Editor's Blog

When I heard that there might be picket signs in the works here in Takoma Park, I naturally became excited and began rummaging through my closet for my marching boots. I love a good demo. But then I found out that I might not need to do much walking, since the picketers would be right outside my door.

Apparently the combined Takoma Park, Silver Spring banner on the cover of the January Voice has stirred up some controversy concerning the Takoma-obliterating schemes of a certain publisher.

Maybe it would help if I provided a more basic and human explanation.

Continue reading "Don't picket... picnic!" »

Posted by blogpop at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Think you've read it all? If you're looking for viewpoints online, it's unlikely. As of March, Technorati has indexed 70 million blogs.

Of course, many of those are dead blogs. Many an insightful commentator has discoved that while the means of production are well within reach, maintaining enthusiasm and relevance is another matter.

Still, some of the best information, analysis, and prose can be found online these days. I'm a big fan of the explosion of citizen journalism, made possible by new technology. Every morning, before I get to work, I run through a series of blogs, with the consistency of eating a proper meal—in reverse. I start with dessert.

Continue reading "Blogging forward" »

Posted by EB at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Maryland Senate race, I endorse Ben Cardin—an effective and principled legislator. As a Congressman, Cardin was one of the few who voted against the bill authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq. He has repeatedly advanced measures that would de-escalate the violence in Iraq and undo the damage that the U.S. has wrought there. If the Democrats were to gain control of the Senate, Ben Cardin would bring moral authority to this issue and have some influence on changing national war policy.

Cardin has a solid record on other crucial issues: the environment, health care, education, social security, jobs, women’s rights, and human rights. He is a true-blue liberal, clearly committed to the idea that government has a responsibility to serve the citizens that it governs.

Continue reading "From the Editor: Endorsements" »

Posted by EB at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New internal polls (conducted on October 22 and 23) from the Steele and Cardin campaigns either show the two running neck and neck or show Cardin with a decent lead.

Here are the results of the poll sponsored by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (margin of error 3.9%)

Cardin (D) 41
Steele (R) 39
Zeese (G) 4
Undecided 16

And here are the results from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. (margin of error 4%)

Cardin (D) 52
Steele (R) 40
Undecided/other 8

The undecideds are clearly an important factor in each poll. The Democrats lumped undecided and other (Zeese) together.

So, is this race Cardin's to lose?
If Zeese does pull in 4% or more, will that throw the outcome either way?
I'm interested in your thoughts.

Posted by EB at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bush Signs Bill on Terror Prosecution

Posted by EB at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On September 28, the U.S. Senate officially handed President Bush the power to determine the rights of prisoners in federal custody. The bill strips “enemy combatants” of a habeas corpus right to challenge their detentions in court and allows the President, alone, to define torture—which is identified as a war crime in Article Three of the Geneva Conventions. The bill also broadens the definition of enemy combatants to include anyone identified as such by the President or Secretary of Defense. Evidence may be seized anywhere in the world without a search warrant, according to the legislation. In essence, Congress voted to allow Bush to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants, as long as he ties it to his “War on Terror.”

Continue reading "From the Editor/ Enemies of the state: Jefferson, Franklin, Adams..." »

Posted by EB at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"All's fair in love and war," goes the cliché. Of course, the Bush administration is demonstrating the fiasco that emerges when you actually take that approach to warfare.

There's a reason for rules of engagement. They have to do with long-term goals. In the short term, duplicity, fear-mongering, and ruthlessness may win the battle. But in the long term, you sacrifice your integrity, and you lose the hearts and minds of those you most need to join your cause. When you abandon rules of engagement, the purpose of the entire operation becomes all too clear: it's a power grab, and little more.

Too often, "all's fair" is the operating principle in politics—with the unfortunate result that politicians are generally considered unethical and selfish.

Continue reading "From the Editor: Ida Ruben and Rules of Engagement " »

Posted by EB at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As readers may have noticed, we are not running our Voice blogs off of any of the popular sites like Blogspot or Blogger. We run our blogs on our own site, using Movable Type. One downside to this is that we have to build the features that we want. This weekend we should be putting together a "links" section. But since it is not there yet, I thought I'd share some of the local political blogs that I check out. Please comment with other blogs that you know of. In a later post, I'll list my favorite less-political local blogs. [An irrelevant comment: Many blogs use the acronym "Moco" for Montgomery County. "Moco" means "snot" in Spanish. I'm sure that this is just coincidental.]

Just click the "continue" link below to see my list.

Continue reading " From the Editor : Local political blogs" »

Posted by EB at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

“The only time in my life that I got to vote for a perfect candidate was when I ran the first time. By the time I ran for re-election, it wasn’t true anymore because there were a couple things on my record that I had to do that weren’t perfect.”

— Barney Frank (Boston Globe, August 7, 2006)

With Congressman Frank’s words in mind, I weigh in on the Maryland primary election on September 12. Somewhere between idealism and pragmatism, I have formed opinions on which candidates I feel comfortable recommending for public office.
I gathered my thoughts by listening carefully to the candidates, visiting their websites, and reading the questionnaires that we distributed to them. You, too, have access to the questions that I posed to the candidates. Their answers are available on our website: www.takoma.com and www.silverspringvoice.com. There, we also link to candidate websites and provide a link to the candidate forums that we hosted—available via streaming video on the City of Takoma Park website. (Many thanks to the City and to Lonni Moffet, Alvaro Calabia, and the rest of the crew at Takoma Park Television.)

Continue reading "From the Editor: Primary Endorsements 2006" »

Posted by blogpop at 08:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

To kick off this blog, I thought that I'd reprint the editorial from our first issue. I wasn't involved with the Voice back then (I started writing for the Voice in 1990 as a diversion from grad school, and became the editor and publisher in August 1993). A lot has changed since the Voice was founded. We added a Silver Spring edition; computer technology has eliminated "cut and paste" as our production method; and the Internet has revolutionized our relationship to information.

So, here at the Voice, we continue to explore and expand our idea of community journalism. I invite you to join the discussion. Send us a private e-mail. Or reply here on the Editor's Blog.

--Eric Bond, Editor

Continue reading "Our first editorial—December 1987" »

Posted by EB at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Like many readers, I recently accompanied my family to the Silver Theatre to see An Inconvenient Truth, the new documentary that is more or less a film of Al Gore’s slide show on Global Warming. Any one of those elements—documentary, slide show, global warming, Al Gore—is probably enough to send most movie-goers to escapist fare like Superman Returns instead. But the reality that Gore presents was engaging enough to maintain the interest of my 12 year old daughter and her 17 year old cousin. We would do well to see that this film is shown in science classes across the country in the next school year.

Continue reading " From the Editor : Global Warming is our most pressing issue" »

Posted by EB at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)