Blogs
An Afternoon with Ann Wright at King's Books
Ann Wright, ret. Colonel and diplomat who served in Somalia, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia; tireless advocate for Palestinians in Gaza, and for military sexual trauma survivors, and Citizen of the Year in Atlanta, 2009...will join us for an afternoon in Tacoma!
Her talk will focus on the costs of wars, and relationships among wars in the Middle East.
We’ll discuss what these costs are, in ways that everyone shares concerns: Dwindling jobs, health care and education, globally. And of course, what people are doing and planning in response to economic changes. Community building seems to be on the agenda.
KING’S BOOKS
218 St Helen’s Ave
Tacoma, WA 98402
(253-272-8801) read more »
New era for coffeehouses rooted in anti-war tradition
By Jon R. Anderson - Staff writer, Army Times
Posted : Sunday Mar 7, 2010 12:55:44 EST
LAKEWOOD, Wash. — Seth Manzel is not your typical peacenik.
An Iraq veteran with an ash-black crucifix tattoo on his forearm, he wears his hair short, as if he were still an infantry squad leader. At home, he has a safe full of guns. At work, he’s the strong-arm night guard for a rough-and-tumble motel.
But by day, he helps run a coffee shop just outside Fort Lewis, where war fighters mingle with anti-war activists over hot brew and heated discussion. read more »
Call for a Global Leaders Forum
International Civil Society Statement ahead of the 2010 G-20 Leaders Summit in Toronto
The world urgently needs democratic and global decision-making that puts the international economic and financial system at the service of equity, economic and social justice, human rights, and environmental sustainability. A forum recognized as legitimate and credible by all will be far more effective in addressing today's critical global issues.
Health is the Tipping Point to Identify and Eliminate GMOs
Are Americans willing to jeopardize their health with GMO foods?
The Poor, The Pre-Schoolers, and The Pope
They figured out how to do it compassionately and that comes as a great relief to the poor being served by Catholic Charities of Washington D.C.
Coalition of the Shilling
On February 25 journalist Thomas Ricks published an important scoop on his blog at ForeignPolicy.com: Army Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, had requested keeping a brigade in northern Iraq beyond President Obama's deadline for the withdrawal of combat forces. The timing of the story was intriguing. Just two days earlier, Ricks had published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for US troops to remain in Iraq long term.
Elections Don’t Justify Iraq War
Years after the debate was seemingly settled on the folly of the Iraq War, some in the media are using the recent Iraqi parliamentary elections to excuse the invasion.
HR 4789 and The Public Option: The Way Forward
Health care reform -- here's where we are. The House of Representatives is about to vote on a Senate bill without a public option. It looks like the reconciliation amendment will not have a public option. The House bill had a public option, but once the House passes the Senate bill, that's history.
Progressive Senators Fight for Real Reform
Headlines blared that Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd was done with dithering and ready to move ahead with a financial reform package without Republican support. Financial reform groups should be celebrating this as a positive move that would roll back some of the worst elements of the bill inserted during recent bipartisan negotiations, including the nutty effort to put the Consumer Financial Protection Agency into the
New Rule: Let's Not Fire the Teachers When Students Don't Learn - Let's Fire the Parents
New Rule: Let's not fire the teachers when students don't learn - let's fire the parents. Last week President Obama defended the firing of every single teacher in a struggling high school in a poor Rhode Island neighborhood. And the kids were outraged.
Corporate Earmarks: Free Market, Indeed!
In all the partisan jockeying around whether or not to ban some or all Congressional earmarks, a small detail has been overlooked—the fact that Congress gives away some $1.7 billion per year in completely unaccountable, uncompetitive, sweetheart deals to private industry.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Governing
It would be a gigantic mistake to believe that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or anyone else of prominence in today's Democratic Party actually gives a damn about the fate of the American people.
But it's not such a stretch to imagine that they might care about their own political careers. I think the Founders of the American republic had this in mind when they wrote their blueprint for representative government, in which a politician's fate would be tied to their popularity with voters.
Timetable for Health Bill Passage (w/o Public Option) Locks In
The debate about health care reform is finally getting serious.
How serious?
President Obama, who rarely if ever allows anything to get in the way of his international sojourning, is delaying his trip to Guam.
At the same time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, is saying finally -- and presumably definitionally -- that there will be no public option in the legislative package that reshapes the American health-care system.
Democrats Continue War Against the Public Option
The good news is that Democrats might have to include some form of student loan reform in the reconciliation bill to meet the cost-saving requirements of their reconciliation instructions. From Politico:
The Senate parliamentarian notified Democratic leaders that, in order to meet the reconciliation requirements, both the Senate health and finance committees would need to produce $1 billion in deficit savings each over the next 10 years, Conrad said.
In Kansas City, School's Out
Twenty-nine out of 61 Kansas City, Missouri, schools will soon be shuttered in a desperate bid by the struggling school district to stave off bankruptcy. At the same time, close to one-quarter of the city's school employees will lose their jobs.
Citizens take on DC Government over Tax Giveaways to Defense Contractor Northrop Grumman
--DC City Councilman Marion Barry, March 10 in a telephone interview
Palestinians Should Now Declare Their Independence
Could the Israeli government make it any more obvious they have no intention of sharing the Over-Promised Land with its other inhabitants?
Welcome to America, Sucker
Every great American boom and bust makes and breaks its share of crooks. The past decade -- call it the Ponzi Era -- has been no different, except for the gargantuan scale of white-collar crime. A vast wave of financial fraud swelled in the first years of the new century. Then, in 2008, with the subprime mortgage collapse, it crashed on the shore as a full-scale global economic meltdown. As that wave receded, it left hundreds of Ponzi and pyramid schemes, as well as other get-rich-quick rackets that helped fuel our recent economic frenzy, flopping on the beach.
Atomic Atolls
John Anjain, then-mayor of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, told me in 1981 how a man working with the Atomic Energy Commission in February 1954 stuck out the tip of his index finger - about a half-inch - and said, "John, your life is about that long." When asked what he meant, the AEC man explained that they wer
Houston's Death Penalty Hullabaloo
Harris County Texas is the death penalty capital of the democratic world. It accounts for about 1 percent of the U.S. population but has carried out nearly 10 percent of the country's executions since 1976. So when a state district judge in Houston, Kevin Fine, unexpectedly ruled Texas's capital punishment procedures unconstitutional last week, it was a shot heard 'round the world.