EDITORIAL
Medical care abuseThe collapse of the Wall Street financial markets has created a fiscal crisis in the states. Gov. Deval Patrick last summer approved a state budget of $28.1 billion for fiscal year 2009. However, after the failing economy led the governor to call for a revised estimate of expected state revenues, Secretary of Administration and Finance Leslie Kirwan last month forecast a shortfall of $1.4 billion. The law requires that the budget be brought into balance, foretelling cuts to state programs and services. More » |
A new incentiveThe election of Barack Obama as president was both an occasion for celebration and a catalyst for catharsis. Anyone who viewed the unbridled elation in Chicago's Grant Park when the election results became public could see the joy that many Americans felt with Obama's victory. Less visible, but also important, was the psychological release of many Americans from the nation's baleful history of racial discrimination. More » |
OPINION
Not "Black President Obama" - just President ObamaThe instant that Barack Obama tossed his hat in the presidential ring nearly two years ago, observers began chanting a twin mantra - that the Illinois senator could be the first black president, and that if that happened, America would have finally kicked its race syndrome. More » |
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The long journey: Risk and rewardIn graduate school, I wrote extensively about slave narratives - documented oral histories of enslaved Africans - mostly recorded post-emancipation. One paper dealt with how people discovered they were free. Without access to that era's mass media - newspapers, pamphlets, leaflets and the telegraph - many labored on, remaining the chattel of unscrupulous owners. More » |
