Editorial

OP-ED: How Much Is an Earth, and Do You Have One in Extra Large?

A new book suggests that "It's the economy, stupid," may be more than political strategy; it may also be the key to environmental sustainability. The book is "Green Washed: Why We Can't Buy Our Way to a Green Planet," by Kendra Pierre-Louis. The argument developed is not just that the consumer choices of an individual won't save the planet without collective action, but also that the only collective action that will save us is abandoning the whole idea of consumer choices. Read more

OP:ED: Make or Break

Without question, recent high school interventions–credit recovery, graduation coaches, the in-school GED option, ninth-grade academies, and others— help West Virginia students complete high school. However, these interventions—as good as they may be—are reactive, not proactive. It is like rescuing a struggling swimmer from a rapidly moving river; the most successful tactic is to keep the swimmer from falling into the river in the first place. Likewise, these high school interventions try to save students after they are already in trouble and caught in an education system they are ill prepared to handle. They are figuratively drowning. The education system needs to adapt and address the causes of the problem and not wait for the problems to develop.  Read more

OP-ED: 'Stagestruck': Two Peters and a Crime

Peter Lovesey, British crime novelist and winner of every writing award imaginable, has created an exceptional namesake in the character of Peter Diamond, Chief Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department in Bath, England.  Having just read Stagestruck, the eleventh novel in this series, I have been drumming my fingers against my skull, trying to figure out why I like Peter Diamond so much, and what sets him apart from the deluge of detectives invented by so many other authors. Read more

CARIBBEAN VIEW: Of Jamaica, Republics and the Commonwealth

What effect will Jamaica becoming a Republic and leaving the 53-nation Commonwealth have on the rest of the Caribbean countries?  Will they follow Jamaica to become Republics and leave the Commonwealth?

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OP-ED: What We Owe to Bertha von Suttner

Just saying her name sounds like a joke: Baroness Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner, Gräfin, née Countess Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (1843-1914). And when she began talking about ending war in mid-nineteenth century Austria it wasn't her name that was treated as a joke. Yet by the turn of the century, her idea seemed to be one whose time had come. Read more

EDITORIAL: Is Romney the Bain of the Modern GOP?

To hear most of conservative pundits explain it, Mitt Romney will be the next Republican nominee for President.   They say this based on his performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, even before the South Carolina primary is over in two weeks.  Nevermind that South Carolina has a reputation for upsetting political applecarts.  Nevermind that Romney's "win" in Iowa was a statistical tie with a third-team player, Rick Santorum. Read more

COMMENTARY: China-Russia-Saudi Arabia: Globe's Next Superpower

Many in the west believe the U.S. will comfortably maintain its position as the world’s most powerful country for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, that belief is mostly nationalistic and dangerously unfounded in reality. Read more

EDITORIAL: Raese: The Change Will Do Us Good

Yesterday, we reported that Greer Industries CEO John Raese is considering another run for the U.S. Senate.  This potential rematch between Raese and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin is good news not only for the Morgantown entrepreneur's fan base but for the state as a whole.  Here's why. Read more

A Dad’s Point-of-View: My Little Boy Is Going to College

I hate clichés. I love clichés. I just find it weird when I feel as if my whole life is one big cliché! Being a parent means you will undoubtedly experience any number of them. Here’s an arbitrary list of parenting clichés. Be honest, how many have you used?

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OP-ED: Corporate Personhood Worse, Ending It Easier, Than You Think

Don't take it from me.  Take it from the book being published today that will mainstream the movement to end corporate personhood: "Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do, And What You Can Do About It," by Jeff Clements with a foreword by Bill Moyers. Read more

DEVOTION: Sparkling Water

Additives have become the appealing draw to the most essential ingredient in our daily diet. Without potable water many of our body's metabolic processes cannot function properly. Water is an essential substance for the proliferation of life. Every form of life depends on water. Read more

EDITORIAL: Beating State Democratic Leaders at Their Own Game

State Democratic Party leaders and activists have been crowing this past week due to a federal three-judge panel striking down the legislature's plan for redistricting the state's three Congressional Districts. Read more

Why Not Attack Iran?

