Archive
Out-of-Whack Budget Whackers
Ax-wielding Republicans and Democrats alike are madly whacking at our nation’s public programs in a political contest to show which of them is the scroogiest of all.
War Is Hell, Even if You Survive
When you’re back.
Forget for a moment the death, devastation, deprivation, disease, displacement, and despair visited upon civilians in war zones. Let’s briefly contemplate the fate of soldiers. Ours, anyway. We really don’t know (or care) much about theirs except for the reported killings of “suspected militants.” “Suspected militant” has come to mean anybody we happen to kill–man, woman, or child.
Scapegoating Social Spending
The Lineup: Week of February 21-27, 2011
In this week’s OtherWords editorial package, Jim Hightower salutes the Green Bay Packers and their 112,000 owners while Michael B. Keegan expresses concern that Rep. Peter King’s upcoming hearings on domestic terrorism will exploit widespread fears of Muslims in a newfangled version of McCarthyism. Get all this and more in your inbox by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do.
A Military Budget on the Wrong Side of History
The Obama administration is scrambling to get on the right side of history. It has a lot of ground to make up. History is mostly judging the United States these days for launching, and now perpetuating, the longest wars in our history.
House Hearings Shouldn’t Demonize the Muslim-American Community
In March, the House of Representatives will begin hearings on preventing domestic terrorist attacks. Rep. Peter King, the lawmaker leading the hearings, unfortunately has made it clear he intends to use his post to stoke fear and suspicion about American Muslims rather than explore critical homeland security issues.
New START’s Nuclear Compromise
Despite New START’s substantive merits and overwhelming bipartisan support, the eight-month-long campaign to win the U.S. Senate’s approval was a knock-down-drag-out fight, the successful outcome of which was in doubt until the very end.
Tap Water’s Budget Bottleneck
Somehow, with all the recent rancor over spending cuts, pundits and politicians have largely overlooked one of our most essential public services–supplying the public with clean tap water.
Climate Science can Weather a Winter Storm
Chicago was to be Ground Zero for the end of the world. Twenty inches of snow, 35-50-mile-per-hour winds, 30-foot waves coming off Lake Michigan onto Lake Shore Drive. A wind-chill of Don’t Ask.
The Big Score in this Year’s Super Bowl
For me, the most significant statistic coming out of this year’s Super Bowl was not the 31-25 score in the Green Bay Packers’ hard-fought victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Nor was it the $1.3 billion cost of the new, monstrously huge football palace built by the Dallas Cowboys, where the game was played. Rather, the number that impresses me is 111,968.
