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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What do Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps and Popeye have in common besides, of course, superhuman muscles? Well, it turns out they both like “the green stuff.”
Speaking of green stuff, in New Mexico yesterday, the Motor Transportation Division found 1,200 pounds of marijuana packed into cans of labeled spinach. The police estimate the cans of “spinach” were worth $1.5 million.
Stories like this bring attention to just how much the marijuana industry is worth, and in this economic crisis, it has some people reconsidering the marijuana laws.
Like it or not, marijuana is one of the top U.S. cash crops. There are an estimated four million Americans using marijuana on a regular basis. If the government is looking for new tax revenue (and it should), it may want to start looking in the nearest dorm room, frat house, rock concert, four-bedroom/two-bath middle-class suburban home. The truth is that marijuana use crosses all socio-economic lines (although the prison demographic says different, apparently not every group can afford the best lawyers).
This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.
Judges should have the sense to recuse themselves from cases involving their personal interests or those of campaign supporters.
The latest ethical dispute involving state Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders almost knocks the lid off the Groan Out Loud Meter.
It’s part of a much larger question: When should judges recuse themselves from case in which they have a real or apparent self-interest?
The answer should have been obvious in Sanders’ case.
He wrote a Jan. 15 decision that effectively increased the potential penalties a government body must pay to citizens who’ve been wrongly denied access to public records.
The ethical problem: Sanders had a dog in the fight. He had been seeking higher penalties in a records dispute of his own. His decision indirectly increased what the state might have to pay him – by as much as $614,000 in addition to the $18,112 he’d already been awarded.
This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.
Tacomans don’t put on airs. Beware anyone who suggests they start.
Tammy Blount, God bless her, is being taken for a ride.
We’re sorry to have to say it. But there is no other plausible explanation for her plea for a new way to describe Tacoma.
Blount, the city’s professional cheerleader at the Tacoma Regional Convention + Visitor Bureau, says it’s been “suggested” to her by “some folks” that she stop using “grit” or “gritty” to describe Tacoma.
Just who are these people who think Tacoma has outgrown its gritty image? Blount won’t say.
Consider us suspicious.
I have no problem with Barack Obama's decision to allow federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I do have a problem with the way he lumped the previous ban in with actual attempts by the Bush administration to distort science for political ends.
Bush's stem cell policy was a straight-out ethics decision. When he announced it, he showed every sign of having balanced conflicting moral imperatives and reaching what he believed was the best compromise. That isn't the same thing as, say, letting a political appointee lean on NASA's top climate scientist to prevent him from speaking his mind about global warming.
Bush may have come out in the wrong place on stem cells, but his decision was rooted in values that run deeper than politics. If we try to disentangle science from ethics, we're going to be in big trouble.
Richard Sanders’ decision not to recuse himself from a case involving his own interests ties into a pending U.S. Supreme Court case on recusal – that one involving justices who were elected by special interests with cases before the court.
So some anonymous folks think “gritty” is beneath Tacoma? Them’s fighting words.
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.
