Blog - OtherWords

You may not be familiar with the National Bureau of Economic Research. Who is? Regardless, it’s the official determiner of when we are in a recession and when we are not. Right now, we are not. The Bureau just announced the Great Recession ended clear back in June, 2009. Who knew? I thought unemployment was still around 9.5 percent.

The Lineup: Week of November 8-14, 2010

by Emily Schwartz Greco

In this week’s OtherWords editorial package, columnist Donald Kaul marvels at the GOP’s “magical” gains in the midterm elections and FCNL’s Joe Volk urges the Senate to ratify the New START nuclear weapons treaty before the year ends. Get all this and more in your inbox by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do.

How about Saving all the Miners?

by Manuel Perez-Rocha

Remember the joy shared by millions around the world as we watched as the Chilean miners were rescued one by one? Celebrating their survival made me wish that the global mining industry could find itself in the spotlight too, with lights glaring at each aspect of its destructiveness and criminality.

Negotiating with Nutjobs

by John Wright

In the witty 1966 classic cult film King of Hearts, a British soldier shows up in a French village run by lunatics after they’d escaped from the local insane asylum as the German Army retreated. Given the number of electoral victories by crazies in the mid-term elections, President Barack Obama might learn more from watching this movie than listening to all the talking heads in Washington.

Will the Senate Come Together to Make a Safer World?

by Joe Volk

With the elections over, the Senate’s Republican and Democratic leaders have an opportunity to put their partisan attacks and angry rhetoric behind them. They can demonstrate to the American people that they can come together in the national interest–rather than a political party’s interest–to improve our security by ratifying the New START treaty with Russia.

The Pentagon Must Protect Whistleblowers

by Nick Schwellenbach

The grisly details continue to drip out. Five American soldiers have been accused of setting up “kills” and murdering innocent Afghans earlier this year, according to charges filed by the U.S. Army against them. But could some of the murders have been stopped earlier? And could potential whistleblowers within the military’s chain of command have been protected?