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 ...
Passing the TPP: Not so fast
A rebellion is breaking out in the Democratic Party, but it’s not like the 1960s when the party was torn apart over the Vietnam War and civil rights for blacks. In those days, Democrats were united in support of the New Deal/Great Society approach to economics. Today...
A more egalitarian economy
It’s easy to get depressed. Every social advance that progressives have won is in danger. There is a growing despair over the inability of traditional politics to address the immense economic/environmental/political crises and the deep crevasse between the rich and ...
Towns fight back against fracking
A growing boom in natural gas drilling near homes and schools prompted the city of Longmont to vote last July to bar new oil and gas permits in residential neighborhoods...
Idolatry of Ronald Reagan doesn’t square with his history
Ronald Reagan, one of America's least-known liberals...
Obama, like past leaders, a slow starter
Happy first anniversary, Barack Obama. Although happy is probably the wrong word...
Fix our bridges already
The four-lane Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River near Seattle seemed to be in good shape for a 58-year-old structure. Inspected as recently as last November, it wasn’t even on the list of bridges judged “structurally deficient.” Yet in May, it suddenly ...
Bowl a strike for reproductive freedom
Everybody knows abortion became legal for all women with the ‘Roe v. Wade’ Supreme Court decision in 1973. Fewer people know that in 1976, poor women lost that fundamental right to determine whether or when to have children. That is the year that the Hyde Amendment (...
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 ...
A challenge to end childhood hunger
Improving access to quality education is the single greatest investment we can make in our country, but for children to succeed in the classroom, we must first make sure their basic needs are met...
