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Opinion

January 11, 2024

Public health asleep at the wheel during 2nd-highest COVID surge

We never would have imagined four years ago, at the start of the COVID pandemic that we’d be here in January 2024: in the middle of the second-highest COVID surge on record with 78% of states reporting “high” or “very high” levels of COVID, according to nationwide wastewater data.

January 4, 2024

Winter without snow is a wake-up call

We all have our reasons for getting alarmed about the climate crisis. With bare ground at Christmas and no snow on the horizon, my neighbors just got theirs. This Northern Maine valley nestles against the border of Canada – and winter without snow is unfathomable.

December 28, 2023

What Swedish mechanics remind us about labor justice

When Swedish mechanics working for Tesla walked off the job in late October, their action may not have seemed consequential to most Americans. But, by way of contrast, these workers now powerfully remind us not only of some of the most glaring defects of American labor relations, but also of pathways that can return the U.S. to a greater measure of economic equality and labor justice.

December 21, 2023

Trump’s anti-immigrant stance is deeply anti-American

After a rather peaceful respite from Donald Trump’s hate-filled “rallies,” our former president is back on the campaign trail again, spewing his vile, anti-immigrant rhetoric and riling up the masses of Republican voters.

December 21, 2023

What did Westerners care about in 2023?

This past year, Writers on the Range, an independent opinion service based in western Colorado, sent out 52 weekly opinion columns. They were provided free of charge to more than 200 subscribing editors of publications large and small, each of whom republished dozens of the columns.

December 21, 2023

Gun violence is a reflection of us all

In the streets of Bogalusa, Louisiana, a sadly familiar scene unfolds — the mournful wail of sirens, the piercing flash of blue lights, and another community shaken by the harsh crack of gunfire. This is a recurring nightmare echoing across Louisiana, reflecting a national crisis that grips the heart of America.

December 14, 2023

Humanity’s bombs are aimed at evolution

In most media coverage of war — including the hell in the Middle East, where World War III looms —the unexamined assumption is that we, the readers, are spectators, looking on as the missiles fly and Good dukes it out with Evil yet again.