Events Calendar
Most Read Stories
Blogs:
Akrocentric:
Raw Umber event; Charles Taormina discusses our culture's fledgling publishing renaissance
Akron Aeros:
More rest than needed
Akron Zips:
Zips offer five more scholarships
All Da King's Men:
Irrational On Oil
Balanced Ledger:
Spring football
Blog of Mass Destruction:
"Solidarity"
BokBluster:
Food and Oil Prices
Browns Bulletin:
Wright out, Perry in
Cleveland Browns:
Wright faces second marijuana charge
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Reality starting to bite
Kent State Sports:
Simpson joins Flashes
Ohio Politics:
A Growing Hostility in the Ranks
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Is the Lincoln Highway the same as the National Road?
Olympic Dreams - Running:
Oregon Twilight
Patrick McManamon:
Cavs must find way to replace Gibson's offense
Sound Check:
American Idol Vodcast
Tia's Trends:
ICSC Convention - Adventures in Retail!!!
The Heldenfiles:
Lovin' the Feel of the Wheel
The Sports Blitz:
Cleveland Browns - They Love Them! They Really, Really Love Them!
Varsity Letters:
North, Firestone win Auten track and field titles
Editorial Commentaries
Game, set, match, goodbye
NEW YORK: Justine Henin is serving. She tosses the ball. Her eyes follow its flight upward, and as they do they reveal what looks like a split-second of fear. This happens on every serve.
The housing 'crisis' that never was
WASHINGTON: Lewis Carroll, call your office. Or, better still, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland should call Washington, where the government's determination to solve the housing ''crisis'' produced this lead paragraph in a recent New York Times story:
A measure of Bush errors? Look at Lebanon
PHILADELPHIA: The timing couldn't be worse. President Bush's last trip to the Middle East comes at a time when his Mideast policy is in tatters.
Into the mind of Bubba
WASHINGTON: ''A full-blooded American.'' That's how 24-year-old Josh Fry of West Virginia described his preference for John McCain over Barack Obama. His feelings aren't racist, he explained. He would just be more comfortable with ''someone who is a full-blooded American as president.''
Truthfully speaking . . .
WASHINGTON: It's been a blast, this presidential campaign. A great story, full of drama. But no one should think it's been honest. With the possible exception of Iraq — where candidates are compelled to face real issues — the campaign has been an exercise in mass merchandising.
What West Virginians told Barack Obama
WASHINGTON: In grim times, a bitter Hillary clings to bitter voters who in grim times supposedly cling to guns, religion and antipathy to people who aren't like them.
Cold War II: Power struggle with Tehran
NEW YORK: The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the Cold War. Yes, the next president is going to be a Cold War president — but this Cold War is with Iran.
Love of wine, plus a pose of snobbery
The following editorial appeared in the Boston Globe recently: Wine snobbery can be a funny and foolish pose. The affectations of wine critics' prose, with their evocations of plummy jam and cigar-scented finish, are silly enough to alienate anyone who appreciates clear writing.
Look at these lines. Can't we make voting easier?
A recent ruling points to an even tougher process
For many citizens, the democratic process has become too much of one. While it may be fashionable to complain about nothing getting done in Washington or Columbus no matter who is in charge, cumbersome voting procedures are probably as much to blame for low turnout as rampant cynicism.
Pausch: A lesson in shared privacy
PHILADELPHIA: Two individuals are currently creating an Internet buzz by choosing to share tremendous private suffering with the public. But while one is using the Web to teach and heal, the other seeks to take vengeance and humiliate.
A tamer sculpture of MLK?
ATLANTA: It was one of those little news squibs that flit by on the periphery and it isn't until you think about it again, if you do, that it makes you ask, ''What the??''
New front in the God wars: Brain research vs. the Bible
NEW YORK: In 1996, Tom Wolfe wrote a brilliant essay called ''Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died,'' in which he captured the militant materialism of some modern scientists.
Many paths to glory in the black church
The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Saturday: The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. made a lot of outlandish charges during his recent get-to-know-me speaking tour. One was the notion that criticism of his inflammatory statements amounts to ''an attack on the black church.''
