The Platform

Problems at Alton levee underscore a major regional threat

Editorial Board — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:01:48 +0000

Water seeping under a levee near the Mel Price Lock and Dam in Alton.

A plague of “sand boils” undermining an important Mississippi River levee in Alton is an ominous reminder of the critical need for extensive flood protection improvements in the…

Prosecutors should send a message on consumer fraud

Editorial Board — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:00:08 +0000

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster filed suit earlier this month against six companies that market “extended service contracts” and special “additives” to automobile owners. The companies, which promise to reimburse consumers for costly auto repairs, have generated an epidemic of complaints.

“I…

Dislocated in America

Editorial Board — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:00:52 +0000

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

Vice President Joe Biden was on “The Daily Show” Tuesday night, being grilled, ever so lightly, by host Jon Stewart on why unemployment was so high and the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package seems to be producing so few…

Following the evidence on cancer screenings

Editorial Board — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:01:34 +0000

Women worried about breast cancer have just one concern: What can they do to reduce the risk of dying from the disease?
One answer is to get regular mammograms. Over the past 15 years, that advice has saved thousands of lives.…

When Hans Met Sarah: Everyone’s a critic.

Editorial Board — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:00:58 +0000

“Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin’s ‘Going Rogue,’ I immediately thought of the German literary critic Hans Robert Jauss.”
— Matthew Continetti, The Washington Post, Nov. 17

Somehow we doubt that a lot…

It’s time to dissolve the Northeast Fire District

Editorial Board — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:01:22 +0000

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

So now comes Missouri Auditor Susan Montee to say the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District is the worst-run agency her office ever has encountered, a “poster child” for bad government, a place where none of the books are balanced,…

Illinois prosecutor bullies students, backslides to bad old days

Editorial Board — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:00:51 +0000

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita M. Alvarez recently created a sensation with an 11th-hour filing in a high-profile murder case, alleging that students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism may have paid witnesses for statements exonerating a convicted murderer.

If it were…

Hunger, a Third World problem, affects a sixth of the U.S.

Editorial Board — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:01:33 +0000

A volunteer at a St. Charles County food pantry looks over empty shelves.

The number of Americans without enough to eat has reached the highest level since the federal government began keeping track 14 years ago.
About 49 million people — including…

Scare mongering about trials, prison is cynical partisanship

Editorial Board — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:00:22 +0000

An aerial view of the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

There’s poetic symmetry to the press release Sen. Christopher S. “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., issued last week after Attorney General Eric Holder decided that Guantanamo Bay detainees will…

Town and Country’s deer go global.

Kevin Horrigan — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:00:04 +0000

Town and Country deer in 2001. (Post-Dispatch file photo)

The Economist is a British-based newsmagazine (albeit one that calls itself a “newspaper”) that has been covering world economic and political news since 1843 — don’t miss this week’s 14-page special report on…

Reversing the silent epidemic of premature births

Editorial Board — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:00:02 +0000

A baby in St. Louis Childrens Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The little girl lay silent and asleep.
She wore a white stocking cap. A pair of plastic tubes sprouted from her chest, deep crimson from the blood that filled them.
They led…

Danforth-Freeman should define stability for St. Louis schools

Editorial Board — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:03:49 +0000

St. Louis’ civic dynamic duo — civil rights attorney Frankie M. Freeman and Washington University Chancellor Emeritus William H. Danforth — has been pressed back into service on behalf of St. Louis Public Schools.

Missouri Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro has…

New survey shows weaknesses in U.S. primary care

Editorial Board — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:00:18 +0000

Post-Dispatch file photo.

If you’re planning to get sick outside of regular business hours, you’d be well advised to do it in the Netherlands.
Almost every Dutch primary care doctor — 97 percent, to be precise — has a nurse or physician…

Police business: What would “local control” look like?

Editorial Board — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:00:48 +0000

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

On Tuesday afternoon, after Missouri Auditor Susan Montee released an audit critical of the St. Louis Police Department’s business practices, we intended to confront Police Chief Daniel Isom and Todd Epsten, chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners, with…

Reality and Afghanistan: It’s time to leave.

Editorial Board — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:00:12 +0000

A wounded soldier from the 10th Mountain Division is evacuated from Afghanistan in August. (David Goldman/AP)

For decades historians have argued whether, had he lived, President John F. Kennedy would have sent the nation full tilt into Vietnam the way President Lyndon…

A classical music celebration at the White House

Guest commentary — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:21:53 +0000

By Fred Bronstein

I recently had the unique opportunity to be present at a reception and concert hosted by President and Mrs. Obama in the East Room of the White House. The concert was the culmination of a day celebrating classical…

Framed? Too bad.

Editorial Board — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:02:55 +0000

In what would seem to have been a no-brainer, a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled last year that prosecuting attorneys should not receive blanket immunity from lawsuits and monetary damages when they use false…

Matson’s view: Goldman-diggers

R.J. Matson — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:00:34 +0000

Veterans Day: So many wars, so many sacrifices.

Editorial Board — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:01:13 +0000

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

On this Veterans Day, its worth remembering that the holiday originally was named Armistice Day, a commemoration of the end, on Nov. 11, 1918, of the “war to end all wars.”

By November 1954, it had become apparent that hadn’t quite…

Kids of all ages say Hooray for Sesame Street

Editorial Board — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:00:52 +0000

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

Forty years have passed since puppeteer extraordinaire Jim Henson and a brilliant cast of producers, writers and performers at Children’s Television Workshop launched an experimental children’s program called “Sesame Street.”

It was a response to what Federal Communications Commission Chairman…