Letter from Brazil: One year of Lula
It is one year since Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former metalworker and leader of Brazil’s left-wing Workers Party, was elected president of the country. I am in Rio de Janeiro, trying to find out what the people think about the country today and the president after his first year in office.
2003s stinkiest media performances
Opinion The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established more than a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year.
The raid on civil rights at Goose Creek
Opinion Suppose the police in one community staged, with guns drawn, a drug raid at a high school and rounded up more than one hundred students to search and arrest – but found no drugs.
Enola Gay: the Smithsonian edits history
Opinion The Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945 – a marvel of technology? A worthy subject for a historical exhibit, rather like Disneyland’s Robot Lincoln? The Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum seems to think so.
A fairy tale
Opinion All right, children, sit still while I tell you a fairy tale, one with heroic heroes, evil villains, and an unbelievably happy ending.
Capitalism and human misery a 2003 report card
Opinion We are living in an era of highly developed means of production, high-speed communication technology and sophisticated transportation systems.
Etch A Sketch and the Wal-Mart phenomenon
Opinion Perhaps the most successful, imaginative toy of all time has been Etch A Sketch. It thrilled our youngsters – and their parents and other adults – some 40 years ago and it still does today.
Oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment
Opinion Republicans don’t have solutions for the unemployment crisis (how often can you spend $180 billion on an illegal war to make the economy seem like its growing?). They have no handle on the Iraq quagmire, and want to sidestep the growing discontent of 41 million seniors, hide the health care crisis, and take attention away from the international isolation Bush has led us into.
Whats a CEO worth?
Opinion I’ve had the opportunity, just lately, to offer some insight to a couple of very young people entering the work force of the real world for the first time.
The dump-Bush strategy for independent media
Opinion The right wing’s media strategy to slant the odds in the upcoming 2004 elections will draw from its familiar bag of tricks, with help from its ultra-wealthy friends.
