Perspectives
The impacts of privatizing the turnpike
"We are privatizing ourselves into one disaster after another,” veteran journalist Ted Koppel said recently on NPR. “We’ve privatized a lot of what our military is doing. We’ve privatized a lot of what our intelligence agencies are doing. We’ve privatized our very ...
The next NAFTA, but worse
You can win some impressive victories against corporate power on the local level. Boulder voters declared that corporations aren’t people and money isn’t speech. Cities across Colorado (and other states) have passed fracking bans and moratoriums...
Shooting from the lip
The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, Jan. 10...
Renewable energy threatens big utilities
Solar power and other renewable energy technologies may destroy U.S. investor-owned utilities...
The silent jobless
Jobs are slowly coming back, but that’s small comfort to more than 13 million Americans who remain unemployed. For every current job opening, four people are still looking for a job. Many others have given up even trying to find work...
Inspiring ideas missing in Palin’s book
The whole phenomenon of Sarah Palin, I admit, is a mystery to me...
Washington must prioritize jobs, not cuts
This is a dangerous time. In Washington, the country’s Richie Riches are stirring up a panic about a so-called “fiscal cliff.” If they succeed, we’ll get a “grand bargain” that will give them millions in corporate welfare while America’s meager “social safety net” is...
Facing a crossroads
Woody Allen once said that “more than any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” Our reliance upon fossil fuels has ...
Zombie conservatives at the schoolhouse door
Last week, the president delivered an education speech that fell somewhat short of the standard set by Lenin in his address at the Finland Station, launching the Bolshevik Revolution. In fact, Barack Obama told Americas schoolchildren to work hard, respect their ...
Boulder County Democrats in conflict
A recent Pew survey states that 50 percent of conservative voters and 35 percent of progressives say that it’s important to live where most people share their political views. In Colorado, this political self-segregation is seen in the stark differences between ...
A half-century later, the environmental movement returns to its roots
It’s been more than four decades since the first Earth Day event held on April 22, 1970. And since that time it is fair to say that the environmental movement has had its ups and downs. So where does it stand today, and what should we expect moving forward? When it ...
Remembering the real dream
Every January on Martin Luther King Day, people across the political spectrum claim King as one of their own. Few remember that he had become a pariah in mainstream politics in his last days. He was widely condemned for his opposition to the Vietnam War. Right-...