Fear of a full frontal protest by residents seems to have bundled up and trashed a proposed nudity ban in Seattle parks.

Moon Security ought to call its ankle bracelets Jimminy Crickets -- or maybe just crickets for short.

The tiny town of Soap Lake wants to have a little fun with a giant LAVA lamp, but some big corporate interests may burst their molten bubble.

We would like to see the STEM school really fly, but first it needs to get off the ground.

Government works best when someone's watching.

Dear President-elect Obama,

Well, here's another one we can probably blame on the media.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, environmental groups and the Northwest tribes suing over the latest salmon plan seem to have forgotten the law of unintended consequences.

Making health care accessible is a complicated problem that will not be solved in the foreseeable future. A solution requires addressing issues which go well beyond the discussion during the presidential campaign. While a national solution is well into the future, there are things that can and are being done to help address this need in our community.

I was grateful to participate in the Tri-City Herald's Community Conversation on access to health care. I was impressed by the diversity of the participants and their thoughtfulness and concern. My main impression of the conversation was that the topic was too large and too complex to identify the problems, analyze the issues and propose solutions, in the scope of two evenings conversations. At best, we listed some of the problems, and shared our ideas about the directions in which we hoped the solutions would be found.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a communications consultant for Group Health here in the Tri-Cities. I am not a clinician. I have, however, had personal and family encounters with our medical system that were by turn frightening, amazing, infuriating, uplifting, frustrating and enlightening.

When U.S. car companies only competed with each other, it didn't matter that U.S. health care costs were twice what other countries paid (16 percent of GDP versus 8 percent). Now, Ford and GM add about $1,500 to the cost of a car to cover health care. In Germany, BMW adds about $450 per car and in Japan, Toyota adds about $150 to cover health care costs.

Last month I had the opportunity to spend four hours in a conversation with other Tri-City residents discussing our health care system. The first evening we listed many of what we perceived as problems with the system, and the second evening we made suggestions on how to change or improve it.

Do you think the Mid-Columbia is one of the best places to live in the United States?

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad: