The headline on the lead story of the Dec. 21 Religion & Values section – “Poll finds Christmas has lost its meaning” – is inaccurate and carelessly misleading. According to the article, half of the respondents consider Christmas a religious holiday and 54 percent planned to attend worship services. Those figures certainly don’t justify the […]

At the dawn of the New Year, we are accustomed to hearing prayers for world peace. An important step the U.S. government could take toward peace and good will in 2014 would be to reveal the names of civilians and “combatants” killed by drones in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. This transparency would show the world […]

Snow, ice, power lines down, thousands in the cold darkness in their homes. Again and again. News media full of stories about utility workers putting in heroic hours, cutting branches, fixing wires, people suffering. And through all of this, no one mentions something obvious – spending the millions each storm costs on a massive nationwide […]

Citing the devastating emotional and economic toll that Alzheimer’s disease takes on more than 5 million Americans and their families, Sen. Susan Collins, along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, has introduced a resolution declaring that the goal of preventing and effectively treating Alzheimer’s by 2025 is an “urgent national priority.” The resolution recognizes that […]

I applaud the unanimous vote by the Portland City Council to enact a protest-free zone around Planned Parenthood on Congress Street. Given how much attention has been focused on Planned Parenthood, you could easily think it is the only health care office in Portland that performs abortions. It is not. Although it has not always […]