Events Calendar
Most Read Stories
Robbers order bar patrons to empty pockets
Family found dead in Ohio home
Akron man turns himself in after authorities turn up heat
Man gets 3 years in prison for having sex with horse
Sex-toy study at Duke University raises some eyebrows
Akron police follow blood trail to murder suspect
Boy tells 911 operator he shot father in anger
Child in home when gunmen break in, demand cash and drugs
Blogs:
Pets:
Not 101 Dalmations…but close!
The Heldenfiles:
Friday Notebook
Patrick McManamon:
We interrupt today's entertainment …
Akron Zips:
UA adds Euton, a former Kentucky men's basketball recruit
Tribe Matters:
Tribe makes roster moves
Cleveland Browns:
Lewis doesn't like boycott
Kent State Sports:
Kent State @ Akron | Preview
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Gameblog: Cavs at Knicks
Buckeye Blogging:
Weekly ‘B’ Deck Report – New Mexico St.
Varsity Letters:
Wrestling, bowling teams prepare for season
All Da King's Men:
Bigger And Better Boondoggles
Blog of Mass Destruction:
The Shooter
Akron Law Café:
NEW U.S. Supreme Court Database
See Jane Style:
Muffle Your Muffler
Car Chase:
Perfect Weather for an Autumn Drive
Let's Talk Real Estate:
RUMORS: Downtown Restaurant Explosion
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Jack is looking for a trip to Southern Ohio the week of November 16.
Sound Check:
The Black Keys to perform benefit concert at Musica on November 27
HRLite House:
Personal Rant – Why People Do Not Live in Northeast Ohio
Akron Gamer:
New 'Call of Duty' could set entertainment record
Editorial Commentaries
Message for Karzai: Reform or die
WASHINGTON: With the ''re-election'' of President Hamid Karzai, if that's the right word for a process that featured fraudulent balloting and a canceled runoff, the United States now confronts the hardest puzzle of all about Afghanistan: How to improve governance there — which most experts agree is essential to defeat the Taliban — without taking even more control from Afghan officials?
Honoring the USS Missouri, 68 years later
NEW YORK: The rising sun over the Koolau Mountains cast a glow upon the ballistic missiles planted on the lawn of a submarine museum at the edge of Pearl Harbor, throwing long shadows across the water. They pointed at the bone-white memorial to the USS Arizona and, just beyond it, at the still-floating battleship Missouri, about to leave her pier.
Obama's no Truman
PHILADELPHIA: Harry Truman could've taught Barack Obama a thing or two about how to deal with a hostile press — basically, by ignoring it.
Voters have spoken. They said what?
CINCINNATI: In Ohio, citizens marched to the polls on Tuesday and voted to allow gambling casinos in the state. This was obviously a message to President Barack Obama that independent voters are not happy with the way the health-care bill is going.
Cuyahoga County says: Enough!
Sometimes, timing really is everything
Marcus Hanna, the Cleveland political boss, industrialist and U.S. senator who helped elect William McKinley, gained fame for this quip: ''There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can't remember the second.''
Surge in outsourcing
NEW YORK: In 2003, I was on a trip to Iraq and had arranged an appointment in the Green Zone with a member of the then-Iraqi Governing Council. Security was tight. I was with my Iraqi translator, a middle-aged man who had once been a teacher. When we arrived at the council, after a long walk, I showed my ID to two young uniformed U.S. soldiers. They told me to wait, went inside and out came a man wearing civilian clothes, one of those fishing vests and an Australian bush hat.
Return to the Middle Miocene Period
The following editorial appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Tuesday: People often talk as if warming temperatures are the only evidence of human-induced global climate change. But the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also has increased dramatically.
In a Rush to rip the president
WASHINGTON: I had a four-hour dinner once with Rush Limbaugh at the ''21'' Club in Manhattan, back in the days when I was still writing profiles as a ''reporterette,'' to use a Limbaugh coinage.
Obama's war on math
MIAMI: We used to hear quite a bit about the Bush administration's supposed "war on science." What about the Obama administration's war on mathematics?
Bipartisan boost for national parks
BOSTON: Apparently, things are so bad for the nation's parks that some Republicans took a time out last week from the bitter partisanship over health care and their general blockade on climate-change legislation and helped Congress pass a $32.2 billion spending measure that boosts funding 17 percent.
Benchmarks for Obama in AfPak
PHILADELPHIA: I'm headed back to Afghanistan and Pakistan at a critical juncture, which will shape Obama's foreign-policy legacy.
Who pays for health-care reform? Young people
By Michael Gerson
Washington Post Writers Group
Celebration of dysfunctional first families
NEW YORK: There may soon be a refreshing addition to the nation's presidential historic sites: Billy Carter's gas station in Plains, Ga. This is where the self-proclaimed redneck brother of the 39th president happily drank beer, expounded raffishly to the international media, and hosted Libyan officials who hired him to lobby an embarrassed Carter administration.
Defining health-care challenge
WASHINGTON: The next health-care fight has already started. It's the battle to define the bill that President Obama will eventually sign as a victory for consumers, taxpayers and the common good.
First rule of good citizenship
It helps to understand how good we have it
We are going to be up to our eyeballs in dead leaves for a good while, it looks like. We got used to two leaf pickups in Akron. Then the economy did a number on us, revenues took a dive, city leaders saw red all over the books and decided one leaf pickup would be good and plenty this fall. The estimate is that the cutback will save the city anywhere from $200,000 to $250,000.
