The following editorial appeared in the Kansas City Star on Tuesday, Jan. 4:
China's decision to further cut exports of rare-earth elements last week should serve as a wake-up call to Washington: The Chinese monopoly in these minerals -- essential for precision-guided munitions, cruise missiles, radar, high-tech gadgets, solar panels and wind turbines -- must be broken.
There are substantial rare-earth deposits outside China, including within the United States. But China's resources are more accessible and its labor costs are low, and because of that it now accounts for 97 percent of total rare-earth production. Unfortunately, China isn't above abusing its monopoly.
Last year, it imposed an unofficial temporary embargo on shipments of the minerals. That followed an embargo aimed at Japan, prompted by Japan's arrest of a Chinese fishing-boat captain. The embargoes were lifted, but last week Beijing announced that export quotas for the first half of 2011 would be slashed by 35 percent.
Washington should take action against Beijing in the World Trade Organization while removing obstacles to the revival of America's domestic rare-earth mining industry. It should also encourage basic research that improves domestic production and leads to substitute products.
Availability of rare-earth minerals is essential not only for our high-tech economy, but our national security. China has proved itself to be an unreliable and arbitrary supplier, and new sources must be developed.
Granny knows best
The following editorial appeared in the Miami Herald on Monday, Jan. 3:
What with all the hysteria, hyperbole and hissy fits about "death panels," you would have thought that President Obama was imposing the end of life as we know it in these United States.
He wasn't. Rather, as part of his vision for healthcare reform, Mr. Obama proposed paying doctors to include end-of-life planning discussions with patients, especially seniors and the critically ill.
It was a pragmatic proposal to save families emotional distress, give patients more control over their treatment and curtail costs -- end-of-life medical care is among the most expensive. However, the hue and cry from willfully misinformed opponents led to the plan being dropped from healthcare legislation.
But it was a good idea then, and a good idea now, and we commend Mr. Obama for reintroducing the policy as a new Medicare regulation. As of today, the government will pay physicians who advise patients about their options for end-of-life care. These may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-prolonging treatment. Under the new rule, Medicare will cover "voluntary advance care planning," as part of the annual doctor's visit.
This does not mean "pulling the plug on grandma," as the president sought to assure Americans during the healthcare debate -- nor should it ever mean that. Some opponents expressed legitimate fears that the proposal was an excuse to withhold treatment from the severely ill or disabled.
Rather, end-of-life counseling should guide patients and their families -- voluntarily -- through what is rarely an easy conversation to have, but one that is crucial to ensure that such decisions are sound and informed.
There are few instances in our lives where we want to be caught unprepared. That's why we have car insurance and buy flashlight batteries and plywood. Does anyone want to be any less prepared should a health crisis hit unexpectedly?
A weapon against drug cartels
The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, Jan. 5:
Mexico has some of the strictest gun laws in the hemisphere. Citizens are permitted to buy low-caliber firearms for self-protection or hunting, but only after a background check and approval by the defense ministry; they must also purchase the guns directly from the ministry. The goal of this parsimonious approach to allotting firearms is a society free from gun violence. Unfortunately for Mexico, however, its weapons management strategy is sabotaged by an accident of location -- its residence next door to the gun capital of the world.
The United States is awash in guns. Americans own an estimated 283 million guns, and 4.5 million new ones, including 2 million handguns, are sold each year, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Nor are these weapons confined to U.S. borders and households. Officials say that they are pouring south into Mexico, into the hands of violent drug cartels.
As part of its effort to halt the flow, the ATF has asked the White House for emergency authority to require gun dealers near the border in four states -- California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas -- to report multiple purchases of high-powered rifles. Specifically, the agency wants 8,500 retailers to report any sales of two or more long rifles of .22 caliber or higher to the same customer within a five-day period.
President Obama should not hesitate to move forward with this regulation, no matter how loudly the gun lobby objects. Those who truly support securing the border understand that the greatest danger comes not from poor people seeking work but from heavily armed drug cartels and ruthless human traffickers. The only question is whether tracing the weapons would be an effective crime-fighting tool, and history says it would. When Congress passed a handgun reporting requirement in 1975 and the ATF stepped up enforcement in 1984, thousands of weapons were -- and still are -- traced to illegal activity and crime rings that were brought to prosecution.
Nor should the administration tremble at pro-gun saber-rattling about an infringement of 2nd Amendment rights. The regulation would not prohibit sales, purchases or ownership. Also, tracing is conducted only after a crime has been committed, not before.
One objection that cannot be dismissed is that the new rule would create more paperwork for some border-adjacent gun retailers. No business likes new red tape from Washington, but with the national security of two countries involved, the trade-off is worth the inconvenience.
Leave 'Huck' alone
The following editorial appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, Jan. 6:
The "N-word" has become so emotionally charged that its casual use can end a career, as radio shrink Laura Schlessinger discovered the hard way last year. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to excise it from classic literature for fear of offending modern sensibilities.
