President Barack Obama’s foreign policies have had important successes that demonstrate creative applications of the increasingly recognized constructive conflict approach. However, Obama is widely attacked as if he were responsible for the many ongoing terribly destructive foreign conflicts. Criticisms of Obama’s administration have usually come from the political right in the United States and others committed to opposing Obama. They attack him for being naïve and insufficiently tough. Even analysts sympathetic to Obama’s foreign policies are sometimes critical of his failure to rely more on coercion and military force.Read more
I had the opportunity to meet up with three old friends on Sunday, marking the first time we have all hung out in 35 years. My friends have done well and although they remain optimistic about the future there is legitimate reson for concern. Two of these friends work in the local steel industry. Tim works for Steel of West Virginia in Huntington and Jim works for AK Steel in Ashland. Jim has already received notice that he will be laid off soon as will most of the over 900 employees at the plant in Ashland. Read more
The shock and disbelief with which many political pundits have responded to Bernie Sanders’ description of himself as a “democratic socialist”—a supporter of democratic control of the economy—provide a clear indication of how little they know about the popularity and influence of democratic socialism over the course of American history. Read more
Early on Sunday Oct. 25, an underground fire caused an explosion in a low-level nuclear waste site in the desert 10 miles from Beatty, Nevada, and 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The explosion and fire followed flash flooding that shut down Beatty’s escape routes: US 95 and State Highway 373. The 80-acre dumping ground, closed since 1992, is run by -- get this -- “US Ecology.” The private dump consists of 22 trenches up to 800 feet long and 50 feet deep, and its older trenches have radioactive waste within three feet of the surface, the Las Vegas Sun reported. Read more
I have learned a great deal from the presidential debates held thus far this season (four Republican, one Democratic to date). I have learned about the candidates’ experiences and positions on the issues, as well as about the different ways they communicate their views. I have appreciated the questions posed by the moderators as well as by members of the public, but something’s missing from all of the exchanges. Read more
For far longer than any of us have been alive, the U.S. criminal justice system has functioned under the de facto principle that black and brown bodies were objects to be subjected to scrutiny, control, and all too often, state-sanctioned violence. Today we can see that although progress has been made, that progress is minute in comparison to what remains to be done. Read more
The issue of making college tuition-free has recently come to the fore in American politics, largely because the two leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, have each championed it. Sanders has called for free undergraduate tuition at public colleges and universities, to be financed by a tax on Wall Street speculation, while Clinton has done the same, although with some qualifications and a different funding mechanism. Read more
The quest for cleaner energy is one of the great challenges of the 21st Century, and has fueled many “green” initiatives in recent years. But something troubling is coming down the pike now that the Obama Administration has announced its new “Clean Power Plan” (CPP). In a full-speed-ahead quest to lower carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s power plants, the administration is implementing new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules that raise troubling legal issues. Read more
The vacant building on 5th Avenue and 13th Street In Huntington, WV that has already been the scene of a drug overdose death and a fire, is a fire hazard that requires action to prevent future tragedies. Read more
Those of us with pre-existing health conditions initially celebrated the Obama Care Health Insurance revolution designed to lower premium costs and promote extended coverage.
However, a horror story has developed. Freddy Kruger seems to reside at Highmark Blue Cross, or at least a clone called paper work mishaps. Read more
The Syria crisis is escalating since Russia began bombing ISIS and al-Qaeda last week. The neocons in the US are demanding that Obama do something to stop the Russians. Read more
“We tried to take a look into one of the burning buildings. I cannot describe what was inside. There are no words for how terrible it was. In the Intensive Care Unit six patients were burning in their beds.” Read more
Before the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing in Iraq, a group of activists living in Baghdad would regularly go to city sites that were crucial for maintaining health and well-being in Baghdad. These sites included hospitals, electrical facilities, water purification plants, and schools. The activists would then string large vinyl banners between the trees outside these buildings that read: “To Bomb This Site Would Be A War Crime.” At the time, we encouraged people in U.S. cities to do the same, trying to build empathy for people trapped in Iraq, anticipating a terrible aerial bombing.Read more
One thing we have become all too used to is that our reality can be manipulated to create the appearance of something else entirely. Invading another country is defensive, rigged elections are passed off as democracy in action, more guns (or more nuclear weapons) ensure the peace, trade and foreign investment increase jobs at home. Orwellian logic has become commonplace. Read more
Imagine you are an 8-year old student in elementary school. Your teacher tells you, "Today, we are having a lockdown drill." She talks in cryptic language explaining that if something bad happens at school, she wants everyone to be safe. You practice hiding in the closet with all of the other students and you sit "criss-cross applesauce" while the teacher bars the door. Or maybe you have a special cabinet to hide in. One of my friends told me how proud her daughter was about her hiding space in a cabinet for lockdown. This scenario plays out every day in our schools.Read more
Again. This time, the scene was a community college in Roseburg, Oregon, 175 miles south of Portland. This time, nine people were murdered and the shooter committed suicide. This time, President Obama spoke out more forcefully than he did after Sandy Hook. This time, stronger alliances are forming to lobby Congress to pass stringent new gun laws. This time, there are louder calls to improve services for the mentally ill.Read more
This video provided by Russian Armed forces purportedly showing an air strike an al-Nusra front military position. Al-Nusra is Al-Qaeda in Syria.
