BY JIM HIGHTOWER Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to war we go! Pound the drums loudly, stand with your country proudly! Wait, wait, wait – hold it right there. Cut the music, slow the rush, and let’s all ponder what Barack Obama, Robert Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Co. are getting us into … and whether we […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH The last Thanksgiving of my childhood started out promisingly enough. It was 1969, and we were going to my parents’ best friends’ house. I had a crush on their second oldest son, and with luck [a lot of it], we’d end up in his room listening to Led Zeppelin. He was much […]

BY FROMA HARROP This is a nation of goose-necked children hunched over their electronics in front of a TV. They will turn into goose-necked adults with vitamin D deficiencies, the result of spending their sunny hours downloading songs in darkened rooms. Obesity will plague many of them. Clearly, America would do better health-wise [and health-care-spending-wise] […]

BY JOE CONASON The puzzling thing about politicians of either party who claim to be “centrist” or “moderate” is how much they sometimes sound like party-line right-wing Republicans. Distinguishing among these species of politicians can be almost impossible during the current struggle over health care reform, especially when a senator like Blanche Lambert Lincoln of […]

BY FROMA HARROP When President Obama attends the United Nations meeting on climate in Copenhagen, you can be sure that the deniers of global warming will go on a romp. They’ll dredge up weather forecasters, scientists hungry for attention and various grudge-holders to argue that the Earth’s temperature isn’t rising, or that if it is, […]