, killing 29 miners.
Weather Extremists
Haiti, the Caribbean Sweatshop
It’s baseball season in America, and for every ball that’s scuffed in the dirt or fouled in the stands, another is quietly stitched in an abysmal Haitian sweatshop. Pay and working conditions in Haiti are the worst in the Western Hemisphere, and that’s saying something.
The Lineup: Week of July 11-17, 2011
In this week’s OtherWords editorial package, Chris Toensing calls for an “honest national conversation about Iraq” and John Franco highlights some of the latest political outrages in Wisconsin. Get all this and more in your inbox by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do.
A Strategy for Coping with Unemployment
The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June, which means yet more Americans are waking up to the disorienting experience of having no job to report to. How are they coping?
Washington’s Physics Problem in Iraq
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, says its chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, has a “physics problem.”
This Isn’t What Democracy Looks Like
Wisconsin Republicans have finally stopped pretending to uphold the sanctity of the political process. Instead of allowing the will of the Wisconsin electorate to determine the fate of six Republican state senators facing recall elections, Republican Party leaders have blatantly decided to buy more time.
