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Guest Commentary By Joe Cobb
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The end of January brings an annual blizzard of little scraps of paper to everyone’s mail box — income tax documents from employers, banks, pension funds, mortgage lenders and governments. The income tax relies on one of the most complex systems of information reporting ever devised. Billions of documents are printed and mailed, filed electronically and cross-referenced. The Internal Revenue Service and all the state departments of revenue — in California, the Franchise Tax Board — receive copies of all of them, in order to do a computer “audit” of everyone who files a tax return.
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Guest Commentary By James J. Fotis
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There is a new and increasingly dangerous threat facing America, a threat that is getting altogether too little attention — crimes associated with prescription drug abuse.
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Guest Commentary By Meredith C. Carroll
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Possibly the only things more intriguing than some of the items that have been up for auction on eBay (scratch-n-sniff salami stickers for $5, a used Pontiac GTO for $2.1 million, two medium-sized pairs of used men’s black underwear for $5.99, an empty Coke bottle guaranteed to be full of honesty for $.99) are the people selling them.
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Guest commentary By John W. Whitehead
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America’s schools are beginning to resemble laboratories, and our children are the lab rats. In almost every state across the nation, schoolchildren are being subjected to behavioral exams and mental health tests, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
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Guest Commentary By Anthony Gregory
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The cliché that “there ought to be a law” seems as old as time itself, but the full implications of the statement are rarely understood.
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Guest Commentary By Kenny Mack
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Ten weeks ago, millions of My Fellow Americans cast their ballots to vote incumbent Republican after incumbent Republican out of office, moving that party out of power and installing Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. In many races, it didn’t matter that the Democratic candidate didn’t look or sound much different than the Republican candidate. What mattered was that the incumbent Republican was, tacitly or overtly, supportive of the President’s Iraq policy and a clear message had to be sent to the President: You broke Iraq, now you fix it.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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According to a 2006 study released by the Barna Institute, 86 percent of Americans are “concerned about the moral condition of the country” — and they should be. The family — the bedrock of our society and our freedoms — is in a heap of trouble.
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Guest Commentary Alex Epstein
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Whatever their views of President Bush’s new “surge” of 20,000 soldiers, both liberals and conservatives continue to claim that they support our troops. Liberals say they support our troops by criticizing or opposing “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” which they claim has unnecessarily killed 3,000 soldiers. Conservatives say they support our troops by supporting the mission that most of our troops believe in.
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Guest Commentary By Tabor R. Machan
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A theme that comes up often in commentaries about contemporary American culture is the absence of firmly grounded and widely embraced basic values among the people. While Americans have a coherent and stable enough legal tradition, they seem to lack a basic ethics by which their lives might be guided or given meaning. It is for this reason, it is often said, that people require religion in their lives.
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Guest Commentary By Dr. Warren Washington
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When people think of Martin Luther King Jr., they are usually reminded of his speeches and protests, and the struggle for equality. Our memories of this great leader have a rich history in American culture, and on this day, members of all communities can share these memories and the lessons they instill. For Martin Luther King Jr., education was a great equalizer for all.
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Guest commentary by Anthony Gregory
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Gerald Ford has passed away at the age of 93. Commentators everywhere have been chiming in on his merits and weaknesses as a president, commander-in-chief and politician. Some have noted his relatively pacifistic approach to the Cold War, contrasting him to the hawkish stance of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon before him, and even the comparatively more active militarism of Jimmy Carter, to say nothing of Ronald Reagan, after him.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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With so much discussion focused on the number of troops needed to secure victory in Iraq — or whether victory is even on the horizon — the human travesty of the war seems to be getting lost. The real cost of this war is the loss of hundreds of thousands of human lives, many of whom are innocent civilians, including children.
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Guest Commentary by Jeanni Tavlin
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The Center for American Progress recently released two reports examining effective efforts to improve teacher quality. All these studies and proposals ignore the fact that nobody cares much about the public schools, as the only students enrolled in public schools are those whose parents are Third World, single or of the working class.
