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.
To make mental illness an excuse for criminality would stigmatize all the mentally ill as potential criminals.
Credit Washington state’s tight insanity defense for the conviction of Douglas S. Chanthabouly.
The jury’s verdict Wednesday closed a criminal case that traumatized Tacoma as much as anything since Tacoma’s then-police chief, David Brame, shot his wife and himself in 2003.
Chanthabouly’s killing of 17-year-old Samnang Kok on Jan. 3, 2007, was so deeply upsetting because it happened inside Foss High School, where both were students. It was like a lightning strike. Foss is not a violent school in a crime-plagued neighborhood; if this could happen at Foss, it could conceivably happen anywhere.
This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.
The new assessor-treasurer seems to want to cement his indictment of his predecessor, but there is nothing more to be gained.
Shame on Ken Madsen, Pierce County’s former assessor-treasurer, for not doing the property inspections required of his office. Double shame on him for lying to the state about it.
Now that that’s out of the way, can the county’s new assessor-treasurer focus his attention on the business at hand? Dale Washam, in office just three months, risks getting derailed in a bullheaded pursuit of an already vanquished foe.
To say Washam doesn’t like Madsen would be an understatement. After losing two elections to Madsen, Washam tried to get him thrown out of office. That effort failed, but Washam won in the end.
In a surprise upset last November, Washam beat out three more qualified candidates for Madsen’s open position. Then he promptly produced evidence of what he had been alleging for years: that Madsen allowed his office to skip physical inspections of county properties required by state law.
Vindication tastes good, and Washam apparently wants a couple more helpings.
Something about the Web seems to bring out the stupidity lurking in the hearts of all young men.
Arrests made after Maine arson shows up on YouTube
WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) — Police in Maine say seven teens and young adults have been arrested after a video was posted on YouTube that showed them setting off Molotov cocktails inside a vacated building and then rolled credits naming those involved.
Waterville police say the suspects, who range in ages from 14 to 20, broke into in a former Boys and Girls Club through a window. Police seized the YouTube video showing the group making and throwing the devices, which exploded and caused flames as high as 20 feet.
Police say the video, which has since been taken off the video-sharing Web site, showed the faces of the suspects as well as text naming those pictured. Each is charged with arson and burglary.
