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This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

You want spooky? Here’s spooky.

Every computer geek in the world knows this already, but non-geeks ought to be aware of the worm called Conficker. This rogue software has infected computers throughout the world by exploiting a chink in Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Computer security experts don’t know who devised it or what it does – other than replicate itself relentlessly on unprotected machines.

Each infected machine has become what is called a “zombie” – a computer that can be secretly controlled through the worm. All of these machines are networked, potentially empowering Conficker’s controllers to make them all work in tandem to wreak some kind of international havoc.

What kind of havoc is anyone’s guess. Many believed Conficker would spring its tricks on April Fool’s day, but it didn’t. Some fear it might suddenly erupt with a tsunami of spam – but that’s just speculation.
What Conficker has mainly done is lurk, like a sleeper agent, on untold millions of computers.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Sunday's print edition.

The first rule of writing a ballot title is to plainly, accurately and neutrally describe what the measure would do.

The second is to give voters the benefit of the doubt.

Pierce County violated the first but observed the second in settling on ballot language for three charter amendments that voters will consider in the November election.

Two critics of those proposed amendments have challenged the county in court, saying the ballot titles are confusing and prejudicial. They are half right.

=> Read more!

David Montgomery, a UW geomorphologist, is an authority on dirt. Don’t laugh. His new book, “Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization,” links the decline of great civilizations to the loss of their soil.

Things are getting worse, he said in an interview posted on the Celsias Web site:

Modern agricultural soil erosion rates are as many as 10-100 times faster than soil creation – a minority of farms are a net soil source, but very few, so we are consuming ourselves to death. It’s like a bank account. If you spend money 10 times faster than you make it, you go broke. Soil is no different.

Tacoma’s City Club plans to host David Montgomery at its Wednesday dinner meeting 6 p.m. at the University of Puget Sound’s Wheelock Rotunda. Call the City Club 272-9561 by noon Monday if you want a seat. (It’s not a cheap date: $30 for non-members.)

I tagged along yesterday for the Tacoma School Board's tour of the new Science And Math Institute (SAMI) at Point Defiance Park and was impressed.

It's not fancy – just a series of recycled portables set up in a gravel lot near the park's go-carts and batting cages. The desks are salvaged, the cabinetry built by district staffers. The computers at least look new.

Come September, the place will be packed with 140 kids who make up SAMI's inaugural class. The school kicks off the year next week with a two-night stay at Black Lake Camp in Thurston County.

The district's latest experiment has a lot to offer a student: the chance to attend class in the great outdoors, the opportunity to hone in-demand math and science skills and the advantage of entering high school at a place where no one is the "new kid."

=> Read more!

The first rule of writing a ballot title is to plainly, accurately and neutrally describe what the measure would do. The second is to give voters the benefit of the doubt. Pierce County violated the first but observed the second in settling on ballot language for three charter amendments that voters will consider in November.

Computer security experts don't know who devised the Conficker worm or what it does – other than replicate itself relentlessly on unprotected machines. It demonstrates the continuing global menace of highly sophisticated malware.

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.

This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

First Amendment rights aren’t trivialities.

Washington’s political parties have legitimate concerns about the erosion of their constitutional right of association under the state’s new Top Two primary. State leaders should be addressing those concerns.

The unusual Top Two system – which simply advances the two leading candidates to the November election, regardless of party – was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. But the decision had caveats.

The court affirmed Top Two in principle but not necessarily in practice. The parties’ grievance with Washington primaries has been twofold: Outsiders are allowed to help choose their November candidates. And candidates are allowed to pose as Democrats, Republicans or whatever, whether the parties like it or not.

That’s “forced association,” which the judiciary has found unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

Is it graffiti, or is it art? And can it be both?

The mural proposed by Urban Grace Church for the back of Tacoma’s Rialto Theater is striking,. The design incorporates elements of both street graffiti and Islamic mosaic pattern in a pleasingly aesthetic way that reflects the church’s commitment to religious diversity.

The mural is light years beyond what many people think of when they hear the word “graffiti” – the indiscriminate “tagging” by young vandals on buildings, fences and railroad cars. Even some of that can be artistic, but when it’s unwanted, it’s vandalism.

In the case of the Rialto mural, the graffiti is wanted. It would be paid for through a $3,000 grant from the City of Tacoma as part of neighborhood beautification efforts and created by Fab-5, a nonprofit organization that mentors young people through media that is relevant to them – such as hip-hop music and graffiti art.

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Blogger/author Diana West takes issue with all the plaudits for Ted Kennedy. She had a similarly jaundiced view upon the passing of newsman Walter Cronkite.

By Diana West

Something about the death of a famous liberal person turns the media into grieving widows whose dictum against speaking “ill” of the dead eliminates all sober analysis of the life in question.

Once, death in the passing parade came to us, more or less, in “just-the-facts, ma’am” obituaries. Now, breaking, live and for the duration, a celebratory loop plays on about even the most mixed and controversial public lives.

Notice I said “mixed” and “controversial,” restrained terminology to describe the life and times of Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose death triggered a media dump of Hallmark-curlicued tributes that all begin with “lion of the Senate” — as though that were his official title — and finish with “the end of Camelot,” as though that were his actual residence, not the tagline of an ancient PR campaign.

Question: How does the 1969 death of Mary Jo Kopechne — whom the married, panicked and first-term Sen. Ted Kennedy left to drown in 7 feet of Chappaquiddick water — apply to the “lion” from “Camelot”?

Answer: It doesn’t.

Remember: Don’t speak ill of the dead. Kennedy fixture Ted Sorensen’s gloss in Time magazine is typical, depicting “the Chappaquiddick incident” as merely ending Kennedy’s “bright prospects for still higher office.”

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.

Maybe it was the lovely summer evening, but the thousands who showed up Tuesday at Lakewood’s Harry Lang Stadium to talk heath care were in a surprisingly good mood.

Congressman Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, booked the stadium after the RSVP list for his town hall meeting outgrew two smaller venues.

Smith’s previous town hall meeting, in late July, drew 300 people, an impressive head count for its time. But town hall meetings have since hit the big time, with the national media attention and the get-out-the-protest campaigns to prove it.

These days, a Democrat who can’t draw a crowd big enough to cause the fire marshal consternation should be worried that voters don’t think he or she matters.

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The subject of our editorial today – outgoing Pierce County Prosecutor Gerry Horne – takes issue with some of the numbers cited.

I wrote, "Today, an estimated 150 to 200 offenders are not being released to Pierce County each year who in earlier years would have been." I picked up those numbers from a Viewpoint by state Sen. Mike Carrell, who was instrumental in getting "fair share" legislation passed in 2007. He cited the prosecutor's office as his source.

Horne argues that the impact is even greater. And he wrote: "I guess we'll have to talk with Sen. Carrell to track down what I believe to be misleading stats."

Here's Horne's take on the numbers:

You indicate that "an estimated 150 to 200 offenders are not being released to Pierce County each year who in earlier years would have been."

Those stats grossly minimize the numbers of prison convicts who were actually sent to Pierce County every year during a 25-year period. Actually, 900 to 1,000 prison convicts had been sent to Pierce County each year to attend state work release programs alone!

=> Read more!

