For Release Sunday, July 5, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
MILWAUKEE — Will Allen has a small but remarkable farm. In greenhouses, he grows watercress, tomatoes, nasturtium, arugula, and many more vegetables. There are massive tanks of perch and tilapia. Plus a barnyard of goats, chickens, turkeys, ducks and apiaries for [...]
For Release Sunday, June 28, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — For at least a half century, “silos” and borders have been tripping up effective governance in America.
The silos loom highest at the federal level, where massive departments from Transportation to Commerce to Labor rarely speak and almost never work together.
Borders proliferate closer [...]
For Release Sunday, June 21, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
Usually sure-footed politically, the Obama administration last week erred seriously by letting a local picket line trigger the withdrawal of Vice President Biden and some 100 federal officials from the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Providence. R.I.
The White House’s stated reason — that [...]
For Release Sunday, June 14, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
BERLIN– Red scarves, bright smiles, focused training — those are the trademarks of Berlin’s “Neighborhood Mothers” campaign, an effort to mobilize woman power to break the walls of isolation surrounding immigrant communities.
Turks, originally thought of as temporary guest workers, have flowed into Germany [...]
For Release Sunday, June 7, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
Everyone knows public finances in California, America’s once-fabled Golden State of opportunity, are in shambles.
But should the rest of us care?
The state’s ever-rising deficit has hit $24.3 billion as the legislature’s liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans remain in constant deadlock. Voters in May overwhelmingly [...]
For Release Sunday, May 31, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
FREIBURG — Tucked into a sunny corner of southwestern Germany, this old university town was best known until the 1970s for its massive cathedral dome, its tie to the Black Forest, and its craft of intricately carved cuckoo clocks.
Who would have thought then that [...]
For Release Sunday, May 17, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Perched on the northside of the Nation’s Capital, Montgomery County, Md., has long been as one of America’s wealthiest jurisdictions. It might be one of the last places you’d look for breakthroughs in helping poor immigrants.
Yet it’s happening. Montgomery, [...]
For Release Sunday, May 10, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
What could we expect of an America that offers serious train service–high speed rail, regular passenger rail, links to downtowns, airports, public transit systems?
Until this winter, the very thought was chimerical. But President Obama is making it clear he’s deadly serious about a radical [...]
For Release Sunday, May 3, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
Could Internet tools start to break the back of corruption in government? And could this lead to government that actually works around the world?
There’s no guarantee. Endemic government corruption, whether it’s bribery, extortion, nepotism or fraud, amounts to stealing of the public wealth. [...]
For Release Sunday, April 26, 2009
© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group
The criminal factor is being lifted from marijuana use in California. The other 12 states where marijuana is now permitted for medical use can’t be far behind.
And if 13 states now, then all 50 in the next years?
That’s the future some see flowing from [...]