Return to 'Memphis' with Chuck Berry
NEW YORK: If I had to name the best short story in the form of a song lyric, I suspect the winner would be Chuck Berry's Memphis, Tennessee, first released as a B-side in 1959. Lately, it has been haunting me — the metrical precision of the lyrics, its emotional realism and, of course, the revelation in the penultimate line. You know the one: that this is a father's mournful love song to his daughter, Marie, who is only 6 years old.
A big, fat political mistake
CHICAGO: I have seen the future of American politics, and it is big. Big and fat. You can get a glimpse of it in the New Jersey governor's race, which pits the slim, distance-running, Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine against Republican Chris Christie, who is built for comfort, not for speed. Corzine ran a TV ad accusing the challenger of ''throwing his weight around'' to beat traffic tickets, accompanied by footage that did not attempt to conceal Christie's bulk.
Just too little of a good stimulus thing
NEW YORK: The good news is that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the Obama stimulus plan, is working just about the way textbook macroeconomics said it would. But that's also the bad news — because the same textbook analysis says that the stimulus was far too small given the scale of our economic problems. Unless something changes drastically, we're looking at many years of high unemployment.
Against a wall of debt, even rich nations lack wiggle room
WASHINGTON: The idea that the government of a major advanced country would default on its debt — that is, tell lenders that it won't repay them all they're owed — was, until recently, a preposterous proposition. Argentina and Russia have stiffed their creditors, but surely the likes of the United States, Japan or Great Britain wouldn't. Well, it's still a very, very long shot, but it's no longer entirely unimaginable.
Knight time with Plusquellic
Lessons for the region from a newspaper legend
John S. Knight once explained: ''I dislike Washington. I don't like anything that reeks of phonies and insincerity, shenanigans and double-dealing and all that sort of thing.''
Marathons: Democracy on the run, or walk
The following editorial appeared in the Boston Globe on Thursday: Marathon runners take note: Unless you're at the front of the pack, you're slower than somebody. So don't beat up on those who are a little — or a lot — slower than you are.
Disclosure as liberal coercion
SEATTLE: Conservatives here, a droll minority, say that under this city's quota system, when a conservative enters the city, one already here is required to leave. They also say Washington is actually two states: There is what you can see from atop this city's Space Needle — meaning, this liberal city — and there is everything else, extending to the Oregon, Idaho and Canadian borders.
Friend and foe in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON: The opium poppy was introduced to Afghanistan more than 2,300 years ago by the armies of Alexander the Great. His forces were eventually driven out, like those of every would-be conqueror since. The poppy has proved more tenacious.
Between success and failure
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: Here's what you would see if you traveled last week to Kandahar and Helmand provinces, the two big battlegrounds of the Afghanistan War: This is a conflict that is balanced tenuously between success and failure. The U.S. has deployed enough troops to disrupt the Taliban insurgency and draw increasing fire, but not enough to secure the major population centers. That's not a viable position.
Unhealthy 'public option'
CHICAGO: If Medicare were a bank, federal regulators would be closing its doors, selling its operations and sacking its managers. Thanks to soaring costs, the program is fast running out of money — even though it pays such low fees that many doctors refuse to take Medicare patients.
Harry Reid's desperate choice
WASHINGTON: There is an air of desperate improvisation to Sen. Harry Reid's scheme to pass a ''public option'' as part of health-care reform, but at the same time provide an easy exemption for any state that objects to it. The warning flags ought to be flying for anyone who can count to three — let alone 60.
Better bargain in Afghanistan? Build 40,000 schools
NEW YORK: Dispatching more troops to Afghanistan would be a monumental bet and probably a bad one, most likely a waste of lives and resources that might simply empower the Taliban. In particular, one of the most compelling arguments against more troops rests on this stunning trade-off: For the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there.
Drunken drivers get 'one free swerve'
The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday: Suppose you're out for the evening and you see someone stagger out of a tavern, get in his car and pull away. If you're a good citizen, you'll immediately call 911 and give police a description of the vehicle, a license plate number and an account of where it was headed.
Please, don't take this personally
How about confronting the city's real problems?
Akron Fire Lt. Dennis Shumaker's apology this week for dropping the dime on Don Plusquellic after the mayor had been observed having a few drinks at a birthday celebration took a while to arrive, but appears to have put to rest another ugly, distracting episode of As City Hall Turns.
CPR for Fido? There's an easier way
The following editorial appeared in the Toledo Blade on Monday: Americans love their pets, but how many would be willing to perform mouth-to-mutt resuscitation to save the life of man's best friend? The Associated Press and Petside.com decided recently to find out the answer to that and other burning questions about the depth of our devotion to our pets, and some of the answers were surprising.
Man cave at the White House
WASHINGTON: I felt a twinge of envy when I heard that my pal Tom Friedman had played golf with the president for five hours one September Sunday.
Getting real about the drug war
WASHINGTON: During his immersion in his new job, Gil Kerlikowske attended a focus group of 7-year-old girls and was mystified by their talk about ''farm parties.'' Then he realized they meant ''pharm parties'' — sampling pharmaceuticals from their parents' medicine cabinets. What he learned — besides that young humans have less native sense than young dachshunds have — is that his job has wrinkles unanticipated when he became director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Shrink down in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON: It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here's my vote: We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan.