Congressman Adam Smith, moderate that is, told neither side of the health care reform debate exactly what it wanted to hear Tuesday night. His town hall meeting in Lakewood was raucous but only by Northwest standards. Participants were passionate but generally respectful. If only citizens were always so engaged.

The intriguing graffiti mural proposed for Tacoma’s Rialto Theater is a legitimate art form and may discourage vandalism.

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.

Via e-mail exchanges, here's the evolution of the Chris Britt cartoon above honoring the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. A black-and-white version will appear in Thursday's print edition.

Chris, who used to cartoon for us, is now at the State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill. We subscribe to his syndicated cartoons, and he often sends them to me earlier than he sends them to the syndicate, especially on breaking topics.

CHRIS, 9:03 a.m.: I'll have a Kennedy cartoon to you very soon.

ME, 9:06 a.m.: Tasteful, I hope. No sinking VWs (which I expect to get from Ramirez*).

CHRIS, 9:07 a.m.: Very much so. I'm going to have Teddy sailing off in his sailboat. The boat will be labeled "The Lion." Above the visual will be a Teddy quote.

I considered having his brothers and sisters waiting for him in heaven, but there will be loads of those.

Yes, Ramirez will do something like that.

ME, 9:11 a.m.: I think your first instinct is best. Some of the most powerful obit cartoons are very simple.

CHRIS, 9:13 a.m.: OK. That is what I think too. I'll send it to you after lunch. Thanks for the feedback.

I could have Teddy crashing into the pearly gates in his car? (kidding)

* Cartoonist Michael Ramirez, who is likely to come up with a Kennedy cartoon that is, shall we say, less than complimentary.

Bob raises a valid question about our editorial on the allegation that Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Michael Morgan assumed a clerk's online identity to post disparaging comments about his opponents.

Why can't “Christine Faucher” be lying? Just because she asked city officials to investigate doesn't mean she is in the clear. She probably realizes that unless they have a camera pointed at the computer it is impossible to tell who logged on at a specific time. Nothing like throwing out a red herring for the hound dogs to follow...

Anything's possible, but what Bob suggests would be a rather twisted plot. Faucher gets a hold of Morgan's password somehow, sneaks into Morgan's office when he's away, logs in as him, then logs back out, logs back in under the general user account, posts the comments under her name, then cries foul to city officials.

If Faucher had been looking to implicate Morgan, wouldn't she have made the comments while logged into Morgan's account? Or maybe she didn't have his password, but dashed into his office while he was away and logged into the general user account to post the comment?

That would have been quite daring on her part since the city's Internet log shows Morgan would have been away from his computer for only a few minutes. What's more, Faucher (or whoever this imposter was) would have had to sneak into Morgan's office three separate times on Aug. 3 to post two comments to the Federal Way Mirror site and submit a registration for The News Tribune site.

I recommend reading the city's timeline of events, which also offers this interesting tidbit: Someone logged into Michael Morgan's computer as Michael Morgan at 7:18 p.m. on Aug. 3 to look up RCW 42.17.130. The title of that statute? "Use of public office or agency facilities in campaigns."

This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

Federal Way’s Municipal Court is afflicted with more cases of the he-said, she-saids than a nasty divorce.

The latest: Police say they have reason to suspect Judge Michael Morgan assumed the identity of an employee to post online comments critical of two election opponents.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

When an offender is released from a state prison and doesn’t settle down in Pierce County, there’s a decent chance Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney Gerry Horne deserves credit.

Horne, who leaves office Monday after 27 years in the department and nine years in its top job, forged a reputation for seeking justice – for crime victims as well as for the public he served.

He was an early and fierce champion for the concept of “fair share.” After establishing that Pierce County was the state Department of Correction’s favorite dumping ground for released offenders, he worked tirelessly to get legislators on board with the idea that other counties should take back their own offenders.

That’s happening now, thanks to legislation passed in 2007, and Pierce County will be a safer place because of it. Today, an estimated 150 to 200 offenders are not being released to Pierce County each year who in earlier years would have been.

=> Read more!

After posting an editorial last week defending the carbon benefits of four dams some people want removed from the lower Snake River, I found this quaintly worded message in my email:

I'm curious to know where you got the figure that 20% of Washington State's electrical power comes from coal. I looked it up and every source I found has Washington getting around 8% of its energy from coal.

And could we please stop with the stupid straw men.... "Many opponents of the dams brush off the carbon problem." Just who are these many opponents? A few minutes of work with The Google turned up information addressing replacement power for the dams.

There's enough stuff going on in the world to worry about, you don't need to make shit up.

'Oh and you might want to check this website out: http://www.google.com/

It might come in handy when writing future editorials.

The writer, to his credit, signed his name. I was fascinated by the anger; I guess some people really really hate those dams and anyone who speaks up for them. My response:

I get much of my power-data information from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Try this link:

http://www.nwcouncil.org/maps/power/overview.htm

Here's the exact quote:

"About 20 percent of the region’s electricity comes from plants that burn coal, and about 21 percent comes from plants that burn natural gas."

I find it curious that you would call me a liar for using a number you thought I had gotten wrong. I wouldn't call you a liar for citing the 8 percent number. I would assume you'd made an honest mistake.

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Allegations that Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Michael Morgan assumed the online identity of one of his clerks are serious and can’t wait until after the election to be sorted out.

Retiring prosecutor Gerry Horne did well by Pierce County, most notably by getting the state to finally quit contributing to the crime rate by dumping ex-cons here.

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.

This editorial will appear in Tuesday's print edition.

It’s hard to make a rule against stopping just short of breaking the rules. The attitude is offensive, but it’s not an offense.

So maybe no rule can guarantee that what happened to Taylor Mack on Fort Lewis two years ago won’t happen again.

Mack, then a 20-year-old Lacey woman, woke up in a barracks room to discover her face had been beaten to a pulp. Her jaw, nose and an eye socket had been broken. A tooth had been knocked out, and she’d suffered a concussion.

The admitted perpetrator was a newly discharged soldier, Andre John Roberts, 26. According to Mack, she’d been rebuffing Roberts’ advances. She wound up in the room alone with him the night of June 19, 2007, and woke up looking worse than a mauled prizefighter.

What happened then – as reported Sunday by The News Tribune’s Sean Robinson – was an exercise in evading responsibility.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Tuesday's print edition.

The Martin Luther King Housing Development Association is in such sorry shape that it can’t afford to assess its own sorriness.

The nonprofit agency is asking the City of Tacoma for $6,000 to hire an accountant to sort out its books following the departure of its two top administrators. And that’s chump change compared to what it appears it will take to bail out the financially distressed agency.

Association executive director Felix Flannigan and chief financial officer Val Tiller were fired last month for what the board president describes as a combination of unauthorized financial transactions and a lack of financial controls and oversight.

Flannigan might take the fall – and perhaps he deserves it – but association board members also ought to account for why they didn’t intervene sooner.

=> Read more!

I am old enough to remember when the nation learned of the My Lai massacre in 1969.

The fact that U.S. troops had killed so many women, children and elderly Vietnamese was shocking enough. What shocked me more was the response of many Americans, who ferociously defended the massacre. Some of them vilified several soldiers who’d tried to shield the civilians.

