Opinion Columns
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Winfield’s secret-spilling trustee: Hero or villain?May 20, 2012 5:00 am - Winfield village board member Tim Allen says fellow Trustee Eric Spande is not the hero of this story. “I think he’s the villain,” Allen said in Saturday’s Daily Herald....
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Dealing with life’s disappointmentsMay 20, 2012 5:00 am - It’s that time of year. What’s the old song? “I can still remember ...” And I do. It’s what I talk about when I’m invited to be a graduation speaker and what I write abo...
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Sometimes, ‘the funnies’ aren’t just about funMay 17, 2012 1:09 pm - My grandmother used to call them “the funnies.” The diminutive term suggested both that everyone agreed on the mission of the comics and that that mission was more frivo...
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Silicon slummingMay 17, 2012 5:00 am - The Victorian era gave birth to a very unpleasant custom called slumming. Parties of swells in London and New York would descend on impoverished neighborhoods as a form ...
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Religion as partisan trump cardMay 16, 2012 5:00 am - Mitt Romney did not rise on the power of his rhetoric. At the Detroit Economic Club in February, his speech was swallowed by its stadium venue, overshadowed by a gaffe (...
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Romney is short on specificsMay 16, 2012 5:00 am - Republicans say they’re eager for the presidential campaign to turn away from “distractions” and focus instead on the economy. Someone should warn them that if they’re n...
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Mayor Bloomberg’s 5,600 lives savedMay 15, 2012 1:05 pm - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has a new kind of crime statistic. It is not the astoundingly low number of murders committed in his fair city — 471 in 2009 vs. about 2...
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Evolution of a narrativeMay 15, 2012 5:00 am - The past week’s news cycle has produced two narratives: One, Barack Obama is an evolutionary, 21st-century hero who supports equality for all. Two, Mitt Romney is a gay...
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The American dream in an automobileMay 14, 2012 12:00 pm - “You have a Prius. ... You probably compost, sort all your recycling, and have a reusable shopping bag for your short drive to Whole Foods. You are the best! So, do we r...
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Who’s on first?May 14, 2012 5:00 am - Depending on which poll you believe, Obama is either up by 3, 7 or 9 points, or down by 1, 3 or 5. Or none of the above. Figuring out who’s going to be on first in Novem...