Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – I was honored to be invited to speak to the United Auto Workers in Detroit at their convention this week. Even though the Sierra Club and the UAW have been working together for years, some people don’t know we’re natural allies. Here are some other things you might…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – If you follow me on Facebook, you may have noticed that I have been really busy of late organizing, promoting and holding a huge garage sale and selling a house in the post-Bush Great Recession world. I won’t bore you with the details of that, but the…
A Menace to Us and CreationBy David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Opposites appear at opposite ends of Alabama on June 5. At the upper extreme a rally in Florence is calling for tar sands mining to stop before it begins. Geologists have long known that gummy crude oil is locked into sandstone strata underlying…
By Joe Womack – Most of you have heard of “Fats Domino” and “Minnesota Fats” but have you ever heard of “Africatown Fats”? Probably not. That’s because “Fats Domino” is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is the pride of New Orleans. “Fats Domino” and his music were popular throughout the world…
By Robert Reich – I spent several days in New York last week with students from around the country who were preparing to head into the heartland to help organize Walmart workers for better jobs and wages. (Full familial disclosure: My son Adam is one of the leaders.) Almost exactly fifty years ago a similar…
By Pippa Abston – MD, PhD, FAAP – Governor Bentley has persisted in failing to offer hope for the uninsured poor in Alabama, through a Medicaid Expansion or otherwise. Behind the scenes, various insiders are passing rumors not to worry — he really will do it … after the primary. Or after the general election.…
By Robert Reich – For years Americans have assumed that our hard-charging capitalism is better than the soft-hearted version found in Canada and Europe. American capitalism might be a bit crueler but it generates faster growth and higher living standards overall. Canada’s and Europe’s “welfare-state socialism” is doomed. It was a questionable assumption to begin…
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.…