The officer on the scene, Lt. William Calley, wound up convicted of multiple counts of premeditated murder. Many believe he was scapegoated by higher-ups. In any case, his conviction again triggered public outrage that anyone would dare second-guess anything U.S. soldiers did in a combat zone.

As it turns out, Calley has done plenty of his own second-guessing over the years. See this account of his remarks at a Kiwanis meeting last Wednesday. Excerpt:

There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai,” Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus on Wednesday. His voice started to break when he added, “I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.

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The Martin Luther King Housing Development Association’s financial crisis doesn’t speak well of either its former executive director Felix Flannigan or the agency's board. Why did it take the board this long to act? Something needs to be done to preserve the association’s affordable housing, but any kind of public bailout should be conditioned on new leadership.

Fort Lewis authorities seriously mishandled the case of a woman whose face was beaten to a pulp by a newly discharged soldier.

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.

An epiphany occurred during a recent oil change and with the help of my auto mechanic I think I may finally have a grasp on the health care crisis.

“While we were under the van we saw something”

“Saw something?” I say to Bill. The name Bill was embroidered on his shirt above the oil smudge.

He clears his throat. “Transmission fluid.”

“Transmission fluid?” I echo back. My faltering voice confirms Bill’s suspicion: This lady don’t know nothin’ about cars.

“Is it fatal?” I ask, knowing my ten-year-old van has already lived past its 200k-mile expiration date, plus it already survived one transmission transplant, could it survive another?

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Monday's print edition.

Washington state has recycling or take-back programs for old computers, old motor oil and old tires. But people with a few extra Vicodin are out of luck.

That’s absurd and has to change. Too many children and teenagers are raiding their parents’ medicine cabinet with dire consequences. Too many drug addicts are turning to prescription drugs for their fix.

The state’s unintentional poisonings have soared nearly 400 percent in recent years – and prescription drugs are the biggest culprit. In King County last year, deaths from prescription drugs surpassed illegal drugs as the leading cause of drug-related deaths.

Those numbers reflect the growing abuse of prescription medications. The Office of National Drug Control Policy found that in 2006, abuse of prescription pain killers ranked second – behind only marijuana – as the nation’s most prevalent illegal drug problem.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

Afghanistan is bleeding America, albeit slowly.

One of the latest NATO casualties in that far-off nation hit close to home. Army 1st Sgt Jose San Nicolas Crisostomo – a 59-year-old Spanaway man – was killed by a roadside bomb in Kabul Tuesday. His death was a grim reminder that the South Sound, with its large military population, has a big stake in the Afghan war.

There’s nothing murky about the cause Crisostomo gave his life for.

Two days after his death, Afghans crowded into polling stations and cast ballots in their nation’s presidential election. Many of those voters were risking their lives. Taliban rebels had threatened to bomb polls and cut off the ink-stained fingers of people who’d defied them.

=> Read more!

As Labor Day approaches, the "town hall meetings" are at last coming to an end. In case you haven’t heard, these meetings between members of Congress and their constituents have seen remarkable protests against the Democrats’ “Obamacare” health care reform bill(s).

There are two opposing interpretations of the significance of these meetings. On the right, folks point to this vociferous protest as evidence that Obamacare is wrongheaded and doomed. On the left, we hear that the protesters are in fact only a well-organized, disruptive minority stirred up by extremist conservative radio hosts.

The truth, of course, lies somewhere between these two analyses. But the truth is nevertheless bad news for Democrats. Why? Because these protesters have moderate “Blue Dog” Democrats in Congress very worried. And without the Blue Dogs, this installation of the health care battle will halt (see “Whence the Blue Dogs?").

The reaction of Congressman Allen Boyd, D-Fla., to the protesters is telling. “They may be in a minority, but they are a larger minority than we’ve seen in the 20-plus years that I’ve been doing this,” Boyd said in response to angry Obamacare opponents who shouted, booed and handed him a stack of "pink slips." “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he concluded.

Boyd has been in Congress for two decades, and he fully intends to stay there, "pink slips" notwithstanding. That means he will vote against Obamacare. And he will probably be joined by 40 or 50 more Democrat moderates.

For some reason, our president decided to roll the dice and try to force a health care bill in the middle of a major economic downturn. He wanted the bill passed before Congress' August recess to avoid exactly the kind of protests we have seen over the past three weeks.

It didn’t work.

Many still believe that President Obama is a brilliant politician whose policy expertise and oratorical skills will restore hope and bring change we can believe in. But increasingly this assumption appears to be overly generous. It is entirely possible that our president does not know what he is doing and that he is in way over his head.

For Sunday: Army 1st Sgt. Jose San Nicolas Crisostomo – a 59-year-old Spanaway man – was killed by a roadside bomb in Kabul Tuesday. There’s nothing murky about the cause he gave his life for.

For Monday: Washington is fortunate to have a public-private partnership that has collected thousands of pounds of old medications since 2006. But it is stymied by a federal policy that bars such take-back programs from accepting controlled substances.

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.

Surprise winner emerges from Afghanistan's presidential election: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

Given the specter of climate change, 1,000 megawatts of carbon-neutral power – enough to power all of Seattle – are a precious commodity.

Somehow, that fact seems lost on the people who remain bent on breaching the four hydroelectric dams on the Lower Snake River.

Once again, U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D- Seattle, has offered Congress a bill designed to expedite the effective dismantling of those dams, which do in fact routinely generate 1,000 megawatts and can more than triple that to meet spikes in demand. McDermott wants to empower the Army secretary to remove the earthen portions of the dam to give salmon easier passage up and down the river.

Congress already has the power to breach the dams or tear them out entirely; this bill is a ploy to yank that decision from the democratic process.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

Talk about an extreme makeover.

The building at 14511 West Thorne Lane S.W. in Lakewood used to be a biker bar that created its share of headaches for local police. Now it’s a youth center – a big trade up for the Tillicum community, especially the youngsters who get a fun place to hang out.

Tacoma Area Youth for Christ has performed a tremendous public service by transforming the former Wander In tavern into the 3,000-square-foot Tillicum Youth and Family Center in the low-income neighborhood outside Fort Lewis.

The organization, which also bought and renovated four nearby duplexes for staff housing, has raised about half the money to pay for the $1.6 million project and welcomes donations.

Few communities in Pierce County need this kind of center more than Tillicum, where at least 90 percent of youngsters receive free or low-cost meals at school.

=> Read more!

Keven Rojecki, who’s running one of the slickest campaigns for the Tacoma City Council I’ve ever seen, has broadcast a press release that begins:

TACOMA – Over the weekend in a one day city-wide food drive Tacoma firefighters and City Council candidate and firefighter Keven Rojecki raised 1,428 pounds of food for Tacoma’s local FISH Food Banks. In addition, over $2400 worth of food in cash contributions was raised to benefit the food bank.

Well, fine. I can’t begrudge any candidate a little self-promotion. That’s what running for office is all about, right?

But here’s how the press release ends:

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There's a strange disconnect between some environmentalists' concern for global warming and their desire to shut down four carbon-neutral Snake River dams that provide 5 percent of the Northwest's power.

From biker bar to youth center: Now that’s an extreme makeover worth applauding in the low-income Lakewood community of Tillicum.

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.

Readers of the print edition are familiar with the grizzled face of regular contributor Richard S. Davis, who also writes for this blog. But now he's shaved his beard, and he looks completely different. Actually, now he looks a lot like Larry "Curb Your Enthusiasm" David.

