Citizen Leadership

Hollywood once produced many technically mediocre movies that were redeemed by morally upbeat messages. Today the craft of film-making is awe inspiring, but the sensibility is often pernicious. Take three leading contenders for Oscars, “The English Patient,” “The People vs. Larry Flynt” and “Evita.” All three films display adroit writing, acting and editing. And all three use the bedazzling tricks Read More ›

He retired from the Seattle City Council three years ago and sold the family’s pharmacy on Capitol Hill soon afterwards, but he has not retired from his work with streetcars. At least one early morning a week, you will find George Benson, 78, down on the waterfront picking up trash along the tracks or over at the car barn shining Read More ›

There is only one way to avoid future brawls over ethics in Congress like the ones going on now, and it is not–as GOP Congresswoman Sue Myrick from North Carolina has proposed–to make it a crime to “lie” in campaign ads or on the floor of Congress. When such a law is passed, Congressmen will be arresting each other literally Read More ›

A London music hall ditty of some years past goes,Shakespeare Sidebar —“Shakespeare dead? Poor old Will! Why, I never knew the old fellow was ill!” But he is ill, at least in a majority of the universities of America, where a new report shows that even English majors no longer are required to take a course on one of the Read More ›

The imminent often takes precedence over the important in life, but especially now in our politics. Instead of coming up with a list of New Year’s Resolutions for 1997, it appears that our public leaders are putting together a list of New Year’s Irresolutions. At the top of the list is Social Security reform. The advisory council on Social Security Read More ›

If you have followed Newt Gingrich’s bout with his critics and the House Ethics Committee you have noticed that while the issue seems a muddle of legal technicalities, the common assumption in news stories is that the speaker misused tax0exempt money to teach a partisan college course. But is that true, or is the situation possibly very different? Few people Read More ›

He wouldn’t fit in, and maybe he shouldn’t wish to. I was going to tell him that earlier, but didn’t want to seem a killjoy. If Norm Rice had ambitions to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who was I to argue against it? But after some gossip in the White House tried to throw cold water on Read More ›

As Hawaii is blessed with beautiful weather, Seattle enjoys an abundant efflorescence of technology innovation. We hear about it every day, but few understand where it came from. Bill Gates Jr. (the prominent attorney, not his still more prominent son), knows we didn’t exactly deserve the blessings of our Silicon Forest, but he is eager that we take care to Read More ›

Memo to Canadians: We certainly did not mean to insult you, so before the story gets out on your side of the border, please accept our assurances that it was all just a mistake. And come see us soon, y’hear? Memo to U. S. border states tourist industry: No, your government is not trying to make your life more difficult; Read More ›

We have all grown up with that picture of President Harry Truman on the day after his surprise 1948 re-election gleefully displaying the early edition of the Chicago Tribune and its headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The Gallup organization that year stopped polling a week before the election, imagining that Dewey would maintain his six-point lead. In fact, Dewey lost by Read More ›

His political art appears artless. He is a partisan truly loved by colleagues in the opposition party, as well as in his own. Fellow politicians appreciate his unusual habit of giving credit rather than taking it. In four elected offices over a cumulative 32 years, he remains one of the few candidates who promised a voluntary limit on the terms Read More ›

An almost evenly divided federal government is the main product of the Great Stalemate Election of 1996. Either the two parties now will pursue their aims through more fruitless confrontations or they will seek out at least a few areas where statesmanship might serve the best interests of both. The toughness legislative problems facing the country may be Medicare and Read More ›