Stinging terrorists before they strike
FORT WORTH, Texas: Claiming to be a supporter of al-Qaida isn't a crime in this country. Neither is it a crime for undercover agents posing as members of a terrorist ''sleeper cell'' to agree that Osama bin Laden is the 21st-century equivalent of the bee's knees.
Risky business of overconfidence
WASHINGTON: Humans are overconfident creatures. Ninety-four percent of college professors believe they are above average teachers, and 90 percent of drivers believe they are above average behind the wheel. Researchers Paul J.H. Schoemaker and J. Edward Russo gave computer executives quizzes on their industry. Afterward, the executives estimated that they had gotten 5 percent of the answers wrong. In fact, they had gotten 80 percent of the answers wrong.
Delusions, left and right, about health-care reform
CHICAGO: If you've been following the health-care debate over the past couple of years, you may have heard the grim tale of Nataline Sarkisyan. Just 17 years old, afflicted with leukemia, she needed a liver transplant, but the insurance company Cigna refused to cover the surgery. After being picketed by nurses and the family, the insurer relented, but too late: She died that same day.
Masks of adulthood
NEW YORK: It is the No. 1 train, late-morning rush. We are all wearing our subway masks, everything from studied fatigue to careful blankness.
Can terror loosen Iraq's grip on hope?
BAGHDAD: From the air Sunday morning, this looked like a city restored. You could see paddle boats skimming the pond at Zawra Park, and go-karts and waterslides. And in every direction, new schools and soccer fields and bustling warehouses — all taking shape under the canopy of the new Iraq.
Pope Benedict's gambit
NEW YORK: The Church of England has survived the Spanish Armada, the English Civil War and Elton John performing Candle in the Wind at Princess Diana's Westminster Abbey funeral. So it will probably survive the note the Vatican issued last week, inviting disaffected Anglicans to head Romeward, and offering them an Anglo-Catholic mansion within the walls of the Roman Catholic faith.
Life lessons from a child
Dan McCarthy is the son of Jim McCarthy, a former Summit County executive. COLUMBUS: So beautiful, so peaceful in her casket, Samantha McCarthy breathed hope into the funeral parlor without breathing and spoke optimistically without speaking.
Revival lessons from Barcelona
BARCELONA, Spain: How can a city resuscitate an entire depressed, old inner-city district, many of its blocks marked by abandoned factories?
Portrait of an agency in hard times
Children Services examines its mission
On Wednesday evening, Summit County Children Services and Local 4546 of the Communications Workers of America issued a ''joint media release.'' They noted their shared approval of a fact-finder's report and the successful conclusion of labor negotiations, a new three-year contract agreement reached.
When it comes to the climate, facts matter
WASHINGTON: Some people eagerly respond to impassioned statements about climate change, such as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's warning we cannot compromise with Earth. Others appreciate stunts, for example, a recent Maldive Islands cabinet meeting that convened under water to signal worries about climate change. To me, though, nothing resonates more than the evidence, the simple, straightforward facts.
Obama's war on Fox
WASHINGTON: Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster. Now he's put a horse's head in Roger Ailes' bed.
Change NAFTA? Yes, make it stronger
OTTAWA: Candidate Barack Obama made the North American Free Trade Agreement an early target. He promised union leaders to force a renegotiation of NAFTA on his terms. Back then, I thought Obama went too far. Now I think he did not go nearly far enough.
Same ol' budgetary sleight-of-hand
WASHINGTON: When I wrote a few days ago about the growing nervousness of moderate Senate Democrats over the approaching vote to raise the federal debt limit, I had no idea how quickly evidence of that shift in the political winds would appear.
Party crashers at the Firehouse
OK, everyone, I surrender! It was my party, my 60th birthday! My family, my friends, my co-workers and, most important, it was my beautiful wife who planned the event as a surprise party, and I was surprised!
Portrait of an agency in hard times
Children Services examines its mission
On Wednesday evening, Summit County Children Services and Local 4546 of the Communications Workers of America issued a ''joint media release.'' They noted their shared approval of a fact-finder's report and the successful conclusion of labor negotiations, a new three-year contract agreement reached.
When it comes to the climate, facts matter
WASHINGTON: Some people eagerly respond to impassioned statements about climate change, such as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's warning we cannot compromise with Earth. Others appreciate stunts, for example, a recent Maldive Islands cabinet meeting that convened under water to signal worries about climate change. To me, though, nothing resonates more than the evidence, the simple, straightforward facts.
Obama's war on Fox
WASHINGTON: Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster. Now he's put a horse's head in Roger Ailes' bed.
Change NAFTA? Yes, make it stronger
OTTAWA: Candidate Barack Obama made the North American Free Trade Agreement an early target. He promised union leaders to force a renegotiation of NAFTA on his terms. Back then, I thought Obama went too far. Now I think he did not go nearly far enough.
Same ol' budgetary sleight-of-hand
WASHINGTON: When I wrote a few days ago about the growing nervousness of moderate Senate Democrats over the approaching vote to raise the federal debt limit, I had no idea how quickly evidence of that shift in the political winds would appear.