I pointed out the resemblance to him when he e-mailed his new mug shot.

"It looks to me like Larry needs a haircut, but I do see
the resemblance," Dick writes. "I realized last week that the beard I'd grown to make me look older back in the day was now doing its job waaay too well."

To see Dick's new look, and to compare him to Larry David, click on READ MORE. Dick is on the left, in case you have trouble telling them apart.

Now if I can only talk Bill Hall into losing the beard . . .

=> Read more!

Twitter makes it easier for you to find out when we post something new to Inside the Editorial Page. Follow us at twitter.com/tntopinion.

You can also see what people are saying on our Chatter Box line by following twitter.com/tacomachatter.

Twenty-five dollars a ballot.

That's how much it cost Pierce County to keep the polls open in yesterday's election. Auditor Jan Shabro proposed going to an all-mail election to help save money, but the County Council insisted on preserving the in-person option.

Roughly 3,000 voters marked their ballots at polling sites, which cost the county $75,000 to operate. That's a paltry 5 4 percent of Tuesday's paltry turnout.

Meanwhile, the Pierce County budget is bleeding red ink.

Perhaps we do need the Legislature to save us from ourselves.

This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.

Pierce County voters largely got away with sitting out Tuesday’s election.

Turnout for the August runoff stood at a little more than 14 percent on Wednesday afternoon.
That number will grow as elections officials receive and count the last of the mail-in ballots – but starting so low doesn’t bode well.

Voters who took a pass missed an opportunity to help narrow some crowded local races. Fortunately, the stalwarts made some good picks all the same.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.

Two family tree farms in Pierce County are in the forefront of a relatively new way to preserve open space – one we should all hope proves successful.

They’re test projects for a program that could help address one of the main reasons the county is losing an average of 1,900 acres of agricultural land a year: landowners selling their property for development.

The program is called the transfer of development rights (TDR). It could be an important tool in local governments’ efforts to channel density where they want it to go while giving property owners alternatives to selling their land to developers who would turn it into warehouses or tract housing.

=> Read more!

The primary election yielded some great choices for the November ballot, but with such low turnout, races are still very much up for grabs.

A Cascade Land Conservancy plan to save open space in Pierce County through purchase of development rights is getting its first test cases. We should all hope they succeed.

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.

This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

There is no such thing as free parking in downtown Tacoma, even now.

Shoppers and commuters might not have to plug a meter – or swipe their debit card at an electronic kiosk – but they are paying all the same.

For the occasional visitor to downtown, the price is a couple of more trips around the block because spots don’t open up as often as they might if parkers had to pay.

For downtown workers, it’s the hassle of trying to stay a step ahead of the meter maids and the frustration of not having better options because demand doesn’t exist for them.

For employers, the cost is lower productivity, higher startup costs and lost business opportunities.

Quantifying those costs is tricky, so they tend to be overlooked or discounted.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

We’re not sure which is the more discouraging thought: that some believe Congress has hidden “death panels” in a health reform bill – or that they know it hasn’t but are still insisting it has.

It’s definitely discouraging that Sarah Palin – who conceivably could have been vice president today but for last fall’s economic crisis – was speaking from either ignorance or dishonesty last week when she ignited the whole controversy.

This death panel business deserves to quickly fade from cable TV’s nightly shoutfests. Not only is there no such provision in the House legislation, as Palin and others have charged, but the Senate has jettisoned the language that’s been wildly misconstrued as an invitation to euthanize the elderly and disabled.

For the record, the idea was to encourage and fund end-of-life counseling for the terminally ill. Such consultations – which already happen all the time, everywhere – can help the dying and their families make deliberate decisions about palliative vs. aggressive care and other issues that arise when death approaches. Health care policy ought to be encouraging these decisions.

=> Read more!

An eight-foot-long boa's on the loose in Lake Tapps, and it ain't made out of feathers.

So says Pierce County Auditor Jan Shabro, who came by yesterday as part of her election campaign.

Under an odd arrangement, the county’s chief elections officer happens to also be the county’s chief dogcatcher. Shabro oversees five animal-control officers and dispatchers.

Shabro – an animal lover – says she likes that part of the job. She talked about getting a good deal on a trailer to transport abused horses, the officers' rescue of starving cattle and their dealings with animal “hoarders” – including a woman who kept 83 cats.

Then there are the exotics: monkeys, an alligator, “a few tigers.”

“My staff was after a runaway emu at one point. You need two people. They’re very dangerous."

=> Read more!

We're not sure which is the more discouraging thought: that some believe Congress has embedded "death panels" in health reform legislation – or that they know Congress hasn't but are still insisting it has.

Going to paid parking in Tacoma makes good business sense.

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.

This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

When the admiral starts pulling out the white flag, it’s a safe bet the battle’s nearing an end.

President Obama now appears close to conceding the battle over a government-run “public option” for health insurance.

Liberals have argued vehemently that a public option must be a part of any legislation deserving to be called health reform. Yet Obama all but dismissed it Saturday as “just one sliver” of his proposed reforms.

The president can count votes. It increasingly looks as if a new Medicare-like plan just can’t clear the Senate, though a potential substitute – nonprofit health care co-operatives – might have a chance.

Political realities, in the Senate and beyond it, argue for pursuing the co-op alternative.

A public option could work in this country. For that matter, a government-financed single-payer model could work here. Could.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Tuesday's print edition.

Washington’s open records law is far from absolute. Over the years, lawmakers have granted more than 300 exceptions to its broad mandate for public disclosure.

But the common theme among most of those exemptions is that they reside explicitly in state law. Government agencies and citizens may not always agree on whether an exemption should apply, but at least they are both reading from the same page.

Not so with the nebulous “privilege” invoked by the Legislature and governor. In at least three publicized instances this year – and perhaps more lesser-known ones – the legislative and executive branches have claimed an immunity that appears nowhere in statute.

=> Read more!

This article will appear in tomorrow’s print edition.

When Hillary Clinton was in Africa last week, her first visit to those nations as Secretary of State, she was asked what her husband thought about a nine billion dollar deal between the Congo and China.

I imagine it was one of those “oh, no you didn’t” moments, one in which the air instantly gets sucked from the room, cameras cease flashing, and a lone pen falling slow mo to the floor makes a deafening sound.

Clink.

“My husband is not Secretary of State,” Clinton snapped. “I am.”

Turns out the real question got lost in translation. The student claims he wanted to know what her boss, the President of the United States, thought about the deal, but given Clinton’s clipped tone, something tells me “what does your husband think?” has been whispered before at parties and fundraisers during her former political career as “the wife of.”

The whole interchange resurrected the dreaded “f” word. Feminism.

Many of us would like to believe we live in a post-racial post-sexist society but now might be as good a time as any to ask: When it comes to feminism, just how far have we come baby?

Well, according to a new and fascinating exhibit at the White River Valley Museum in Auburn the answer to that question might be right under our clothes. Think of it as the politics of underwear.

=> Read more!

A “public option” increasingly looks DOA in the health reform debate. We’d settle for a nonprofit arrangement that is the functional equivalent.