The push to attack Iran has been on for so long that entire categories of arguments for it (such as that the Iranians are fueling the Iraqi resistance) have come and gone. At DontAttackIran.org we've been collecting the arguments for and against attacking Iran for years. We've campaigned against an attack, but never been able to claim a success, because decisions not to launch wars are never announced, because those pushing for wars never give up, and because those believing what their government tells them think the Pentagon never campaigns for wars but is forced into them defensively on short notice by attacks from evildoers. Read more

COMMENTARY: A Day that Should Live in Infamy

January 12, 2012, is the 10th anniversary of the day when terrorism suspects were subjected to indefinite incarceration in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, generally in the absence of any charges or trial. Read more

COMMENTARY: Occupy Our Fears of Iran

U.S. behavior long ago provided one causal context for our unease about the presumed nuclear aspirations of the Islamic Republic of Iran: the U.S. and Britain messed with Iran’s last authentically democratic election in 1953, fearing communist influence and the nationalization of oil. U.S. oil corporations, a minor partner before the CIA overthrew elected Mohammad Mossadegh and installed the dictatorial Shah, then became the largest profiting entity, even more than the country from which the oil came. Read more

COMMENTARY: Iraqi and American Reconciliation

Standing in front of 40 religious and academic leaders in Najaf, Iraq this summer, I wondered how they would react to the presentation I was about to give. I was an unarmed, Christian American spending five weeks in Iraq with the Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT). The topic of my presentation was the relationship between Iraqis and Americans and the possibility of “reconciliation.” Read more

Charlottesville City Council Prepares to Support Peace

At the first meeting of the new Charlottesville, Va., City Council Tuesday evening, four of the five city council members publicly expressed their intention to support a resolution asking Congress to reduce military spending, a resolution likely to be discussed and voted on at the council's next meeting on the evening of January 16th, Martin Luther King Day. The fifth member expressed no view, so the possibility exists for unanimous support.  One of the four members who expressed support for the draft resolution that we had proposed added that he would like to see it amended to also oppose the launching of a war against Iran.  Another member also expressed an interest in revising the draft in some unspecified way prior to the next meeting.

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OP-ED: Canada Taking the Commonwealth Lead

The Government of Canada has placed itself in the front of the drive to reform the 54-nation Commonwealth.  The 62-year old organization should be all the better for Canada’s initiative. Read more

EDITORIAL: What is the Compelling Reason to Support Mitt Romney?

Say the name "Mitt Romney" and besides a good set of hair for a sixty-something, what else comes to mind?  Governor of Massachussetts...twice a candidate for President....flip-flopper on the issues.  Though Romney has been in the public's eye for over twenty years, beginning with his failed run for U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy, he really hasn't achieved that much.  Some business successes, yes, and a good job on the Salt Lake City Olympic Games.  But what else? Read more

COMMENTARY: Will Things Be Any Different on Election Day 2012?

Nov. 4, 2008 
 
Greetings from Joe Honick on this Election Day: Good morning...there will be no winners in this year's election: not Obama, not McCain and certainly not the nation given the nature of what has passed for campaign gobbledegook from all sides as well as from sides who would not identify themselves. 
 

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OP-ED: The Founding Fathers and Flawed Human Nature: An Unspoken Cornerstone of the American Republic (Part 2 of 3 of The Sad, Tragic Journey of U.S. Foreign Policy)

Note: this three part series of essays are inspired by the desire to understand the contradiction between the political and human values that we Americans cherish, such as freedom, equality, the importance of the individual, with our historical and contemporary destructive actions abroad. In this essay, we will attempt to show how this contradiction was established early on, as the Founding Fathers integrated a fundamental distrust of human nature into the very fabric of the republic—a lower conception of human beings which contributed to the abuse of other human beings and their environments, from the cotton gin to the atomic bomb, from American slavery to child labor to the wars and self-centered foreign policy of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.   Read more

