Much too frequently in America, we bear witness to horrific shootings. We try to make sense of these events and ask ourselves why they happened and how to prevent future tragedies. We call for gun control—anything—to stop the insanity.
President Obama hasn't even begun his second term, yet already he has been ensnared by scandal.
Now that the Egyptian Constitution has been ratified, and after President Mohamed Morsi’s willingness to divest himself of at least some misappropriated powers, I am less inclined to award my “Napoleon the Pig Medal for Grandiosity and Power-Grabbing” to this post-Arab Spring leader.
The medal commemorating George Orwell’s porcine revolutionary-turned-dictator can go to someone else.
Editor’s note: Neal Peirce, a columnist and author who frequently writes about urban affairs, offers his perspective on North Carolina’s new governor.
"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it."
-- Col. Nathan Jessep to Lt. Daniel Kaffee
"A Few Good Men" (1992)
The drumbeat for tax reform in 2013 is growing louder with each passing day, but ask those beating the drums what they mean by reform and you get very different answers.
Having just learned of a more-than-likely name change for Durham Regional Hospital, I felt a little sadness that Durham is to be removed from its name.
Appropriately marking the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, two of the season's Hollywood blockbusters, Quentin Taratino's "Django Unchained" and Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," are about, respectively, slavery and its abolition.
The Office of Charter Schools at the N. C. Department of Public Instruction received 161 letters of intent for potential charter applications later this spring. This signals a tripling of new charter applications this year over 2012 and a continued surge in new charter schools opening across the state.
Where are the screams?
Three Latino juveniles (a boy and two girls) ages 16, 14 and 12 killed a man for his vehicle during Christmas week. Last month, a 13-year-old girl was killed by her 15-year-old brother with a gun belonging to their 18-year-old brother. This same brother with three other Latino juveniles shot and injured other Latinos at a flea market in December. During this same time period many shots were fired at the houses of Latino families and in one case a man was shot as he mowed his grass. These shots came from firearms in the hands of Latino juveniles. Today many of these juveniles are in jail.
A pair of polls out this week shows the dire state the Republican Party finds itself in -- and a way out of the wilderness, should Republicans choose to take it.
No one forced me, but I finally decided it was time to discover what all the business was about Honey Boo Boo.
Even though I've made reference to the show featuring a former beauty tot, now 7, and her family, I'd never actually watched a full episode. I still haven't, but I watched enough to need a jaw adjustment.
Democrats not allergic to arithmetic must know the cost of their "fiscal cliff" victory. When they flinched from allowing all of George W. Bush's tax rates, especially those on middle-class incomes, to expire, liberalism lost its nerve and began what will be a long slide into ludicrousness.
They “disfranchised us, and now we intend to disfranchise them.”
It sounds like what North Carolina Republicans might have said behind closed doors while they were gerrymandering legislative and congressional districts to assure their party’s continuing dominance.
The question consuming Washington right now has nothing to do with the debt ceiling, immigration reform or the composition of President Obama's second-term Cabinet. It's whether Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan should have pulled his limping superstar, Robert Griffin III, from Sunday's game before the young quarterback further injured his tender knee.