If Gov. Gregoire and the Legislature are so determined to assert a nebulous "privilege" against having to produce certain documents, they should propose that the exemption be written into the state public records law.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@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.

When the president pens an op-ed for a newspaper, that's news. Apparently, it's also a business opportunity.

I refer to the New York Times Syndicate's peddling of President Obama's piece on health care reform from the Sunday NYT. The syndicate is selling publication rights to other newspapers $125 or more a pop.

Editorial page editors are not pleased. As Mark Mahoney from The Post-Star in New York notes in a blog post:

You’d think since we elected him the president of our country and everything, we could at least get his speeches for free.

Does the White House know that the New York Times is selling the president's words? Are taxpayers getting a cut since they underwrote the production of that op-ed?

UPDATE: Larry Reisman from Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers says the Times has admitted its error:

New York Times Syndicate Editor Nancy Lee called me about 5 mins ago to thank me for "calling us out" on the sale. She said they would refund $$ from any sales. She admitted it was a bad call (as we all noted), but one routinely done with opeds. While she did not know exact policies/contract language she said Obama ultimately could have gotten royalties from the sales.

I've been off the blog for a bit ... it's been that kind of summer ... but I wanted to respond to some emails and comments regarding last Wednesday's column. Unsurprisingly, feelings run high. But what interested me was the number of folks asserting that the public wants health care reform.

A single paragraph in the column, which addressed unruly town hall behavior and politicians' responses to noisy dissent, attracted most of the attention. I wrote,

Major independent polls confirm that most of us like the health care we have and worry that reform will make it worse. We doubt that reform will control costs and believe it will balloon an already daunting deficit and damage the economy. Moreover, we have little faith in Congress or the federal government.

For people wanting to dig into the polling a bit more, I wanted to provide some links to the polls I cited. So here we go. One of the best is this survey from Quinnipiac University. This Gallup survey also shows widespread public skepticism.

Americans are not convinced that healthcare reform will benefit them personally. This is, in part, because most Americans are satisfied with their current medical care and access to healthcare. Seniors in particular are not convinced that healthcare reform will benefit them.

Rasmussen Reports, which has been regularly tracking opinion, also find most Americans oppose the Congressional plan.

That doesn't mean that Americans don't want to see changes in the system. But the full court press we saw in July scares more people than it comforts. It's time for the president and Congressional leaders to step back and focus on improving access, covering more of the uninsured, and regaining public confidence.

This editorial will appear in Monday's print edition.

We can’t get complacent about swine flu

The world made it through round one of the swine flu pandemic relatively well, with the H1N1 virus contributing to the deaths of fewer than 500 in this country.

Sadly, that toll includes a young Puyallup mother, Katie Flyte, who lost her seven-week battle with the disease last week. Her baby girl had to be delivered while she was in a drug-induced coma.

So let there be no mistake: Even though the first round of swine flu was not as deadly as many feared, the H1N1 virus can be a killer. It’s especially dangerous among younger people and those with pre-existing health problems.

=> Read more!

It’s mid-August, which means it’s time for our annual hand-wringing over the Omak Stampede Rodeo’s “Suicide Race.”

For those new to the Northwest, the “Suicide Race” is an event in the Omak (WA) Stampede Rodeo. Horsemen run their ponies down a steep (60 degree incline) embankment, swim across the Okanogan River and race 500 yards to the finish line in the Omak Stampede Rodeo Arena.

Over the long history of the race, a score of horses have been killed, and many more riders have sustained serious injuries. And the crowds love it.

Sound crazy and inhumane? Some think so. Do a quick internet search and you’ll come up with dozens of posts by animal rights groups---PETA, PAWS, and SPCA---protesting the race. And, truth be known, many rodeo fans, horsemen, and cowboys agree with animal rights activists in principle.

So why not outlaw it?

Here’s the rub: The “Omak Suicide Race,” is run almost entirely by Indians from the nearby Colville Reservation. The Suicide Race is a recent Indian tradition; it was developed on the Reservation 70 years ago as a rite of passage for young men, who could no longer live a nomadic hunting life or make war against the federal government. Even today, the Suicide Race is preceded by sacred sweat lodge and eagle feather rituals.

So, here we have a (fairly) delicious situation. This is a confrontation between two politically correct groups---animal rights activists and Indians. And when these two groups collide, the Indians always win. Remember the Makah Whaling dispute? Same deal.

If the Washington State Legislature ever outlaws the “Suicide Race” (possible), it will continue nevertheless. The Colville Tribes will simply move it back onto the Reservation, where it began, and where the State lacks legal jurisdiction. Indeed, they could stage it beside a Casino and make a fortune in tourist dollars. Indian reservations are the last truly free places in North America.

Note: This writer uses the noun “Indian” because it is the term most Indians use. Despite four decades of PC speech re-education, the term “Indian” will not go away. The only people who regularly use the term “Native American” are Canadians, Indian bureaucrats (BIA), politicians, public school teachers, and Native American Studies professors.

This editorial will appear in Sunday's print edition.

Dual – and dueling – messages emerged from Olympia following Friday’s release of Washington Assessment of Student Learning results.

The results themselves were disappointing but not devastating. Progress in student achievement largely stalled – a performance good enough to get nearly 75 percent of incoming 11th-graders up to reading and writing graduation standards, but not to satisfy the federal government.

=> Read more!

Fans of our Saturday columnist, Idaho journalist Bill Hall, know that he's a cat lover (photographed here with Annie Rose). Over the years, he's delighted readers with the lessons learned from having these mysterious, sometimes maddening beings in his life.

Now Hall has a sweet book out full of new, cat-related essays, "Cat Butler: In the Service of Her Majesty the Pussycat." They have titles like, "Why bossy people hate cats, and vice versa," "Sheldon the Ripper" and "When do you pull the plug on a friend?"

Hall knows I'm a fellow felinophile and sent me a copy inscribed, "To Cheryl and the girls from the Cat Butler." The girls are Sasha and Ninja, adopted five years ago from the Humane Society.

"Nothing else I have written in my career has produced half as much favorable reader response as my columns on those hairy little creatures," Bill writes. "Readers have been after me for years to write an entire book of cat yarns. I hereby knuckle under and obey, which is something a cat won't do."

The book is available for $15 at amazon.com and on Kindle for $9.99.

Attorney General Rob McKenna visited yesterday to plug his latest cause, preventing prescription drug abuse and overdoses. He cited some pretty interesting statistics:

• Prescription drug overdoses are killing far more people in Washington state than heroin, cocaine and meth combined.

• Methadone is the biggest culprit, followed by Oxycodone and Hydrocodone (the opiate in Vicodin).

• In 2005-06, Washington ranked 6th in the nation for the percentage of people 12 and older who misused prescription pain relievers.

• The state's medical director says that the increased daily doses being prescribed by doctors are not associated with improved outcomes and are most likely leading to increased tolerance, which can lead people to overdose.

McKenna's got several public education campaigns going, but is frustrated by the Drug Enforcement Agency's insistence that pharmacies can't accept narcotics and other controlled substances back from patients who didn't use their entire prescription. (The old advice – to flush the pills – no longer applies; pharmaceuticals are beginning to pollute the water supply).

The federal policy makes no sense. We trust pharmacists enough to dispense narcotics – why can't they also accept returns? Up in Clallam County, the sheriff has found a way around the rule by deputizing pharmacists.