Look now, and you'll see violence rising in Iraq
PALO ALTO, Calif.: You'll hear none of this from Washington, but the trend lines in Iraq are turning down again.
The successful candidate with a strong woman behind him
How Clinton helped Obama
By Mark Leibovich
WASHINGTON: So, now that it might finally be over (or maybe close to it, possibly, perhaps), does Sen. Barack Obama come out a bloody mess, or a battle-tested warrior?
All-purpose gadget in Mother's toolbox: Repression
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.: There are many useful tools for today's mother; more than when I had a baby. There are slings and backpacks, food processors and bottles with odd nipples, plastic spoons that look like twisted bonsai plants and splashmats with eco-coated finishes.
The family side of value-added learning
The effort parents put in deserves some credit, too
Family life is the longest school human civilization ever devised. There's no graduation date, and ''family school'' is never out — unless one fancies the calling of a hermit or cares nothing about severing those ties that are supposed to bind. Age makes little difference, either. Everyone's forever teaching and forever learning.
Israel at 60: Divisions within
PHILADELPHIA: When Israel's independence was proclaimed in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948, as leaders of the nascent state sang Hatikva (Hope), few could have imagined the vibrant state that exists today.
Obama avoid the race issue? Not now
KANSAS CITY: Black ministers historically have emphasized race. It's part of the church tradition dating back to slavery in which good black preachers decry racism, minister to the many souls racism wounds and preach the gospel of overcoming. Race has always been an inseparable part of the black church.
Bad time to be short of help for mentally ill children
EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I.: May is Mental Health Month, and we are facing a major crisis: a national shortage of child mental health professionals. This shortage couldn't come at a more serious time.
Obama's grace under pressure
WASHINGTON: Barack Obama called himself an ''imperfect messenger'' in his victory speech in North Carolina last Tuesday. That was a refreshing touch of humility, but it was also a fact.
Neglect Asia at your risk, America
ORLANDO, FLA.: When a country has a complicated, problematic and history-burdened relationship with another nation — as China has with Japan — one would anticipate strained ties at best. Why, then, has Chinese President Hu Jintao undertaken a state visit to Tokyo?
A conservative revival in Europe
NEW YORK: For years, American and British politics were in sync. Ronald Reagan came in roughly the same time as Margaret Thatcher, and Bill Clinton came in a few years before Tony Blair. But the British conservatives never had a Gingrich revolution in the 1990s or the Bush victories thereafter. They got their losing in early, and, in the wilderness, they rethought modern conservatism while their American counterparts were clinging to power.
Leave those 'windfall' oil profits alone
WASHINGTON: ''Excess profits.'' That's what oil companies are earning, Barack Obama says — and he's not alone. Recent earnings reports from these companies have set off such a wave of anti-profit proposals that it seems our politicians are reading Mao's Little Red Book. The book they should be consulting is The Little Red Hen.
Odd couple at the Statehouse
Jon Husted and Ted Strickland need each other
On Friday, Jon Husted and Bill Harris brought a dose of order to the impeachment process unleashed a week ago when Ted Strickland and a cast of leading Democrats called for the resignation of one of their own, Marc Dann, the managerially challenged attorney general of Ohio.
Containment has worked. Why not try it again?
CHICAGO: When it comes to the war in Iraq and other foreign policy issues, Republicans like to harken back to the stalwart presidents of the Cold War. John McCain has invoked Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan as kindred spirits, and so has George W. Bush. Which raises the question: Why do they embrace those leaders while rejecting their policy?
The benefits of nonprofit hospitals
It was 116 years ago this week that a group of Akron business leaders operating as the ''Nonprofit City Hospital Association of Akron'' selected a five-acre tract of land on East Market Street to serve as the site for a new community hospital. As the Akron Beacon and Republican wrote at the time, the Akron City Hospital was to be ''a hospital for people without distinction to creed, color or lack of money.''
Inflation? Not what you think
By David Leonhardt
NEW YORK: Next week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its monthly report on inflation, and it sure is going to sound strange. Wall Street is expecting the bureau to announce that the Consumer Price Index rose just three-tenths of a percentage point in April. Over the last year, the index has risen only about 4 percent.
