The Opinion Pages

Editorials

Why Some Kids Go Bad

By Becky O’Malley
Tuesday December 11, 2007
Possibly a weekend front page editor with a sense of irony laid out the big metro daily I saw on Sunday. At the top of the page was an all-to-familiar story about young black men destroyed by absentee parenting and the allure of street life. It featured the obligatory map of Oakland. “OAKLAND: A PLAGUE OF KILLING” was the overline. And the subhead: “Trapped in a bleak world where drugs and violence offer a chance for money and respect, many young black men quickly resort to murder.” -more-

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday December 11, 2007

Reader Commentaries

Who Owns The Commons?

By Thomas Lord
Tuesday December 11, 2007
Who “owns” the commons is, indeed, the right question but we must ask it clearly. There are two, relevant meanings of “own” in modern English: Ownership in rights, and ownership in disposition. Children use the latter sense when, for example, one might say “A-ha—I owned you in that videogame,” meaning that the speaker’s skills were so fabulous the competitor couldn’t do much. -more-

Options Recovery Services — Fighting the Good Fight

By George Beier
Tuesday December 11, 2007
Dan McMullan’s charges against Options Recovery (see last Tuesday’s Commentary) are simply baseless and cannot go unchallenged. -more-

Who Benefits From the Surge?

By Kenneth Thiesen
Tuesday December 11, 2007
Ever since the Bush regime began its escalation of the war in Iraq by sending tens of thousands of more troops this year, media pundits and politicians have been debating whether the “surge” is working. In the last couple months, the administration and it apologists are claiming that the escalation has been working and that more time should be allowed to give the Bush regime the chance to prove that the “new strategy” will be successful. But the debate has been waged entirely on the wrong terms. -more-

A 2020 Vision for Berkeley Education

By Santiago Casal and Michael Miller
Tuesday December 11, 2007
We are blessed to live in a community with international renown for having one of the most prestigious universities in the world. We are also blessed in that we nurture some students in our own K-12 schools who are sought after by some of the most elite universities in the country. -more-