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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My hat is off to any of these demonstrators who were on the streets in the past protesting the 4,000-plus rockets Hamas fired at Israel before Israel finally fired back a few days ago.
By being as quick to condemn the violence of Hamas, they've shown principle, consistency and commitment to genuine peace.
Some of these guys were out carrying signs against Hamas a few weeks ago, weren't they?
This will appear in Sunday's print edition.
Welcome to 2009. The dawn of a new year is a chance to begin again, and in that spirit, we offer our civic agenda.
Every December, the News Tribune's editorial board weighs its priorities for the coming year and identifies the objectives its members consider essential to improving the South Sound for the people who live here.
For us, it's a chance to revisit our values and reprioritize them to reflect the previous 12 months' successes and failures and what's happening in the region.
For readers, it's a window on the priorities that will drive the editorials that appear on this page the rest of the year.
Our hopes for 2009, like those of many News Tribune readers, are shaped by the sorry state of the economy.
Tough times call for a renewed focus on fundamentals, and we can't think of two more urgent priorities than educating our citizenry and helping neighbors in need. Neither are new to our civic agenda, but we're giving them prominence this year.
Here's our 2009 civic agenda in full.
Reaction to this week's court ruling that Louisiana must list two adoptive fathers on the birth certificate of a boy adopted by a same-sex couple falls into one of two camps. Either people are outraged that a federal court is foisting gay adoption on a socially conservative state, or they cheer the court's intervention as a blow for adoptive parents' and gay rights.
Missing from that debate is any discussion of the adopted child's rights. Once Louisiana amends a birth certificate, the original is sealed – and stays that way. Such is adoption law in most U.S. states. This child will have no legal prerogative to the most fundamental government record bearing his name, even as an adult. I wonder why that doesn't rile people like the thought of adopted parents being denied their place on a legal document.
Sometimes news comes in the mail.
What looked like another fundraising pitch in the holiday mail turned out to be just the prelude to one: The YWCA of Pierce County plans to move its women's shelter -- but not very far.
Now located at 405 Broadway in downtown Tacoma, the shelter operation will be moved a block uphill to the Wilsonian apartment building at South Fourth Street and St. Helens Avenue.
The move to the larger building will allow the YWCA to increase the number of beds by 50 percent, and each resident family will have its own kitchen and bathroom. The current shelter for domestic violence victims is already the county's largest.
The building purchase is in the works. A $1.65 million capital campaign comes next.
This just in: Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson are among the many who are sick of being celebrities.
They are not sick of the money, or the movie parts, or the VIP treatment, they just don’t want their personal lives to be the focus of attention, which is why they have recently done a host of interviews with almost every major news organization.
Jennifer Aniston even posed nude for the cover of GQ Magazine essentially saying, “Now that I have your attention leave me alone.”
Last month Aniston had her picture taken in an evening gown on a beach in the middle of the afternoon for Vogue Magazine. I imagine she waited until the stylist and two hairdressers backed away from the shot and said with girl next-door earnestness, “I just want to be treated like everyone else.” Click, Click.
Girl, I hear you. It’s not easy being famous.
