Gene Policinski: When it comes to our core freedoms, is a “C+” grade good enough?
A new “First Amendment Report Card,” unveiled today by the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute, gives our First Amendment freedoms — religion, speech, press, assembly and ...
Jeb Bladine: Syria a reminder of ‘moral inertia’
Near-unwatchable images from Syria last week showed children burned and strangling to death after rockets dropped by Russian/Syrian jets smothered them with the chemical agent Sarin. The phrase “moral ...
Others Say: Health insurance savings could help heal the state
A legislative proposal to move the state’s public employees’ health care into coordinated care organizations makes sense on multiple levels: It would save hundreds of millions of dollars at ...
Scott Gibson: School competition
Our new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is a strong advocate of school choice for kindergarten through 12th grade students by using school vouchers and for-profit charter schools. The basic selling ...
Andrew Moss: Why ICE raids imperil us all
A restaurant worker and father of four daughters in Southern California is arrested while dropping his youngest daughter at school. A young woman in Mississippi is taken into custody after speaking at ...
Jeb Bladine: Reckless moments can devastate lives
Last month, nine months following his graduation from McMinnville High School, a young man walked out of WinCo Foods with $3 worth of stolen candy bars. When confronted by the loss prevention officer and ...
Rick Lowry: The Crisis of Trumpism
Trumpism is in crisis. This isn’t a function of poll numbers, or any melodrama of the past months, but something more fundamental: No officeholder in Washington seems to understand President Donald ...
Jeb Bladine: "Obamacare' is a toxic label for American health care policy
We know that labels can be shorthand instruments of racism, sexism, idiologisms of all kinds. Labels created to be cleverly descriptive can become verbal sledgehammers that penetrate our psyches and threaten ...
Steve Dehner: Everyone can write
Back in the 1930s, an accomplished and versatile writer by the name of Brenda Ueland moved from New York back to her home state of Minnesota and began teaching a local writing class. Her students ...
Janet Peterson & Katie Sours: It takes a village
A community approach to improving child health in Yamhill County
Jeb Bladine: In McMinnville, shovels are out
For decades, I’ve watched the steady stream of local building developments. Call it a minor obsession, perhaps, but I have a spreadsheet diary of McMinnville building permit values and major development ...
Letter to readers: Downey Jr. didn't visit, but we're sure he'd like us
Brooding actor Robert Downey Jr. didn’t visit McMinnville, encounter friendly locals who helped him get his car fixed or enjoy lunch at Mikey’s Pizzeria while the work was being done. But ...
Bladine: Tax hikes become preferred solution
Oregon state and local governments have more money, but provide fewer services. The clarion call from those who presided over creation of our budget crisis is to raises taxes. One hand points to large ...
Justice system works to alleviate misery when unthinkable::1
It’s difficult to find solace in the wake of a tragedy as stomach-churning as one occurring last week in Northeast McMinnville. For those related to the victims or perpetrator of a bloody local ...
Tom Henderson: 'Nevertheless, she persisted'
Journalists everywhere are the children of Nellie Bly With March celebrating Women’s History Month, my thoughts turn to two old newspaper buddies who died within 13 days of one another in 1922. Erasmus ...