Party crashers at the Firehouse
OK, everyone, I surrender! It was my party, my 60th birthday! My family, my friends, my co-workers and, most important, it was my beautiful wife who planned the event as a surprise party, and I was surprised!
A sane approach to medical marijuana
CHICAGO: In 1973, Robert Randall was going blind from glaucoma when he discovered that smoking marijuana seemed to help his condition. That didn't matter to police when they found the Washington, D.C., resident growing cannabis and arrested him. Preferring to keep his sight, Randall sued the federal government, arguing that he was entitled to smoke pot as a ''medical necessity.''
Attach now to the debt ceiling
WASHINGTON: In the next few weeks, probably as soon as the votes on health-care reform have been taken, the Senate faces the painful duty of once again raising the statutory limit on the national debt, as the House already has done.
When rating agencies sell out investors
The following editorial appeared in the Sacramento Bee on Tuesday: In the old days, if you wanted to buy a house, you went to a bank. The bank would assess your ability to repay the loan and collect a down payment to ensure that you had some ''skin in the game.'' The bank typically held the loan, providing an incentive to ensure that a borrower wouldn't default. In short, all the players had a stake in the success of the borrower repaying the loan.
In Cuyahoga County, Issue 6 the right fix
Forget football. The political team needs new playbook
It's time to do or die in Cuyahoga County. This isn't about a sports team. It's about efforts to reform county government, attempts frustrated for decades by politics as usual. A growing corruption scandal and widespread waste and inefficiency finally have created the climate for success. While failure next month at the polls would not automatically rule out another try, it would create a chilling effect on any future group willing to again take up the cause, embracing the difficult task of circulating petitions to put an issue before the voters.
Raising a new class of 'untouchables'
NEW YORK: Last summer I attended a talk by Michelle Rhee, the dynamic chancellor of public schools in Washington. Just before the session began, a man came up, introduced himself as Todd Martin and whispered to me that what Rhee was about to speak about— our struggling public schools — was actually a critical, but unspoken, reason for the Great Recession.
Flights of fear at heart of parenting
WASHINGTON: In the matter of Falcon Heene, the 6-year-old boy who stashed himself — or was stashed by his parents — in the attic while a frantic world thought he was adrift in a homemade balloon, let us stipulate a few things:
Pakistan: Beyond denial
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: Until a few months ago, Pakistani officials often used the term ''miscreants'' when they described the Taliban fighters operating from the western tribal areas. This moniker conveyed the sense that the Taliban was a nuisance — a ragtag band of fanatics and gangsters who could be placated with peace deals — rather than a mortal threat to the nation.
Wine clubs, vice and the news
WASHINGTON: Can vice save journalism? It's an intriguing idea, especially since the profession had such a cozy relationship with vice in the old days.
On conduct, character and the Wild Things
NEW YORK: In Homer's poetry, every hero has a trait. Achilles is angry. Odysseus is cunning. And so was born one picture of character and conduct.
Want to be on TV? Desperately
WASHINGTON: Now we know the answer to one of the vexing questions of the modern age: Evidently, there is nothing at all that some people won't do to get on television.
Olympia Snowe, a lonely heretic
WASHINGTON: There are 18 states, as columnist Mark Shields recently pointed out to me, that have gone Democratic in each of the past five presidential elections. Of the 36 senators who represent those states, only two are Republicans. Both are from Maine, one of the last, storm-lashed, surf-pounded footholds of the Yankee GOP. So it is hardly shocking that the lone Republican supporter of Democratic health reform on the Senate Finance Committee should be Maine's Olympia Snowe.
Selling out to the predators pushing casinos
The following editorial appeared in the Columbus Dispatch on Tuesday: Dazzled by the promise of jobs and additional tax money for local governments and education, the Columbus chapter of the NAACP and the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus this week endorsed state Issue 3, which would authorize casino gambling in Ohio, with one casino each in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo.
State of the banks: Still not so sound
NEW YORK: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. OK, maybe not literally the worst, but definitely bad. And the contrast between the immense good fortune of a few and the continuing suffering of all too many boded ill for the future.
Seniors get $250? You're kidding
CHICAGO: When inflation hits, every dollar in your bank account is worth less each day. Deflation is just the opposite: You put your feet up and watch your money grow in value. The latter is what is happening now to America's seniors. And politicians think they should not have to stand for it.
Obama's at-risk youth
WASHINGTON: Will the young and hopeful abandon the political playing field to older voters who are angry? That is the quiet crisis confronting President Obama and the Democrats. Left unattended, it could become a formidable obstacle for them in next year's midterm elections.
A Hollywood ending of the world
The following editorial appeared in the Toledo Blade on Sunday: Don't cancel that Disney holiday vacation in 2012. The world will not end a little more than three years hence, no matter what Hollywood and New Age philosophers might say. And, remember, you read it here first.
Look out! Europe soon may get its economic act together
PALO ALTO, Calif.: The United States is about to confront a fierce new competitor, unlike any the nation has faced in its history.
When lawyers regulate doctors
Is there a better way to handle medical malpractice?
Where do you turn if you or a family member is severely harmed by a doctor's negligence — and you don't want to hire a lawyer?
Stimulus plan for Democratic incumbents
WASHINGTON: As Harvard's president, Larry Summers, economist and former Treasury secretary, was a lion in a den of Daniels. The faculty Daniels, their tender feelings hurt by his occasional testiness, cowered together and declared him a meanie. Facing a faculty vote of no confidence, he resigned.
