Category Archives: Commentary

Fossil Fools

8/30/2001 – 1:14 pm

I’m speaking to you from the deck of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior in Salem, Massachusetts, a town famous for burning things. Three hundred years ago it was witches, for the last 40 years it’s been coal – 2,000 tons a day, in an electric power plant owned now by Pacific Gas and Electric. Pacific Gas and […]

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The State of Rights

8/23/2001 – 1:13 pm

Perhaps the oldest American argument divides those who believe in the power of a strong federal government and those who believe in decentralization, with power residing, not in Washington, but in the states. Alexander Hamilton, patron saint of the Republican Party, called for a central government, Thomas Jefferson, patron of the Democrats, wanted power dispersed. […]

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What’s in a Name?

8/16/2001 – 1:11 pm

Have you heard of the Patagonian Toothfish? Probably not. It lives far away, in cold water at the bottom of the world, south of Australia, around Antarctica, near the southern tip of South America, the land called Patagonia, which lends its name to the fish. The Patagonian Toothfish is a carnivore, it eats other fish. […]

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The Real Thing

8/9/2001 – 1:10 pm

Carlo Giuliani, the young man killed by police at the recent Group of Eight meeting in Genoa, has been called the “first person to die in anti-globalization protests,” but this is untrue. Any number of people have already be killed by police in developing nations – Indonesia and India, to name two. It’s easy to […]

By floegel | Also posted in Civil Liberty, Economy | Comments (0)

The Summer of Love

8/2/2001 – 1:08 pm

Could this be the summer of love? It is summer. Days are long and sweet, hot and dry. Nights are cool and the sound of engines and car radios drifts through the open window, young people out cruising on the thoroughfares. August is here, yellow heads of goldenrod along the roadside warn of summer’s impermanence. […]

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Chocolate-Covered Slavery

7/26/2001 – 1:06 pm

George W. Bush says globalization is a good thing and anyone who protests against it is an enemy of the poor. Pretty tough talk when he’s behind a 15-foot fence in Genoa. A week later, when the pope, standing right beside him, decries a “tragic fault line” running between rich and poor, Mr. Bush just […]

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High Tide for Us All

7/19/2001 – 1:04 pm

Sometimes you don’t recognize the significance of a date until years later. I’ve been thinking about Friday, December 11, 1992. There was a full moon. Strange things happen when the moon is full, some based in superstition, some based in fact. This story is based in fact. Full moons pull the tide higher, which was […]

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