Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – For more than a century, presidents have been using the Antiquities Act to save our national treasures, and President Obama’s just-announced designation of the Organ Mountains — Desert Peaks National Monument in southern New Mexico — shows exactly why this law is so indispensable. At nearly 500,000 acres…
We recently received this note from Albert Blok, Clinical Research Coordinator at American Educational Research Association, and publish it here as a letter to the editor. Editor: I’m a research coordinator for the Association of American Universities. Recently, I was visiting your site for research purposes, and came across a resource that no longer works.…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Mobile has lapsed into a coma. Whether it stays stupefied or recovers will indicate whether it wishes to continue existence as constant reruns of historic hallucinations or to create a liveable future. The seizure struck during the May 13 city council meeting. An early tremor came in the…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – My current column in SIERRA magazine Money Talks, Carbon Walks describes how each of us can help build the fossil-free economy by exercising our influence as consumers and investors. Most of us will do that because we believe it’s right but, as I wrote in Sierra: “If environmental…
Competitive Capitalism is the Answer, Not Socialism – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – If the film Reds is even close to an accurate historical portrayal of the relationship between Louise Bryant and Jack Reed, then there is a lesson here we can all use to plan the next phase of American democracy…
By Robert Reich – Even though French economist Thomas Piketty has made an air-tight case that we’re heading toward levels of inequality not seen since the days of the nineteenth-century robber barons, right-wing conservatives haven’t stopped lying about what’s happening and what to do about it. Herewith, the four biggest right-wing lies about inequality, followed…
Alabama is No. 10 and Louisiana is Not Listed At All? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – A new online celebrity tabloid is getting traffic from Facebook and Twitter for a story making the rounds claiming to rank the 10 most corrupt state governments in the United States based on “a national…
By Robert Reich – Until the 1980s, corporate CEOs were paid, on average, 30 times what their typical worker was paid. Since then, CEO pay has skyrocketed to 280 times the pay of a typical worker; in big companies, to 354 times. Meanwhile, over the same thirty-year time span the median American worker has seen…
Watch Video 13: State Docks Director Jimmy Lyons Argues For Coal Terminal – See more videos of the hearing here – “He displayed the serene confidence of a Christian holding four aces.” – – Mark Twain – By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – The director of the Alabama State Port Authority glided smoothly through…
By Robert Reich – We’re in a new gilded age of wealth and power similar to the first gilded age when the nation’s antitrust laws were enacted. Those laws should prevent or bust up concentrations of economic power that not only harm consumers but also undermine our democracy — such as the pending Comcast acquisition…
Mildred: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Johnny: Whadda you got? – The Wild One, 1953 – Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – I used to be young and idealistic. Now I have no idea what to make of it. It’s not even policy or ideology anymore. It’s dogma fueled brinkmanship. Or, it’s…
Coming Clean By Michael Brune Choose Wisely… We all make choices, and some turn out better than others do. But the choices we end up regretting the most are usually the ones we make against our better judgment. Both individually and collectively, we humans seem uniquely capable of acting as our own worst enemy. We…
By Robert Reich – Momentum is building to raise the minimum wage. Several states have already taken action. Connecticut has boosted it to $10.10 by 2017, the Maryland legislature just approved a similar measure, Minnesota lawmakers just reached a deal to hike it to $9.50. A few cities have been more ambitious — Washington, D.C.…
What Shall We Do With the Social and Political World? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – It took about 10,000 years of human existence and increasing knowledge for scientists to say definitively they proved that the universe is infinite and always expanding. When will political conservatives in the U.S. finally admit that…
By Robert Reich – What does the Supreme Court’s “McCutcheon” decision this week have to do with today’s jobs report, showing 192,000 new jobs for March? Connect the dots. More than five years after Wall Street’s near meltdown the number of full-time workers is still less than it was in December 2007, yet the working-age…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Watching a brain unravel is a terrible thing. So is watching a state and a country go down the drain, along with the ideals that created it. It is torture not only for the person who experiences the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease but also the…
Whom Do You Serve? Thoughts on Local Government and Dirty Industries – By Brad Nolen – MOBILE, Ala. – We the people of Mobile have long been organized to safeguard and promote the flourishing of our fair community. And part and parcel to this organization we’ve put together was the hiring of a city councils,…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – The video to show how foggers work to suppress coal dust didn’t work. An engineer pitching a coal terminal to the Mobile planning commission on March 20 had the opening scene of the video on a screen looming over the big crowd at the meeting to decide if…
nig·gard·ly [nig-erd-lee] adjective – 1. reluctant to give or spend; stingy; miserly. – 2. meanly or ungenerously small or scanty: a niggardly tip to a waiter. – Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – Racism is alive and well in America. But it’s not your father’s racism. It’s yours. It manifests differently. Just as overt.…
Guest Column – By Brad Nolen – If you listened to Governor Bentley’s State of the State address, you probably noticed that he mainly thinks of us, Alabamians, as workers, not citizens. Also that mean old U.S. Government can’t help anyone and just wants in on the dysfunctional ménage a trois between Americans, health Insurers…