Karzai, the one and only
PHILADELPHIA: Sometime soon, we may learn who the president of Afghanistan is. Or we may not. Imagine: As President Obama wrestles with whether to send more troops to fight the Afghan Taliban, it's still unclear whether the sitting president, Hamid Karzai, won the majority required to avoid a runoff.
Turn back Iran's nuclear clock?
WASHINGTON: Since you're probably not a regular reader of the trade publication Nucleonics Week, let me summarize an article that appeared in its Oct. 8 issue: It reported that Iran's supply of low-enriched uranium — the potential feedstock for nuclear bombs — appears to have certain ''impurities'' that ''could cause centrifuges to fail'' if the Iranians try to boost it to weapons grade.
Our job: Revive the middle class
WASHINGTON: The challenge of our time is to recreate America as a middle-class nation. The idea does not find voice in the cacophony of the 24-hour news cycle. It has no place in the media's daily digest of gossip, false controversy and ideological cant. It is barely mentioned in the halls of power, where the very officials who capitalize on the economic angst of working people to win election forget that this raw anguish — not the sophisticated arguments of lobbyists and campaign donors — is supposed to motivate them every day.
Will Democrats confront teachers?
NEW YORK: The Democratic Party has battled for universal health care this year, and over the decades it has admirably led the fight against poverty — except in the one way that would have the greatest impact.
Yikes! Mortgage madness is back
CHICAGO: Watching Washington policymakers in action, I sometimes think they make mistakes because of unrealistic goals, flawed thinking, blind obedience to party or dubious information. And sometimes I think they make mistakes because they are — how to put this? — clinically insane.
All about Obama and Snowe
WASHINGTON: Now, two people will have to choose. The fate of the health-care bill is largely in the hands of Barack Obama and Olympia Snowe.
Combat terrorism? Go biometric at the border
The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Monday: Most of us reading about terrorist wannabe Hosam Smadi being apprehended by undercover FBI agents probably feel darn glad the feds got the 19-year-old before he could do any real harm.
Hello. This is Cheney, Cheney & Cheney
WASHINGTON: I imagine that if you called the new consulting firm of Cheney, Cheney & Cheney and got put on hold, you'd hear the Ghostbusters theme:
Hard choices ahead on health-care reform
WASHINGTON: It has taken much longer than President Obama hoped, but we are finally at the point where he can — and must — put his personal stamp on his main domestic initiative, the overhaul of the health-care system.
Decision-making, by Obama
WASHINGTON: Afghanistan could be the most important decision of Barack Obama's presidency. Maybe that's why he is, in effect, making it twice.
If decaying Newark is a punch line, the joke's on us
NEW YORK: Conan O'Brien has been making some pretty rough jokes about Newark, which has led to a (mostly) mock feud between the late-night host and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.
Our most enduring and corrosive scandal
WASHINGTON: I don't have a sex scandal for you. The foibles of politicians and celebrities titillate. But ultimately, they have little to do with the most enduring and corrosive scandal of our civic life. It unfolds out in the open, day after day.
Time to close Gitmo
The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Friday: Congressional Democrats are backing away from a total blockade on bringing Guantanamo detainees into the United States, at least for prosecution.
Living with a nuclear Iran
COLUMBUS: Within the past 30 days, a secret Iranian nuclear materials plant was discovered near the city of Qom, Iran test-fired missiles capable of reaching Israel and parts of Europe, and an International Atomic Energy Agency report concluded that Iran now possesses enough know-how to design and produce an atomic bomb. Events seem to be hurtling toward a climax.
Safe passage to equal status
Old attitudes still weigh down women and girls
Something about Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir and Mrs. Bandaranaike fascinated me as a teenager. My ears perked up when their names came over the radio. I read what the papers said about them. It wasn't that their names fell softly on the ear, like music. It wasn't a fascination with their politics either (of which I had no clue and little interest then).
A casino puts a good thing at risk in Columbus
COLUMBUS: It was a comfortable Friday night in August and three old buddies were in town for a weekend of biking and brews.
Turn down that Nobel prize, Mr. President
NEW YORK: This was Barack Obama's chance. Here was an opportunity to cut himself free, in a stroke, from the baggage that's weighed his presidency down — the implausible expectations, the utopian dreams, the messianic hoo-ha.
Areas of expansion: Waistlines and the nanny state
CHICAGO: Obese people and public-health scolds have one thing in common: a compulsion to keep behaving in a way that does not produce helpful results. The obese tend to keep eating too much and exercising too little regardless of what others say. Disciples of maternal government persist in meddling in individual choices whether it works or not.
At the heart of health care, a deep generational inequity
NEW YORK: One of the troubling dynamics behind President Barack Obama's attempt to overhaul the health-care system is the way it has cut along demographic lines. According to a poll by the New York Times and CBS News last month, only 20 percent of people 65 and over support the president's efforts. Only 31 percent say the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans.
Obama's tougher task: Win the 'peace' prize at home
WASHINGTON: It is a sign of our weird political moment that the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama will probably hurt him among some of his fellow citizens.
Great cause in the Great Lakes
Richard Cordray comes out fighting for precedent
Partisans like to hurl accusations of ''judicial activism.'' They do so with such frequency that when the real thing surfaces, many of us may be numb to how far a judge or panel of judges has traveled from settled law.
