Midwest disaster
As the rising Mississippi continued to crash through levees June 17, sending walls of water into Midwest towns and threatening thousands of additional acres of farmland, many were already done with days of crying and were beginning the clean up.
Whats on - June 21, 2008
Sheboygan, Wis. Berkeley, Calif.
Licking Big Oils boots
Senate Republicans gave people a slap in the face June 10, voting to block a windfall profits tax on oil companies that are robbing us blind at the gasoline pump with $4.35 per gallon gasoline. Democrats mustered a majority, 51 senators, but GOP leaders rallied 43 senators to block the bill, effectively killing it.
Bush spying OK by McCain
Sen. John McCain has long posed as a critic of President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of phone calls and e-mails of millions of law-abiding citizens. As recently as last November he proclaimed that “private companies that provide records of Americans to the government without proper legal subpoena … undermine respect for the law.”
The Peoples Weekly World got it right
How did the corporate media get the Iraq war so wrong? This is a question that has resurfaced with former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan’s new book “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” and the newly released report by the bipartisan Senate panel that found top officials repeatedly “exaggerated” Saddam Hussein’s threat.
Wilderness lovers ask: Why bring a gun to a national park?
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — Nathan Goff, a house painter in Olympia, Wash., drove his wife, Missy, and 19-month-old daughter up to Hurricane Ridge here June 8. The ridge, just a few feet shy of one mile above sea level, is the crown jewel of Olympic National Park. It commands a stunning view of Mt. Olympus to the south and a breathtaking view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and British Columbia to the north.
Lets pause for Utah Phillips, 1935-2008
Utah Phillips spoke directly to each of us in that filled auditorium here on April 24. It didn’t matter that it was his disembodied voice, speaking over a cell phone held up to a microphone, held aloft by Pete Seeger, one of the event’s headliners. The strength of Phillips’ message was as clear as the vitality in his tone. I was happy to be there to hear his response to our benefit concert on his behalf, happier still to witness the warm exchange between him and Seeger, another elder of fighting the good fight.
Firefighters and prescription drugs
Suppose your house is burning down with your family trapped inside. When the fire department arrives at the scene, they tell you the rescue will cost $1 million. After all, aren’t your family and your house worth the money?
Kurdish question and fruits of imperialism
An ongoing guerilla war is raging in Southeastern Turkey and Kurdish regions of U.S.-occupied Iraq. The war is led by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which since its inception in Turkey has fought for a socialist Kurdistan that would bring together oppressed Kurdish minorities from contiguous regions. As I see it, the events are a textbook case of how imperialism cynically operates to divide and exploit peoples.