The latest round of WASL scores show that student achievement is plateauing. While we agree with Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn that federal measurements that could label every school in the state as failing by 2014 need reform, the state has its own job to do in getting scores moving again.

For Monday: The death of a Puyallup woman who caught swine flu while pregnant is a timely reminder that people need to take the virus seriously.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@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.

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

As gas prices rise, the Volt’s looking good

The juxtaposition was striking.

“Filling ‘er up suddenly costly,” was the headline at the top of a Business page article Wednesday about how gas prices had increased 11 cents in the past week.

Just below it was this headline: “Triple-digit mileage?” The article was about the introduction of General Motors spiffy-looking new Chevrolet Volt, an electric car available next year that GM says could get a whopping 230 miles per gallon in city driving.

Admittedly, it’s hard to gauge the mileage of a vehicle that runs on electricity, with a gasoline engine only kicking in if the charge is depleted. Its “mpg” would be calculated using a formula that converts kilowatt hours into a gasoline equivalency.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

The federal government has finally relented in its dispute with Washington over Hanford cleanup deadlines. Now if only the feds had a plan for where to send the site’s high-level radioactive waste.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the new agreement Tuesday during his first visit to the Hanford nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington. In exchange for getting more time to treat some of the site’s nastiest wastes, the Justice Department conceded its fight to undercut the state’s enforcement power.

Washington ends up with what it wanted all along – plus a nice extra.

=> Read more!

Even consumers who have already traded in their clunkers for more fuel-efficient models have to be thinking the electric-powered Volt – which GM claims could get the equivalent of 230 mpg – is looking pretty good with gas prices inching closer to $3 per gallon. But there's a catch. It’s that $40,000 price tag.

Washingtonians have long known that Hanford cleanup will take longer than originally expected. A new agreement between the state and feds validates those delays in exchange for giving the state more power to enforce the revised deadlines. All in all, the state drove a good bargain – but it can only do so much. The question of where to send Hanford's waste still looms.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@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.

This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.

For a barometer of the shifting public opinion on gay rights, take a look at the escalating debate over Referendum 71 and public disclosure.

In 1994, a group that formed to oppose anti-gay rights initiatives in Washington pleaded with the Public Disclosure Commission to excuse donors from having to list their occupations and employers. Leaders of Hands Off Washington claimed that gay and lesbian contributors might be targets for harassment and intimidation.

Fast forward 15 years, and the shoe is on the other foot. This time, it’s opponents of gay rights who say they have reason to fear campaign finance disclosure.

=> Read more!

• Do the health care overhaul plans promote euthanasia and abortion?

• At his town hall meeting Tuesday, President Obama said: "We have the AARP on board." Was he right?

• Will senior citizens and the disabled have to go in front of government "death panels" that will decide if they are deserving of care?

If you're confused by what various health care proposals would and wouldn't do, you're hardly alone. But help is out there.

Two of the best sources for checking facts and debunking myths are FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and Politifact.com, a project of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. PolitiFact won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

On FactCheck.org, for instance, you will learn that the Democrats' proposals would not promote euthanasia and abortion.

FactCheck.org also says the president was wrong Tuesday; the AARP supports health care reform but has not come out in favor of any particular legislation.

AARP Chief Operating Officer Tom Nelson was quoted as saying, "While the president was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate."

As for those "death panels," that claim made by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gets a "Pants on fire" rating from Politifact.com.

Politifact.com's "truth-o-meter" makes it the more user-friendly site. It rates claims on a scale of True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, False and Pants on Fire! (in other words, so blatantly false you have to wonder whether the person making the claim is out and out lying).

The Seattle Times provided a good service Tuesday with an article answering several of the most common questions about health care reform. Read it here.

The group behind the referendum to overturn Washington's newly expanded domestic partnership law now wants campaign donor names to be off limits too. No way, no how. R-71 sponsors may indeed feel threatened by the nasty comments posted online and sent via e-mail, but if they're surprised by the level of vitriol out there, they haven't been paying attention. The answer is not to dismantle public disclosure piece by piece.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@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.

This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

Americans up in arms over the future of U.S. health care should spare some outrage for its present.

A Hearst Newspapers investigation has found that a decade after the National Institute of Medicine urged the health care industry to stop blaming doctors and nurses and find ways to prevent medical errors, little has happened.

A mandatory nationwide system for reporting and analyzing medical mistakes never got built, and its prospects grow dimmer by the year. Meanwhile, some experts say the rate of medical error is increasing.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

Bike lanes are key element in ‘Complete Streets’

Some drivers were not amused when a short stretch of North 21st Street in Tacoma recently went from two lanes to one to accommodate new bike lanes.

Chances are, many of the critics use the North 21st arterial to quickly get from one end of town to the other and resent “calming” strategies that add a little time to their commute. But those strategies are the very things the people who actually live in the neighborhood tend to like because they slow down traffic and make it safer to walk or bicycle.

Building bike lanes, curb extensions, medians, sidewalks or wide paved shoulders are part of the “Complete Streets” program that Tacoma leaders have bought into, which means that more city roads will be reconfigured in coming years to enhance access to pedestrians, cyclists and transit users as well as motorists.

For instance, within the next several weeks, bike lanes will be added to South 12th Street between Sprague and Union avenues. To accommodate the change, the eastbound two lanes will go down to one lane.

=> Read more!

State Rep. Tom Campbell’s 3-year-old law to require hospitals to report medical errors is apparently being routinely ignored, with nearly a third of the state’s 100 hospitals turning in not a single report. “I think there’s opportunity for further reporting,” says the VP for patient safety at the state hospital association. Ya think?

Tacomans should get used to the kind of controversial changes that are happening on North 21st Street. The changes are a part of the city’s “complete streets” policy that puts an emphasis on accommodating all forms of transportation, not just motorists.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@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.

Referendum 71 sponsors are looking more and more like they're playing from the anti-public disclosure script developed in California for Proposition 8.

They're not satisfied with simply fighting the release of R-71 petitions and the names of people who signed them. Now they're also asking Washington's Public Disclosure Commission to not release the names of donors to their campaign (provided the referendum makes the ballot, which remains uncertain).

Proposition 8 backers are also suing in federal court to get smaller donors exempted from California's campaign finance disclosure law.

This latest development in the Washington case begs the question: Would opponents of the state's "all-but-marriage" law for same-sex couples be fighting the release of R-71 petitions even if the likes of WhoSigned.org wasn't threatening to make the petition signers' names available online?

This editorial will appear in Tuesday's print edition.

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith is treading where some fellow Democrats unwisely fear to go.

Smith, the seven-term congressman from Tacoma, is not backing down from holding town hall meetings despite the threat of more angry and rowdy protesters.

Some might accuse Smith of being a glutton for punishment. His last town hall meeting in July attracted a crowd of 250 and included shouting, heckling and personal attacks.

That’s par for the course this summer, as many Democrats and some Republicans return to their districts to find the hometown crowd whipped into a frenzy.

=> Read more!

We're writing an editorial commending Adam Smith and other congressmen who have held health care town hall meetings despite the threat of disruptions. On issues of great public importance, especially when misinformation runs rampant, elected representatives can help further the public discourse by allowing voters to vent and get answers to their questions. Protesters determined to shout down politicians and their fellow citizens should be shown the door, but the majority of people showing up at these meetings are there because they have honest-to-goodness concerns and fears. Elected officials engender civility by treating such citizens with respect and expecting the same in return.

