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 Thursday's print edition.
Rail to Lakewood: Make it work – and look good
Sound Transit appears to be avoiding plans that would have done the most damage to Pacific Avenue traffic and the Dome District.
Sound Transit’s rail connection from the Tacoma Dome to Lakewood could have inflicted serious and lasting damage on downtown Tacoma. Now it looks as if the damage will be minimized – thanks to people who cared enough to do something about it.
Most of the 8.2-mile Dome-to-Lakewood route is uncontroversial: The Sounder trains will simply run on existing tracks. The potential for harm lay in the 1.2 miles of new tracks that are to link Tacoma Dome Station to freight tracks just past the Rescue Mission.
This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.
A happy outcome for worker rights
A U.S. Supreme Court decision provides needed protection
for workers who cooperate with sexual harassment investigations.
One would think that federal law protected a person who cooperated with investigators looking into sexual harassment claims.
But one would have been wrong – until Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Incredibly, a federal appeals court had ruled that civil rights law protected the person who brought the sexual harassment claim – but not a co-worker who provides information supporting the claim.
Today's report that Russell Investments is cutting its global workforce by 20 percent – with perhaps 200 jobs disappearing in Tacoma – is a double whammy.
It's not only a loss of payroll for the community. Local nonprofit groups accustomed to generous grant support from Russell will suffer, too.
Unannounced, but certainly no secret, is the company's decision to drastically curtail its charitable contributions. The company will refocus its charitable giving on "financial literacy" efforts.
In "decline" letters that went out recently to local non-profits seeking grants, Julia Garnett, the company's corporate giving manager, explained:
The City of Tacoma has done a good job working with Sound Transit to minimize a new rail line’s damage to the Dome District and Pacific Avenue traffic.
The U.S. Supreme Court made the right call in a case involving a woman fired after answering questions in a sexual harassment investigation. It ruled that she should be protected against retaliation, even though she isn’t the one who brought the lawsuit.
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.
In his Washington Post blog, Comic Riffs, Michael Cavna writes that he's noticed something about political cartoonists who depict President Barack Obama: many are "bizarrely obsessed" with his lips. He writes:
For every Steve Benson or Mike Luckovich who is zeroing in on a swell, spot-on Obama, there seems to be a cartoonist who invokes “caricature” in the most grotesque sense of the word. Obama’s lips have been rendered in such unnatural tints, and at such dimensions, that somewhere, even R. Crumb would blush. And of course, this physical area of caricature — unlike, say, Obama’s ears — comes freighted with a legacy of racism and cruel, blackface-era mockery.
I hadn't really noticed that as I plow through the cartoons that come in every day. If anything, I get the feeling that the cartoonists overly emphasize Obama's ears (like in the Scott Stantis cartoon above).
Cartoonist Taylor Jones discusses drawing Obama in Obama 101. His comments include ones like this:
As subjects go, Obama is easy to caricature. I wish he were genuinely funny, but at least it’s easy to capture his “essence” on paper. His eyes are dramatic. Not because he’s particularly expressive, like a comic actor, but because his eyes are framed by strong eyebrows and fringed with dark eyelashes.
