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Pesticide testing on kids

I’m whopper-jawed. I’m stunned. I’m sick. I’m disgusted. I’m fuming. If you thought that you could no longer be shocked by anything the Bush administration does, you’ve obviously not heard of the latest inhuman, totally depraved, appalling bit of evil coming out of Bush’s EPA. These so-called environmental and health protectors have proposed a new […]

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Evangelical environmentalism

It’s obvious to even a casual observer that the Lord works wonders in mysterious ways. Just ask Jim Inhofe. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who chairs the U.S. Senate’s environment committee, is the favorite pet of corporate polluters whose industrial emissions are cited by scientists as the leading cause of global warming. Not only has Inhofe […]

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Another corporate captive

While liberal and conservative groups alike are poring over the record of Judge Sam Alito to decipher where he stands on Roe v. Wade, who are those guys over in the shadows, grinning from ear to ear? Ah, those are the executives and lobbyists of corporate America, and they don’t care whether Bush’s new Supreme […]

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A Thanksgiving connection

It’s Thanksgiving Day — have you hugged a farmer yet? Actually, we need to do a lot more than hug those family farmers who bring us such a bounty of good food, for they’ve become endangered species in the Brave New AgWorld of industrialized, conglomeratized, and globalized food production that our policy-makers are pushing. Thanks […]

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No gap, no letting go

A veteran Springfield teacher expressed frustration as she left the Nov. 14 forum on “Closing the Achievement Gap”: “We’re already doing so much of what they suggested, but we’re not closing the gap.” A school official was defensive, claiming that the district is already doing what it needs to do to close the gap between […]

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Best ideas since sliced bread

Have you heard of Otto Rohwedder? He’s the guy who perfected the bread slicer, back in 1928. Well, if you can come up with the best idea since sliced bread, it could be worth $100,000 to you. That’s the top prize being offered in a unique and useful competition sponsored by the Service Employees International […]

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A community and its bookstore

In most American towns, chamber-of-commerce booster types measure the town’s status by whether it has such corporate symbols as a Wal-Mart or McDonald’s. For me, however, the true measure of a town’s vitality comes down to whether it has three noncorporate essentials: a vibrant farmers’ market, a good local pub, and an independent community-based bookstore. […]

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Impeach Bush

With that twisted macho smirk of his, George W. Bush keeps telling us that he’s a “war president.” So how’s the chief doing? Let’s do Bush by the numbers: • Number of American troops killed so far in his war of lies in Iraq: 1,987, and rising daily. • Number of wounded: 14,755, and rising. […]

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Is this war really necessary?

As I read 1776, the best-selling introduction to the Revolutionary War by historian David McCullough, I kept hoping the American colonists and their British cousins would find a better way to settle their differences. When King George III made his case for war before Parliament, arguing that “the spirit of the British nation” is too high […]

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