Environment and Health
America Needs a Single Payer Health Care System
The new norm is underinsurance. About 40 percent of us go without needed care because we can’t afford it. The health care law won’t change that, even once it’s completely phased in. Our plague of medical bankruptcies will continue too.
Obama’s Dirty Energy Fixation
Just days after a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami unleashed a nuclear disaster in Fukushima, President Barack Obama signed a nuclear power cooperation agreement with Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. Like Japan, Chile is seismically active. It suffered the sixth-most powerful earthquake–8.8–ever recorded on a seismograph only last year.
Learning from the BP Oil Disaster
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana one year ago, killing 11 crewmembers and causing the release of some 210 million gallons of oil that did not stop flowing until August. It became the largest oil disaster in American history. It could happen again.
Obama’s Nuclear GPS
Nukes: You Can Never Turn Your Back
Supporters of nuclear power and nuclear weapons enjoy a number of intrinsic advantages over their opponents. The first is money. Atoms make for high stakes gambling. Anyone who wins a contract for bombs or electricity can make zillions. This means there’s lots of cash available for lobbying, bribes, and campaign contributions.
Perry’s ‘Texanity’ Explained
Occasionally, we Texans have a responsibility to explain our “Texanity” to befuddled out-of-staters.
Environmental Ruination’s Corporate Sponsors
Protecting the environment has billions of supporters worldwide. Unfortunately, they’re not the people who count. Earth’s biggest polluter, for example, is the U.S. military. Understandably, the Pentagon has higher priorities than saving the planet. Its job, pursued by means of global armed superiority, is to preserve its own dominance and to enhance the profitability of the military-industrial complex.
The Lineup: Week of March 21-27, 2011
In this week’s OtherWords editorial package, an op-ed by Alice Slater, a column by Donald Kaul, and a cartoon by Khalil Bendib put Japan’s nuclear emergency into context. Get all this and more in your inbox by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do.
Japan’s Chaos is a Wake-up Call
Sometimes chaos comes along as a wake-up call to humanity. Japan’s double-whammy earthquake-tsunami is overwhelmingly tragic. Being at the mercy of the total chaotic effect of the elements–able to be wiped out by a wave of water from the sea–is an insult to the arrogance of modern humanity that thinks it can insulate and protect itself with technological know-how from the calamities visited upon our earth by Mother Nature.
The Dangers of Nuclear ‘Ice-Nine’
The great cautionary tale of the 19th century is Frankenstein, Mary Shelly’s novel. It’s the story of a brilliant scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who builds a monster out of spare parts and then breathes life into it.
