COLUMNISTS

Pro/con: Should US remove oil drilling restrictions?

No: They benefit green energies

By Michael E. Kraft , February 11, 2012

Pro/con: Should US remove oil drilling restrictions?

Yes: We should, but we won’t

By Andrew Morriss , February 11, 2012

Local view: Early planning will ease transition to retirement

Much is being written about retirement. People are delaying retirement because of the Great Recession. There’s continuing economic volatility and uncertainty. Baby Boomers are arriving at age 65 with massive numbers. Life expectancy is increasing, causing retirees to wonder whether their money will last as long they do. Also, there are health-insurance considerations and a myriad of retirement options, including 401(k), pension, Social Security, IRA, 457, 403(b), SEP, SIRA and more.

By Thomas B. Wheeler , February 10, 2012

Help find a gift for a special Valentine

It’s so difficult to know what to give her. Every Valentine’s Day, I struggle with the decision.

By Sam Cook , February 10, 2012

Local view: Flawed anti-counterfeiting pact is Big Brother at its worst

As if SOPA was not bad enough. Though that bill and its Senate counterpart, PIPA, were rescinded, thanks to the protests of online activists, a much more potent threat to Internet freedom looms: ACTA.

By Erik Bergholm , February 09, 2012

Mondays with Mitch: A graybeard at last — minus the beard

If my beard were clothing, it’d be jeans with the holes cut out. If my beard were a landmass, it’d be the Galapagos Islands. My beard had more patches than an Eagle Scout. More vacancies than the Bates Motel. Hairy clouds against a flesh-colored sky. ... Well, you get the picture.

By Mitch Albom , February 06, 2012

National view: Religious liberty under attack

Two of the top news stories this week have revolved around reproductive rights, though both raise far more troubling issues than a woman’s right to contraception or abortion.

By Kathleen Parker , February 05, 2012

National view: Romney dangerously clueless about America

I wish Mitt Romney’s cavalier dismissal of poverty in America could be chalked up as just another gaffe, but it’s much worse than that. The Republican front-runner seems dangerously clueless about the nation he seeks to lead.

By Eugene Robinson , February 05, 2012

National view: Syrian events about more than freedom

Imperial regimes can crack when they are driven out of their major foreign outposts. The fall of the Berlin Wall did not only signal the liberation of Eastern Europe from Moscow. It prefigured the collapse of the Soviet Union itself just two years later.

By Charles Krauthammer , February 05, 2012

Racism easy to see with a little help

ROBIN WASHINGTON: Chuck Horton was not at all thrilled with the Un-Fair Campaign when it started, but has since changed his view.

By Robin Washington , February 05, 2012

Local view: Racism hidden amid a lifetime of white privilege

It’s hard to see water when you’re a fish. A fish is surrounded by water — literally swimming in it. And so it is hard for a fish to really comprehend what it means to be out of water. How does one understand the buoyancy and softness of water without lying on hard, dry sand? How does one comprehend that others strive for and sometimes die from lack of water when one is instinctively inhaling it? Some fish might say, “I know how others live. I’ve peered above the surface and I get it. I see them bend their necks when they come to drink, so I understand thirst and yearning for water.”

By Kevin Skwira-Brown , February 03, 2012

Racism endures here, and campaign reminds us to stop it

SAM COOK: A few years ago, just a day or two after President Obama was elected, I walked into a northern Minnesota deer camp on assignment for the News Tribune. Within moments after welcoming me to the camp, one of the hunters looked at me and said, “Well, I guess they’ll be planting watermelons on the White House lawn now.”

By Sam Cook , February 03, 2012

Local view: Teacher performance has always been variable

What gives with all the fuss about teacher performance, including the News Tribune’s Sunday Opinion cover this past weekend, which was devoted to “The quest for terrific teachers”? Teacher performance has varied for decades, and our country kept going without a sense of panic.

By Melvyn D. Magree , February 02, 2012

National view: Greed is good?The GOP seems OK with that

If you heard a loud “gulp” Tuesday night after President Obama’s State of the Union address, it probably came from Republican political strategists as they realized their party’s odds of capturing the White House this fall are getting longer. Obama may be no Ronald Reagan, but he’s no Jimmy Carter, either.

By Eugene Robinson , January 29, 2012

National view: Obama plays small ball in big speech

Once upon a time, small ball was not Barack Obama’s game. Tuesday, it was the essence of his State of the Union address.

By Charles Krauthammer , January 29, 2012