Foreclosure rescue? Beware the scams
The following editorial appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday: Many of the same sleazy operators who helped fuel the real estate bubble through dubious subprime lending practices are now taking advantage of homeowners through ''foreclosure-rescue'' scams.
Ohio has spoken. Payday lenders must conform
COLUMBUS: I am an ardent opponent of payday lending, having testified at several hearings on this matter before the Ohio legislature. As the chairman of Habitat for Humanity Ohio, I see firsthand every day how families across Ohio struggle to live within their means, often living paycheck to paycheck, while trying to pay rent or their mortgage, put food on the table and take care of their children.
Our education recession
NEW YORK: If you had to explain America's economic success with one word, that word would be ''education.'' In the 19th century, America led the way in universal basic education. Then, as other nations followed suit, the ''high school revolution'' of the early 20th century took us to a whole new level. And in the years after World War II, America established a commanding position in higher education.
Thanks to Obama for favors yet to come
WASHINGTON: Gobsmacked by President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize? You have come to the right place. Chalk it up to the national character of my ancestral homeland.
Obama nominees wait on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON: Miriam Sapiro was nominated to be deputy U.S. trade representative in April. The Senate Finance Committee voted — unanimously— to confirm her in July.
High cost of Charlie Rangel
NEW YORK: Republicans in the House of Representatives attempted to remove Charles Rangel as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, arguing that Rangel's current ethics controversy has ''held the House up to public ridicule.''
Give credit to payday lenders
CINCINNATI: Consumer advocates and companies that lend money in Ohio agree on one important issue: Consumers need access to credit. As a licensed and regulated small loan company headquartered in Ohio, Check 'n Go and our employees work every day to meet this consumer demand.
'Reform' in Washington, harm in Ohio
COLUMBUS: ''First do no harm'' should hang above the halls of Congress. Unfortunately, those four simple words aren't a consideration in our nation's capital. How else could you explain the budget-busting global warming and national health-care bills currently dominating the public debate? Separately, each measure is fiscally irresponsible. Taken together, the bills will devastate Ohio's weak economy and place enormous unfunded mandates on the state's Swiss cheese budget.
Almost a bang, now a whimper
The quiet after recall drive, hot primary
Was it just a few weeks ago that David Reymann pulled his gun on Ernie Tarle on the streets of Ward 6, where Tarle (the only Akron councilman ever to be recalled from office) was attempting a political comeback?
Fashionable charge for your iPhone
AUSTIN, Texas: One way you can judge the success of the U.S. economy? The number of unnecessary, silly products marketers sell to the American consumer.
Allies at odds
Republicans and business groups part ways on health-care reform
WASHINGTON: One of the intriguing mysteries of this year is why the initial broad support from American business for overhauling the health-care system has not translated into more than a handful of votes from Republicans in the House and Senate.
Men behaving badly
WASHINGTON: Some things have changed since the Mad Men era. The elevator operator isn't the only black face in the building. Executives no longer sip amber highballs and puff Lucky Strikes all day long.
Gun lobby's season of assault
WASHINGTON: Whatever significance is attached to Chicago's failed bid to host the 2016 Olympics, it is of small importance to the rest of the country. More far-reaching and frightening is the Supreme Court's decision to take up a case challenging the city's ban on handgun ownership in the new term that began this week.
How to win the hearts and minds of Pakistanis
PHILADELPHIA: The debate over Afghan strategy — the Af in our AfPak policy — has overshadowed an equally daunting challenge: Can we figure out how to improve relations with Pakistan?
Hey, look around, socialism is taking a beating
The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Saturday: To hear some folks tell it, America is headed straight to socialist hell. Want to flee the coming pinko-palooza? Move to Europe, where despite the worst crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression, socialist parties remain flat on their backs.
Does Obama get the jobs crisis?
NEW YORK: The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Barack Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging.
A favorite presidential topic? Himself
WASHINGTON: In the Niagara of words spoken and written about the Obamas' trip to Copenhagen, too few have been devoted to the words they spoke there. Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance.
Scrambling for sustainable education
Ohio's budget reversals set back efforts to improve
Ohio's education budget for 2010 and 2011 practically crumbled in September because it was leaning on chance. The plan, as Gov. Ted Strickland and the General Assembly conceived it, was that the Ohio Lottery would expand to include thousands of slot machines at seven horse racetracks. The machines would attract gamblers, the gamblers would drop approximately $933 million into state coffers, the state would redirect an estimated $851 million to the public schools, and the schools would go about leaving no student behind.
Billionaires in pursuit of their lost billions
NEW YORK: Past the initial schadenfreude, it's hard to figure out what to think about the shrinking of the nation's 400 most gilded fortunes. It is reassuring that the super-rich can lose money, too — $300 billion in the last year, according to Forbes, bringing their total down to $1.27 trillion. It's about the same percentage that was lost by Americans' private pensions, whose assets dropped by about $1.1 trillion, nearly 19 percent.
High cost of 'don't ask, don't tell'
BOSTON: Six weeks ago, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked what the latest discussions were between President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on re-examining the 1993 ''don't ask, don't tell'' law that bans openly gay and lesbian soldiers from military service. Gibbs merely said, ''I can check on that. I don't have anything with me.''
