We are here not to discuss the complex #OscarsSoWhite controversy but to address another sore point with perhaps similar origins: the #OscarsSoGorgeous phenomenon. At the risk of running afoul of some ardent fan clubs, let us note that the Academy Awards for best actress tend to favor the young and beautiful, often for playing the […]

The 187,000 acres on which sits the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge never belonged to the state of Oregon, much less the band of cowboy exhibitionists who had taken it over. This and other federal lands were acquired through conquest over, purchases from or treaties with Mexico, Russia, Spain, England, France and Native Americans. The federal […]

Why cheap oil isn’t bad for the environment It stood to reason that collapsing prices for oil would make clean energy relatively more expensive. That would dampen the public’s craving to install solar panels and build wind turbines. Well, let’s try to reason again. A lot of opposing forces are shaking the old assumptions. In […]

In America, alleged land of freedom, a 19-year-old soldier just back from Afghanistan can’t sidle up to a bar and legally order a beer. In supposedly regulation-crazed Europe, meanwhile, an 18-year-old can order a martini. In the beer-drinking cultures of Belgium and Germany, a 16-year-old can ask for beer or wine. Do you detect a […]

If you’ve successfully landed on the beaches, but your forces are still taking heavy fire, what do you do? Do you concentrate on trying to hold the line and make further advances or do you sit in a circle and design a better landing craft? The problem with Bernie Sanders’ health care vision isn’t the […]

When Thomas E. McNamara arrived in Colombia as U.S. ambassador in 1988, he encountered a hit list issued by narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar. “I was No. 1,” he recalls. “Ambassadors tend to get that kind of attention.” On a different mission to confer with Lebanese government officials, McNamara was greeted with “a welcome-to-Beirut mortar and artillery […]

As a select few accumulate massive fortunes, two schools of thought vie on how to funnel some of that money toward the public good. One school says to hike taxes on billionaires and let our elected officials spend the revenues on worthy projects. That’s involuntary giving, and the giver doesn’t have much of a say […]

In the mythology of the right, California must fail. Its high taxes, strict environmental rules and thick book of regulations are all ingredients in the conservative recipe for economic meltdown. That California is prospering nicely throws a pie in the face of its harshest critics. To get around this clash of ideas and reality, an […]