Fundamental Rights
An election in Sweden for seats in the European Union Parliament might offer some insight to Americans about what happens when the power of the Internet gets married to voter apathy.
Former Treasury Department official Rick Cook says America has two economies in crisis: the “producing” economy and the “financial” economy. He advocates replacing a bank centered monetary system with money created directly by the Federal Government.
I frequently find myself in discussions about the death of newspapers. And I always offer the same response: Newspapers won’t disappear. The national dailies and large metros will suffer but most will survive. The small dailies and weeklies will do fine. The days of 40-percent profit margins have yielded to a 10-percent return for a good year. The content will change — breaking news and aggressive depth coverage will move to the Web. Page counts will drop and delivery days will lessen. I expect some “pay” papers to move to “free” distribution.
The nexus between science and citizenship may not be obvious. What good does it do a citizen to know about dark energy and dark matter, and the difference between them? Or that we live in four dimensions, or that space bends? That’s stuff for eggheads, right?
Rick Cook, author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, was the first NASA official to testify about the space agency’s cover up in the 1986 Challenger explosion. Did the words of the Constitution inspire him to become a whistleblower? What would you be willing to give up for the truth?
Previous posts by me make it pretty clear that I am no big fan of government bailouts.
But I am a proponent of figuring out a way to avoid them ever again. That said, the economic news today should scare even the most ardent supporter of the myriad economic stimulus plans.
The national debt now exceeds $1 trillion. The public cannot lay all that debt on the current administration.
Noted American Civil War historian James McPherson says American citizens subscribe to values derived from American history. The Princeton University professor emeritus thinks freedom, equality and opportunity, and cultural pluralism are the hallmarks of American society. What do you think?
A column written by copy editor Paul Clegg of The Sacramento Bee prompted a discussion in my news editing class about the word “torture.”
Clegg takes the position that news coverage of the torture issue has become sanitized and generic. In fact, the word “torture” for some time rarely got used in news stories. He cited several examples of language used by writers and editors to soften the word or to call what happened to people subjected to torture something else — most notably the word “abuse.”
I think the Founding Fathers might take some pride in knowing anti-tax protesters throughout the United States recently attended "tea parties" to vent frustration and anger over government spending and taxes.
Noted American Civil War historian James McPherson says American citizens subscribe to values derived from American history. The Princeton University professor emeritus thinks freedom, equality and opportunity, and cultural pluralism are the hallmarks of American society. Watch the video and tell us you think.