No rush to escalate
WASHINGTON: At a White House dinner with a group of historians at the beginning of the summer, Robert Dallek, a shrewd student of both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, offered a chilling comment to President Obama.
Chicago gets lucky
CHICAGO: Abraham Lincoln was once asked how he liked being president. Bedeviled by secession and war, he recalled a story about a man who, when tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, commented that ''if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.'' Chicago didn't get the honor of hosting the 2016 Olympic Games, but it should be grateful.
Escaping Depression 2.0
WASHINGTON: How close did we come to the Great Depression 2.0? That question will spawn a cottage industry of books, studies and conferences. But Christina Romer, the head of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, already has an answer: pretty darn close.
Yes, they can. Yes, they have!
A short history of Ohio Republican tax increases
In my next life, I want to be a noisy member of the minority in the Ohio House, especially when the governor represents the other political party. What fun they seem to have, saying almost anything they wish, nary a concern about accountability.
Health reform should leave no child uncovered
Ohio's children have a lot at stake in national health-care reform. But national reform can also take a lesson from Ohio on meeting kids' health needs.
Hollywood's cold heart for a young girl
WASHINGTON: Could it be that the conservative culture warriors who portray Hollywood as a cesspool of moral bankruptcy have been right all along? Not really. But in the case of Roman Polanski, the Puritan scolds definitely have a point.
Obama's grand opportunity
WASHINGTON: Three American presidents have set the stage for a grand bargain that could align the interests of the world's leading powers in Europe and the Middle East. It is now up to Barack Obama to play out that opportunity by keeping his eye on the forest as well as the trees.
Entering realm of the White Queen
WASHINGTON: Last Thursday, the president's ''engagement'' with Iran began. This Wednesday, the U.S. war in Afghanistan will enter its ninth year. And U.S. foreign policy is entering a White Queen phase.
Planetary motions
By Verlyn Klinkenborg
New York Times
Glenn Beck, danger to the right
By Rod Dreher
Dallas Morning News
DALLAS: You can say this for Glenn Beck: He's charismatic, he was right on ACORN and Van Jones, and he's correct to point out that the government in Washington doesn't work for the common good.
'China Week' in Akron
As a first-generation college student no one expected me to celebrate my 21st birthday living as a foreign exchange student in Beijing in 1981. This opportunity to master a foreign language and get the kind of international experience that sets one's resume apart from the pack is commonplace, even expected, for the children of America's elite families. Only working hard to take advantage of everything college had to offer made this possible for me, the son of an Irish-Catholic electrician.
Copenhagen in October
NEW YORK: President Barack Obama flew off to Denmark to lobby for Chicago's Olympic bid. Or, in the words of the House minority leader, John Boehner, he is ''going to go off to Copenhagen when we've got serious issues here at home that need to be debated.''
State Issue 3: A losing proposition
Study shows casinos would hurt Ohio more than help
The latest study of bringing casino gambling to Ohio can be summarized with these questions and answers: Is there a better way to do this than Issue 3 on the November ballot? Yes, without a doubt.
Lessons for Obama from Bush
PHILADELPHIA: Three years ago, the war in Iraq seemed lost. There was little disagreement that the Bush administration, having toppled Saddam Hussein with relative ease, had badly bungled the aftermath.
What happened to 'we' the people?
NEW YORK: I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before, and it is really disturbing. I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one.
William Safire, the elegance of a congenital pot-stirrer
WASHINGTON: During the Clinton impeachment circus, I walked by William Safire's lair. He had an imposing office in ''murderers' row,'' as he dubbed the hall where we worked, full of English antiques, Oriental rugs and a couple old ties he kept for those rare moments when he needed one.
Arm of the law long enough to nab Polanski
The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Tuesday: Fugitive film director Roman Polanski learned over the weekend that you can't outrun the long arm of the law. Swiss police nabbed the confessed sex criminal as he arrived in Zurich to accept a film festival award. Now Polanski, 76, faces extradition to Los Angeles County, where prosecutors have waited more than 30 years for the rapist to show up for sentencing.
How the Zazi case argues for closing the Guantanamo prison
WASHINGTON: The latest turn in the nation's confrontation with terrorism comes to us as opera buffa. The scenario would be comic if it were not so unnerving.
Bill and Melinda Gates' big investment
CHARLOTTE, N.C.: A whoop went up in the classroom and the teenagers became giddy when they realized that the man and woman being escorted to the front of the room were Bill and Melinda Gates.
Will Obama deliver on global cooperation?
PHILADELPHIA: It was a week of stunning contradictions for Barack Obama. The president was showcased on the world stage, at the United Nations and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. He promoted grand plans for global partnership on a range of topics — from climate change to nuclear disarmament to setting the world economy right.
The shouting's over. Now, to the problem
What happens to Americans without insurance?
The health-care debate has moved indoors, so to speak. The town hall phase was diversionary. It took us through the hot-button patches — the granny, abortion and illegal immigrant fears and the commies-at-the-gate stuff. With the Senate bearing down to complete its legislation, we come face to face again with the unglamorous question at the center of the national debate: What to do about the uninsured, the people (46 million and counting) the system has left behind, the Americans who live fearful of the wreck a broken leg, a lab test or some minor surgery might make of their finances.
