Garry B. Trudeau, creator of the comic-strip Doonesbury, is one of your star Boomer celebrities, a self-appointed guru of perpetual ’60s cool. It was Trudeau who invented the jaunty Mr. Butts character that mocks the tobacco companies and the politicians who take their contributions. Today Mr. Butts figures haunt only Republican rallies, despite the annoying fact from the National Library Read More ›
If an established academic truth is challenged by new scientific insights, should authorities allow classroom discussion of such challenges? That was the question many people believe was placed on the national stage by the famous Scopes Trial on evolution in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. Three-quarters of a century later, the questions are the same, only now the issue is whether Read More ›
Ted Van Dyk is a former Washington State resident and a Democrat of national pedigree, who once served as an aide to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, later ran a Democratic policy center and advised Sen. Paul Tsongas in his 1992 presidential bid. These days he gazes balefully over developments in the Whitewater scandal as described in the newspapers that arrive 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 Read More ›
Scott Klug, clean cut and earnest, used to be a reporter for KING-TV in Seattle. He liked to investigate politicians. You would not have suspected that he would wind up in Congress himself one day, but that is what happened. Having returned home to Madison ,Wisconsin, Klug got elected as a Republican to the House of Representatives. Now in Washington, Read More ›
The following anonymous document was delivered to this office by a conscience-stricken participant in a cult of public relations sociopaths that apparently has yet to come to the attention of the FBI, the CIA, CNN or Sally Jesse Raphael. It is reprinted here as a public service. ——————————————————————————– Confidential Update TO: Members of SILLY FROM: Your Leader When we first Read More ›
Could jaywalking contribute to a climate of lawlessness? Could public drunkeness? When a former mental patient wielding a sword on a downtown street can tie up traffic and the police for 11 hours, as happened recently in Seattle, can we see any relevance to our laws on involuntary treatment? The answer is “yes” to all these questions. Increasingly, law enforcement Read More ›
Washington State’s population is growing fast enough that the state seems likely to warrant another Congressional seat (our tenth) when the U.S. Census is taken in April, 2000–only four years from now. But the outcome is sufficiently uncertain that it may depend on what kind of Census the government holds. Will Congress fund a traditional Census that counts each person? Read More ›
Media coverage tends to emphasize presidential politics, but the real center of governmental action these days is on Capitol Hill. The present Congress already has produced more legislative and attitudinal change than any Congress in a quarter of a century. Moreover, the record shows that members of the Republican majority did something their critics cannot honestly deny: they kept their 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 ›