Not far from La Jolla, California, lies some of the vast undeveloped land left along the coast of fast-growing San Diego County. Pardee Construction, the Weyerhaeuser subsidiary that owns the central portion of the land, plans to turn it into a suburban neighborhood. But local environmental activists believe it should serve a more valuable purpose: The area forms a corridor Read More ›
Test yourself: who was he? In most ways he was a self-made man, a well-to-do farmer from Missouri who assisted other frontiersmen on the Oregon Trail. Most noteworthy, he was the determinative leader of the first pioneer settlement in Puget Sound country in 1845. His homesteading helped the United States establish the future national identity of this whole region. One Read More ›
For all of you who have been wringing your hands over Seattle’s supposed loss of its “soul,” the federal government may have an answer that’s almost too good to bear. By proposing to break up Microsoft, the Justice Department and 17 state attorneys general are offering to help the company’s hometown find at least temporary solutions to some of its Read More ›
Why is there so much “mistrust” of government and political institutions? The University of Washington’s Graduate School of Public Affairs has been asking this question in a series of provocative public discussions this winter. Many explanations are offered, including lack of sufficiently stringent ethics reforms or, on the contrary, too many misguided reforms; jaundiced media coverage of politics; the expanding Read More ›
Passions over school reform are running high in this state and could wind up splitting the ever wobbly majority of people who support education. Properly channeled, however, the enthusiasm generated by proponents of two initiatives–I-173, the school voucher proposition, and I-177, the public charter schools proposition–could inaugurate a new age of educational progress. The opportunity is in the hands of Read More ›
Thanks to the wisdom of the pundits, one can know the outcome of the 1996 presidential election 10 months early. A preliminary hint: Voters are wasting their time. As the candidates kick off three solid months of primary campaigns—very-early primaries, earlier-than-thou primaries and who’s-on-first party caucuses preceded by highly consequential and rigged party straw votes — followed by five months Read More ›
How much of your income–or anyone’s income–do you think governments from all levels should take? In a recent Reader’s Digest survey, Americans of all backgrounds overwhelmingly selected the figure of 25 percent. In truth, we are far past that amount. Indeed, high taxes have become one of the main reasons that Americans find it so hard to get ahead and Read More ›
At the recent Internet Law Symposium 95, sponsored by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, noted technology author and pundit George Gilder stated that “[i]n the twenty-first century, all law will be Internet law.” The proof of this statement is the debate already taking place among lawyers, scholars, technologists, and Netizens about security, privilege, and confidentiality in cyberspace. It is common currency Read More ›
GOLIATH IN THE VALE of Elah roared his contempt at the weapons and zeal of David: “Do you think me a dog that you contest me with sticks and stones?” Bill Gates, the Goliath of software, sees himself similarly beset by zealous rivals with risible weapons. Entering his modest second-floor office on the edge of the Microsoft campus on a Read More ›
Presidential candidate Phil Gramm of Texas already seems set to win the lion’s share of Washington state’s 36 delegates to the Republican National Convention in San Diego next summer. This outcome may not be clear at the time of the state GOP precinct caucuses on March 5, let alone at the state’s presidential primary on March 26. But, despite the Read More ›
The great economic debate of 1996 is already roiled by divergent interpretations of budget plans, but now Jack Kemp and the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Policy, which just reported, are attempting to direct top attention to the still more volatile subject of tax reform. The report arrives in a capital stalemated on economic policy. In 1992 the Read More ›
Many years ago, a young psychoanalyst approached The Master for guidance. Replied Mr. Freud directly: “Don’t try to save people. They don’t want to be saved.” Wise counsel for America, as Saddam Hussein continues his game of playing us like a yo-yo. For the issue involved here has come to transcend Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and their locales du Read More ›