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Guest Commentary By Alex Epstein
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Every New Year’s Eve, millions of Americans make New Year’s resolutions. Whether the resolution is to get out of debt, to spend more time with loved ones or to quit smoking, these resolutions have one thing in common: they are goals to make our lives better.
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Guest Commentary By Hudgins
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Janus, the Roman god after which the first month of our year is named, had two faces. One looked at the past year and the other looked ahead at the year to come. On New Year’s Day in ancient Rome the new magistrates would assume power; we wait until a few days later to swear in ours since politicians hung over from partying would be even less fit for office than they already are.
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Guest Commentary By Alan M. Gottlieb
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Following a recent FBI report that the first half of 2006 saw an increase in violent crime, anti-gun rights organizations quickly moved to blame passage of concealed carry laws and other common sense reversals of 1990s gun control policies.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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The flu season is here once again. During the last flu season, doctors reportedly wrote more prescriptions for the drug Tamiflu than any other flu treatment. But after recent reports about the Food and Drug Administration’s reluctance to issue a warning about certain possible dangers of using Tamiflu, one has to wonder which is more dangerous — the flu or the FDA?
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Guest Commentary By Elan Journo
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When North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb in October, it erased all doubts about the threat it poses to not only South Korea and Japan, but also to the United States. To end this nuclear stand-off without bloodshed, many people are urging that we pursue negotiations with North Korea and engage in diplomacy. Pitched as levelheaded and practical, this approach would culminate in a supposedly win-win deal: the North promises to halt its nuclear program in exchange for a combination of economic and diplomatic concessions from the West.
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Guest Commentary By Joe Cobb
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In this season of holiday joy and gifts, the image of Santa Claus is everywhere. The jolly old elf and his reindeer-drawn sleigh, his oversized bag of toys and his “ho ho ho” are passed on by parents to children as part of our cultural tradition.
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Guest Commentary By James A. Jack
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Christmas is a time when a child’s only concern should be: “What will Santa bring me?” Kids should be able to enjoy, in safety, the wonderful displays, latest video games and sampling of new toys. As parents, we should be able to watch their eyes light up as they dream of the hours of fun they will have after opening their presents.
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Guest Commentary By Dr. Leonard Peikoff
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Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. Yet all of these are castigated as “materialistic;” the real meaning of the holiday, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (e.g., love thy neighbor) that no one takes seriously.
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Guest Commentary By Danny Gallagher
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Christmas is that special part of the year when all of America takes time away from their busy days of flipping burgers, yelling at the imaginary people in our television sets and auditing homeless people to leave their homes, get together and battle each other in mortal combat for the cheapest, most thoughtful gifts they can find.
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Guest Commentary By Dave Workman
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Legislation proposed by outgoing U.S. Senator George Allen (R-VA) that would allow private citizens to carry their legally concealed handguns inside national parks seems sensible and long overdue.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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When I was a child in the 1950s, the magic of Christmas was promoted in the schools. We sang Christmas carols in the classroom. There were cutouts of the Nativity scene on the board, along with the smiling, chubby face of Santa and Rudolph. We were all acutely aware that Christmas was more than a season to receive — it was a special time to give as well.
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Reality of what war looks like
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The Iraq Study Group has issued many specific recommendations, but the options boil down to a maddeningly limited range: pull out or send more troops to do democracy-building and, either way, “engage” the hostile regimes in Iran and Syria. Missing from the list is the one option our self-defense demands: a war to defeat the enemy. If you think we’ve already tried this option and failed, think again. Washington’s campaign in Iraq looks nothing like the war necessary for our self-defense.
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Guest Commentary By Doris Sosin
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I was 10 years old in 1941 and did not understand the implications of an impending world war. My father, Louis Dreller, was a naval officer stationed on the USS Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser, which was the flagship for the Pacific Fleet. Pearl Harbor was the base from which the Indianapolis operated. Our family lived in Hawaii to be near dad. He was out at sea much of the time. We felt lucky to be living on the island of Oahu, where he returned often to direct the overhauling of ships in Pearl Harbor.
