We all have our reasons for getting alarmed about the climate crisis. With bare ground at Christmas and no snow on the horizon, my neighbors just got theirs. This Northern Maine valley nestles against the border of Canada – and winter without snow is unfathomable.
When Swedish mechanics working for Tesla walked off the job in late October, their action may not have seemed consequential to most Americans. But, by way of contrast, these workers now powerfully remind us not only of some of the most glaring defects of American labor relations, but also of pathways that can return the U.S. to a greater measure of economic equality and labor justice.
After a rather peaceful respite from Donald Trump’s hate-filled “rallies,” our former president is back on the campaign trail again, spewing his vile, anti-immigrant rhetoric and riling up the masses of Republican voters.
This past year, Writers on the Range, an independent opinion service based in western Colorado, sent out 52 weekly opinion columns. They were provided free of charge to more than 200 subscribing editors of publications large and small, each of whom republished dozens of the columns.
In the streets of Bogalusa, Louisiana, a sadly familiar scene unfolds — the mournful wail of sirens, the piercing flash of blue lights, and another community shaken by the harsh crack of gunfire. This is a recurring nightmare echoing across Louisiana, reflecting a national crisis that grips the heart of America.
In most media coverage of war — including the hell in the Middle East, where World War III looms —the unexamined assumption is that we, the readers, are spectators, looking on as the missiles fly and Good dukes it out with Evil yet again.
American workers made great strides in 2023. Autoworkers, UPS drivers, Kaiser health workers, screenwriters and actors all scored significant gains in earnings and benefits as a result of their respective unions taking tough, assertive stances in strikes and other forms of workplace activism. The agreements emerging from these actions will mean substantial improvements in the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers and their families.
In an article that appears in this week’s Post-Record, the editor of a new anthology of writings by COVID “long-haulers” notes that “long COVID” — the cluster of often debilitating, post-acute infection health issues that have plagued tens of millions of Americans over the past four years is not something we should wish on our friends, family, neighbors or selves.
One of the phrases Camas School District voters may hear more of as the district goes out for replacement levies in the February 2024 special election, is “Safe, Warm and Dry.”
A disgruntled hunter wrote a Writers on the Range opinion recently about Westerners getting fed up with the many out-of-staters coming in and buying up draw licenses to shoot bull elk, deer, bear and other big game animals.