A Dad’s Point-of-View: The Most Egregious Examples of Politically Correct Lies

When I began my writing career, and then my radio show, I promised myself I’d avoid politics. I’m breaking that promise via this first column of 2012, though it is not exclusively political. I’m old enough to remember when people spoke the truth, even if it was uncomfortable. Political correctness has comprised that value in my opinion. And, one of my strong beliefs as a parent is we must speak, live, and model the truth for our children. With political correctness, that often means going contrary to what they might be taught at school. Read more

CIVIL WAR OP-ED: Robert E. Lee: Remembering an American Legend

Sir Winston Churchill once remarked, ‘Lee was the noblest American who had ever lived and one of the greatest commanders known to the annals of war.’ Read more

EDITORIAL: Post-Iowa, Romney Needs to Show Human Side to Win

Iowa always surprises, and this year was no different.  Who could have dreamed even a couple of weeks ago that Rick Santorum and Ron Paul would have such a razor-thin margin between their vote counts in Iowa and that of Mitt Romney. Remember:  Romney has been running in Iowa for the past four years and dumped a motherlode of negative ads against rival Newt Gingrich.  Yet he only wins by...eight little votes?  Bizarre. Read more

OP-ED: First Loves. First Libraries.

The way I see it, First Love can be broken down into two categories:

Romantic love.  

Other.   Read more

OP-ED: More Women Needed to Fill STEM Jobs, Close Gender Gap to Innovation

Why aren’t more women working in careers that can tilt the scales of innovation and global competitiveness in the United States’ favor?

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EDITORIAL: Romney Wants to Snuff Out Conservative Rivals in Iowa Caucuses

GOP Presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney wants nothing more than to finish the Republican nominating contest early by winning Iowa.  Iowa was always the tough nut for Romney to crack, given its traditional role in representing the conservative base of the GOP.  Plus, Republican voters there have shown a flair for upsetting the establishment's applecart. Read more

MANN TALK: Is Truth Up Yonder Or Down Here?

In any argument the first undertaking should be to determine the premise of one’s opponent:   whence its  source and how valid. For if his premise is suspect, his whole argument is suspect. Read more

OP-ED: Obama Crowned Himself on New Year's Eve

These were among the complaints registered the last time this nation had a king: Read more

LOWER TAXES

At the start of the New Year, when checking out at the grocery store, our seniors, individuals and families will keep more of their hard earned money. In working with members of the legislature, my proposal to decrease the sales tax on food for home consumption by 1 percent goes into effect. The decline from 3 percent to 2 percent means a savings of $25 million for taxpayers. For a family of four, that's an extra $52 dollars a year that can be used toward life's other necessities. The food tax is scheduled to drop another percentage point down to 1 percent in July.  That is $54 million of food tax relief that goes into place this year.  And, as long as our State's Rainy Day Fund meets certain criteria, the food tax will be eliminated altogether this time next year.

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OP-ED: Infiltrating Congress

I cannot stress sufficiently that we will best move Congress toward peace and justice by keeping it at arm's length and pressuring it without self-censorship, compromise, or entanglement with one or the other of its two branches: the Democratic or Republican. We are engaged in a long-term campaign to undo a plutocratic war state. Moving that campaign forward in the general culture is more important than which criminal enterprise has a majority of seats: the Democratic or Republican.

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OP-ED: Wisdom: A Fantasy

When I was very young, I thought about wisdom the way other children think about prince charming or castles in the air.  As if it were something glistening and perfect and true.  Shining, the way Excalibur shone when young King Arthur pulled the sword out of the stone.  Glowing from the inside, like a fortune teller’s crystal ball. Read more

OP-ED: Crunch time: The Caribbean in 2012

 
2012 dawns on a gloomy horizon for the 15 countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).  It is a dawn whose breaking, although foretold, was largely ignored.  If the inertia continues in the vague hope that external conditions will improve to the extent that global buoyancy will lift the region, it is a hope without basis Read more