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Guest Commentary By Michael Silverstein
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People say I’m a Grinch ... that I’m a Scrooge with a bad attitude when it comes to Christmas. And maybe they’re right. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ve thought things through a bit more carefully than other people and come up with some very disturbing suspicions about this holiday.
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Guest Commentary By Danny Gallagher
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A lot has changed in America in the last 100 years. We no longer have to watch silent movies, although after watching “Employee of the Month” and “The Santa Clause 3,” we probably wish we did.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) is right: If the U.S. intends to provide its military might to the world — and continue to take on Iraq and Afghanistan, and potentially, Iran and North Korea — we will have to do something about signing up more service people.
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Guest Commentary by Thomas M. Sipos
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Racial hatred was once a serious problem in America, manifested in lynchings and government-enforced segregation. But the pendulum to “combat hate” has now swung into a Kafkaesque Orwellian Zone. Our laws encourage shakedown artists and charlatans, while exacerbating rather than mitigating race relations.
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Guest Commentary By Alex Epstein
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America’s leading Internet service providers (ISPs) have spent many years and billions upgrading their transcontinental networks, which constitute the backbone of the Internet. Now they are eager to profit by offering new, compelling services. One plan is to give certain Web sites high priority on their data, so as to guarantee “quality of service" — the speed, frequency and reliability with which data is delivered. This would enable content providers to offer high-quality live TV and videoconferencing or advanced remote medical monitoring, without the delays and unreliability that plague the Internet today. Unfortunately, data prioritization is fiercely opposed by advocates of “Net Neutrality,” who claim paradoxically that freedom and innovation demand that companies not be free to make this innovation.
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Guest Commentary By Danny Gallagher
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Traditionally, Thanksgiving has been a holiday where people get together with family members they usually deny being related to in every other social situation and consume more food in one day than the National Food Bank, UNICEF and three Orson Welles clones consume in an entire year.
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Guest Commentary By Jeanette Henderson
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One of the many beauties of the American democratic system is that when we cast our vote on Nov. 7, we chose individuals, candidates who had his or her own line on the ballot. It wasn’t a vote for an institution or a political party (even if we voted a straight party line). Our votes were for individuals.
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Guest Commentary By Danny Gallagher
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We might come from different economic backgrounds. We might hold opposing political and social philosophies. We might start knife fights over the whole “Tastes great, less filling” debate.
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Guest Commentary By Christian Beenfeldt
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South Dakota voters have rejected the state’s proposed abortion law — a law that would have outlawed abortion in virtually every case. The law’s supporters claim that its rejection is a blow to “the sanctity of human life.” But is it?
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Guest Commentary By Linda Milo
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An empowered parent is a parent who is both kind and firm. A strong parent has courage and usually knows when to say “yes” or “no” to their child’s demands. A strong parent understands that their child benefits by having a parent who has strength of character, who doesn’t seem to struggle with endless childhood challenges, and who acts in charge even when their child says, “everyone is doing it.”
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Guest Commentary By Tibor Machan
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Whenever a controversy arises in government-funded and -administered educational institutions, no one in the mainstream media mentions the real source of the problem. Whether the controversy is over making the study of sex, environment or currently, intelligent design, mandatory, the real issue is systematically avoided — whether there ought to be government education in a free society at all.
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Guest Commentary By Alex Epstein
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Every Veterans Day we pay tribute to our fellow Americans who have served in the military. With speeches and ceremonies, we recognize their courage and valor. But justice demands that we also recognize that we should have far more living veterans than we do. All too many of our soldiers have died unnecessarily — because they were sent to fight for a purpose other than America’s freedom.
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Guest Commentary By Victor Kamber
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Perhaps I’m missing something here, but should the Republican Party have been in such a tizzy about “saving” the country from Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi?
