Susan Page: Victims deserve compassion
The headline read, "Harrier crash kills two Marines." It was a brief report on a Harrier jet crash at the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, N.C. A Marine spokesperson provided scant details, and the story ended with the standard line: "Names [are being] withheld until notification of next of kin." Twenty years ago, on Jan. 19, 1981, I was the "next of kin" to be notified, and it was my husband whose name was "withheld" after his Harrier jet crashed at Cherry Point, N.C

Ellen Goodman: From a spare tire to spare parts
As of today, I have decided to donate my body to science. Well, not my entire body. My body fat. I have decided to become a fat donor. That humanitarian impulse comes on the heels – or perhaps the hips – of the scientific discovery that ordinary human fat is a rich source of stem cells.

04/12/2001

Charles Krauthammer: China lost
China lost. Having vastly overplayed its hand on the Hainan Island incident, China was forced to accept a virtually worthless letter from the United States. Having demanded at the very highest level an apology – indeed publicly trotting out President Jiang Zemin to make the demand – all it got was the letter of the two "very sorries."

Richard Cohen: Allying self with arsenic wasn't smart
The new administration's intention to mine for arsenic in Yellowstone National Park, first reported here last week (What, you didn't notice?), may be reversed before it makes it to the president's desk, should he be there and not in the gym, working out. I have that on the best of all possible sources, an irrepressible imagination.

04/11/2001

William Murchison: Schools reluctant to challenge decline
A racial incident, natch. Every incident these days is "racial," or anyway that dismal impression sinks in: one consequence of prolonged exposure to people who yammer on television.

04/09/2001

Terry Eastland: Nation's new course was set in April 1865
For some while now, America has been "of two minds," as a recent article put it, "profoundly divided about the culture." The division occurs over religion, marriage, family, abortion and work, and it expresses itself – as exit polls taken on Election Day showed – in electoral politics.

Guy Clifton: Trauma care centers in jeopardy
Not many years ago, most communities didn't have trauma centers. By the 1970s, however, trauma centers were organized, and those hospitals came to serve as an essential community resource, accepting severely injured patients by ground or air ambulance. But a recent survey of major trauma centers in Texas has shown what is evident to those doctors who practice in them. The system of trauma care is in real jeopardy.

04/08/2001

Robert Samuelson: Assimilation
The latest census seems to have been a consciousness-raising exercise – at least for the press. It has inspired a series of stories recognizing that large-scale immigration is transforming America. "Diversity" is, of course, the reigning cliche, but even while the press overuses the term, there has been a subtle and useful shift in tone and message.

William Raspberry: Local property taxes make public education unequal
It is one of those little coincidences. A week ago, social activist Donald Anderson was holding forth on the absurdity of funding public schools based on local property taxes. Less than 24 hours later, Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., was introducing his Equal Protection School Finance Act to equalize school funding.

Ruth Pennebaker: This isn't simplifying my life
When I was growing up, we had what my mother called a "catch-all" drawer in our kitchen. Our house was neat and clean all around it, but that drawer was a mess – overflowing with rubber bands and torn-out recipes and clothespins and broken pencils and old calendars and incomplete decks of cards and used stamps. All you had to do was close it, though, and voila. The serenity of a well-ordered house was restored.

Richard Mason: City's moral climate is important
The city's notables have regaled Boeing chief executive Phil Condit with gifts and glad hands in hopes of luring his company to Dallas. He surely is pleased to know that he and his employees will be welcomed with open arms. But in deciding where to relocate its headquarters, his company will be probing much deeper than that.

William Greenway: Conservation panel needs single mission
As Texans glumly lay claim to the worst air and the second-worst water in the nation, one far-reaching legislative proposal by state Rep. Fred Bosse will determine the priorities of our state's environmental leaders for the next decade.

David Broder: Election may be over, but it still won't go away
Just call it the election that won't go away. Pick up the papers Wednesday morning, and 154 days late, the headlines blare: Bush prevails in Florida vote.

04/07/2001

Clyde Yancy: Heart disease need not be disabling
A few weeks ago, political pundits were discussing whether Vice President Dick Cheney should resign, given his health and chances of another heart problem. The attention devoted to whether he should return to work or consider resigning from office brings to the forefront a problem that warrants discussion.

Douglas Newby: Preservation ordinance backfires
The Dallas City Council's recently revised historic preservation ordinance will have the effect of halting historic design in the Munger Place Historic District.

04/06/2001

Geneva Overholser: Pay gap continues to widen
Like most of us, Sprint chief executive officer William Esrey was hit hard by the economic downturn: His company's stock fell 70 percent last year. But unlike the rest of us, he himself benefited handsomely: He got $53 million in cash and stock for the year.

Thomas H. McConnell: Books are intensely personal
I have a confession to make. I sold a book. Once. In the summer of 1959. It was a dry textbook from a dreary course I had taken during my freshman year in medical school the year before. Another student wanted to buy it, and I really needed the $5. It was a mistake I haven't repeated.

04/05/2001

Jim Sollisch: A pet dog is a pet dog is a pet dog
I don't like French poodles. They are too yappy for me. Their fur is too kinky, and they give me the impression that their dog food isn't quite up to their standards. Maybe it is just the baggage of their ancestry's preoccupation with food. I don't know. But I do know this: My comments about French poodles don't make me a racist.

03/20/2001

Beth Henary: College bill amounts to forced servitude
Texas lawmakers must not think college students are nice enough. The House Higher Education Committee has approved legislation that would require students beginning college this fall or later to perform 28 hours of public service during any one semester they are in school.