Make that $1 million a soldier, $1 million a Marine. Or, one sixth of an elementary school. Or one rural fire station. That’s what it will cost to deploy someone to combat in Afghanistan for a year. Time flies. According to White House estimates in the New York Times, three…
DetailsWhat American researchers were finding up in the Rockies over the summer put a new twist on “purple mountains’ majesty.” Try, pink, or tan, or just brown where it should have been white — white as snow. That’s what they were examining: snow with an ominous glaze of dust that had…
DetailsOver the river, through the woods, to my house they go. Sweet potatoes. Up the interstate, along the Front Range, marched up the sidewalk, ringing at the door bell. Sweet potatoes. The horror. This being our first Thanksgiving back in the brisk Mountain West, where the holiday actually nudges up to the bounds of Currier…
DetailsIf 5,000 Canadians froze to death trudging across the snow fields of northern Minnesota to find work, how would you respond? Would you say, (a) “They deserved it. They broke the law.” (b) “What a horror. Pass the french toast.” (c) “We need to build a wall.” That many people have died…
DetailsIt’s not “‘Jon and Kate Plus Eight Attorneys.” It’s not, “on ‘Oprah,’ Sarah Palin unveils her road map for world peace.” That an American probe just discovered water on the moon is not big news, judging by what one hears. Still, you’d think we’d be hearing a lot about it. I’m not talking about the fact…
DetailsYou know a Republican primary is approaching when, like leaves falling in the wind, candidates drop nuanced positions on reproductive rights and lie prostrate before blustery anti-choice absolutists. That’s the case in Texas, where Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison seeks to return home to redecorate the governor’s mansion. Thematically, to that end she…
DetailsIn case you missed it, Allen Stanford is to be a knight no more. The Texas quick-buck baron is going to have his knighthood stripped by Antigua and Barbuda. Quite a fall for the guy — Sir Allen to you and me. He’d be a saint if a Caribbean nation were…
DetailsEver since it became a boil on the face of news gathering, I’ve been waiting for someone, anyone, to truly and convincingly defend Fox News — Faux News to those of us who defend news gathering as a craft verging on a profession. I keep waiting and waiting. But at every opportunity the apologists…
DetailsI remember being at many enjoyable places with my grandfather, M.K. Young. But I knew his favorite place, regardless of locale: the fence line. Wherever he was, he went to the stranger next door. Whatever the circumstance, he struck up a conversation. In the campground. In a son’s neighborhood. At a roadside stop.…
DetailsThis nation still can’t decide if war is a joint responsibility we all share, or if it’s something we hire out, like catering. Eight years in Afghanistan, six in Iraq, and we still treat warfare as just one of many service industries. The Bush administration ban on photographing coffins returning…
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