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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Advertising has become a key defining characteristic of contemporary society. It’s everywhere. Schools used to be one of the few places that weren’t bombarded by advertisers. But even that is changing with the introduction of Channel One and BusRadio.
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Guest Commentary By Jay Trisler
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There are many myths associated with Measure Y, the marijuana lowest law enforcement priority policy ordinance.
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Guest Commentary By Dr. Michael Gruning
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Local headlines have recently shed a spotlight on City Council incumbent Kevin McKeown. Recent stories cite the political ad opposing McKeown that has allegedly left one man featured in the ad feeling misrepresented. Instead of pointing fingers and placing blame on the ad regarding council member McKeown’s stance on homeless issues, perhaps it’s time to look beyond the rhetoric and accusations being tossed about.
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Guest Commentary By Craig Perkins
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In order to assist Santa Monica voters with having all of the correct information they need on Measure V before they cast their ballots, I would appreciate being able to point out these Measure V facts:
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Guest Commentary By Elan Journo
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America’s campaign in Afghanistan was once widely hailed as a success in the “war on terror.” We have nothing more to fear from Afghanistan, our policy makers told us, because the war had accomplished its two main goals: al Qaeda and its sponsoring regime, the Taliban, were supposedly long gone, and a new, pro-Western government had been set up.
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Guest Commentary By Mark Gold
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There is now new hope for a safe, clean and healthful Santa Monica Bay on the horizon, and it begins in the very community that in many ways gave birth to our movement and gives its name to our bay — Santa Monica.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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“To a new world of gods and monsters.”
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Guest Commentary By Keith Lockitch Ph.D.
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Our leaders have failed to answer the evil moral ideal of Islamic totalitarianism with a rational ideal of our own.
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Guest Commentary By Marian Beregson
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For many parents, the last couple of weeks have meant the beginning of a new school year — taking kids to the bus stop, packing lunches and buying school supplies. For educators, it has meant getting back to the classroom to set them up, planning lessons and meeting a new group of students.
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Guest Commentary By Alex Epstein
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Now that gasoline prices are below $3 a gallon, calls for the government to “do something” to force prices lower have temporarily abated. But it is crucial for us to recognize that no matter what the price of gasoline is, such calls are wrong. All market fluctuations in the price of gasoline, up or down, are a good thing — and none of the government’s business.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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A culture of meanness has come to characterize many aspects of the nation’s governmental and social policies. “Meanness today is a state of mind,” writes Nicholas Mills in his book The Triumph of Meanness, “the product of a culture of spite and cruelty that has had an enormous impact on us.” But until it happens to us, it is easy to close our eyes and go on with our everyday lives.
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Guest Commentary By Anne Eggebroten
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“If you saw me coming, why didn’t you get out of the way?” Russell Weller said just after striking dozens of people with his car, according to witnesses testifying in the trial now in its third week here in Santa Monica.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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Thirteen-year-old Amber Mangum lives with her grandmother Maryann, who adopted Amber and her sister Ashley. The family attends a small church where, according to Maryann, “everyone knows everyone else and a helping hand is always there when you need it.”
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Guest Commentary By Alan Gottlieb & Dave Workman
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Three fatal attacks on school property in less than a week; more than 20 since February 1996 when a 14-year-old youth strolled into a junior high school in Moses Lake, Wash., and opened fire, killing two students and a teacher.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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Advertising has become a key defining characteristic of contemporary society. It’s everywhere. Schools used to be one of the few places that weren’t bombarded by advertisers. But even that is changing with the introduction of Channel One and BusRadio.
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Guest Commentary By John W. Whitehead
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In December 1971, at a concert in Ann Arbor, Mich., John Lennon took to the stage, and in his usual confrontational style, belted out “John Sinclair,” a song he had written about a man sentenced to 10 years in prison for possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Within days of Lennon’s call for action, the Michigan Supreme Court ordered Sinclair released.
However, as Adam Cohen ob |
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