Buy American? A wish fulfilled
FORT WORTH, TEXAS: It had been 20 years since I bought a car for myself. Six days ago, that long drought ended. I bought a brand-new Chevrolet Cobalt. I really like the car and the price I paid for it. (More on that in a moment.)
Two words for Clinton: Too late
WASHINGTON: Hillary Clinton, 60, Illinois native and Arkansas lawyer, became, retroactively, a life-long Yankee fan at age 52 when, shopping for a U.S. Senate seat, she adopted New York state as home sweet home.
A tale of ironies in a primary duel
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C.: The primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, which gave Barack Obama a decisive push toward the Democratic nomination, were wrapped in two ironies.
Please, end this long march into triviality
WASHINGTON: The endless Democratic presidential campaign has lurched from irrelevance to trivia, triggering a near-universal call to bring it to a halt.
How an embattled Marc Dann could save himself
He might even save his party
One thing about the Marc Dann scandal is crystal clear: Nothing good can possibly come from three middle-aged guys from the Youngstown area sharing a condo in suburban Columbus. Maybe, instead of worrying about saving on rent, Ohio's attorney general should have been more concerned about safeguarding his reputation. (He now shares a Columbus apartment with his oldest daughter.)
All-around winner on health care? McCain
WASHINGTON: John McCain is proposing the most radical overhaul of American health-care policy in a decade and a half. Not since Bill and Hillary Clinton's failed reform attempt has a presidential candidate, or even a president, called for such sweeping changes to the way health care is delivered and health insurance is purchased.
When a wrong can't be righted
NEW YORK: Staples Hughes, a North Carolina lawyer, was on the witness stand and about to disclose a secret he believed would free an innocent man from prison. But the judge told Hughes to stop.
An 'Idol' collapsing from exhaustion
WASHINGTON: It's time for the annual American Idol column, written this year with a heavy heart. Let's not kid ourselves: Something's not right.
Voter ID law hardly is an imposition
The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Friday:
You show your ID at the grocery store to cash a check. You show your ID at the airport to get on a plane. Why not be required to show an ID at the precinct on Election Day?
Who will tell America it has lost its lead?
NEW YORK: Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I've had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it's this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.
Gordon Liddy, McCain's radical problem
CHICAGO: Can a presidential candidate justify a long and friendly relationship with someone who, back in the 1970s, extolled violence and committed crimes in the name of a radical ideology — and who has never shown remorse or admitted error?
Uh-oh. Wall Street may skate free
NEW YORK: Cross your fingers, knock on wood: It's possible, though by no means certain, that the worst of the financial crisis is over. That's the good news.
The penalty phase of preventive care
Long-term care insurers do their own triage
You know what medical checkups are all about. Physicians recommend performing these routines regularly. Check this, check that — 'cause you never know.
Disowned by Obama
noweb
I can no more disown him (Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown my white grandmother — Barack ObamaPhiladelphia, March 18
WASHINGTON: Guess it's time to disown Granny, if Obama's famous Philadelphia ''race'' speech is to be believed. Of course, the speech was not just believed. It was hailed, celebrated, canonized as the greatest pronouncement on race in America since Lincoln at Cooper Union. A New York Times columnist said it ''should be required reading in classrooms across the country.'' College seniors and first-graders, suggested the excitable Chris Matthews.
A shield for voters' rights
NEW YORK: It would be hard for Florida to surpass its disastrous performance in the 2000 election, but give the Sunshine State credit for trying. Its latest assault on democracy: a law threatening volunteer groups with crippling fines if they make small mistakes in registering voters.
Lost meaning of Cinco de Mayo
EL PASO, Texas: I detest Cinco de Mayo and what it has become. A few days ago, I saw my first Cinco de Mayo ad of the season — a beer bottle with ''Cinco de Mayo'' emblazoned across it.
Democrats polish the Bush legacy
WASHINGTON: Democratic leaders in Congress are riding to the rescue of an unlikely beneficiary: the presidential reputation of George W. Bush. They seem determined to exacerbate problems that he has created or long ignored.