Regulators blow smoke on flavored cigarettes
CHICAGO: At least since 1994, when seven tobacco executives testified before Congress that they didn't think cigarettes were addictive, the public has not put great trust in those who sell carcinogens for a living.
China launches a Green Sputnik
WASHINGTON: Most people would assume that 20 years from now when historians look back at 2008-09, they will conclude that the most important thing to happen in this period was the Great Recession. I'd hold off on that. If we can continue stumbling out of this economic crisis, I believe future historians may well conclude that the most important thing to happen in the last 18 months was that Red China decided to become Green China.
Twelve rules for reading an op-ed column
NEW YORK: At last I am at liberty to vouchsafe to you the dozen rules in reading a political column. 1. Beware the pundit's device of using a quotation from a liberal opposition figure to make a conservative case, and vice versa. Righties love to quote John F. Kennedy on life's unfairness; lefties love to quote Ronald Reagan. Don't fall for gilding by association.
Bring energy efficiency to the flat-screen
The following editorial appeared in the Boston Globe on Thursday: The refrigerator used to be the largest electricity hog in the American home, but this dubious honor now belongs to the big, new, flat-screen TV in the den.
Why Obama should temper talk of erasing nuclear arms
By Jim Hoagland
Washington Post
NEW YORK: President Obama's dream of a world without nuclear weapons seems more like a nightmare to Russia and other nations that also possess doomsday arms. Obama is pushing on a door that is closed, barred from inside and locked with a key that has been thrown away as far as the Kremlin is concerned.
Tax and spend? Never again
How Ohio Democrats lost their soul
Chris Redfern must be pleased to see Sen. George Voinovich and Ted Strickland sparring over taxes. The chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party has spent the past five years seeking to steal the mantle of lower taxes from his Republican adversaries.
A better way for Ohio to fund its public schools
As the chairman of the committee in the Ohio House of Representatives that handled and improved the new education reform package, I would like to outline why our new system is better than the former, and why this system meets our constitutional mandate of a ''thorough and efficient'' way to fund schools, giving every student the opportunity to succeed, regardless of where they live.
Wrong place to fight al-Qaida
PALO ALTO, Calif.: Federal court papers made public Sunday related an amazing piece of news, but it was remarkable for reasons that many people may not have immediately appreciated.
Hedge funds offer lesson in financial prudence
LONDON: When you think about future financial stability, ask yourself this contrarian question: Why is it that the nefarious hedge funds, supposedly the bad boys of the financial world, actually came through last year's crisis in relatively good shape?
Irving Kristol, a great good man
WASHINGTON: After the plain pine box is lowered into the grave, the mourners are asked to come forward — immediate family first — and shovel dirt onto the casket. Only when it is fully covered, only when all that can be seen is dust, is the ceremony complete.
Expectation game
The name Kermit Jorgensen may not mean anything to you. I watched him run 60 yards (if memory serves) for a touchdown on a bright autumn day in Seattle, 48 years ago, my first game at Husky Stadium. Those of us cheering for the University of Washington, Jorgensen at quarterback, soon received the bitter news. Penalty on the home team. Score nullified. The game ended in a 0-0 tie.
Bailout for the Red States
WASHINGTON: It is ''a stunning assault on liberty'' (Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona). It is ''trying to force or foist a one-size-fits-all solution on the states'' (Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah). It is a plan that ''taxes too much and grows government too much'' (Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas).
Obama, heir to the Progressive ambition
WASHINGTON: A brand-new publication came across my desk this week containing an essay that offers as good an insight into President Obama's approach to government as anything I have read — and is particularly useful in understanding the current struggle over health-care reform.
'Brutopia' on the Internet
WASHINGTON: The transformation of Germany in the 1920s and '30s from the nation of Goethe to the nation of Goebbels is a specter that haunts, or should haunt, every nation.
White House missed chance to outsmart Fox News
The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Tuesday: Chris Wallace is not Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity, and plenty of the people who watch Fox News are not ideological zealots. The network's viewers include, among others, moderate conservatives who have doubts about President Barack Obama and his health care plan and who want a civil discussion of health care solutions.
Laboring under an illusion
Old-style union tactics don't fit in the public sector
Akron, where in 1934 workers at General Tire staged what is regarded as the first sitdown strike, has seen more than its share of industrial-strength labor negotiations.
Tom Delay dances for redemption
WASHINGTON: Tom DeLay was icing his foot and resting his booty. On Monday, his debut as a dancing fool (or just a fool, depending on whom you talk to), he had started at 10 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m., and his pre-stress fracture was acting up.
How the malpractice system fuels health costs
WASHINGTON: The debate over medical malpractice can often seem theological. On one side are those conservatives and doctors who have no doubt that frivolous lawsuits and Democratic politicians beholden to trial lawyers are the reason American health care is so expensive.
Obama's bold approach to education
WASHINGTON: President Obama's health-care proposals are under attack from the left and right. His bid to overhaul the financial regulatory system is foundering. His effort to institute a cap-and-trade regime to combat global warming is all but dead for the year.
The limited right to own a handgun
WASHINGTON: The gun lobby at last holds its Holy Grail: a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that the oddly worded Second Amendment, which speaks of a ''well regulated militia'' in the same sentence as ''the right of the people to keep and bear arms,'' does, in fact, bestow upon individuals a constitutional right to own weapons.
