This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.
Iraqi officials reportedly drove a hard bargain on the U.S. withdrawal they've just negotiated with American diplomats.
To which we say: Let them take advantage of us as much as they want, if it gets our troops out of Iraq more quickly.
The proposed new security pact – which was approved Sunday by the Iraqi cabinet – calls for a complete pullout of American forces by the end of 2011.
The combat drawdown would happen much faster. Some restrictions on U.S. military operations would take effect Jan. 1, and American troops would be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by June 30. U.S. casualties, which have already dropped dramatically in recent months, would be brought down further when Americans are no longer entangled in urban warfare.
Can the Iraqi military assume control of the deadly streets of Baghdad and Mosul so quickly? Iraqi leaders think so, and that's what matters. It is, after all, their country.
Iraqi officials reportedly drove a hard bargain on the U.S. withdrawal they've just negotiated with American diplomats. To which we say: Let them take advantage of us as much as they want, if it gets our troops out of Iraq more quickly.
Superior Court judges seem to be sustaining their progress toward reducing an inefficient and unjust backlog of felony cases.
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.
And who doesn't have an organ or two that needs replacing?
By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical WriterLONDON (AP) — Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs.
“This technique has great promise,” said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done.
If successful, the procedure could become a new standard of treatment, said Genden, who was not involved in the research.
The results were published online Wednesday in the medical journal, The Lancet.
The transplant was given to Claudia Castillo, a 30-year-old Colombian mother of two living in Barcelona, suffered from tuberculosis for years.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jonestown:
By Michael Shermer
Special to the Los Angeles Times
Thirty years ago in the jungles of Guyana, Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple cult, ordered the mass suicide or murder of more than 900 of his own followers by inducing them to imbibe cyanide-laced punch or by lethal injection. He had controlled nearly all information coming into the group and warned them daily that “they” (the government, imperialists, greedy capitalists, etc.) were the enemy.
So when Rep. Leo Ryan and his investigative team showed up in Guyana, Jones’ followers were primed to believe that “they” were coming to destroy them and had to be stopped. After the congressman and others in his party were killed, Jones told cult members that “they” would now really come down on them, and their only choice was to move on to the next stage of life.
Although some members tried to escape (and were shot), and some members were forced to drink the poison, most got caught up in the contagion of the moment and voluntarily took their own lives and those of their children. You can hear it in the screams and voices of their final moments, captured on tape, as Jones eggs them on:
