Opinion: In today’s pages
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In the op-ed pages, Joe Queenan writes that poor people need to spruce up their act:
Poor people rarely set aside sufficient money for retirement. Poor people are reluctant to send their kids to private schools. Poor people do not network. Worse, many poor people have scary tattoos. This is not the way Tom Joad went about winning the hearts and minds of Americans.... [The United States] cannot expect the upper class to provide strong moral leadership because the upper class is filled with people who work for Halliburton. It cannot expect the middle class to assume that burden because the middle class has always suffered from a certain moral flabbiness as a result of commuting long distances to jobs they hate. Realistically, only the poor are in a position to provide inspiration to the rest of us because they have the most time on their hands.
Columnists Gregory Rodriguez and Niall Ferguson look at the country’s economic picture as well. Rodriguez wonders if Colorado’s prison labor program shows that Americans don’t see much difference between convicts and illegal immigrants. Ferguson marvels at the soaring American economy that doesn’t seem to notice that Iraq is burning.
The editorial board takes note of a survey [pdf] showing that young Californians are tolerant on race and firm on family values. It chastises Congress for launching one too many investigations and letting sugar subsidies remain in place.
On the letters page, Ross Kaminsky of Colorado says California should be free to make mistakes when it comes to global warming policy: ‘[W]hile the EPA would be doing Californians a favor by keeping it from enacting laws that are close to economic suicide, the long-term success of our nation requires that we let states make mistakes.’