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 Wednesday's print edition.
Take a closer look at safety of packed-in residences
Two fires within six days should be of concern to authorities. It isn’t even firecracker season yet.
It’s been said that once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern.
After two destructive fires in close-quarters residential developments within a six-day period, Pierce County is still at the coincidence stage. The challenge is to make sure such fires don’t becoming a pattern – one that could be fatal next time.
This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.
Skip the demagoguery over the AIG bonuses
Congress had its fingerprints all over the plan that let AIG pass out big checks to the engineers of toxic assets.
Congress appears to be tempering its feigned fury over the AIG bonuses reported a week and a half ago. That’s good, but let’s first give the public’s genuine fury its due.
AIG deserved the pillory for the way it passed out $165 million in “retention bonuses” to executives and employees in its financial products division – after receiving $182 billion in taxpayer bailout money. Among the recipients of that loot were some of the very wizards who helped engineer the worldwide financial crisis.
AIG’s theory, basically, was that it had to hang on to the inventors of the infamous “toxic assets” so they could cut the right wires on those infernally complex time bombs.
The $165 million may be budget dust in the scheme of things, but last week it became the symbol of everything responsible Americans rightly resent about the present predicament.
This editorial appears in Tuesday's print edition.
Give the mountain back its rightful Indian name
Long before Capt. George Vancouver explored the Pacific Northwest and showered English names on the scenery, the region’s Indians had their own names for the rivers, shores and mountains they cherished.
To honor that heritage, some are proposing that Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia be formally referred to – collectively – as the Salish Sea.
That’s a good idea. Aside from providing a needed umbrella term for these inland waters, it would pay some overdue respect to the Native Americans whose languages were stripped from the geography along with their claims to possess it.
But don’t stop there. Let’s also reconsider the decision not to call the Northwest’s chief landmark, “Mount Rainier,” what at least some of the region’s Indians called it: Mount Tacoma.