We're also looking into reader concern over the bike lanes on North 21st in Tacoma. We’ve had several letters to the editor claiming that the bikes lanes are not needed and that the city’s priorities are skewed. We’re looking into the extent of public outreach the city did before installing the lanes.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@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.

Former Army intelligence whistleblower Christopher Pyle – whose revelations about the military spying on civilians sparked congressional inquiries in the 1970s – spoke to Democracy Now! a few days ago about the Fort Lewis case.

I think the significance is less that the Army is monitoring civilian political activity than that there is a network, a nationwide network, of fusion centers, these state police intelligence units, these municipal police intelligence units, that bring together the services of the military, of police, and even private corporations to share information about alleged terrorist groups in cities throughout the country. I was fascinated by the story of the Air Force officer from New Jersey making an inquiry to the police in the state of Washington about this group. This is an enormous network. It’s funded by the Homeland Security Department. Police departments get a great deal of money to set up these intelligence units. And they monitor, largely, lawful political activity, in violation of the First Amendment and, when the military is involved, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Washington state has its own fusion center. In July, outgoing Tacoma City Hall reporter Ian Demsky raised concerns about the Homeland Security activities of the Tacoma police, revealed in public records released to a local opponent of the Northwest Detention Center.

This editorial will appear in Monday's print edition.

Don’t get complacent over postal reprieve

Folks in two Tacoma neighborhoods were upset about the prospect of losing their local post office. And understandably so: Closures are especially hard on people who don’t drive and those who depend on their local post office as a safe place to receive and send mail.

So they were relieved to learn Thursday that the two locations wouldn’t be closed after all. At least not in the near future.
Residents who rely on those offices shouldn’t get complacent, because there’s a good chance that one or more local post offices eventually could be closed. They should be doing whatever they can to immunize their local site from that possibility. Giving it more business is a good first step.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Sunday's print edition.

John J. Towery has become an international mystery. The Army must not let him remain one.

Questions about Towery have swirled since late last month when an antiwar group announced to the Olympia City Council that the Fort Lewis civilian employee had spied on its members.

Since then, the story has spread from The New York Times to the Irish Times.

=> Read more!

The Army seems to be taking seriously the allegations that a Fort Lewis criminal intelligence analyst infiltrated an antiwar group. This is serious stuff, governed by laws that restrict such operations. Whether the Army employee was acting alone or under orders from higher up, the military needs to come clean with the public once its investigation is complete.

Man, we're glad that we held our planned Friday editorial about the closures of two Tacoma post offices. Last night, the U.S. Postal Service announced a reprieve. Our Monday editorial will advise neighborhood interests to not let down their guard. Given the dire financial straits of the U.S. Post Office, the reprieves might just be temporary.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@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.

Carolyn McConnell, writing at Crosscut, has a post about a little-known aspect of the new state budget intended to not only cut Medicaid costs but also encourage doctors to perform fewer C-sections during child birth.

Beginning this month, the state of Washington will pay hospitals the same amount for an uncomplicated C-section as for a complicated vaginal birth when it reimburses them through Medicaid. Almost half of all births in Washington are paid by Medicaid, so this measure will have a significant effect on the economics of birth in the state.

The rate of C-sections in Washington hovers around 30 percent – about twice what health experts say it should be. C-sections are sometimes medically necessary, but too often they are done for the convenience of the doctor or the mother. Paying less for the procedure could help make doctors and hospitals think twice about performing one.

The state's move is projected to save $4 million. Dr. Jeff Thompson, the state’s chief medical officer for Medicaid, told McConnell he has already received calls from hospitals asking for help revising the protocols they use to decide when a C-section is called for.

The Tacoma/Pierce County Black Collective and the Political Destiny Committee announced their joint endorsements in some Aug. 18 primary races.

How do they compare with The News Tribune editorial board's choices? Ours are in parentheses.

Port of Tacoma Position 1: Connie Bacon (Bacon)

Puyallup City Council District 3, Pos. 2: Nicolla Tebao (Kent Boyle)

Tacoma School Board Position 2: Amy Bates and Catherine Ushka-Hall (Bates and Ushka-Hall)

Tacoma City Council, District 4: Marty Campbell, Roxanne Murphy (Campbell)

Tacoma City Council, District 5: Joe Lonergan, Becky Summers-Kirby (John Miles)

The Luzon Building's building fate rests on a good forecast, and possibly the willingness of current owner, The Gintz Group, to get out of the way, Historic Tacoma told supporters in an e-mail this morning.

Apparently, the City of Tacoma has found another developer willing to take on the 1890 building. Earlier this summer, a city-commissioned report of the structure's integrity painted a grim picture and deemed it a "life safety" hazard.

Here's the e-mail from Historic Tacoma:

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

Sonia Sotomayor made history Thursday.

Hispanic Americans, the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority, finally have one of their own on the U.S. Supreme Court. Sotomayor is their Thurgood Marshall, their Sandra Day O’Connor – proof that the highest court of the land is not off limits.

But behind the barrier-shattering nature of Sotomayor’s confirmation by the U.S. Senate, there is the 68-31 vote that elevated her to the august bench.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

State parks need that $5 donation from drivers

To opt out or not opt out. Beginning next month, that will be the question for Washington drivers as they renew their license tabs.

If they check a box on the renewal form, they opt out of paying $5 toward operation of state parks. If they don’t opt out, they’ll automatically make the donation.

So who shouldn’t opt out?

=> Read more!

Here's what we're planning for tomorrow's editorials:

The confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor today is a historic occasion, especially for Latinos who had long awaited this moment. In the end, nine Republicans recognized crossed the aisle, but the 68-31 vote is the third nominee in a row to be opposed by at least half the minority party’s senators. The Senate's tradition of deference to the president's nominations, which has served the nation well, is in peril.

It's understandable that folks in two Tacoma neighborhoods are upset about the prospect of losing their local post office. Closures are especially hard on people who don't drive and depend on their local post office as a safe place to receive and send mail. But like any business, the Postal Service is being forced to make some hard decisions in these tough economic times. UPDATE: We're holding this editorial pending the results of a public meeting about the post office closures tonight. We're substituting a piece that encourages Washingtonians to remain opted-in to the new state parks license tab fee.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@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.

Today, on the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Tom Karlin of Lakewood and his fellow pacifists took folded paper cranes to a peace ceremony in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

The "Journey of Repentance" led by Karlin and Father Bill Bichsel has stirred angry reactions in this community (which have not gone unnoticed in Japan). A recent poll underscores why.

Quinnipiac University recently surveyed American voters and found they believe 3-1 that the United States did the right thing in bombing Japan. Pollsters found that American voters supported President Harry Truman's decision 61-22 percent, with 16 percent undecided.

As you might expect, support increases with age. Voters over 55 years old approve 73 percent, while voters 35 to 54 approve 60 percent. Only 50 percent voters of 18 to 34 years old approve.

"Voters who remember the horrors of World War II overwhelmingly support Truman's decision," Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said. "Support drops with age, from the generation that grew up with the nuclear fear of the Cold War to the youngest voters, who know less about WW II or the Cold War."