The Washington Post wrote that "in conversations last week as Russia’s military buildup in Syria continued, but before its airstrikes began Wednesday, administration officials acknowledged that Russian targeting of Jabhat al-Nusra and other non-Islamic State extremist groups would pose a potential problem for the United States." Read more
Another mass shooting in the U.S.; Russia attacking whomever it thinks most threatens Assad; the carnage across vast swaths of the Middle East, where a Hobbesian chaos reigns so complete that one can no longer tell the players apart enough to decide upon rational strategic policy—these disparate events are united by one primal cultural assumption: that humans murdering other humans represents an effective way to resolve conflicts.Read more
The New York Times reported last week that U.S. soldiers still fighting the war in Afghanistan — 14 years on — are under orders to be “culturally sensitive” regarding different attitudes among our Afghan allies about, uh … the sexual abuse of children. Read more
To correct a misapprehension held by many writers (and readers), typographical errors are not mistakes.
They are spite oozing out at us from our typewriters and computers. They reflect the disapproval and/or distaste that our keyboards have for what we are creating. They are technology’s sabotage and its ultimate revenge. They are a small but powerful slap back at mankind for our assumption that machines do not have minds of their own. Read more
TO THE EDITOR:
Public comment hearings on WV American Water rate increase request for up to 30% be held in Huntington on Thursday, Oct 1 at both 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 pm. at 519 John Marshall Drive. Huntington, WV .This is the Foundation Hall Building, on the south side of 5th Ave.in the 1600 block. Read more
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – A Huntington man who participated in a heroin distribution scheme in 2013 was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin. Domenico Chianesi II, 35, previously pleaded guilty in federal court in Huntington in December of 2014 to conspiracy to distribute heroin. Read more
Don't want to the usage fee to raise $2.00 per week to $5.00 per week? That's a total fee of $520 a year for a working couple? It spirals to $1040 a year if they have a two teens working part-time.
Share your ideas now. Read more
Pope Francis called us to “Hope and healing, peace and justice” as he addressed Congress. “Summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today’s many geopolitical and economic crises,” he said.Read more
CHARLESTON — Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced that he sent a letter to West Virginia Senate President Bill Cole and Speaker Tim Armstead in support of the Legislature’s efforts to investigate Planned Parenthood operations in West Virginia. Read more
Rocky Meadows sat across from me and I watched him actively listen to two addicts that I asked him to counsel. "The direction you follow today will determine the future you create," he told the mother and daughter who shoots up heroin together after he listened to their stories. Read more
Everyone knows that diplomacy is the weakest way to deal with insurgencies and civil wars, tough sanctions are next, and if you really want to end a civil war, sorry, you need the military.
Plutonium was named after Pluto, “god of the underworld,” Hades, or hell. It was created inside faulty reactors, concentrated, and machined by US scientists into the most devastating and horrifying of all weapons.Read more
The heartbreaking pictures of three-year-old Aylan Kurdhi symbolize everything that is wrong with war. Following #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik (humanity washed ashore) is a painful confrontation with what some might call the collateral damage of war. When we look at the images of this toddler through the tears in our eyes, it is time to deconstruct some myths about war. Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey today reminded football fans in the Mountain State to be cautious when buying tickets to upcoming games from third-party resellers. Read more
This little story is about endings and beginnings. It introduces two characters and a gate. Even though there are no good guys or bad guy in the story, I find that my heart is being tugged in one direction more than in the other. Read more
_0.jpg "ANALYSIS: Increase in Effect; Public Asked, 'When was Last Time You Lived on Minimum Wage?'")