Globalization is out. Welcome, Cognitive Age
NEW YORK: If you go into a good library, you will find thousands of books on globalization. Some will laud it. Some will warn about its dangers. But they'll agree that globalization is the chief process driving our age. Our lives are being transformed by the increasing movement of goods, people and capital across borders.
Blood and gore in Liberty City aren't just fantasy
The following editorial appeared in the Boston Globe on Thursday: We live in an amoral and violent world: human trafficking, gang warfare, beheadings, rape — oh wait, that's just the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.
For Hillary, a winning formula
WASHINGTON: On the day last week when Hillary Clinton suffered the first of two costly defections by Indiana superdelegates, I went to see an old friend working in her national campaign.
Easier ride for white preachers on the right?
NEW YORK: Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers? Is there a double standard?
Marc Dann falls into his trap
The sliming of the attorney general's office
Perhaps you're wondering after reviewing the fallout from the state attorney general's office, two firings of top aides, one resignation, the boss himself admitting a ''romantic relationship'' with an employee: What would an independent investigation have revealed?
Remembering RFK in Indiana
CLEVELAND: It was an odd political courtship, the aristocratic senator from New York wooing the homespun folks from Indiana, the politician who wore his wounded heart on his sleeve courting the stoical voters of the Hoosier state. But Robert F. Kennedy was determined to make the relationship work.
Price of oil too high? Start drilling
WASHINGTON: What to do about oil? First it went from $60 to $80 a barrel, then from $80 to $100 and now to $120. Perhaps we can persuade OPEC to raise production, as some senators suggest; but this seems unlikely.
Don't judge these books by their covers
PHILADELPHIA: Some maxims hold. You can't judge a book by its cover. Especially a novel by a female author.
Olympic protests, then and now
NEW YORK: I was in Red Square one day during the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow when some poor protester apparently tried to set himself on fire. We never learned who he was or what really happened because of the amazing reaction of the authorities, which was caught on film by a tourist.
An Army at the breaking point
The recent flare-up in fighting in southern Iraq between the U.S.- backed Iraqi Security Forces and Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia, which spread to other areas of the country to include Baghdad, suggests the likelihood of maintaining a large presence of U.S. Army combat troops in Iraq for a long time.
Obama's nightmare of an angry 'father'
NEW YORK: Barack Obama has spent his life, and campaign, trying not to be the Angry Black Man.
When money laundering is your energy policy
NEW YORK: It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away.
The relentless trivialization of presidential politics
When CNN meets YouTube, there is trouble
At some point in presidential campaigns (which are now so long they practically run into each other), almost everybody gets sick of the process. What's noteworthy this year is that widespread feelings of nausea have come so early.
Eliminate payday lenders at risk to the state economy
MASON: — Defending consumer rights! Stimulating the economy! Protecting and creating jobs! These are critical responsibilities we entrust with our elected officials.
Jimmy Carter, talented irritant
PHILADELPHIA: One of Jimmy Carter's greatest talents is irritating people. The former president's deep religious faith and self-righteousness have convinced him he can jawbone any despot into responsible behavior. He once admitted: ''Rosalynn (his wife) often says I'm too sympathetic to people who are unsavory, but I have to understand their position.''
Watch Microsoft swallow Yahoo? It could be a pretty sight
From an editorial that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on Friday: A climax to the Microsoft-Yahoo drama is drawing near. If Microsoft's unsolicited overtures succeed, the $44 billion deal will mark a defining moment of the Internet era.
A McCain plan for inaction on equal pay
NEW YORK: John McCain — this is the guy, you may remember, who's going to be the Republican presidential nominee — has been visiting the poor lately. Appalachia, New Orleans, Rust Belt factory towns. This is a good thing, and we applaud his efforts to show compassion and interest in people for whom his actual policies are of no use whatsoever.
A 'Joseph moment' in political combat
What difference can Obama's ex-pastor make now?