Alan Gribben, an English professor at Auburn University, is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama to publish a joint edition of Mark Twain's classics, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer," in which the word "nigger" -- used 219 times in "Huck Finn" alone -- is replaced by the word "slave." Other politically correct alterations include a name change for menacing villain Injun Joe (now he's "Indian Joe"). Frankly, Scarlett, we give a darn about this kind of bowdlerism.
Gribben has a point when he says that many modern school districts and teachers are reluctant to put "Huck Finn" on the curriculum because of its liberal use of the offensive word. His goal is to broaden the book's readership and acceptability by rendering it inoffensive. "Huck Finn" is No. 4 on the list of most-banned books in American schools, according to author Herbert N. Foerstal, and that's a shame, but attempting to sanitize it isn't the answer. Intelligent and sensitive discussion with students would be a better response.
Twain's masterwork is a moving reflection of attitudes in the pre-Civil War South (and of its author's postwar sensibilities, which were ahead of their time with regard to race but behind our own). It's the struggle of a white youth, Huck, to reconcile his recognition of the humanity and equality of an escaped slave with the views of a society that considers him little better than an animal and uses epithets to describe him. The language, then, is very much part of the story and the history. Trying to protect students from the full ugliness of racism by softening that language does a disservice to them, and it's all too easy to imagine the crimes against literature that would result if this kind of thing caught on. We hope nobody gives Gribben a copy of Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," because the Bard's attitude toward Shylock the Jew was distastefully Elizabethan.
Diplomacy equals optimism over N. Korea
The following editorial appeared in the Seattle Times on Tuesday, Jan. 4:
If frequent-flier points convert to diplomatic progress, the endless tensions with North Korea might be reduced by a flurry of air travel.
This week, U.S. special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, will be in South Korea, China and Japan. His trip and others hint at a return by North Korea to six-party talks that stalled two years ago, when the government in Pyongyang walked away.
After a lethal 2010, in which a North Korean attack in March killed 46 South Korean sailors and the November shelling of Yeonpyeong Island killed two South Korean marines and two citizens, the interest of all parties in talks has spiked.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson traveled to North Korea last month as a "private citizen" to hear what the regime of Kim Jong-il had in mind. Richardson reported the cloistered nation was open to the return of international atomic energy inspectors, the sale of spent nuclear fuel rods to South Korea, the creation of a joint military commission and installation of a hotline for emergency contact.
Bosworth's trip will be followed by a Jan. 14 meeting in Seoul between U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the South Korean defense minister.
All of the activity points toward Jan. 19 in Washington, when President Obama welcomes Chinese President Hu Jintao. The Obama administration is working the issue hard, prodding China to exert influence on its neighbor, promoting the resumption of talks between South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan and the U.S., and opening bilateral contacts with the North.
North Korea is so reliably erratic one wonders if revelations of enlightened self-interest are possible. China has already absorbed some 300,000 refugees. Each regional crisis is a distraction for a country with global ambitions. Yet China must be convinced the possibility of a unified Korea does not create a military vulnerability.
A month of intense diplomacy might yield historic change. Then again, it's North Korea.
Let science inform Arctic drilling decisions
The following editorial appeared in the Seattle Times on Monday, Jan. 3:
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar must not back away from a pledge to seek out the best science and research before making decisions on oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean.
The wisdom of not rushing into a fragile environment is summed up in two words: Deepwater Horizon.
After the epic disaster in the Gulf last April, Salazar said the best environmental information available would guide future offshore-drilling pursuits. Science would inform decisions on oil and gas development in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, Salazar announced.
Meanwhile, Interior is processing an application by Shell Oil. The U.S. Geological Survey is expected to have a once-delayed report out around the anniversary of the explosion and catastrophic hemorrhaging of oil.
Salazar might recall this Washington Post report last May: "The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental-impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely."
Thirty-eight members of Congress, rallied by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and two colleagues, sent Salazar a letter asking him to honor his commitment. They noted decision-making proceeds without basic scientific information, and with serious questions about oil-spill-response capacities in hostile climate conditions.
The U.S.G.S. study under way is a review of gaps in current information and a summary of what research is necessary to mitigate risks.
The need-to-know list is lengthy regarding mammals and seismic activities; the cumulative impacts of development, infrastructure, and maintenance activities offshore and onshore on ecosystems, landscapes, seascapes, water quality, seafloor and land stability, and subsistence hunting and fishing; oil-spill response and climate-change considerations.
In 2008, the U.S.G.S. made a broad estimate of the oil and gas potential in the Arctic across international boundaries. Beyond the vastness of the resource, the conclusion was that 84 percent would be found offshore.
No good reason exists to rush ahead without the best information to guide decisions in a fragile, complex environment. The Interior secretary was right the first time.