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Columns/Opinion

Exonerations affect victims, too

We learned last month that three men, incarcerated for 36 years in Maryland, were exonerated of the murder of 14-year-old DeWitt Duckett. This tragic failure of our criminal justice system is a shameful stain on our nation, and the reverberations of this miscarriage of justice will be felt for generations. Though finally free, these men will experience challenges as they re-enter their communities, readjust to their daily lives and address the complex trauma they have experienced. Yet they aren’t the only ones who will be forever changed by these wrongful convictions. The original ...

‘Respect your local police — or else?’

Let’s get two things straight right off the bat. The first is that, in the last few years, no one has protested police wrongdoing more vociferously than African Americans. The second is that no one has had more reason. Those reasons include Darrius Stewart, Oscar Grant, Jordan Edwards, John Crawford III, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, Terence Crutcher, Sandra Bland, Sean Bell, Rekia Boyd, Botham Jean, Antwon Rose, Amadou Diallo, Anthony Hill, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Freddie Gray, LaQuan McDonald, Stephon Clark, Corey Jones, Atatiana Jefferson ...

Has economic inequity really gone bananas?

Three collectors recently took home some unconventional offerings from Art Basel, a famous art show held annually in Miami Beach. Each artwork consisted of a banana duct-taped to a wall. Two sold for $120,000, one for $150,000. For a banana. And some tape. Unfortunately, this farce is just a small sign of the growing gap between the whims of the absurdly wealthy and the challenges facing everyone else. During the same week as the banana bonanza in Miami Beach, the Trump administration announced its plans to slash the rolls of the nation’s nutrition assistance program. That means ...

Trump can’t end ‘endless wars’

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has imported into the American military lexicon a new rationale for U.S. military actions in the Middle East. It’s called “mowing the lawn,” but it has nothing to do with keeping the grass trimmed. “To mow the lawn,” Esper recently remarked to reporters, “means, every now and then” giving your adversary a good, swift kick in the shins. “You have to do these things,” he explained, “so that a threat doesn’t grow, doesn’t resurge.” You mow the lawn not to eliminate a threat but to manage it. The phrase itself is of Israeli ...

Former Army captain’s mission is to make a village

SAVANNAH, Ga. Tyler Merritt has taken the saying “It takes a village to raise a child” and turned it a bit sideways. He’s building a village, literally, to allow adults to raise themselves up. His village is a stabilizing rail, or a steppingstone to a better life. Merritt, a former Army captain and special operations air mission commander, is trying to help his military brothers and sisters who have found themselves post-military service and one paycheck away from financial collapse, as well as those struggling to find their way through modern civilian life, which does not ...

Volcker believed in rules governing Wall Street

Paul Volcker administered the tough medicine when the American economy badly needed it. It was 1980, and the inflation rate had passed 14%. OPEC, a cartel of foreign oil producers, had launched an oil embargo against the United States a few years before, causing prices to soar. Older Americans remember long lines of cars snaking to gas pumps. The country felt in crisis. President Jimmy Carter appointed Volcker chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to fix inflation. Volcker knew he had to raise interest rates to beat it down. He did and succeeded, but the cost was a sharp economic ...