What the poll doesn't capture is the the number of Americans who believe the bombing was the right course for the times, but nonetheless regret that the war had came to such measures and are sympathetic to the cost paid by Japanese civilians. Even those who fully support Truman's decision aren't indifferent to human suffering.

But an apology, as the Journey of Repentance proposed, assumes the action was wrong in the first place. Some Americans believe it was. The majority don't.

This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.

Puyallup’s anti-solicitation ordinance provides exceptions for an odd assortment of characters: newspaper couriers, lawn-care providers, farmers, kids selling holiday wreaths, the guy with the snow blower trying to capitalize on a rare Western Washington blizzard.

What’s missing from that list is a group that repeatedly has gone to court to protect its ability to go door-to-door, and that may be the Puyallup law’s fatal flaw.

=> Read more!

Last night, Ben Schiendelman at seattletransitblog.com weighed in on the debate over how Sound Transit will build its Sounder tracks from Freighthouse Square through Tacoma’s Dome District and over Pacific Avenue.

His take: This fight has gone on long enough. Opponents have had their shot. Let's get on with building the ST's proposed berm to carry the tracks through the neighborhood.

So far, so good. We offered the same opinion last week.

But then Schiendelman derails by casting the opponents of the berm concept as transit foes with ulterior motives.

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You may have heard that The News Tribune has joined to fight to get a court to unseal legal records in a lawsuit filed by Susan Hutchison, former TV news anchor and now candidate for King County executive.

This is primarily The Seattle Times' fight. The paper, whose 2006 investigation found many cases of improperly sealed court files in King County Superior Court, argues that Hutchison's case is yet another example of judges' deference to lawyers' requests to keep court records under wraps.

Hutchison worked at KIRO for 20 years before being replaced by a young Asian-American woman. Hutchison sued, alleging age and race discrimination. The parties settled and agreed not to discuss details. The court sealed 753 of the case's 859 pages of records.

While King County voters have the most at stake in this particular case, the fight affects access to court documents statewide. Judges are supposed to have a "compelling reason" before they agree to bar access to public records. Too often, secrecy is instead granted reflexively to help save someone's reputation or settle a case without due regard for the public.

A King County judge is scheduled to rule Friday on whether the records will be unsealed. A ruling in the Times' favor will send yet another message to judges across Washington to think twice before drawing the curtain over what happens in the courts.

This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

The release of two American journalists sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea is the happy ending that – unfortunately – Americans have come to expect.

Former President Bill Clinton flew to North Korea this week to stroke Kim Jong Il’s ego and let him play the magnanimous dictator in freeing Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were accused of sneaking into the country illegally in March.

It’s unclear whether the women crossed the China-North Korea border intentionally, accidentally or were nabbed by aggressive border guards. But what’s unmistakable is the unwitting role they played in giving North Korea, at least temporarily, the upper hand in its dispute with the U.S. over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

The women’s release is indeed good news, especially for their families who had agonized over their possible mistreatment. But it undoubtedly will convince other U.S. travelers that they can be careless or daring – because the government will ride to their rescue.

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This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

Bank ‘hero’ needs to rechannel all that adrenaline

‘Heartless bank fires heist hero” screams a New York Post headline over an article that begins: “File this under ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’”

But not all commenters on the Post’s Web site agree, including a former bank teller who has been held up several times: “There is always (someone) who attempts to play the hero, endangering the lives of everyone in the bank.”

The tale of Seattle Key Bank teller Jim Nicholson is big news nationwide. The appeal is obvious: Teller nabs bank robber and gets fired for his trouble.

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Gwen Ottinger, writing in today's Washington Post, offers another reason for the U.S. Senate not to approve additional funding for the popular "cash for clunkers" program:

... even when new cars and appliances are more efficient than the ones they replace, the act of replacing them entails environmental costs not accounted for in the stimulus programs. Building a new car, washing machine or refrigerator takes energy and resources: The manufacture of steel, aluminum and plastics are energy-intensive processes, and some of the materials used in durable goods, especially plastics, use non-renewable fossil fuels as feedstocks as well as energy sources.

Disposing of old products, a step required by most incentive and rebate programs, also has environmental costs: It takes additional energy to shred and recycle metals; plastic components often cannot be recycled and end up as landfill cover; and the engine fluids, refrigerants and other chemicals essential to operating products end up as hazardous wastes.

The column has sparked a lively debate in the comments section, with many people arguing that these are cars that would have had to be junked or recycled at some point, so no (additional) harm done.

But I tend to agree with Ottinger's underlying point, that the program feeds needless new-car consumption. What are the real benefits of removing a 16 mpg car from the road years before it needs to be and replacing it with one that gets 18 mpg? What's wrong with allowing a consumer to buy a car that's used but still more fuel efficient than what he's got now?

On tomorrow's opinion pages, we're running a guest column from a local used car dealer who complains that the Cash for Clunkers, which requires dealers to destroy the engines of trade-ins, is drying up his inventory. And all of you who can't afford a new car, you'll be paying the price.

This editorial will appear in Tuesday's print edition.

If fair-minded Washingtonians need another reason to resent a plan to “out” those who signed petitions for Referendum 71, the legal backlash brewing in a Tacoma courtroom is a prime candidate.

The state’s open records law is now caught up in a war between gay rights activists who would use public disclosure as a bludgeon and conservative groups who argue that transparency is a threat to political speech.

The fight raged elsewhere before the Washington Legislature passed its “everything but marriage” bill this year, extending many benefits and obligations to gay couples.

But now battle has come to Washington, thanks largely to WhoSigned.Org’s plans to expose R-71 supporters.

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This editorial will appear in Monday's print edition.

Hold off on filling out that ballot

Most state voters have received their ballots for the Aug. 18 primary ballots or will get them within a day or two. And many of them – about a third of those who vote in an off-year primary – will quickly mark their ballots and mail them within a week of receiving them.

That might not be the best strategy.

Citizens could come to regret an early vote if – for example – they mailed their ballot and later discovered a candidate was using questionable campaign tactics. These could include making false or misleading claims about an opponent, being caught stealing an opponent’s signs, or misrepresenting his or her qualifications. All have happened in local elections.

Already we’ve learned that a candidate in a University Place City Council race is wrongly implying on his campaign signs that he received The News Tribune editorial board’s endorsement. In fact, we wrote that he was our second choice in a field of three candidates.

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Politics without conspiracy is like politics without sex scandals. They just seem to go together- sort of like peanut butter and jelly only not as delicious. Would it be nice, on occasion, to have the peanut butter without the jelly? Sure it would, but conspiracy, sex scandals, and now that I think about it, bad hair are endemic to politics and they always have been.

The newest conspiracy theory, dubbed as the “Birther Movement” and filed under the category of “you can’t make this stuff up, or maybe you can” is that Barack Obama is not an American, therefore under the restrictions set forth by the Constitution of the United States that says a president must be a natural born citizen, Mr. Obama can’t possibly be president.

Like most conspiracies, this birther conspiracy is long and involved, and differs depending upon whom you ask.

Some “Birthers” are said to believe the sinister plot began generations ago when a young socialist named Karl Marx went to Kenya on a lark.

The story goes something like this:

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