Toward the end of Bill Moyers' PBS interview with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. on Friday evening, the preacher talked about the power of God to turn to a good end the plans men devise to do great harm.
Plant your garden, yet?
WACO, Texas: While millions of Americans scramble to put gasoline in their cars, they learn their next challenge will be to put food on their tables. Food prices are going through the roof as world leaders work to prevent mass starvation in nations hit hardest by the global food crisis.
More gun control? You must be kidding
CHICAGO: When a rash of gun murders takes place, it makes sense for the police to do one of two things: renew tactics that have been effective in the past at curbing homicides, or embrace ideas that have not been tried before. But those options don't appeal to Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis. What he proposes is a crackdown on assault weapons.
Fighting the 'good' war
KABUL: For many Americans who are weary of Iraq, Afghanistan is the ''good war'' where the United States and its European allies are destroying what's left of al-Qaida and the Taliban. That view certainly holds with the Democratic presidential candidates, who talk of adding more troops in Afghanistan next year even as they pull troops out of Iraq.
A screen for cancer too good to believe
NEW YORK: For as long as I can remember, a diagnosis of lung cancer has been virtually a death sentence. Most victims die within a year or two, and some 95 percent ultimately succumb to the disease. So it is hard not to be intrigued by a bold claim that most lung cancers could be cured through a screening program to detect tumors early and remove them promptly.
Serve the boss, save the planet, stay home
The following editorial appeared in the Sacramento Bee on Thursday: This editorial was written from home, and the American Electronics Association would like us to do that more often.
Abuse of Human Rights Council
PALO ALTO, CALIF.: The world's foremost human rights organization has ordered its envoys to begin investigating people or groups around the world who abuse freedom of speech by violating certain ''moral'' standards. The envoys would rely on individual governments to define morality in their own states.
Primary distraction? Obama's character
Real change has never been easy. . . . The status quo in Washington will fight. They will fight harder than ever to divide us and distract us with ads and attacks from now until November.
Race and religion entangle Democrats
WASHINGTON: Perhaps it was inevitable: The Democrats' battle for the presidential nomination has now led us into the thicket of race and religion.
A clueless naif, that Jimmy Carter
KANSAS CITY, Mo.: Poor Jimmy Carter. Such wonderful intentions. Such ghastly naivete. Watching the former president go to the Middle East in search of peace is like watching a sheep walk into the wolf's lair intent on building greater animal solidarity.
Unregulated free trade is a policy without merit
It's easy to play bumper-sticker politics with trade. But it gets us nowhere. When Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came out against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the run up to Ohio's presidential primary last month, they also spoke about U.S. trade policy generally. They mentioned problems with China's currency, toxic toys and contaminated food and communities wrecked by plant shutdowns and lost jobs.
A turnpike thumpin' for Obama
WASHINGTON: The Pennsylvania Turnpike was a highway to nowhere for Barack Obama. For those looking at the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination with clear eyes, the turnpike resembles nothing so much as the ribbon of highways that connect the old industrial towns and the rural hinterlands of neighboring Ohio. Obama's campaign rode them to a dead end in that other battleground state, too. No amount of bowling and beer-sipping for the cameras seems to help Obama with those voters who decide a candidate's fate in the Rust Belt.
Big Bang collider made for summer release
The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Monday: There's a chance that the world, maybe even the universe, could be swallowed by a black hole this summer.
There's baggage on the Straight Talk Express
Ohio Democrats are dragging some, too
It's a change election, all right. When they use the term, politicians and pollsters are talking about the mood of the voters. Many here in Ohio think things are on the wrong track and want to take a new direction. Sounds simple enough, especially when cruising at 30,000 feet in a rented jet. The realities on the ground this year in Ohio are a lot more complicated.
The choice daughters deserve
By Jennifer A. Marshall
WASHINGTON: Today marks the 15th anniversary of Take Our Daughters to Work Day. The Ms. Foundation launched the program in 1993 to introduce young girls to the working world's possibilities for their future.
It takes a village to beat a Clinton
NEW YORK: He's never going to shake her off. Not all by himself. The very fact that he can't shake her off has become her best argument against him. ''Why can't he close the