“In respect of civil rights,” wrote Justice John Harlan, “all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful." Well, at least that’s so on paper. In reality, it’s not true for the penniless, for the working poor and transient, for those marginalized over skin color, religion,…
One of the most fascinating events I’ve ever experienced was a climate conference several years ago at the University of Texas. There I observed the constant struggle between science and the special interests that have but one task to achieve: seed doubt about the science. I saw Texas-based climate scholars say what…
I’ll never forget Sen. Phil Gramm, the staunch fiscal hawk and self-proclaimed budget-balancer, telling me how it was just fine for the Reagan administration to enact the nation’s largest peacetime military buildup without raising taxes to pay for it. Borrowing, he said, was the American way. “You do it for your house, don’t you?”…
Back in the ’70s as a reporter for the college newspaper, I went to a faculty nutrition expert for a story about hunger in America. Sounded relevant, right? Well, “hunger” had barely escaped my lips before the professor turned the pretext of my visit around. Not to dismiss hunger, he said,…
When fire hoses sent black bodies skidding and writhing along the sidewalks of Birmingham in 1963, a lot of white people, high and dry, nodded, “Well, if that’s what it takes to keep the peace . . . “ And so it goes, 51 years later: different police-tactic horrors, but the same nodding of…